sermon by Carrie Eikler
Easter 3
1 John 3:1-3, Luke 24:36b-48
In 2001 the French movie “Amelie” crossed the Atlantic and became a hit in the United States. Now, Americans aren’t really ones for foreign films, especially if they have subtitles, but the “Amelie” was an exception. The tagline for the movie was “one person can change your life forever . “ Amelie, an innocent and naive young woman in Paris, with her own sense of justice, decides to help those around her and along the way. In one scene, Amelie has helped someone by has anonymously returning a lost item to the owner.
The narrator says: "Amelie has a strange feeling of absolute harmony. It's a perfect moment. Soft light, a scent in the air, the quiet murmur of the city. She breathes deeply. Life is simple and clear. A surge of love, an urge to help mankind comes over her."
At this point, Amelie spots a blind man at the curb who is about to cross the busy street. She has seen the man a couple of times before in short glimpses. Amelie steps up beside him, grabs his arm, and guides him into the street saying, "Let me help you. Step down. Here we go!” She begins to move him through the cars, along the bustle of the sidewalk, through the smells and sounds that he can clearly detect. But she also becomes his eyes for him, describing what they pass, things he cannot see. Things he has perhaps never seen.”The drum major's widow! She's worn his coat since the day he died. The horse's head has lost an ear! That's the florist laughing. He has crinkly eyes. In the bakery window, lollipops. Smell that! They're giving out melon slices. Sugarplum ice cream! We're passing the park butcher. Ham, 79 francs. Spareribs, 45! Now the cheese shop. Picadors are 12.90. Cabecaus 23.50. A baby's watching a dog...[and the dog is] watching the chickens.”
The man is clearly astonished by this ride he is on, but the way his head is thrown back in a sense of abandon we realize he is enjoying this newfound sense of sight. As they reach the end of the street, Amelie lets go of his arm and says, “Now we're at the kiosk by the metro. I'll leave you here. Bye!"
Amelie trots up the steps and the man is left alone again. He raises he head to the sky, his eyes still in foggy blindness, and light radiates over his body. It’s hard to tell if the light is coming from above him or from within him.
( view scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqT9kA1bcVQ)
It seems like this is the encounter with Jesus that the disciples and other followers experienced in those days following the resurrection. Jesus stepped up to people, surprised them, walked with them in the streets. He spoke with them about grief, loss, delight. And even if they were still “disbelieving in their joy,” as it says the disciples reacted in today’s scripture , he still opens something in them that allows for his light to shine into them…or maybe shine from within them.
It seems like the post-resurrection stories all move along with this tension: they seem him, but they don’t see him. On Easter Mary thought he was a gardener. On the Road to Emmaus they thought he was a uninformed stranger who didn’t know about Jesus dying and being raised from the dead. And in today’s scripture they see him, but think they see a ghost; whether they think it is a ghost of Jesus it doesn’t say, but it took him gobbling down some fish for them to get who it really was, in flesh and bone.
And isn’t that our tension, too? Not seeing and seeing? But often our stories continue on in cycle that we don’t see happening in the gospels in the post-resurrection story. We experience a cycle of not seeing, and then seeing, and then not seeing again. Not believing, and then believing, then not believing, then believing….It seems like in the gospels, we only see the confused part and then the clarity part. A happy ending. Not at all a typical French movie. (By the way, without spoiling it too much for those of you who haven’t seen it, Amelie is not a typical French movies, as endings go)
It is unfortunate for us that we only get a snapshot of the lives of those who saw Jesus’ work, his life and death and resurrection. Even though we know some of them didn’t quite get it, or were fearful, or (God forbid) even doubted, we come away from the gospel stories thinking they were somehow special--better suited to the task of witnessing than we are. They had the real stuff, we only have…bits and pieces of the real stuff. Longings for the real stuff.
But I think if the gospel stories continued on, if we saw each of the disciples--each of the followers of Jesus--throughout their lives until their death, the same way we are witnesses to our own lives, we would likely see such cycles of belief and disbelief, assuredness and questioning.
So for Jesus to say to his disciples “You are witness of these things,” and imply that they are to continue the work of sharing the message to all the nations, to witness to the nations…well its all fine and good because they actually did witness it. They saw it. But what have we seen? What have we witnessed?
We’ve sat through lots of church services, Sunday School classes, TV evangelists. We tried prayer practices and good deeds and getting in touch with ourselves. How many of us have witnessed Jesus in these ways…in these places?
For those who are lucky—perhaps to go so far to say, for those who are blessed—to have witnessed Jesus profoundly in these places, there are many of us who want to know: what’s the secret? It seems so hard in our post-modern world which places such emphasis on personal experience, to say when we have seen Jesus. Today it feels like we must experience what Jesus was all about before we can believe we have witnessed it. Believing is seeing.
Maybe the disciples were a little bit like this. Frightened and anxious, they probably felt a bit frayed around the edges, tattered and torn, rather than being seeds scattered and sown. What had they just witnessed? The crucifixion, the empty tomb. This certainly didn’t make them feel empowered to be bearers of the good news, because they locked themselves away. Secure from the outside world. They’re barring the doors and stocking up on the food, settling down for the hurricane to hit and hopefully pass.
