‘A’   //   Easter Sunday   //   3-23-08   //   Celebration of Worship, Northside Presbyterian

 

Scriptures    Jeremiah 31:1-6    Matthew 28:1-10

 

Race and religion are on the minds of many currently, after a presidential candidate’s speech on the subject last Monday. Today’s New York Times reports how that speech has fueled many pastors’ Easter sermons for today.

 

Not so the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, however. And, he expected other evangelical pastors would follow suit. He is quoted in the article as saying, “Easter is about Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus, and it’s pretty unlikely that any other topic would eclipse that. That’s not to say those other topics aren’t important, but this is the most important.”

 

Most evangelical churches, he added, “are Bible-driven, not current-events-driven.”¹

 

All good and fine. But what happens when current events impact us so much that the Bible can then speak to our lives afresh – perhaps as never before?

 

What happens when Easter speaks to us more as the way than as the day?

 

*        *        *

 

 

God of Resurrection,

  We cry out to you as hurting people in a fractured world.

 

We live in a world of Good Fridays –

  Where the innocent suffer and die,

  Where midday darkness smothers the light,

  Where hopes and dreams dissolve,

  Where evil seems to triumph.

 

God of Resurrection,

  We long to discover your presence,

  We long to feel the rhythm of your power,

  We stumble towards the tombs in our lives, and long to find them …

     empty.

 

So dare I pray, in this Witness today,

  That you bring a bit of Easter to our hearts and our lives.

 

In the name of the Christ,

  Whose life and love could not be extinguished,

  That our life and love may endure, as well. Amen.²

 

 

I am passing around two copies of a photo enlargement of the sign that greets the hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors and volunteers who annually pass through a unique place of retreat and faith community on God’s troubled earth.

 

Located in Southern Georgia – within ten miles of Jimmy Carter’s lifelong home – Koinonia Farm, as the sign states, is the birthplace of the folksy Cotton Patch Gospels and, more famously, Habitat for Humanity.

 

I snapped this photo on an overnight visit there last fall. It was a nostalgic trip of sorts, as I long ago lived and worked for a month on this communal farm: pruning grapevines, six days a week.

 

Strolling through the Koinonia museum – situated, fittingly enough, in a converted peanut warehouse – I took note of the many mementoes of the famous co-founder of the farm, Clarence Jordan. Jordan was a Baptist preacher-farmer and racial integrationist when it was quite dangerous to be one in the Deep South.

 

As you might imagine, Clarence Jordan advanced a life of radical discipleship. In other words, he brooked few beliefs that got in the way of Jesus’ radically inclusive ethic. “The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead,” Jordan once wrote, “was not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that Jesus was alive was not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship; not a rolled away stone, but a carried-away church.”³

 

Hear Jordan’s phrases again: “Full hearts” … “transformed disciples” … “a spirit-filled fellowship” … “a carried-away church”. I don’t know about you, but these are phrases I do not often hear describing those peculiar brand of Christians known as Presbyterian.

 

Full hearts? Try illumined minds. Transformed? Try reformed. As for spirit-filled and – God help us! – carried-away …

 

Why not simply enjoy the Easter story of Christ’s resurrection, and not be so … misshapen by it? For as Reformed Christians who historically place the grace of God front and central in their lives, this is a day, is it not, to suspend all talk of our discipleship walk. This is a day, is it not, to celebrate the Son of God’s resurrection – and not our own – through hymns such as “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today”, “Thine is the Glory”, and “The Day of Resurrection”.

 

This is Christ’s day – is it not? Easter is about the day – a most special day!

 

 

Or is it also about the way? I wonder. Last Tuesday, the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County gathered at its monthly lunch to discuss different faith beliefs and visions about the afterlife. I was one of four faith representatives chosen to lead of the discussion – and the only Christian.

 

I thought: What, as a Christian, do I affirm about the afterlife? Not all that much. All I could offer was what the Easter story teaches me: That I can affirm something, experientially and faithfully, about the afterdeath. And that special something – known as resurrection – is promised to each of us not just at our physical death, but also and especially as a follow-up to all our daily dyings.

 

Trouble is, we tend not to notice those resurrections very well. Any more than we notice those daily dyings. Not when there are so many crucifixions in this world for us to witness, and heavy crosses for us to give our witness through.

 

So why not lean on the Christ-event, then? “Thine is the glory!” “He is risen!”

 

But that’s not what the scripture says. Hear again these gospel words today: “But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.’”

 

He has been raised. In biblical Greek, the word is the present perfect of “to be raised”. Present perfect – as grammarians explain, something that has happened in the past with consequences in the present.

 

With consequences in the present. Again, Clarence Jordan: “The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead, was not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples.”

