I was so slammed trying to get my sermons written. And it was really hard to wrap my mind around Easter when I was actually living in Maundy Thursday. The first draft of my sermon was...well...a mess. So, Holy Saturday, as I sipped coffee and ate a bagel at a coffee shop in downtown Valdosta, I read the end of the Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers book "The Church Cracked Open." I let some of my thoughts about the Episcopal Church...where it is as we look for COVID to move from pandemic to endemic, and the whole notion of the church needing to be different, deal with its connection to Empire and colonialism, and head back toward Jesus. I also thought about my own journey with God and Easters past, the amazing feeling of experiencing Jesus as a liberator from oppression.
In the end, the sermon I had written needed some major edits and a much clearer direction. My Holy Saturday "chill time" gave me the space to do that.
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Text: Luke 24:1-12
Prayer:
“The strife is o’er, the battle done. The victory of life is won. The song of
triumphant has begun. Alleluia!”
It used to be that Postcards were the way to show off and share the
beautiful vistas of a vacation.
Now…in our social media-driven world…sharing has taken on a whole
new life of its own with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. How many people
“like” one of our posts…or share one of our photos.
Recently…I took a picture of a billboard making fun of the
so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill the Florida Governor signed. Within a week…the
thing had been passed around far and wide all over the internet. I finally
joked that I only wished people would share when I post our church information
as much as they shared this photo.
Having hundreds and thousands of online “followers” makes you a
Very Important Person. Those not on the internet are left watching all their
friends…and grandkids constantly tapping on tiny keyboards on their phones…as
they type their approval with a thumbs up.
Sharing…and bearing witness to something incredible is what is at
the heart of our Gospel.
After the shock and horror of the crucifixion…Jesus followers have
scattered. They’re in hiding and mourning and numb from losing their leader.
This is one event many are too terrified to share with others.
The women…who had been in the crowd and did not turn away…have gone
to his grave. But instead of finding the body…they’re meeting two bright shiny
men…presumably angels. Jesus’ body is gone. OK…now they’re mourning is pivoting
to a new shock…a total disbelief…and new terror is rising in their bodies.
And the two angels say, “Why are you looking for the living among
the dead? He is risen!”
Whoa! Mind. Blown. They go running to find Peter, and James, and
John and all the other disciples. This is HUGE news!
And then…well…the men don’t believe them. And isn’t until Peter
goes and confirms their story that it now is REALLY true.
And I’m just saying as a
middle-aged woman…I know what it’s like to report something to a group of
men…not be believed…and then one of them gets the same information and he tells
all his friends, they’re like “Wow!”
Now…to be fair…the women didn’t get it at first either. They needed
to hear it from the two men in dazzling clothes…who remind them of all that
Jesus had promised would happen has indeed happened. Only then does the
lightbulb go off…. And they flee from the tomb and start spreading the news.
It's interesting that line about not looking for the living among
the dead.
It’s pretty common for us to want to hang on to the way things were
in our lives.
I touched on this at the earlier service that there’s a tendency to
be afraid of moving forward into unknown territory.
Most of us want to know what the next thing is that’s coming. We
like to have rituals, and to know where we fit into “the plan” whatever “the
plan” is. Think about it: all of our TV shows have plot lines where the mystery
gets solved in roughly 52 minutes…no matter how improbable it would be to get
that crime wrapped up so neat and tidy.
This is why COVID has been so disruptive. We have not known what’s
next. And we’ve grown exhausted and angry trying to figure it out. Do I need
another booster shot? Do I wear a mask? As a world community, we’ve been living
under the cloud of a pandemic that has been both frightening and frustrating. And
whether we like it or not…our world as we’ve known it in the past has changed.
And so have we.
In the middle of all of this…there have been some important shifts.
People have been taking stock of what it really means to be alive. Some
have decided not to go back to their old ways of living and being.
It’s meant letting go of fears about the future and letting growth
happen…moving on…and entering into a new phase of life. Our disrupted life
these past couple of years has maybe made some of us appreciate what we had
taken for granted. Perhaps we can now see the Christ of the essential worker
who is standing for hours at a time checking out our groceries at the
supermarket. “New understanding” is an important component of “new life.” That
ability to have recognition of the “other” echoes Peter’s exclamation that after
long thinking salvation was only for some…he finally sees that God shows no
partiality. All people…every creature is loved by God.
It's what the disciples are facing in their rapidly shifting
reality. Jesus has died…Jesus has risen. What they thought they’d lost has now
been regained. And while the message here isn’t explicitly stated, the
assurance coming to these women and to us many centuries later is that
oft-repeated phrase: Don’t be afraid.
Remember Jesus’ message: love one another. Take care of each other.
Why is it so hard for us to believe that? Why is it that when we
hear such good news we keep looking for the caveat…the asterisk…the fine print
that informs of us that “our mileage might vary.”
I imagine the reason it’s tough for many of us to believe in this
incredibly good news is because we’ve had far too many experiences of
Christians or Christianity that have undermined this reality of Jesus. I’ve
said it before: church hurt is real. And there have been plenty of people who
have kept Jesus in a locked closet of the church…rather than letting everyone
in on the reality that Jesus is the greatest liberator from oppression ever.
Perhaps the message we need to get out of this is not to be afraid
to speak our truth about how God has met us…helped us through those times of
chaos that come in our lives…given us the courage that when things are going
awry…we can trust that a new path will open. It’s because of the women…and
men…that the life of Christ became known…and the church grew.
More importantly…because Jesus’ liberating love has touched
lives…people couldn’t wait to share that love with others who found themselves
on the margins of society.
And we don’t need megaphones…or big fancy church programs. Being
present and sitting with the person who is hurting…being willing to reach out
to the disenfranchised…has given those who have been hurt by the church a new
understanding of the reality of Jesus as we know him. And healing
begins to take root.
Remember what Jesus has taught us…and shown us through the
resurrection: new life has begun.
We are alive!
We are free!
And let the whole of God’s church say, “Alleluia! Amen!”
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