But Jesus came to them again. Jesus stood with them and asked about their fears. He pushed up his sleeves and stuck out his feet, holes and blood and bone. Jesus invited them to himself to touch, feel. And to prove that he didn’t die, but also continued to live, he took something to eat, an essential act to sustain life. And then he opens them to the scripture. And then when they were open—their doors, their eyes, their hearts—they did more than simply see. They witnessed. They experienced. They saw and were compelled by the opening of themselves to share it with others.
It seems like it was witnessing these things that convinced them they could go and be witnesses to others? Not the seeing the dead body or the empty tomb, but witnessing the pronouncement of peace along with seeing the wounds along with some messy eating and some good old fashioned bible study.
Again, all fine and good for them. But what about us? How can we witness if we don’t know if we’ve seen the risen Lord? With all our wounds of the past and the present, for all the wounds we may likely incur or cause in the future, how could we possibly be good witnesses?
For the disciples it was seeing that Jesus’ humanity didn’t stop. He kept pronouncing peace in the midst of his wounds, the wounds that cracked open their protective shell to slowly realize who he was. I think that is what we are witness to. If we are unsure we have seen Christ, we can be sure we have witnessed his wounds.
We have witnessed Christ’s wounds this week as suicide bombers in Baghdad killed or injured at least 170 people.
We have witnessed Christ’s wounds when a family stares at their burned out house, wondering how this could have happened.
We have witnessed Christ’s wounds when immigrants seeking new lives are gunned down in their classroom.
We have witnessed Christ’s wounds when sisters and brothers in faith wonder if the church will cast them as outsiders if they revealed the hidden parts of their lives.
We may not know if we have seen Jesus, but there is no doubt that we have witnessed his wounds. And that alone prepares us to be witnesses.
The priest and theologian Henri Nouwen utilizes the image of a “wounded healer” as a powerful approach to witnessing to the world (The Wounded Healer, 1979). We begin with our own wounds in order to see and understand the wounds around us, the wounds of others, the places where Christ’s peace needs to touch you, me, everyone. At one point he brings this to a very personal approach:
"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate now knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
Seeing the wounds may just be the first step. Then touching. Then Christ calls us to sit and eat with him, wherever that may be. Then Christ calls us to learn with him, however that may be… until we are completely opened: our hearts, our eyes, our minds, and our lives.
Maybe we have a lot in common with the blind man in the movie Amelie. In our wondering if we have seen Jesus, wondering if we can safely cross the busy road of our lives unscathed, let alone make any difference to the people on the other side, we may feel that firm grasp on our arm as we are led through life by the gentle, but firm and directive movement and voice of the spirit. And we begin to witness the grief and laughter, joy and pain of Christ’s testimony. With our heads thrown back in joyful disbelief and willing abandon like the blind man, and like the disciples, the light we never thought we have seen begins to radiate on us.
Or does it radiate from us? Maybe that is how the life of being Christ’s witness in the world is like. The light that shines on us is the light that shines from us. The light we see is the light others see. The Christ we have witnessed is the Christ we share with others.
Peace be with you. Touch the wounds. Eat with others. Open your minds. You are witnesses of these things.
--
In continuing with our testimonies throughout the Easter season, I’ve invited Rejoyce to come before you and testify to the ways in which she has witnessed Christ’s wounds in the world, and how she has chosen to respond as a witness of Christ’s love. When she is finished, I invite you to read the unison response, printed in your bulletin: "We rejoice in your witness to Christ's wounds. Allelulia!"
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The Kin-dom of God
sermon by Torin Eikler
Easter 2
Psalm 133 Acts 4:32-35
This is one of my favorite Psalms. It’s short and sweet, and it speaks to a theme that is close to my heart. And, while it has only inspired one hymn directly (which we have juts sung), the idea of unity in the body of believers is at the heart of many of the hymns I enjoy singing. In some sense, it speaks directly to the idea behind the name of the Church of the Brethren – brotherhood … or in a more modern, non-gender-linked expression – community.
The imagery leaves something to be desired – at least for me. I do like to imagine the dew falling on the mountain in the middle of a dry land, baptizing the world with God promise of everlasting life. But, the impression of oil poured on one’s head is a little iffy. Especially if it’s enough oil to soak though my hair, run down over my face (and my beard when I have one), and drip onto whatever I happen to be wearing at the time. It just doesn’t give me the feeling of well-being that the rest of the Psalm speaks about – (in fact it gives me just a touch of the willies).
But I was saved from that this week when I read a colleagues paraphrase – really a whole reinterpretation – of the Psalm. As Jim Taylor rewrites it, it goes like this:
How good it feels to have the human family gathered together
for this sumptuous feast.
Here we rejoice in the rich repast of fruit and tree and vine.
Apples and oranges, grapes and cherries, yield their joyous juices to our lusting mouths.
Drops of surplus pleasure trickle down our chins.
We dab them unselfconsciously with rumpled napkins.
