Sermons

"Crossed Up"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church by The Reverend Mark E. Long on April 12, 2009

Lections:  Ezk. 37.1-14

                  I Peter 1.10-16

                 Mk. 16.1-16; Jn. 17.1-5

Hallelujah!  It is Easter Day or "Big Sunday" of the Church - the first of fifty days that comprise the Easter Season of the Western Church.[1]  It is the day the Church has for centuries on end celebrated one emotionally grueling week with a story about an empty tomb and a claimed "resurrection" of its missing occupant.

Whatever you think about the "truth in advertising" about the ending or coda to the story, I am just glad the week is over.  I get cranky this time of year.  I always do; it takes me places I don't want to go.  I must look into "faces" of fear which stealthily and then openly betray an innocent man who hopes simply to help them not be afraid of their lives, then his friends do likewise (who you might think would know better) and finally worst of all, for me, add to the betrayers those who seek to preserve the value of his story over time.  Let me explain.

We are left at the end of the earliest written gospel in our earliest extant manuscripts with an empty tomb all right but no resurrection in sight, just terror, amazement, and the commitment to say nothing because of fear.  This is the way Mark's gospel really ends.  The earlier of the two appended endings, one considerably shorter than the other, is not found in manuscripts until the late 2^nd c.  These additions appear to be attempts to bring Mark into agreement with later gospel writings and the Acts of the Apostles.

Regardless of motivation, the re-imagining of Mark's gospel is an example of the early Church trying to find a defensible foothold among the Jews and pagans.  The claim of "resurrection" and faith as its evidence first arises out of a hope for Jesus' teachings to survive.  But then in a short time the Church becomes not just the bearer and protector of the teachings of Jesus but it becomes, through those who write for it, creator of its own.  In the process, the people that the Church is formed to serve are, wittingly or not, "crossed up" about what should be celebrated this day.

The deceptive web spins quickly.  We hear Mark's story end hopelessly and fearfully but less than fifty years later a nameless writer influenced by Peter's ministry tells others to "set all [their] hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring [them] when he is revealed."  He then quotes a passage from the Old Testament, "You shall be holy, for I am holy," replacing the referent of the "I," originally the Jewish God YHWH, with Jesus.

It is not much further down this path of the Church until it has the people sitting or standing (as was the case early on) but always watching while the Church secures their future.  The Church's teachings become less the teaching to go and do like Jesus and more the teachings to sit in awe of Jesus.

Again, I get out of sorts this time of year because the Church continues to ensure its increasing irrelevance by holding to a "resurrection" script that too many find, rightly so, no longer plausible.  In increasing numbers, they skip the festivities for more compelling diversions, e.g. pilgrimages to watch snowmachine races at "Arctic Man."

I wonder, as you may in honest moments, "Is the "resurrection" message of the Church capable in these times of stirring people sufficiently to give life to their bones?  Will the dry bones in the valley of Ezekiel's vision ever start to rattle again?  Is the only message available to preachers to stir hope in their listeners a call to avoid a hellish afterlife by believing something that makes little rational sense?  What sort of god would the Church have us believe in - one that punishes those who can distinguish faith from superstition?  Where is the evidence in our experiences of "resurrection" anyway?  Where has sitting back and waiting on Jesus to "be revealed" gotten any of us?

My critics would nod knowingly as if to say, "that is the point this world is broken irreparably but the next one, the "resurrection" serving as evidence of its existence, puts things aright."  It is certainly impossible to argue against, but my critics must take a "leap of faith" to get there and no other leap of whatever kind by me would carry any less weight.  This reveals their insight, certainly not actual sight, as superstition masquerading as faith.  But it all obscures my interest anyway; I want to know where resurrection may be, how dry bones might begin to stir, in this life?

My experiences affirm my critics in one respect, the world is increasingly like a valley of dry bones which lay disconnected and quenched of any Spirit which give any sense that "resurrection" is possible here.  "Faces" of fear leave many dispirited, without a feeling of hope that they have been chosen by God for anything other than alienation, abuse and pain.

