Yesterday was Easter.
On a normal Monday I am tired.
On the Monday after Easter, I am even more tired.
I sit here wondering what one is to do on the day after resurrection?
It took so much energy to get to yesterday.
All I want to do now is take a nap.
And, do my best to enjoy it.
Or, hide somewhere until my energy returns and I figured out what comes next.
But, it doesn’t work that way, does it?
Today is the day I have.
The only day I have
To practice
And to be
Resurrection.
See My Hands…
So, here we are. Easter Sunday morning.
Spring has come early. The daffodils and Scilla are blooming.
The sanctuary is beautiful. The music inspiring.
And, the real life juxtaposition is stark.
Bombs explode in Brussels.
And in Ankara. And in Beirut. And in Baghdad.
Just as they have exploded in Oklahoma City and Birmingham, Alabama.
In the face of all that…
The violence of the cross and the violence in Brussels, and beyond the beauty of daffodils and lilies, we dare to gather to be reminded and to claim the astonishing promises of God wrapped up in the witness of the resurrection. That even in the face of all we see and read and hear about in the news, despair and death do not have the final word. Hope and Love and Life prevail.
However you understand resurrection or read the narrative of the women and the tomb and the angels and the stone rolled back and the incredulous, barely believing disciples. However you understand what it means to say…
He is not here.
Christ is risen.
Why do you seek the living among the dead?
And, whether you understand resurrection as something which happened to Jesus or something which happened to the disciples. Or the narrative as historical event or as a living parable.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.
At least, if you don’t stop there.
Maybe it doesn’t matter as long as you take the risk of asking the next two harder, more provocative, more turn the world right side up questions. The Biblical narratives of the resurrection of Jesus are incredibly nuanced, but the questions they leave for us to ponder and to answer are utterly simple.
Is it true?
And, if it is, where do you expect to meet Jesus?
So, first questions first.
However you understand the story, is it true?
Did something happen?
Did something happen between crucifixion and what came next.
Between scared to death disciples unwilling to leave the room where they were hiding to you and me here today.
If you answer yes, even if you are not sure exactly what happened or or how it happened or what it means, then you can also say Yes to the underlying witness of the story which is that even in the face of the torture and violence of Jesus’ death and the power and the ruthlessness of the Roman Empire to inflict that violence, all of that is not the end of the story and does not have the final word. For somehow beyond that ruthlessness and violence is the stone is rolled away and the angels who appear in the middle of what feels like the most desperate, heart-breaking situation and Jesus who meets us in those most common places and those most unexpected moments.
The witness of the resurrection…
The witness of Easter is that…
Hope lives.
Mercy lives.
Humanity lives.
Life, not Death, has the final word.
And, if you believe that is true, then that is how you are called to live. And hope and mercy and humanity and life are the values around which you are to orient your life. If, that is, you believe it is true.
And, the second question follows up on the first.
If it is true, all of what the Gospels bear witness to, then when and where do you meet Jesus? For even the empty tomb is not the end of the story. As I said last Sunday, for me, the witness of Jesus’ life is more parable than historical. More meant to show us who we are and how we are to live rather than a news account of where Jesus went and what he did and what he said. Because I think about Jesus that way and read the Bible that way, as I was reading the narrative again this week, I was struck by Jesus’ sudden appearance to the disciples as they hid huddled together in some forgotten room in Jerusalem.
“See my hands.” Jesus said.
“Give me something to eat.” Jesus said.
What if what he said is less about crucifixion wounds and being hungry and more about Jesus’ reminder to his disciples and to us of who he was and what he taught and who he included in the circle of God’s love? A reminder that “whatever you do for for one of the least of these you do it to me.” Whatever you do for all those who are wounded or abused or broken or endure violence in whatever form the violence takes. Whenever you meet the need of those who are hungry whether for food or respect or shelter or understanding or hope or courage or direction or forgiveness. “Whatever you do, you do to me.” And Jesus is present.
Could it be?
I think it is.
We meet Jesus out there amidst the wonder and the complexity, the breathtaking beauty and the heart-breaking brokenness of the world as it is when we find the courage to live and to respond with hope and mercy and to say yes to and to work towards God’s promise of new life. If, that is, you believe it is true.
What Next?
I woke up on Monday morning wishing it was the Monday after Christmas and not the Monday after Easter. It’s not that I don’t like Easter or that I like Christmas more than Easter or that I was wishing for three more months of winter. (I may be crazy, but not that crazy.) The reason I wanted it to be Christmas and not Easter is I woke up tired both mentally and physically. For as wonderful as our Easter worship services were and for as important and as meaningful as Easter is, when I walked into my office and sat down at my desk and looked at my calendar and saw that another Sunday was a week away, I found myself thinking “Another Sunday already! How am I supposed to do this again?” After spending all the time and energy I did thinking about and writing and preaching on Easter, I didn’t have much energy left and I wondered what else I was supposed to say? At least on the Sunday after Christmas (and this is why I was wishing it was Christmas and not Easter) there are Christmas carols to sing which provides the respite I need to regain my balance I have the energy and creativity to face another Sunday. There are not really any Easter carols to sing, are there? If there were that is probably what we would be doing right now.
