Approaching my sermon this week, I have been full of questions given the horrific events at VA Tech. This Sunday I had already planned on preaching a sermon to commemorate Earth Day, but I have debated changing my sermon to respond to the violence of the week. In the end, I decided to go ahead and preach about the Christian duty to care for God's creation, even though I know the images of VA Tech will be in the minds of my listeners.
I chose to stick with my original plan in large part due to the fact that on Easter I preached a sermon that essentially says what I would say this week. It's entitled "Hope for a Violent World" and addresses how difficult it can be to believe in the power of the resurrected Christ in the face of the violence present in our world. Some day I will have all of my sermons on our church web site, since we don't have that done yet, I'm posting the sermon here in hopes that it might be helpful to some who may struggle with some of the questions it seeks to address.
John 20:1-18 NRSV
I’m sorry but I simply must interrupt this beautiful Easter service with its triumphant hymns, hallelujahs, Easter lilies and other symbols of life and joy. I need to remind everyone of the audacious nature of what exactly we are doing this morning. We are daring to celebrate Easter—the resurrection of Jesus Christ—the power of God over death even though we live in a violent world.
Do you realize that there is a war on? There are terrorists carrying out suicide bombings right now. At this moment there are generals contemplating how many deaths of civilians can still be considered “collateral damage.” This morning in cities across our nation there are people mourning the victims of violent crimes. In our own city today, there are children who are afraid of their own parents.
In addition to these things that we normally consider to be violence, there are still many other things that may not involve a weapon or a clenched fist but are nonetheless forms of violence. There is the violence that can rage inside of a person’s body when cancer rots out their internal organs or when Alzheimer’s disease distorts a person’s brain. There is the violence that occurs when people have no access to the food, shelter and medical care they need. There is the violence that occurs when a person is shunned or persecuted because of the color of their skin, the country they come from, their sexual orientation or their beliefs. Violence abounds in our world.
So, why would I, as a minister, get up on Easter morning, a day of beautiful flowers, colorful eggs and new clothing, and bring up all this depressing stuff? “ Good grief, haven’t we just slogged through Lent? Wasn’t that enough of a downer for you, pastor?” I do not want to put a damper on the day, far from it. I just want us to make sure we know what we are celebrating.
To stand up on Easter morning and sing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” takes guts, especially in the face of the suffering so common in our world. Do we really mean to read the headlines of people suffering and dying all over the world, including our own community, and then get up and profess that God raised Jesus from the dead as the beginning of God’s kingdom here in our world? If we are honest with ourselves, it is a bold move to make such a declaration.
It is so bold, in fact, that I have to wonder if we really know what we are doing this morning? For some of us, the idea of a literal resurrection is too much to believe in. For others of us, the resurrection remains a confusing thing that gets talked about at church without anyone actually explaining what it means. Yet, for some of us, the resurrection is less about solving a puzzle but about living a spiritual reality in a violent world. In a sense, each of us, no matter our perspective on the resurrection, stands outside the empty tomb like the people in our scripture passage this morning. Each one of us must decide what we will make of the empty tomb that confronts us.
Mary Magdalene comes first to the empty tomb. Seeing that it is empty, she runs to tell the other followers of Jesus that someone has taken away his body.
[1] Her response was to naturally conclude that there was a rational explanation for the empty tomb. Even later after she sees angels in the tomb and meets a strange man whom she takes to be the gardener, Mary assumes that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. It is only after Jesus calls her by name that Mary realizes that Jesus has risen from the dead.
[2] Only when she has a personal experience of the risen Christ can she look beyond the limits of reason alone. Seeing the risen Lord requires the eyes of faith.
Having said that, I have to admit that daring to act upon what you perceive through faith involves risk. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.” If you’re going to take that step, you had better do so with the understanding that you could end up falling down a flight of stairs.
