Easter 2011
Practice Resurrection
Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss, April 24, 2011Part of the Easter series, preached at a Easter service
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“Practice Resurrection”
Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss
Easter Sunday, 2011
Peace be with you. Will you pray with me? God of the resurrection, we give thanks that your Spirit reverberates throughout time and space, bringing new life out of death. Open our ears, that we might hear your good news, and open our mouths that we might go forth to proclaim it. Amen.
This year, Earth Day and Good Friday conspired to remind us, once again, that we are caught in an “inescapable network of mutuality”[1] with all of God’s creation. And so I’m grateful, on this Easter Sunday, to be able to walk in our community garden, to feast my eyes on the labor of those who have given so freely of their time, talent and treasure. We’ve just come through Lent, that spiritual season of pruning and clearing away the mess, preparing the soil of our hearts to receive divine seeds. And as our Garden Guide extraordinaire John Ball wrote on Good Friday, “Planting a garden is a radical act.” For once you sink in your shovel and prepare the soil for planting, “you have embarked on a journey that puts you in direct opposition to the processed, ready-made world that we inhabit.” The same can be said, I believe, of Easter. So as we participate in the radical act of planting new seeds in the soil of our hearts this morning, may you know that we are on a journey that puts us in direct opposition to the processed, ready-made version of Easter that goes down easy.
Although today we’ve heard just one account, the Bible offers us four perspectives on the death and resurrection of Jesus. I like to think that each of the gospels tells it differently so that we can hear the stories of Jesus in the round. Each one peers through a unique lens, with some forgotten detail punctuating a familiar plot line. It’s as if the witness of Jesus carries such richness that it cannot be fully unpacked by any one testimony. And so, from the very beginning, making meaning of the tortured death and mysterious resurrection of Jesus is not merely a personal endeavor, but the alchemy of community. Like the gospel writers, we each bring our own perspective and context this morning. We come with wounded places, in need of healing. We come with broken hearts and dysfunctional lives. We come with thorns in our sides; the claw marks of despair trying to gain a foothold. We come just as we are; for how else can we come into the presence of the most high God? And yet, we also come with anticipation that resurrection will be made real in our lives, like the new life that emerges from the cracked shell of a sprouting seed. We come, longing to encounter the risen one, hoping that death doesn’t have the last word.
John’s account begins with an unconventional woman named Mary. You see, while each account of Jesus’ resurrection unfolds differently, the gospels agree on one fact: it was the women who first witnessed the risen Christ. According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, a few women went to the tomb very early in the morning, bringing spices they had prepared to anoint the body of Jesus. John’s account, however, focuses exclusively on Mary Magdalene. Two nights she had waited to visit the body of her beloved Jesus—two excruciating nights. She arrived with dark circles under her eyes and clothes wrinkled from restless nights. She had lost her Jesus—the one she believed would overturn the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire and inaugurate a kingdom of justice. She had lost her Jesus—the friend who offered comfort in moments of unspeakable grief. She had lost her Jesus—the solid rock upon which her faith rested secure. Mary had lost her Jesus. And so she came to the tomb that Easter morning dismayed and destitute, weary and worn. She came expecting death.
I believe we are living in a time when our nation understands this kind of grief. We are limping through a Good Friday season, a time when the great storms of suffering pour over us. This year on Good Friday, many area clergy remembered the crucifixion of Jesus with fasting and prayer. In fact, all over the nation, 36,000 people of faith joined a fast organized to protest a federal budget balanced on the backs of the poor. MANNA Food Bank reports that one in every six of our neighbors living in western NC relies on emergency food assistance to feed themselves and their families. Children in our own community are “going to school hungry in the morning and going to bed hungry at night.”[2] Poor children’s bellies are being filled with the cheapest foods—processed with artificial sweeteners and preservatives. They are not getting the nutrients and nourishment for which their growing bodies hunger. And so they act out, they fall behind in school, they can’t seem to focus. In a time of unprecedented economic inequality in our nation, our elected leaders are proposing budgets that slash support for mothers and children. Meanwhile, defense spending is on the rise. The Pentagon consumes billions of dollars for weapons we don’t need and two wars abroad, while teachers are furloughed and the unemployed join the ranks of the homeless. Good Friday reminds us that the oppressive values of the empire that Jesus resisted unto death are alive and well in our world today.
The truth is we can’t get to Easter joy without wading through the sufferings of Holy Week. Mary believed that death had won the day. She expected that Jesus would be tucked safely in the tomb, just where they left him three days ago. And you know, even among Jesus’ followers today, this kind of thinking prevails. We expect Jesus to be where we last left him. We believe in a Jesus that fits into the narrow confines of a tomb, a Jesus who doesn’t have a new word for our day, a Jesus who has stopped speaking.