So, what next?
We have celebrated Easter.
With trumpets and organ and timpani and choir and flowers and preaching and singing we have been reminded, again, of the life changing, world tuned right side up good news wrapped up in the resurrection and the affirmation of Christ alive which, as I did my best to say last week, declares that the last and truest words are not hatred and injustice and death which we have heard so much and so often before and which the world around us does its best to make us believe. But, believe it or not, the last and truest words are love and justice and life. What else do you want me to say?
So, on Monday, as I gasped for breath and wondered what next, I remembered this story.
Overwhelmed, I am sure, by the reality of the resurrection in a way I will never fully understand because they were there and I am here, what did the disciples do? They went back to what they knew. Home. Work. Family. Being husbands and fathers; wives and mothers. Being a part of the community in which they lived. They went back to their day in, day out responsibilities. They went fishing.
And there…
In that place they knew so well…
Doing what they knew how to do and what they did each day…
They run into Jesus.
The ensuing conversation, at least the way the author of John’s gospel tells it, was primarily between Jesus and Peter. I am sure whoever wrote that Gospel had a good reason to tell it that way, but maybe we can imagine that the conversation Jesus had might have been for more than just Peter. If that is the case, or might be the case, then Jesus tells the disciples to do two things:
One. Feed my sheep.
Two. Tend my sheep.
In other words…
Take care of them, Peter.
Take care of them, the rest of you.
That is what I want you to do.
Oh, by the way, there is one more thing: Follow me.
As I remembered and read again and thought about the story I was struck by a number of things. Maybe the most important is that Jesus didn’t tell Peter and the others to go someplace other than where they already were. He doesn’t tell them to go back to Jerusalem. He doesn’t tell them to go to Rome. He doesn’t tell them to go into the whole world like the author of Matthew’s gospel does when Jesus appears to the disciples following the resurrection. It seems as if the disciples are to do their feeding and tending just where they are.
And I noticed Jesus didn’t tell Peter and the others who the “them” were. As in feed them and tend them. Maybe since they knew Jesus they already knew who Jesus would mean when he said “my sheep.” They already knew it included the Samaritan businessman on the way to Jerusalem who stops and helps the victim alongside the road and it includes the lepers who cried out from a distance and the blind man who sat in the shadows begging and the woman with the hemorrhage who only wanted to touch the hem of his robe and the children who were too often considered disposable and the tax collectors with whom Jesus ate and the woman who had washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair and the Roman centurion who begged for his son to be healed. They already knew, because they knew Jesus, that all were in and none were out.
And, I noticed, too, Jesus didn’t provide any specifics for what he meant by to feed and to tend. The specifics he leaves to the disciples. He trusts them to know what those words will mean in the moment when they need to know it.
So, if it is true like I think that it is and the Bible is not just about then, but also about now and not just about them, but also about you and me, then maybe what was true for Peter and the others is also true for you and me. And, the post Easter, what next words of Jesus for you and for me are take care of my sheep. Feed and tend.
Take care of each other and the person down the street.
Take care of immigrant and the hungry and the children as they go to school.
Take care of your co-worker and the passer-by on the street.
Take care of the victims and those who do their best to do their jobs each day.
Take care of Christian and the Muslim and the Jew.
Take care of those who stand with you and also those who do not.
Take care of my sheep.
And, you and I don’t have to go any place special to do any of those things.
We just have to go to school or go to work or go to the grocery store.
Sometimes it means just going home.
And, maybe, in addition to all those things, it may also mean allowing your heart to be broken by those things which break the heart if God.
Take care of my sheep.
And, there is no specific way you are to do this.
No instruction manual written in six different languages.
No 12 steps.
No 10 commandments.
No committee assignments or by-laws to follow.
Just you.
And Jesus.
And the world out there.
Just you.
And Jesus.
And the world around you.
Feed my sheep.
A Right Side Up World: A Sermon for Easter Sunday
Let me be honest.
I know the story.
I have heard it and read it my entire life.
But even with that being the case, I don’t really know what happened.
I don’t know what happened early that morning at the tomb.
Or. later that day on the road to Emmaus.
Or, sometime after that in that room somewhere in Jerusalem where, after watching Jesus be tortured and then executed, most of the disciples hid in fear. Or, even later still when the disciples were back home and back on the lake fishing.
I don’t know what happened.