This gathering refreshes like a sweet morning in the mountains,
like a prairie sky polished bright by gentle breezes.
Surely this is what the Lord intended when God created life.
Now those are images that I can really get my teeth into. But, while I welcome the shift from an oily mess into a sticky feast, this version lets an important point go.
For the Psalmist, Mount Hermon was a very significant place. It was about fifty miles north of Jerusalem and the Temple on Mt. Zion, and it became the center of faithful worship for the Northern Kingdom when Israel split in two after the Babylonian exile. By pairing it with Mt. Zion in the final verse of the Psalm, the author of this poetic hymn pulled the whole of Israel into the picture, giving all of the chosen people a part in the blessings of God. In essence, the Psalmist was claiming that no matter how far divided by space, class, or tradition, all those who dwelt in Israel were part of the Kingdom of God – for Israel was that Kingdom at the time. And that larger sense of community – that recognition of kinship among the chosen people, I think, is at the heart of this psalm.
But, as lovely as the image of the chosen people living together in harmony is, it was as much a dream for the Psalmist as it is for us today. The people of Israel, of course, were not a harmonious lot. They had their own haves and have-nots despite the injunctions in the scriptures to take care of one another. They had their own struggles for power with winners and losers. They had their own jealousies, their own divisions, their own griefs, and there own feuds. Even in times when their safety as a people was threatened, they failed to come together as one body. Basically, they were just like everyone else – just like us.
There is one really big difference, though, between us and the Israelites. They were a people linked by history, culture, and faith and defined by living within the borders of the Promised Land. At one level, we too are linked to others by history and culture, and we identify ourselves by political boundaries. We are Westerners. We are Americans. We are West Virginians and Pennsylvanians. But, at a deeper level, those bindings don’t make sense for us because we are followers of Christ. We are a chosen people, but our faith and our savior redefine what that means.
Jesus reached out to people beyond boundaries to minister to all people in need. He crossed the lines of nationalism to care for Samaritans and Roman Officials. He was unfazed by religious prohibitions when he touched the unclean and raised the dead. He bridged the cultural feud between Jews and Samaritans to offer the promise of living water to any who would listen. And he even redefined the basic unit of society – the family – for those who would follow him.
The power of these profound changes is obvious. Christianity quickly moved beyond political borders, birthing new communities of faith in the near east, northern Africa, Greece, Rome, and reaching even to the coasts of France the British Isles. It moved beyond religious boundaries, opening the way for gentiles of all flavors to take part in the blessing and the promise of Christ. And as we see in the record of Acts, it broke free from cultural and relational patterns to create an egalitarian family of believers from masters, slaves, poor, and rich.
The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Christ was not really a kingdom as the world knows them. It was a new way of living in community based on the assurance that all those who followed Christ were adopted into the family of God. The people of that early church were transformed. They left behind their old identities and forged new connections as brothers and sisters together as a part of Christ. It’s an idea, an image, a way of life that I have heard summed up in a neat play on words - the Kingdom of God as the “Kin-dom” of God.
And we are as much a part of that Kin-dom as the early believers were. In coming to Christ, we too are transformed. Our bindings to the divisions of this world are loosed as surely as theirs were. We, too, have become – are becoming – a part of a larger, truer family as brothers and sisters in Christ. And, as much as that family of faith suffers from differences in interpretation and tradition, we are profoundly connected to all believers around the world and to all of God’s children beyond the bounds of the Church.
It’s a wonderful image, inspiring and heart-warming. But, I have to ask myself, “What does that mean?” What does it mean that we are all one big, loving family? Does it change how I live or how I relate to others – non-Christians as well as Christians? I have to ask, because if it doesn’t change anything than it’s probably just as fleeting and unreal as the Psalmist’s dream of unity among the Israelites. When I think about that, I realize that I don’t want this to be just a dream, and I don’t think it has to be.
The early church of Acts found a way to make this really real in their everyday lives. They ate together daily (I suppose they weren’t all at the table every time, though they may have been). They shared the struggles of their lives and the triumphs with each other and offered thanks in worship for the love and blessings of God they experienced in their new community. When some among them had needs, others provided for them and were provided for in their turn. They took pleasure in sharing with one another and with others members of the Kin-dom who lived far away. And, though they suffered, they suffered together, living with a joy and a hope that seems to be lacking from some many of our lives.
How can we bring that joy into our lives? Are there ways that we can return to a deeper sense of kinship with our brothers and sisters? Can we reclaim our identity as a people of hope chosen and blessed by God? I want to believe that we can though I don’t know the way forward.
I think we could start by reaching across the little hedges that we have built around our lives to separate us from one another. When we come together, we share some of the big things that weigh us down and some of the joys we have experienced each week. Yet, we hold back so many things. Sometimes we don’t want to bother others with our struggles. Sometimes we don’t want to belittle the struggles of others with our excitement and our triumphs. Much of the time, I think, we just don’t feel comfortable sharing things because we have been taught that they should be private, that they are somehow taboo. So, we don’t talk about our financial struggles. We don’t talk about our intimate relationships. We don’t talk about the pain we feel when we can’t share all of who we are for fear of finding judgment and indifference instead of acceptance and empathy. We don’t talk about our doubts and our fears because we are supposed to be confident in our faith and self-sufficient.