Election, or being chosen by God, is a biblical theme arising out of some of St. Paul's letters.  The idea is that God is in charge and reaches down from heaven to pull up those who are in the heavenly plan; God decides who is in a long time before they are born - another word for it is predestination.  In other words, election is a "leap of faith" that some are predestined for heaven, which existence itself is a "leap of faith."  "Resurrection" is the confirming "leap of faith" evidence that any of this is true.

I have been looking into of late a number of faces dispirited, broken, and damaged by this world.  I will give one of my experiences as an example.  I had the privilege to be invited this week to a ceremony out at Clithroe, a treatment facility for those with addictive behaviors.  When I got there I was struck by the range of age, race, and background pulled into this place, a cross section of Alaska joined only by an inability to find, or maybe better said, seek a path more profitably taken.  I wondered:  "Where is resurrection?" 

As I sat later that day in our Tenenbrae service with the experience out at Clithroe still fresh and looked out on too much empty space for a service that, frankly, should be larger than this one.  I wondered again:  "Where is resurrection?"  My next thought was what could I find to say in light of my cumulative experiences of the week on Easter morning about "resurrection" that might bring comfort but avoid the hypocrisy of claiming faith, I believe, is superstition?

I found myself in a crisis listening to another preacher, this one fictional, beset by an ebbing faith in what the church would have him tell his parishioners.  Clarence Wilmont in John Updike's novel In the Beauty of the Lilies is an honest, good hearted Presbyterian preacher who knows what he is supposed to say about election but knows that he can't and maintain his integrity.  In a voice that quivers its betrayal before closing his throat altogether, the metaphor of his dying faith in the Church's answers, Clarence offers some truth-telling of his own.

"Election is not a leaden weight laid across our earthly lives, rendering our strivings as ridiculous as the . . . wrigglings of an impaled insect or bug or butterfly.  Election is not a few winners and many losers, as we see about us in this fallen, merciless world.  Election is winners and non-players. Election is choice.  Our choice. . . .  It is God's hand reaching down to those who reach up.  If we cannot feel God's hand gripping ours, it is because . . . we have not reached up.  Not truly."[2]

In light of Updike's wisdom, I am ready to tackle with renewed vigor the question that has plagued my week more often than I care to count:  "Where is resurrection?"

The Church has misguided those it serves.  Election is man's choice, not the act of an arbitrary and distant God.  We cannot affect all variables certainly; there are some circumstances of brokenness for which our only response can be to seek peace and comfort in them.  But for most of us most of the time Updike is right; what we get from God depends on whether we have reached up.  Truly.

I realized on later reflection, I saw at Clithroe broken people being made whole because they had been encouraged to reach up.  I saw people young and older, counselor and client, expressing high regard for the nature of each other.  It is for such as these and the choices that follow such recognition that answer my question, "Where is resurrection?"

It is what we should be doing here - encouraging each other and others who search for resurrection in their lives to assert our and their election - and reach up.  It is what we should be doing here - for our children and for ourselves.  How much reaching up are you doing?  I can't do it for you; I can only point you in the direction of the way to Jesus who can only point you in the direction of the voice he listened to.  You have to do the rest. 

Resurrection is the path of our self-asserted election.  It is a pregnant possibility for us, but it is not certain and it does not happen without us.  If we insist on being non-players the world will provide for us countless crosses on which to inflict the pain of our fears.  We will not be able to get off of them to realize anything different until they seal us in our tombs.  We will remain broken and damaged - self-despising, in the throes of losses without escape.  Can there be a better definition for "hell?"

You may not know much about the origin of 'hell', the word used in the New Testament Greek is based upon the Hebrew 'gehinnom', a name derived from the valley of Hinnom, a trash dump near Jerusalem.  "Hell" is less eternal flames than eternal mounds of trash.

"Resurrection" comes for those who make choices in their daily lives   free of the fears that they might be trash - free to reach up to claim their birthright as a child of God.  It is this self-determining elect who realize that the nature of our own faces bear the image of our Creator God. 

Jesus knew; he walked an awful path to a terrible end so that we might know what voice we should be listening to and how close that voice is to our true one. 

You will live the resurrected life, the one Jesus died to help you live, when you know who you are, and surrender your choices to your inner voice that reaches for you in the hope your possibilities become reality.  Will you reach back?  The promise of your life hangs in the balance.

This is how I see it on the morning the Church tells me to preach on "resurrection."  Amen.