Easter Day C, 2010
Luke 24:1-12
A Liturgy is also available
IN THE MIDST OF BROKENNESS, HEALING STIRS
Easter Day – today - is regarded as the most important day in the liturgical life of the church.
It is such a big day that all the other Sundays are called 'Little Easters.'
Theologically speaking, Christmas doesn't hold a candle to Easter.
It is the day in which we celebrate the mystery of resurrection.
Notice that. I said 'mystery' of resurrection, not the 'fact' of resurrection (JShuck. Shuck&Jive blog, 2007).
Listening to some suggestions of a colleague, we modern folks like facts.
Did this happen?
Did this not happen?
What
are the facts?
But as this colleague has pointed out, correctly I reckon,
the problem with religious symbols such as resurrection is,
they are not fact-friendly (JShuck. Shuck&Jive blog, 2007).
This day we celebrate changed possibilities.
And give thanks for the Spirit of Life visible in Jesus,
visible in each one of us,
visible in people in all walks of life...
As we do celebrate, we also acknowledge that all we have,
are the stories, shaped and reshaped and told orally,
by people of faith from generation to generation.
No logical, scientific proof of a ‘bodily’ resurrection.
No videotape of an empty tomb.
No seismograph of an Easter earthquake. Just the stories.
That in the midst of brokenness, healing stirs.
That in the midst of darkness, a light shines.
That in the midst of death, life is breaking forth.
That when all seems gone, hope springs eternal.
True, Jesus’ death mattered to all those early storytellers.
But only because his life mattered more.
So they spoke of his death in ways that affirmed his life.
And to be embraced by life, not scared of it.
My ‘resurrection’ invitation to you all today is similar: be embraced by life, not scared of it?
How? Let me offer some suggestions you might like to ponder sometime:
• How do we care for each other interpersonally in ways which do not suffocate and oppress?
• How is the well-being of our neighbour pursued in the complex problem of global hunger and international war?
• How are communities developed positively around respect and care for each person, rather than around a common enemy?
• How are the systemic causes of non-love eliminated?
And Bishop John Shelby Spong has offered a comment which I reckon is worth pondering:
• Loving God… means that people do not treat the legitimacy of their own spiritual path as a sign that every other spiritual path is somehow illegitimate.
• Loving your neighbour… means treating all people - regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, nationality, ethnicity or economic class - as holy, as having been made in God's image.
• Loving ourselves… means basing our lives on the faith that in Jesus as the Christ all things are made new and all people are loved by God (Spong Newsletter, 23/3/06).
To live with these particularities coursing in our veins,
is to live in the spirit of the sage we call Jesus,
is to embrace life, not be scared of it.
Because ‘resurrection’ can and does happen every day!
But let me also turn to the Irish for some wisdom.
Peter Rollins, author of The orthodox heretic, has this to say
about 'the' resurrection:
"Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and
completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ… I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do
not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the
poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of
the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system. However there are moments when I affirm that
resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for
those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have
had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to
shed" (Rollins 2009).
According to Irish-born Rollins, you can believe all the things you want.
You can even be as
religious as the Pope or your favourite TV evangelist.
But unless you can “cry for those who have no more tears
left to shed”,
the resurrection means little to nothing. Period.
Notes:
Rollins, P. 2009. The orthodox heretic and other impossible tales. MA: Orleans. Paraclete Press