But, the family of Christ reaches beyond and beneath those things. Our connection is deeper and stronger than those fears or the restraints put on us by cultural expectations. It can and should free us from the limitations that hold us back. It can and should welcome us into a caring community that we can trust to hold all of who are and all of what we experience with compassion. It can and should be a place we can bring all of our fears and failing for comfort and gentle guidance. It can and should be a place we can share our happiness, our hope, and our joy with abandon and find it all shared and returned as a hymn of gratitude to God for all that life can be.
There have been times in my life – and I hope in all of our lives – when we have found that kind of openness, that kind of community … that kind of freedom with kindred spirits. And, in those times, we have tasted the sumptuous feast of life that leaves sweet juices dripping down our chins. In those times, we have proclaimed in some part of ourselves “how good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” In those moments lies the promise that the Kin-dom of God is near and can be a reality among us if we seek it together.
And if none of us knows the way, that’s okay. Our journey together is a journey of faith. We none of us knows the path we will follow when we take the first step … or the hundredth step … or the thousandth step. Yet, we keep walking with hope in the faith that the Spirit of Christ, in whom we are become one, will lead us forward. And it is the Spirit of Christ – Emmanuel, God with us – who will remake us – who longs to remake us – into the family of God. We must only stand open to guidance, ready to trust each other and the power that holds us.
“Sisters and brothers,” I often say. Can we find the way to become just that – to become sisters and brothers in Christ in truth and in love? Can we open ourselves to the Spirit of Christ and to one another so that the dream becomes a reality among us? The Kin-dom of God is near. My prayer is that we will claim it as our own. May it be so.
Easter 2
Psalm 133 Acts 4:32-35
This is one of my favorite Psalms. It’s short and sweet, and it speaks to a theme that is close to my heart. And, while it has only inspired one hymn directly (which we have juts sung), the idea of unity in the body of believers is at the heart of many of the hymns I enjoy singing. In some sense, it speaks directly to the idea behind the name of the Church of the Brethren – brotherhood … or in a more modern, non-gender-linked expression – community.
The imagery leaves something to be desired – at least for me. I do like to imagine the dew falling on the mountain in the middle of a dry land, baptizing the world with God promise of everlasting life. But, the impression of oil poured on one’s head is a little iffy. Especially if it’s enough oil to soak though my hair, run down over my face (and my beard when I have one), and drip onto whatever I happen to be wearing at the time. It just doesn’t give me the feeling of well-being that the rest of the Psalm speaks about – (in fact it gives me just a touch of the willies).
But I was saved from that this week when I read a colleagues paraphrase – really a whole reinterpretation – of the Psalm. As Jim Taylor rewrites it, it goes like this:
How good it feels to have the human family gathered together
for this sumptuous feast.
Here we rejoice in the rich repast of fruit and tree and vine.
Apples and oranges, grapes and cherries, yield their joyous juices to our lusting mouths.
Drops of surplus pleasure trickle down our chins.
We dab them unselfconsciously with rumpled napkins.
This gathering refreshes like a sweet morning in the mountains,
like a prairie sky polished bright by gentle breezes.
Surely this is what the Lord intended when God created life.
Now those are images that I can really get my teeth into. But, while I welcome the shift from an oily mess into a sticky feast, this version lets an important point go.
For the Psalmist, Mount Hermon was a very significant place. It was about fifty miles north of Jerusalem and the Temple on Mt. Zion, and it became the center of faithful worship for the Northern Kingdom when Israel split in two after the Babylonian exile. By pairing it with Mt. Zion in the final verse of the Psalm, the author of this poetic hymn pulled the whole of Israel into the picture, giving all of the chosen people a part in the blessings of God. In essence, the Psalmist was claiming that no matter how far divided by space, class, or tradition, all those who dwelt in Israel were part of the Kingdom of God – for Israel was that Kingdom at the time. And that larger sense of community – that recognition of kinship among the chosen people, I think, is at the heart of this psalm.
But, as lovely as the image of the chosen people living together in harmony is, it was as much a dream for the Psalmist as it is for us today. The people of Israel, of course, were not a harmonious lot. They had their own haves and have-nots despite the injunctions in the scriptures to take care of one another. They had their own struggles for power with winners and losers. They had their own jealousies, their own divisions, their own griefs, and there own feuds. Even in times when their safety as a people was threatened, they failed to come together as one body. Basically, they were just like everyone else – just like us.
There is one really big difference, though, between us and the Israelites. They were a people linked by history, culture, and faith and defined by living within the borders of the Promised Land. At one level, we too are linked to others by history and culture, and we identify ourselves by political boundaries. We are Westerners. We are Americans. We are West Virginians and Pennsylvanians. But, at a deeper level, those bindings don’t make sense for us because we are followers of Christ. We are a chosen people, but our faith and our savior redefine what that means.