Our houses of worship too often function as shrines to dead religion; institutions that exclude, because diversity is simply too hard. We want a God who dictates who’s in and who’s out; who’s right and who’s wrong, a God who proclaims an easy word. We call down divinity to reinforce our point of view. We prepare our own concoctions for the embalming of a God created in our own image. It’s no surprise that critics call religion a drug that lulls us into complacency in a world opposed to the radical love and unrelenting justice of Jesus.
Our Scriptures, however, proclaim that the resurrected Jesus is profoundly unfamiliar. Mary assumed he was a gardener. His closest friends failed to recognize the resurrected one. And all too often, we do too. A friend from theological school put it this way: “We want a Jesus we can put our hands on, a Jesus we have all figured out, sometimes to the exclusion of everyone else. Oh, but the risen Christ said, ‘Don’t hold onto me.’”[3] So as we prune and prepare the soil of our hearts to receive the risen Christ, let go of that fixed notion of Jesus. Clear some space to encounter the risen Christ. Open your spirit to the mystery of resurrection.
I recently heard this modern-day parable: A man dreamed that he died and went to heaven. St. Peter was there and opened the gates to welcome him and said, “It’s great to see you.” And he was just about to step into heaven, when he noticed some of his friends lingering outside the gate. Some of them atheists, some of them Buddhist, some of them God knows what. And he said, “Peter, what about my friends?” And Peter said, “Well, you know the rules.” And then this man thought of his reference point. Jesus the outsider, Jesus the wine-maker, the illegitimate child, the friend of sinners. Jesus, the one who would always stay with those who were oppressed. And he said, “You know what? I’d rather just stay out here with them.” And the parable ends with St. Peter breaking a smile and saying, “At last! At last you understand.”
As Mary stood weeping at the tomb, desperately searching for the body of the crucified Christ, she questioned a humble gardener. “Please, if you have taken him tell me where he is.” Instead of pointing a finger, the man called her by name, “Mary.” And suddenly, the fog lifted and the dawn broke from on high as she recognized Jesus. We understand resurrection when, like Mary, we recognize the risen Christ. Instead of proclaiming “shame on you!” the one whose heart was broken by our betrayal calls us by name. The one in whom all agony has been cried out says, “Peace be with you.” The one who was abandoned chooses us. The one who has endured all loneliness sends us into the world to share the good news. When we recognize the risen Christ, when we hear his voice call us by name, we experience resurrection.
You know, I think the pure scandal of Jesus’ resurrection has been diminished by our focus on fact. Most of us want to know, did it happen or didn’t it? Could it have happened, and if so, how? Many a preacher has used fear to force belief upon the doubter. We are preoccupied by the question of fact, and therefore miss the experience of resurrection itself.
Peter Rollins, the Irish author of the emergent church movement, tells the story of speaking at my alma mater, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was a five hour panel conversation, somewhat of a debate. And near the end, someone asked, “You know Pete, all this theology…you don’t say much about the resurrection. Do you deny the resurrection?” And Peter Rollins responded, “Okay, time to confess: Yes, I do. Of course, I do. Everyone who knows me knows that I deny the resurrection. I deny the resurrection every time I do not serve my neighbor. Every time I walk away from people who are poor. I deny the resurrection every time I participate in an unjust system. And I affirm the resurrection every now and again. When I stand up for those on their knees, I affirm the resurrection when I cry out for those people who have” been tortured, “when I weep for those people who have no more tears to shed.”
And so I ask you this morning, beloved people of God, how will you practice resurrection in a Good Friday world? Theologian Walter Wink says “the resurrection is not a fact to be believed, but an experience to be shared.”[4] Resurrection has less to do with our elementary notions of heaven and hell and more to do with how we will live in “a world come of age.” How will we live as a resurrection people in a world that knows hatred and poverty and division?
For those of us dismayed and discouraged by the endless cycles of violence in our world, Jesus’ victory over suffering is good news. For those of us steeped in the grief of loss, Jesus’ triumph over the grave is good news. For any one of us who has ever succumbed to addiction to drown out pain, it’s good news that God’s love truly bears all things.
The power of the risen Christ is ours. It fills this place and storms the gates of our torn world. The power of the living God is ours for the taking. How will you use it?
Will you practice resurrection by speaking a word of hope, despair-shattering hope? Will you forgive the one who has betrayed you and offer the possibility of a reconciled future? Will you speak the truth in public when it’s inconvenient and downright risky? Will you affirm the dignity of someone too often ignored? Will you plant seeds in our garden? Will you join us next Sunday to break bread with the hungry in Pritchard Park? Will you practice resurrection?
Farmer and poet Wendell Berry issues this irresistible invitation: “So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Love someone who does not deserve it. Ask the questions that have no answers. Plant sequoias. Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. Practice Resurrection.”
The Spirit of the Risen One is in our midst even now. In the sacred heart of Jesus, “human and divine love have kissed,” and we are reconciled to God. What can we do, but run from this place, like Mary, to share the good news? Amen.
