Robin Hood Gone Wrong: An Excerpt from a Day with the Director

It wasn’t really blood. I want to make that perfectly clear from the start. I mean, it definitely looked like blood. Especially when it got all over my hands and dyed the shirts pink we used to mop it up with. But it wasn’t really blood.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. Back when we went into the basement and stole the ping-pong table from the church. With permission, that is - stole with permission. It fit in the elevator too, wonderfully enough. It’s one of those fold-up-in-half kinds, and we felt grandly clever wheeling it out the church and up into the back of the pick-up truck (helped by several sheets of plywood that served as an impromptu ramp). Maid Marian and Lady Kluck were finally going to be able to practice their serves and backhands for their thirty seconds of ping-pong ball fame. Truly, we could not have been more thrilled. But then the folded-up sides (they looked like poised wings on a bird) wouldn’t quite stay in place without some help, so two of the kids jumped in back to hold it in place. While I sat in the driver's seat, talking on the cell phone to assure the other kids waiting for us at the school that we really were coming. Which would have been fine if the cop hadn’t driven by right at that exact moment.

And then turned our direction a block later. I thought we were done for. For all I knew, kidnaping a ping-pong table (even with permission), wrestling it into the back of a pickup, and eliciting the help of minors to do it might be a federal offense. Worth life at least. So, I quickly got off the phone. After yelping, “Oh, darn! It’s a cop!” One less strike against me. Maybe they’d reduce the sentence to 80 years. With bated breath and wide eyes, I waited for the cop to come around the corner, lights blazing. Maybe he’d even called for back-up. Those ping-pong table thieves can be pretty slippery, so they tell me. But then - miracle of miracles! - he never came. Must’ve been going for donuts.

Deciding not to wait around for another law enforcement officer to drive by, we gunned the corner, doing about 2 mph, past the courthouse, just a few blocks from the police station, and finally to the school. Where all the kids who were waiting for us happily helped us unload our abducted prize, and I went around to the passenger side door to get the paint out.

That’s when the little quart jar of bright red paint decided to commit suicide. I opened the door, and the poor little thing flung itself out without a moment’s hesitation. I’m pretty sure I heard an, “Aaaaahhhhh!” as it nosedived, slow motion, towards the pavement. Then - CRASH! The can flopped once and lay still, the lid jerking to one side, and red paint spewed everywhere. We’d just created a new point of interest on the elementary school’s parking lot.

Which looked disturbingly like a puddle of blood. Right next to the playground too.

I ran for a couple old shirts (we used them as rags), one of those paint stir sticks, and an empty roller tray. Maybe I thought I’d paint the entire parking lot. After all, with the whole thing that color, this one spot couldn’t be so obvious. When I rushed back to the scene of the crime, the puddle had definitely gotten bigger. With the help of my brave, speechless minors, we started scooping away, pushing and shoveling and conjuring the slimy stuff to go somewhere a little less visible.

In the process, I got it all over my hands. Looked up once, towards the road, at the nice little houses sat across the way. I’m sure there’s an 80-year old grandmother living in each one. With a cat named Fluffy and a rosebush. “Wow. This looks a lot like blood,” I said out-loud. Then I glanced around furtively, hoping no one had heard me.

Finally, the paint partially cleaned up, I rushed back inside, across the gym floor, headed for the bathroom. To wash my bloo- I mean paint-splattered hands off. Opened the gym door to step out into the hallway and was met by two rows of faces sitting in the plush chairs of the conference room across the hall. They were meeting now? I almost waved - you know, in a real nonchalant, cool sort of fashion. Then I remembered my hands, stifled the urge to cram them behind my back, and dashed into the bathroom.

Woohoo! Free at last! They’ll never catch me now! The evidence will all be washed away down the drain, and - Wait a second. What was I saying? I hadn’t even done anything wrong. I mean, it wasn’t like I had killed somebody! Although I was a bit concerned about how I should approach this with the school principal. How exactly could I explain that the fresh red stain on their parking lot isn’t really blood. I mean, I know it looks that way, but . . .

John 20:17

John 20:17 reads: “Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to My brothers and tell them, “I am returning to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.”’” I have often read that and wondered why Jesus would say such a strange, almost calloused thing to an obviously emotional, probably sobbing woman. It just doesn’t seem kosher. Where’s the, “It’s okay,” and the pat on the back? I mean the second part is all right with its uplifting command and discipline and the echo of Gospel fire. But what about that “Do not hold to Me” part? I thought we were supposed to hold onto Jesus.

Except that, of course, this isn’t a mystical, theoretical holding we’re talking about here. I imagine Mary, once she realizes who she’s talking to, more or less throwing herself at Him and bursting into tears the way you might if you had someone walk through the door that you thought had just died. And, if Mary was like a lot of us, she probably would have been alright with staying that way, crying and clinging to Jesus. Which doesn’t sound that awful, unless you consider that to do this, she would not be able to do anything else. Or tell anyone else. Or, really, affect the world in any way at all.

Obviously, she had to let go first. Not that Jesus would leave her, for didn’t He also say, “It is for your good that I am going away (John 16:7)”? Because, since He left, He sent us the Holy Spirit, that mysterious flame within the hearts of all of God’s children, now advising, now correcting, now soothing with a peace deeper than the ocean. But ever and always with us - clinging to us, if you will.

So, the lesson for us? Precisely the same as it was for Mary. We have to let go of the physical things we hold onto. To step out of the place where we are safe and comforted and held. To stand up from our prayers, to walk out of the church, to step into the lives of others. To “go and tell,” as the old song says. Not that we leave Jesus or that He leaves us. But that we release our death grip, even prying our own fingers off the safety net if we have to - whatever it takes to release our grasp on listening to the lessons only and start sharing the lessons. Start sharing the truth. Start sharing Him.