Jesus reached out to people beyond boundaries to minister to all people in need. He crossed the lines of nationalism to care for Samaritans and Roman Officials. He was unfazed by religious prohibitions when he touched the unclean and raised the dead. He bridged the cultural feud between Jews and Samaritans to offer the promise of living water to any who would listen. And he even redefined the basic unit of society – the family – for those who would follow him.
The power of these profound changes is obvious. Christianity quickly moved beyond political borders, birthing new communities of faith in the near east, northern Africa, Greece, Rome, and reaching even to the coasts of France the British Isles. It moved beyond religious boundaries, opening the way for gentiles of all flavors to take part in the blessing and the promise of Christ. And as we see in the record of Acts, it broke free from cultural and relational patterns to create an egalitarian family of believers from masters, slaves, poor, and rich.
The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Christ was not really a kingdom as the world knows them. It was a new way of living in community based on the assurance that all those who followed Christ were adopted into the family of God. The people of that early church were transformed. They left behind their old identities and forged new connections as brothers and sisters together as a part of Christ. It’s an idea, an image, a way of life that I have heard summed up in a neat play on words - the Kingdom of God as the “Kin-dom” of God.
And we are as much a part of that Kin-dom as the early believers were. In coming to Christ, we too are transformed. Our bindings to the divisions of this world are loosed as surely as theirs were. We, too, have become – are becoming – a part of a larger, truer family as brothers and sisters in Christ. And, as much as that family of faith suffers from differences in interpretation and tradition, we are profoundly connected to all believers around the world and to all of God’s children beyond the bounds of the Church.
It’s a wonderful image, inspiring and heart-warming. But, I have to ask myself, “What does that mean?” What does it mean that we are all one big, loving family? Does it change how I live or how I relate to others – non-Christians as well as Christians? I have to ask, because if it doesn’t change anything than it’s probably just as fleeting and unreal as the Psalmist’s dream of unity among the Israelites. When I think about that, I realize that I don’t want this to be just a dream, and I don’t think it has to be.
The early church of Acts found a way to make this really real in their everyday lives. They ate together daily (I suppose they weren’t all at the table every time, though they may have been). They shared the struggles of their lives and the triumphs with each other and offered thanks in worship for the love and blessings of God they experienced in their new community. When some among them had needs, others provided for them and were provided for in their turn. They took pleasure in sharing with one another and with others members of the Kin-dom who lived far away. And, though they suffered, they suffered together, living with a joy and a hope that seems to be lacking from some many of our lives.
How can we bring that joy into our lives? Are there ways that we can return to a deeper sense of kinship with our brothers and sisters? Can we reclaim our identity as a people of hope chosen and blessed by God? I want to believe that we can though I don’t know the way forward.
I think we could start by reaching across the little hedges that we have built around our lives to separate us from one another. When we come together, we share some of the big things that weigh us down and some of the joys we have experienced each week. Yet, we hold back so many things. Sometimes we don’t want to bother others with our struggles. Sometimes we don’t want to belittle the struggles of others with our excitement and our triumphs. Much of the time, I think, we just don’t feel comfortable sharing things because we have been taught that they should be private, that they are somehow taboo. So, we don’t talk about our financial struggles. We don’t talk about our intimate relationships. We don’t talk about the pain we feel when we can’t share all of who we are for fear of finding judgment and indifference instead of acceptance and empathy. We don’t talk about our doubts and our fears because we are supposed to be confident in our faith and self-sufficient.
But, the family of Christ reaches beyond and beneath those things. Our connection is deeper and stronger than those fears or the restraints put on us by cultural expectations. It can and should free us from the limitations that hold us back. It can and should welcome us into a caring community that we can trust to hold all of who are and all of what we experience with compassion. It can and should be a place we can bring all of our fears and failing for comfort and gentle guidance. It can and should be a place we can share our happiness, our hope, and our joy with abandon and find it all shared and returned as a hymn of gratitude to God for all that life can be.
There have been times in my life – and I hope in all of our lives – when we have found that kind of openness, that kind of community … that kind of freedom with kindred spirits. And, in those times, we have tasted the sumptuous feast of life that leaves sweet juices dripping down our chins. In those times, we have proclaimed in some part of ourselves “how good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” In those moments lies the promise that the Kin-dom of God is near and can be a reality among us if we seek it together.
And if none of us knows the way, that’s okay. Our journey together is a journey of faith. We none of us knows the path we will follow when we take the first step … or the hundredth step … or the thousandth step. Yet, we keep walking with hope in the faith that the Spirit of Christ, in whom we are become one, will lead us forward. And it is the Spirit of Christ – Emmanuel, God with us – who will remake us – who longs to remake us – into the family of God. We must only stand open to guidance, ready to trust each other and the power that holds us.
“Sisters and brothers,” I often say. Can we find the way to become just that – to become sisters and brothers in Christ in truth and in love? Can we open ourselves to the Spirit of Christ and to one another so that the dream becomes a reality among us? The Kin-dom of God is near. My prayer is that we will claim it as our own. May it be so.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Encountering the Living Lord
sermon by Carrie Eikler
John 20:1-18
Easter Sunday
I spent the summer between my first and second year of college at Camp Bethel, a Church of the Brethren camp near Roanoke, Virginia. I held crying children who missed their parents, I put on goulashes and stomped in the creek, I even serenaded the boys’ cabins with the young girls at youth camp.