Faith inherently involves risk, but it does not have to mean turning off your brain. I tend to think that the trend among liberal protestants to not believe in a literal resurrection is a reaction to the ignorant and outlandish claims made in the name of faith every day by Christians. Such claims ignore the gains of science and medicine. Such claims ignore the suffering of the masses in our world promising wealth and pleasure to all who have enough faith. Such claims ask you to turn off your mind and just accept whatever the preacher says. To one degree or another all of the arguments against the resurrection from the recent TV special produced by James Cameron purporting to have discovered the bones of Jesus to The Da Vinci Code to the Jesus Seminar to the 19th century philosophers to the Deists and so on going back to the Enlightenment and beyond are all reactions to a type of faith that says turn off your brain and believe.
Like Mary, such folks look for a reasonable explanation—something that fits into the natural order. Yet, I would offer that having faith in Jesus and believing in the resurrection does not mean turning off your mind or putting on blinders to avoid seeing our violent world. Instead, I would say that we use our brains to interpret our experience so that when we take that step of faith we actually realize what we are doing. Understanding the limits of logic and reason does not mean disregarding them. The resurrection, by its very nature, is supernatural and outside the natural order of things, but we can choose to believe in it based upon reason and experience. We just have to be honest about where rational proof ends and faith begins.
When we return to our scripture passage, we find that the next person at the tomb is Peter. He runs to the empty tomb and goes all the way in. He sees the burial cloths laying there and the absence of a body, and then he turns and goes away. No explanation is given for Peter’s reaction. We don’t know what he made of it all, probably because he didn’t know what to make of it all. Maybe that’s how you feel this morning.
The resurrection is a big deal and it is at the heart of the Christian faith. It is something that is just sort of assumed among church people but rarely is it explained. An explanation of the relevance of the resurrection takes more than a lifetime, but in the few minutes I’ve got this morning, I’ll take my own meager crack at it.
William Sloane Coffin, the long-time pastor of Riverside Church in New York, said, “We live in a Good Friday world.” He lived those words too. His son died in a car accident. It’s a true statement about our violent world. We live in a world where innocent people suffer and where violent death is a daily prospect for millions of people. Yes, the crosses we wear around our necks and hang in our churches are symbols of Christ’s sacrificial death for us, but they are also reminders that suffering and death are a part of our world—such a great part that even God experienced it when God became one of us. One of the reasons I can call myself a Christian and still look at myself in the mirror each morning is that at the very least I can say that I believe in a God who knows what it is to experience the pain that people feel. The God I believe in does not remain distant from the people God created, but instead chose to be intimate with them, so intimate that God even suffered and died along with us.
For me, the empty tomb of Easter is inseparable from the cross of Good Friday. I have no use for one without the other. On the one hand, Christianity, if it is practiced honestly, through the lens of Good Friday stares at the violence and suffering in our world without blinking. There should be no delusion here that the world is without pain or that the innocent do not suffer. Look at Jesus on the cross!. Yet, that is not all Christianity offers. There is the empty tomb as well. Through it, God declares, “Yes, there is violence in our world, but that is not all there is and it will never have the last word.” Even though the crimes committed against people are sometimes beyond measure, somehow, somewhere, some-when, some-way God will bring new life out of it all. In spite of all the Good Fridays, there is still room to hope for an Easter for each of us either in this life or the next.
How can I dare say such a thing when one merely has to pick up today’s paper to read of events that seem to scream such hope is beyond reckless? I only repeat what I have heard from those whom I have seen Christ in. I have heard it from people who have had lives of deep suffering—victims of abuse, crime and natural disaster—and who still manage stare me in the face and tell me of how God continues to work in their lives. Who am I to argue with them when God speaks through them to me in such a way?
Perhaps, confusion over theology isn’t the issue for you. Maybe like Peter, you carry shame for past acts around with you like a suitcase full of bricks. Either you are the victim of some type of violence done to you or the perpetrator of violence upon others or both. It’s worth noting that Peter gets his own appearance from the risen Christ later and he is forgiven for his denials of Jesus.
[3] Could it be that this Easter you need to experience the forgiveness of God and let go of that shame in order for you to believe in the resurrection?
Finally, there is the Beloved Disciple who also stands outside the empty tomb.