Or, how it happened.
I don’t know what caused the women to suddenly recognize Jesus when they had not known him a moment before. Or, how Cleopas and his friend could walk with Jesus for a couple of hours and not know to whom they were speaking, and then suddenly recognize him. I don’t know what it was that eventually convinced those scared to death disciples to unlock the door and to step out into a still scary world and begin to do what they had seen Jesus do especially when they knew that what they were doing is what had gotten Jesus killed.
I don’t know what happened or how it happened, but something happened.
Something which the Christian community describes as resurrection which is something different and something more than just resuscitation and which, with experience and over time, led and leads to the Easter affirmation of Christ alive.
Something happened.
The stories are far more than just made up tales or wishful thinking.
At it’s deepest and best, resurrection makes the startling affirmation that love wins. That all that is of God – love and light and life itself – along with the best of what we can imagine for ourselves and for those whom we love and for the world entrusted now to our care and keeping… All that will ultimately prevail over hatred and darkness and even death.
And, resurrection is more than just what happened, but is in fact what happens. Resurrection, I think, is best understood in the present tense and not just in the past tense. In my reading this week I came across this which echos what I understand to be true:
“We preach resurrection because the marchers in Selma needed to know that life and liberty, not the vicious billy clubs of local police, would be victorious. A family recovering from the shock of a daughter’s suicide can be reassured that there is life after death for their family. And as we work to end the need for the world’s 50 largest refugee camps (all but five of which are in Africa and the Indian subcontinent), we are confident that life and liberty will triumph over current injustices.” (John Wimberly, Presbyterian Outlook – March 30, 2015)
Easter, in a sentence, declares that the last and truest words are not hatred and injustice and death which we have heard so often before and which the world around us does its best to make us believe. But, believe it or not, the last and truest words are love and justice and life.
Which brings me to this story.
Bonnie Gordon, who lives in Masaya, Nicaragua and who works in surrounding communities doing what she can to improve the circumstances of some of the poorest families in Central America, tells this story.
She was invited to her niece’s destination wedding which was taking place at one of the resorts in Cancun, Mexico. If you have ever been to Cancun or know of it or have been to some place similar you know those places are famous for their luxurious resorts and beautiful beaches. What you may not know about are the impoverished communities which surround many of these resorts. Anyway. Bonnie and the other wedding guests were met at the airport by the resort shuttle. While on the bus the young adult from the resort who had met them begins to talk over the bus’ sound system welcoming them to Cancun and telling them about all the resort has to offer. In the middle of her welcome, as the bus is about to go through the poorer part of the community before getting to the resort, the resort host says, “For a minute I am going to ask you to put your blinders on and not look out the window and just pay attention to me. I’ll let you know in a minute when it is okay to look again.”
Bonnie tells the story because she encourages those who live and work with her in Nicaragua to take their blinders off and to see…to really see..to fully see…the world around them. Not just what you want to see or what expect to see or what are told you are to see, but instead to see fully and deeply and honestly. And, when you do that, she says, your world suddenly turns right side up.
Beyond what I have already said, I think that is a bit of what the Easter message is about. Or, at least one way to think about it.
Taking our blinders off.
Seeing beyond what you expect to see and beginning to see what just might be. Taking our blinders off and seeing the world not only as it is, but also seeing it the way God intends it to be. The Easter way of saying that is that when we take our blinders off we begin to recognize Jesus when and where he stands in our midst whether at the tomb or on the road or in the office or among the forgotten and, when we see Jesus and recognize him for who he is, we find the vision and the courage to be and to live and to practice resurrection a midst the wonder and complexity of the world as it is.
The woman went to the tomb expecting to see only death.
Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus for the gardener.
Cleopas and his friend mistook Jesus as just another talkative traveler on the road to Emmaus.
Peter and the other disciples thought they had seen a ghost.
All of that until….
There is something about Easter;
Something about resurrection;
Something about the affirmation of Christ alive;
That calls us to see our world differently,
And to see our lives differently,
And to live our lives differently,
Which, when we do, turns our lives and our sometimes crazy, upside down world right side up.
Looking In The Right Places
Let’s be honest.
Or, at least accurate.
Easter didn’t begin with the triumph with which we began our service this morning.
It begins in the dark.
For both then and now, the headlines in the news were and are more about crucifixion than resurrection. And life for too many still gets swallowed up by sorrow. And hopes continue to be dashed and dreams shattered whether by cross or by circumstance. We all know something of how that darkness feels. That being the case, we also know something of how those women felt who stumbled their way to the tomb of Jesus on that Sunday morning so long ago.
Shoulders slumped.
Eyes glazed over.
More empty than full.
More broken than whole.
Who, with tears in their eyes, willed themselves back to that Jewish cemetery.