One of my counselor colleagues that summer was a young woman from Australia, named Caitlyn.
One evening on our day off, Caitlyn was showing me pictures of her home “Down Under”--her family, her friends. “And here” she said “is a picture of our Christmas Day barbeque.” And there was her family, shorts and sandals, throwing a “shrimp on the barbie.” Behind them was the window to her house, which had paper cut outs of snowflakes and Santa Clause and that fake white snow that comes out of an aerosol can you spray around your windows.
On the outside, people were celebrating Christmas in 80 degree weather, because Australia is, after all, in the Southern Hemisphere and our winter is their summer. And yet, they still took great strides to decorate in a very “northern hemisphere” sort of way, complete with Santa and fake snow.
Yes, I know. Today is EASTER, not Christmas. But as I thought about looking at summery-Christmas pictures with Caitlyn, I realize how much we associate what is going on in nature in our part of the world, to the Easter story. Lilies, eggs, butterflies, budding tress, new life. Easter is spring and spring means Easter to many of us. The warm weather is coming back (although this week may have been giving a different story), the days are getting longer, and new life is everywhere!
It makes you think God really knew how to plan a resurrection. If you were going to bring someone back from the dead, spring is obviously the ideal time. Pastel Easter bonnets just wouldn’t look as good any other time of the year.
I read this week about one recent university graduate’s 6-week trip to South America last year. Emma was from England and had just finished university finals. Obviously a stressful experience. So she and her friend decided to take a vacation to get away from the bleak, rainy skies of Nottingham, England to bask in the sun of South America.
Emma wrote “Perhaps I should have paid more attention in Geography or maybe this was my punishment for becoming so blasé about travel…somehow no one saw fit to point out to me that in the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are reversed and we were heading there in the middle of winter…. [We] embarked on an epic journey across five countries that demonstrated a total disregard for the size and diversity of the continent that we were tackling. I landed in Buenos Aires with a backpack full of bikinis, ill-prepared for what was to come.”[1]
If Christmas for many of our brothers and sisters in the Southern Hemisphere actually takes place in the heat of their summer, then Easter, as the traveling Emma discovered, is not a spring time event. For them, Easter is the beginning of winter: it’s getting darker, colder. Things are dying not being reborn; hibernating, not bursting from long slumbers.
Perhaps this is the reason that many Christians caution against using nature’s imagery to symbolize Easter and the resurrection. After all, there is nothing natural about the dead coming back to life. Yet eggs, and flowers, and butterflies all convey a truth about what was witnessed at Easter: Life burst out of the shell, the bulb, the cocoon that encased it.
But it seems to me, that celebrating Easter, shrouded with the prospect of darkness and winter, has its place too; if only, because many of us come to the Easter promise, in our own dark winters.
Now I bet that the two disciples who came to the tomb that morning, Simon Peter and the one referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved, ” believed to be John, would be flower and butterfly, Northern Hemisphere-type Easter people. Springtime! Excitement! They didn’t know how it happened, all they know is that Jesus was dead and now he’s…well, he’s just not there! It didn’t make sense, but it says one of the disciples believed. He believed…something. But what? Then they simply “returned to their homes,” it says. I wonder what they did there, at home? Just sit around wondering about it? Talking about it? Wondering that if Jesus’ fate of crucifixion came to their lives, would such a strange event happen to them in their tombs, as well?
But they weren’t the first to arrive. Mary Magdalene was the first to see that something was wrong. To me, it seems like she could understand what it means for people to celebrate Easter as they went into winter. The tomb was empty, dark. She didn’t go home, excited but perplexed. She wept outside the tomb. She didn’t celebrate that the body wasn’t there, but searched for any clue as to what might have happened. She was terrified that grave robbers had desecrated the body of her teacher and the healer of so many people. She was even so distraught that she didn’t see the angels for what they were…she didn’t even recognize Jesus, mistaking him for the gardener.
It often seems that those who are facing their own winters—the darkness, the desolation—are just the ones to whom the promise of resurrection means the most. Because you have to have faith that even though it’s not springtime, the warmth will return, and that life will burst forth. There are no blooming daffodils to prove to you that new life is here. There is just the fear that the darkness will never end, along with God’s promise that it will.
But no doubt it is a longer process to live into that promise, to live through the winter into the spring, than to have the proof of it in front of you. The disciples saw the clothes and were convinced-that’s all the proof they needed. For Mary, it took a little longer.
Now, some may say the disciples had more faith than Mary. After all, Jesus tells Thomas soon after this encounter, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” But Thomas and Mary are different, in my estimation. Thomas demanded to touch and feel in order for him to believe. For Mary, Jesus only needed to say her name for her to recognize him. He only needed to say “Mary!” for her to recall that this was her Rabbi, for her to reestablish their connection. And in fact, instead of saying if you need proof, come and touch me (like he did to Thomas) Jesus says to Mary: Don’t hold on. Don’t touch. I’m here, but I’m gone. Can you believe it? And she does believe it.
