Easter Sunday (C), March 27, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Isaiah 65:17-25 Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.
1 Corinthians 15:19-26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Luke 24:1-12 Amazed at what had happened.
O God of life, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Whenever I prepare a sermon, I begin with the questions that I have about the assigned reading. In our Gospel lesson, some of my first questions are: Why was the stone moved? To let Jesus out, or to let “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women with them” in? Why did the men think the women were telling them an idle tale? Did men not believe reports of the experiences of groups of women back in the olden days? Why were Jesus’ burial clothes left behind? What is the Risen Lord wearing? I imagine you have questions also.
Luke’s story about the empty tomb contains a question too: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” It’s a question for the women who had come to the tomb after what must have been a long night of weeping, taking the spices that they had prepared to anoint their beloved Jesus. But it’s intended to be a question for us as well because engaging with scripture is an opportunity to engage in a dialogue. I want us to come to scripture with ideas and questions about the life of the text, because I think scripture comes to us with ideas and questions about the texts of our lives.
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” The women had been told by Jesus, while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners (a.k.a. people) and be crucified and on the third day rise again. According to Luke, they had heard it and yet, after Jesus’ crucifixion, they were fully prepared to care for a dead Jesus and not at all prepared to encounter a living Christ. Perhaps they had only been told once. Maybe a few times – and it hadn’t sunk in. They were grief struck. Perhaps in their despair, they had forgotten. When they found the tomb empty, they were at a total loss, consumed with anxiety, the Greek says. They had no idea of what to make of the emptiness they encountered.
Those of us who have been coming to Easter services for as long as we can remember have been told countless times that Jesus is risen. So why do we look for the living among the dead? Why do so many of us feel anxious when we encounter nothing, emptiness, when we look for Jesus, expecting to find him where we left him, expecting grasp something more solid – more tangible? Do we also assume that this is an idle tale, and just go through the motions of good and proper rituals? Is any of us looking for solid proof of the Risen Lord – something tangible – and coming up empty? Has anyone stopped looking for proof altogether, and is just hoping to sing some favorite hymns and be moved by the music, hoping to see some beautiful flowers, puppets, hoping for a short sermon and then a great Easter dinner?
Look around you. We are the proof (at least part of it). We are the proof when we live our lives in a way that embodies the claim that love is stronger than death, stronger than shame, stronger than despair. To be the proof means that we remember that there are still plenty of crosses today – that is, there are instruments of violence and shame and death all around us. It means that we remember that the forces of consumerism, racism, classism, sexism in all forms, militarism and violence of any kind are all dead ends. They all rely on hatred and fear for fuel. And it means that we remember to join the Holy One in naming, challenging, healing, which are all part of loving. That’s hard work of course — looking at things that are very difficult and unpleasant to see, both in the world and inside of ourselves, to name, challenge, heal and love.
Naming means identifying and speaking about those instruments of violence and shame. Challenging those instruments always means conflict. For Jesus-followers, it must always mean non-violent conflict, but conflict nonetheless. This is hard for Episcopalian Jesus-followers because so many of us are conflict-averse. Our often used, beautifully worded prayer for the Church, prayed on Good Friday and at every ordination or celebration of new ministry, asks God to work out God’s plan of salvation, ”in tranquility.” It’s a prayer that recognizes that God is turning the world upside down – you know, “that things which were cast down are being raised up,” and old things are being made new. “Please God,” we pray, “work out salvation in tranquility – you know, quietly and without a struggle. We Anglicans prefer not to be disturbed.” But I’m here to tell you that challenging instruments of violence and shame is very disturbing. Maybe our prayer is that some day it will not be so disturbing, but meanwhile, we must expect conflict if we are going to follow Jesus. As Richard Rohr says, “Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable.”
We are called to participate with the Holy One, in healing. Healing sounds good, indeed it IS good, but it can also be painful. In our various ministries of healing, God is the healer, of course. Our work is to show up and be open to the possibilities of healing grace. And that is work – to admit our own need for healing, and to admit our ability, to admit our resources, to serve as vessels of God’s healing grace for others. We are called to look for the living not among the dead, but among the messy, chaotic, confused and disturbed who are living. When we do that, we are loving.
But let’s go back to Luke’s story – to what happens when the women are at a total loss to make sense of the empty space they see – and the emptiness they feel. Two men appear in flashy garments, with a question that helps the women remember what they had forgotten when they were overwhelmed with the emptiness. What they remembered, I believe, was something like the promise of the Holy One from Isaiah 65:17 – our first reading today. “For I am creating new heavens and new earth; the former things shall please not be mentioned and shall please not come up in the heart.” (Two times the Holy One says please in that sentence and it’s not translated!) What the women remembered when those two men stood by them in their dazzling Easter outfits, was the promise that God is always doing something new, unexpected, and amazing! Always.
Luke’s Easter proclamation is that God has not desired or required violence. And God has not disowned and abandoned Jesus or any of us, even in the midst of the worst, most violent, most shameful situations imaginable. The Risen Lord, the Christ, the Redeeming Urge of God, lives and is on the move. We are to be messengers – to tell others by our words and actions – that God’s Redeeming, Recreating energy is up ahead! We are to spread the word by demonstrating that love is stronger than fear, even if those we tell are going to respond that that is utter nonsense – an idle tale.
The mental gymnastics we do about what we believe or don’t believe at Easter time might be spectacular, but for me they’re not what Easter is about at all. I think Easter is about God’s belief in us (no matter how unbelievable we are). Easter is about God being undaunted and undeterred by our low expectations, our faulty memories, our blurry vision, our shame, our aversion to conflict, our pain, our grief, our fear or our shattered lives. I think of the Holy One sometimes as a skilled physical or psychotherapist, not wanting to inflict pain, but desiring healing and knowing that healing is often hard and painful work. Except God’s therapy is not only for our individual well-being – it is for the well-being of the group, of the community – and the well-being of the whole world. The good news is that we’re not asked or expected to do it alone – in fact, the only way we can do it, is with and for others. Easter calls us again and again to move beyond our pre-occupation with our own well-being.
The Gospel news, according to Luke is that the Risen Lord is out and about and coming home to us, bringing his hungry, naked, sick, previously incarcerated friends with him. Perhaps you remember that that’s the way Clarence Jordan, radical, southern Christian a generation ago proclaimed the good news of resurrection. He said, “The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship; not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.” [1] Full hearts of transformed disciples, spirit-filled fellowship, and a carried-away church spreading love everywhere we go: let’s be like that! Happy Easter everyone!