They made their way there at some risk to themselves and in open defiance of the authorities who had crucified Jesus. But, despite the risk, they were determined to pay their last respects and to do what must be done in order to provide for a proper burial in their love-filled effort to counterbalance the shame and the horror associated with a Roman crucifixion. We can discuss and debate what actually happened in that moment when they arrived at the tomb or when that moment actually was, but that is not the point of the story and would only serve as a convenient distraction to what is really being asked and what is really at stake. The story turns on the haunting question asked of the women as they stood before that tomb with tears in their eyes. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
Knowing Easter was coming…
And that I would be here and you would be there,
I have been thinking about and asking myself that question for several weeks now.
And, truth be told, I have probably been thinking about and wrestling with that question in some way, shape or form for even longer than that.
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
It is the ultimate Easter question.
Posed first to the women…
And then…
And now…
To you and to me.
Why do you look for the living among the dead?
Why do YOU look for the living among the dead?
The challenge for us in moments like this…
And maybe, to one degree or another, in all the moments of our life…
Is to decide whether or not to to trust that what we know of the Easter story is true.
True not just, or ever primarily about, what did or did not happen to Jesus,
But true that somehow in God’s grand scheme of things…
That crucifixion does not have the final word.
That violence does not have the final word.
That hate and fear do not have the final word.
That betrayal and failure do not have the final word.
That Death does not have the final word.
And, to decide, too, whether or not resurrection is possible.
And whether or not out of the chaos and craziness we sometimes experience in our own lives and see in the world around us, Life, in a way we could not imagine before, can and does emerge anew around us and within us.
The Easter question is this:
Beyond trumpets and flowers and bonnets and eggs and bunnies and baskets;
And, face to face with sorrow and brokenness and despair and death;
Can you hold onto…
Can you turn towards…
Can you believe in…
A hope like that?
But even then…
Even doing our best to hold onto that hope, we are still left with the question, “What next?”
Against all odds and evidence to the contrary,
What does it mean for you and for me to turn around and to seek the living?
Here is what I think I know.
It is not here, it’s somewhere out there.
It is not wrapped up in you or me, it’s somewhere out there.
Somehow seeking the living means stepping out into that world that crucified Jesus and continues to crucify people still.
It means caring and compassion.
It means seeing and naming and knowing those whom Jesus referred to as the least of these.
It means praying deeply, not for things or about things, but praying deeply enough that you find an intimacy with God that then nurtures courage enough and strength enough to live with an intimacy with others.
It means gratitude and grace deep enough that it humbles you.
It means refusing to turn away from the cross.
Refusing to turn away from the violence.
Refusing to turn away from that which demeans or demonizes or destroys another
And instead doing what you can;
Doing all you can;
To build peace and to bend that long arc of history in the direction of justice.
I may or may not do any of that very well, but my deepest convictions and my faith at its best tells me what I just said to you is true.
Now the truth is I can’t prove any of this to you.
I can’t prove Life is stronger than Death.
I can’t prove hope overcomes despair.
I can’t prove gratitude matters.
I can’t prove compassion is the way to life.
I can’t prove that new life can emerge from all that would entomb you and me.
I can’t prove that sense of something of Jesus alive and with us still.
I can’t prove God has the final word.
All I know for sure is this.
You and I have a choice.
A choice about which direction we will face and about which fundamental values will guide and shape our choices and our decisions. A choice about narrative around which you will build your life.
So, as you consider the Gospel and the wild, life-changing claims of Easter,
Consider also your own life…
Your own hopes and dreams.
Your own vision for what tomorrow might bring…not just for you, and your household.
Not just for those who look like you and talk like you and live like you, but for all who fall within the circle of God’s love which, in the end, is each and every one of us.
In your estimation what does have the final word? Life or death?
In your estimation, surrounded as we are by those who still crucify and that which still entombs us, does hope endure and is new life possible?
In your estimation, are the wild whispers of faith which surround the Easter which we remember and retell today idle tales or profound good news?
You decide.
On the first day of the week at early dawn, the women came to the tomb bringing the spices they had prepared only find the stone rolled back and to be confronted by the ultimate question of Easter. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
Holy Week
Christmas is easy.
Away in the Manger.
Silent Night. Holy night.
Holy Week is hard.
My head understands the events of that take place.
Triumphant entry.
Confrontation in the Temple.
Crowds gathered to hear Jesus speak.
Celebrating the Passover.
God-awful crucifixion.
But while my head understands, my heart rebels.
I tiptoe towards the edge of the story, but then turn away.
I dare not get too close to the anguish and the betrayal and absolute brutality.
And, that only gets me to Friday.
Who really understands resurrection?
(Even though they have made a TV show about it.)
How do you put words around mystery?
Or, words around an experience which takes your breath away?