No, I don’t see Mary as one with little faith. I see her as an example for all of us. It’s not just about believing in the risen Christ--believing it is spring just because it’s warm. It’s about longing for Christ, searching for Christ, and facing the winters of our lives with the foolish faith that this does not last--that if we struggle through it, there will be new life.
On Easter morning, there was still weeping at the tomb, the prospect of Mary’s dark winter becoming even darker. And then, Mary found Christ in the most unexpected place. Not on a cross, not in the tomb--but standing next to her, (looking like a laborer!) asking her “why are you weeping?” and calling her by name. Her winter was ending, her new life beginning.
And after Mary, Jesus kept showing up. Making himself known. He draws his beloved followers out of their darkness and fear into surprise and fellowship. Barbara Brown Taylor said that it is these encounters with Jesus that “cinch the resurrection” for her, not what happened in the tomb. She said “What happened in the tomb was entirely between Jesus and God. For the rest of us, Easter began the moment the gardener said, ‘Mary!’ and she knew who he was. That is where the miracle happened and goes on happening -- not in the tomb but in the encounter with the living Lord.”[2]
She goes on to suggest that “In the end, that is the only evidence we have to offer those who ask us how we can possibly believe... Because we have found, to our surprise, that we are not alone. Because we never know where he will turn up next. Here’s one thing that helps:” she says. “never get so focused on the empty tomb that you forget to speak to the gardener.”
The Easter experience encompasses all of this: the winter, the spring, the darkness, the light, the fear of death, the promise of new life. But I think, whether you are coming to Easter in your winter desperation, or your springtime joy, the essential question of Easter is this:
How are you encountering the living Lord? AMEN
--
Throughout the Easter season, we will be inviting people in the congregation to stand before you and give a short testimony to the way the living Lord is working in their lives. Eastertide is a season of renewed hope and calling on the power of the risen Christ to overcome sin and death in the world.
It is in this spirit, and the spirit of Easter morning, that I have asked Mike Fike to share with us in testimony today. He has been reflecting on the question that you are invited to reflect on this week: What small resurrection have you witnessed in your life recently?” After Mike shares, I will invite you all to respond with affirmation and appreciation with the words in your bulletin: “We celebrate your resurrection with our Alleluias”
[1] http://www.gapyear.com/gaplasses/winter_in_south_america.html
[2] Taylor, Barbara Brown. “Escape from the Tomb.” Christian Century. April 1, 1998. (www.religion-online.org)
John 20:1-18
Easter Sunday
I spent the summer between my first and second year of college at Camp Bethel, a Church of the Brethren camp near Roanoke, Virginia. I held crying children who missed their parents, I put on goulashes and stomped in the creek, I even serenaded the boys’ cabins with the young girls at youth camp.
One of my counselor colleagues that summer was a young woman from Australia, named Caitlyn.
One evening on our day off, Caitlyn was showing me pictures of her home “Down Under”--her family, her friends. “And here” she said “is a picture of our Christmas Day barbeque.” And there was her family, shorts and sandals, throwing a “shrimp on the barbie.” Behind them was the window to her house, which had paper cut outs of snowflakes and Santa Clause and that fake white snow that comes out of an aerosol can you spray around your windows.
On the outside, people were celebrating Christmas in 80 degree weather, because Australia is, after all, in the Southern Hemisphere and our winter is their summer. And yet, they still took great strides to decorate in a very “northern hemisphere” sort of way, complete with Santa and fake snow.
Yes, I know. Today is EASTER, not Christmas. But as I thought about looking at summery-Christmas pictures with Caitlyn, I realize how much we associate what is going on in nature in our part of the world, to the Easter story. Lilies, eggs, butterflies, budding tress, new life. Easter is spring and spring means Easter to many of us. The warm weather is coming back (although this week may have been giving a different story), the days are getting longer, and new life is everywhere!
It makes you think God really knew how to plan a resurrection. If you were going to bring someone back from the dead, spring is obviously the ideal time. Pastel Easter bonnets just wouldn’t look as good any other time of the year.
I read this week about one recent university graduate’s 6-week trip to South America last year. Emma was from England and had just finished university finals. Obviously a stressful experience. So she and her friend decided to take a vacation to get away from the bleak, rainy skies of Nottingham, England to bask in the sun of South America.
Emma wrote “Perhaps I should have paid more attention in Geography or maybe this was my punishment for becoming so blasé about travel…somehow no one saw fit to point out to me that in the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are reversed and we were heading there in the middle of winter…. [We] embarked on an epic journey across five countries that demonstrated a total disregard for the size and diversity of the continent that we were tackling. I landed in Buenos Aires with a backpack full of bikinis, ill-prepared for what was to come.”[1]
If Christmas for many of our brothers and sisters in the Southern Hemisphere actually takes place in the heat of their summer, then Easter, as the traveling Emma discovered, is not a spring time event. For them, Easter is the beginning of winter: it’s getting darker, colder. Things are dying not being reborn; hibernating, not bursting from long slumbers.