 

 

 

Eighteen years ago tomorrow, I was privileged to observe the tenth anniversary march in Mexico City celebrating the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Yes, you heard right: the march was celebrating his marytrdom. As some of you may know, Archbishop Romero was a champion of those he called los oprebrecidos – those made poor – which in turn made him an enemy of El Salvador’s oligarchy. He was assassinated by a death squad on March 24, 1980 while saying Mass – literally, while raising the chalice of Communion wine at the altar.

 

One of the banners in the Mexico City parade honoring Romero’s memory cited him as follows, in Spanish: “My blood will be a seed of liberty.” These words were taken from a longer quote, in a homily preached shortly before his martyrdom: “I am prepared to offer my blood for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador. If God accepts the sacrifice, I hope it will be a seed of liberty and a sign of hope.”⁴

 

It was both. Now tell me: Was Easter basically a holy day for Archbishop Romero? Or did its narrative of redemption and resurrection signify, for him, the way?

 

 

Exodus is a word that means the way out. Jesus’ exodus of resurrection means, simply, the way for us. The Way – each word capitalized: That’s what the earliest Jesus movement called itself, even before the disciples were dubbed Christians. The Way: Not only the way out of Egypt or the Roman Empire, but the way back into an entirely new life. A life redeemed, and daily.

 

 

Our Amish friends understand this clearly. Remember when five girls, ages six to 13, were murdered by a gunman at an Amish school in Lancaster County, PA two Octobers past? This Pennsylvania Dutch community was lauded worldwide for the intentional way it set about – in its great grief – to forgive the gunman, who had turned his weapon on himself, as well as to forgive the gunman’s family.

 

Herman Bontrager of the Amish Religious Freedom Committee might well have been speaking about resurrection when he explained the Amish response of forgiveness in this way: “It’s not something you just do once – and then it’s done … We have to work at this every day. We know that every morning we wake up and all of the emotions are there: from anger to grief and pain. And we have to start over every day.”⁵

 

Forgiveness … Resurrection. “It’s not something you just do once – and then it’s done … We have to start over every day.”

 

 

 

Let’s let our servant Lord and Savior claim the final word. According to Matthew, as the women took hold of the resurrected Jesus’ feet and worshipped him, note that he did not respond, “Thank you. Thank you very much for worshiping me.” Instead, we are told he said, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

 

Go to Galilee. In other words: Go and share the Good News out into the world. Far beyond our Jerusalems. Far beyond what we may consider our holy land. Even if our Galilee may be, as with many of Jesus’ disciples, our own home region.

 

And, Jesus would add – upon meeting his band of brothers there – “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

 

“I am with you always” – or, as the Greek rightly reads, “I – with you – am, always.” Jesus’ way – “with you” – has now become the middle name of I Am – known as God.⁶

 

 

Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

All-powerfully loving God, you have raised Christ Jesus from the dead.

  God: Raise us, too.

 

May fresh life burst among us like buds awakening to the spring.

May shells of distrust and self-hatred which keep us from loving be broken away

  so that new life can emerge.

May new community spring up where fear has kept us from the stranger.

 

Keep us patient, we pray, in making peace and building justice.

Teach us to trust the slow process from seed to stem,

   from stem to flower,

   from flower to fruit.

 

Breathe on us with your Spirit – on this special day – for your special Way.⁷

 

*        *        *

 

We have shed our grave clothes at this table of Communion. Because our tombs are now empty, our lives can now be full.

 

So go into every place and every day as people brimming with the love of God.

 

Be graceful in spirit, hopeful in word, faithful in deed.

 

Live for the risen Christ, as the Christ so lives in you.

 

  Alleluia! And Amen.⁸

 

 

¹Laurie Goodstein and Neela Banerjee, “Obama Talk Fuels Easter Sermons”, New York

Times, March 23, 2008 (online article: www.nytimes.com).

 

²Adapted from a prayer by John W. Howell, in Ruth C. Duck and Maren C. Tirabassi, eds., Touch Holiness: Resources for Worship (Cleveland: United Church Press, 1990), pp. 79-80.

 

³Clarence Jordan, The Substance of Faith: And Other Cotton Patch Sermons (Brockton, MA: Cascade Books, 2005). See, e.g., http://www.eugenefumc.org/sermon03-27-05.htm.

 

⁴“Murder at the Altar”, Time (magazine), April 7, 1980. See http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921981-1,00.html.

 

⁵Martin Doblmeier (producer/director), The Power of Forgiveness (documentary), Journey Films, 2007.

 

⁶My gratitude to my seminary New Testament professor, Herman Waetjen, for this provocative insight.

 

⁷Adapted from a prayer by Ruth C. Duck, in Duck and Tirabassi, op. cit., p. 86.

 

⁸Adapted from a benediction by Glen E. Rainsley, in Duck and Tirabassi, op. cit., p. 91.