[4] He sees the empty tomb and the burial cloths and he believes. He does not have all the facts, and at this point in the story he has not seen the risen Christ, but his intimate relationship with Jesus allows him to draw a conclusion that Jesus is not dead. Like the “disciple whom Jesus loved” we may not have all the answers about the mechanics of the resurrection or have worked out all the theology of what the resurrection means, but we have experienced the risen Christ and we believe. That faith allows us to continue to ask the questions of what exactly this resurrection is all about—to use our minds to study scripture, tradition and our own experience. That faith allows us to believe that the violence present in our world shall not win out but instead shall be vanquished. The suffering shall one day end and until that day comes God will use us each in our own part of the world to put an end to it.
N. T. Wright, the British preacher and theologian, writes, "The living God in principle dealt with evil once and for all, and is now at work, by His own Spirit, to do for us and the whole world what He did for Jesus on that first Easter Day."
[5] The resurrection of Jesus is a demonstration of God’s ability to bring life out of death. That same power is manifested today in the lives of believers who choose to work for justice and peace.
The writer and scholar Diana Butler Bass tells of a conversation about the resurrection that took place at an Episcopal church she attended in Santa Barbara; a congregation which was led by a bishop who worked for social justice and liberal causes. One Easter a parishioner asked if the bishop really believed in the resurrection. Bass listened closely, suspecting that like many members of his generation of liberal Protestants, he would describe the resurrection as “an allegory or spiritual metaphor.” Instead, the bishop answered without hesitating, “Yes. I believe in the resurrection. I've seen it too many times not to."
[6] In his work caring for the poor and the oppressed, he had seen miracles happen—lives saved and brought back from the precipice. That experience enabled him to believe. It is only when we have an experience of the living Christ that we can take our steps of faith and believe.
My own experience as a witness to the resurrection power of Christ occurred during my time at my last church in New York. Twice a month we took our youth group to a homeless shelter in Queens. In addition to the wonderful children we worked with, I also got to know the staff who worked there on a daily basis. One of them was named Theresa.
[7] She inspired me with her warm smiles and care for the children living in the shelter. Only after coming to visit the shelter for two years did I learn that Theresa had at one time been a resident in the shelter. Prior to that, Theresa had her children taken away from her because of her addiction to illegal drugs. After years of struggling to overcome her addiction and time spent living on the streets, Theresa had slowly but surely turned her life around with the help of caring social workers and family members, along with the grace of God. She went from being a drug addict living on the streets to a caring mother who provides for her children and inspires hope in the children society has forgotten about. Thanks to Theresa and others like her, I can say, “Alleluia! Christ has risen! There is hope for a violent world!”
Rev. Chase Peeples
Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007
First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, St. Joseph, MO
[1] New Testament scholar, Gail O’Day, writes, “In confessing her ignorance of Jesus’ whereabouts (‘we do not know where they have laid him;), Mary ironically echoes one of the decisive misund4rstandings of Jesus’ ministry: whence Jesus comes and where he is going (e.g. 7:33-36, 8:21-23).” Gail O’Day, “John” in The New Interpreters Bible, vol. 9 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992), 840.
[2] O’Day notes that when Jesus calls Mary by name, he is doing exactly what he said he would do when he described himself as the “Good Shepherd” who “calls his own sheep by name” in John 10:5. Ibid.
[3] See John21:15-19
[4] Church tradition and the evidence within the Fourth Gospel point to John the son of Zebedee, one of the disciples, as being “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and the author or shaper of the writing we call the Gospel of John. For a thorough review of the evidence in the Gospel and from tradition, see Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii) (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966): LXXVII-CII.
[5] As quoted by William Self in his sermon “Is There Any Hope?” on the Day 1 radio program: http://www.day1.net/?view=transcripts&tid=621
[6] Diana Butler Bass, “Believing in the Resurrection,” April 4, 2007 entry on the God’s Politics Blog: http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics.
[7] I have changed her name to protect her privacy.
Since moving to St. Joseph, I've been intrigued by many things, one of which, is the fact that our home town newspaper has a Bible verse each day on the editorial page. I'm not sure if this is a holdover from the days when people were less sensitive to the fact that we live in a pluralistic society or what, but it's always an interesting read, especially since the verses are utterly and totally random.
In my sermon this morning, I shared 