Perhaps this is the reason that many Christians caution against using nature’s imagery to symbolize Easter and the resurrection. After all, there is nothing natural about the dead coming back to life. Yet eggs, and flowers, and butterflies all convey a truth about what was witnessed at Easter: Life burst out of the shell, the bulb, the cocoon that encased it.
But it seems to me, that celebrating Easter, shrouded with the prospect of darkness and winter, has its place too; if only, because many of us come to the Easter promise, in our own dark winters.
Now I bet that the two disciples who came to the tomb that morning, Simon Peter and the one referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved, ” believed to be John, would be flower and butterfly, Northern Hemisphere-type Easter people. Springtime! Excitement! They didn’t know how it happened, all they know is that Jesus was dead and now he’s…well, he’s just not there! It didn’t make sense, but it says one of the disciples believed. He believed…something. But what? Then they simply “returned to their homes,” it says. I wonder what they did there, at home? Just sit around wondering about it? Talking about it? Wondering that if Jesus’ fate of crucifixion came to their lives, would such a strange event happen to them in their tombs, as well?
But they weren’t the first to arrive. Mary Magdalene was the first to see that something was wrong. To me, it seems like she could understand what it means for people to celebrate Easter as they went into winter. The tomb was empty, dark. She didn’t go home, excited but perplexed. She wept outside the tomb. She didn’t celebrate that the body wasn’t there, but searched for any clue as to what might have happened. She was terrified that grave robbers had desecrated the body of her teacher and the healer of so many people. She was even so distraught that she didn’t see the angels for what they were…she didn’t even recognize Jesus, mistaking him for the gardener.
It often seems that those who are facing their own winters—the darkness, the desolation—are just the ones to whom the promise of resurrection means the most. Because you have to have faith that even though it’s not springtime, the warmth will return, and that life will burst forth. There are no blooming daffodils to prove to you that new life is here. There is just the fear that the darkness will never end, along with God’s promise that it will.
But no doubt it is a longer process to live into that promise, to live through the winter into the spring, than to have the proof of it in front of you. The disciples saw the clothes and were convinced-that’s all the proof they needed. For Mary, it took a little longer.
Now, some may say the disciples had more faith than Mary. After all, Jesus tells Thomas soon after this encounter, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” But Thomas and Mary are different, in my estimation. Thomas demanded to touch and feel in order for him to believe. For Mary, Jesus only needed to say her name for her to recognize him. He only needed to say “Mary!” for her to recall that this was her Rabbi, for her to reestablish their connection. And in fact, instead of saying if you need proof, come and touch me (like he did to Thomas) Jesus says to Mary: Don’t hold on. Don’t touch. I’m here, but I’m gone. Can you believe it? And she does believe it.
No, I don’t see Mary as one with little faith. I see her as an example for all of us. It’s not just about believing in the risen Christ--believing it is spring just because it’s warm. It’s about longing for Christ, searching for Christ, and facing the winters of our lives with the foolish faith that this does not last--that if we struggle through it, there will be new life.
On Easter morning, there was still weeping at the tomb, the prospect of Mary’s dark winter becoming even darker. And then, Mary found Christ in the most unexpected place. Not on a cross, not in the tomb--but standing next to her, (looking like a laborer!) asking her “why are you weeping?” and calling her by name. Her winter was ending, her new life beginning.
And after Mary, Jesus kept showing up. Making himself known. He draws his beloved followers out of their darkness and fear into surprise and fellowship. Barbara Brown Taylor said that it is these encounters with Jesus that “cinch the resurrection” for her, not what happened in the tomb. She said “What happened in the tomb was entirely between Jesus and God. For the rest of us, Easter began the moment the gardener said, ‘Mary!’ and she knew who he was. That is where the miracle happened and goes on happening -- not in the tomb but in the encounter with the living Lord.”[2]
She goes on to suggest that “In the end, that is the only evidence we have to offer those who ask us how we can possibly believe... Because we have found, to our surprise, that we are not alone. Because we never know where he will turn up next. Here’s one thing that helps:” she says. “never get so focused on the empty tomb that you forget to speak to the gardener.”
The Easter experience encompasses all of this: the winter, the spring, the darkness, the light, the fear of death, the promise of new life. But I think, whether you are coming to Easter in your winter desperation, or your springtime joy, the essential question of Easter is this:
How are you encountering the living Lord? AMEN
--
Throughout the Easter season, we will be inviting people in the congregation to stand before you and give a short testimony to the way the living Lord is working in their lives. Eastertide is a season of renewed hope and calling on the power of the risen Christ to overcome sin and death in the world.
It is in this spirit, and the spirit of Easter morning, that I have asked Mike Fike to share with us in testimony today. He has been reflecting on the question that you are invited to reflect on this week: What small resurrection have you witnessed in your life recently?” After Mike shares, I will invite you all to respond with affirmation and appreciation with the words in your bulletin: “We celebrate your resurrection with our Alleluias”
[1] http://www.gapyear.com/gaplasses/winter_in_south_america.html
[2] Taylor, Barbara Brown. “Escape from the Tomb.” Christian Century. April 1, 1998. (www.religion-online.org)
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