Sermon: Practicing Resurrection

Texts: Acts 10:34-43; Isaiah 34:19; John 20:1-18

Date: March 23, 2008 (Easter Sunday)

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

              “Easter is not about past, it’s about future. Easter is not about death, it’s about life. Easter is not about Jesus, it’s about you.”  Thus declares Harvard chaplain Peter Gomes.  Those first two phrases go down easy—“Easter is not about past, it’s about future; Easter is not about death, it’s about life.”  Yup.  But that third declaration, that brings us up short: “Easter is not about Jesus, it’s about you.”

            Hmm.  At first blush, that sounds like gospel for a classic Narcissist.  If everything else is all about you, all the time, why shouldn’t Easter be all about you as well?  But I don’t think Gomes was trying to encourage a sinful, egotistical tendency to put ourselves at the center of the known universe. 

            So what was he getting at?  We were all brought up to believe that Easter is about Jesus, right?  Shouldn’t it just be about Jesus?  A day to celebrate God’s mighty work of resurrecting Christ?

            Here’s the problem with that.  It’s all well and good to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus; it’s lots of fun and we get to sing some really swell songs.  But if that’s all we do, then Easter really does get lodged in the past, becoming nothing more than an interesting story.  Easter has no real life if we limit its significance to the lifespan of Jesus.

            Consider this little news item:  New Scientist magazine is offering a cool prize — an extremely cool one — minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit, to be exact. The magazine has been revamped, and to promote its fresh look, the publication is offering readers a prize “to die for”: cryogenic treatment, which some people hope will give them new life after death. The winner will not be able to collect the award until death, of course, and at that point he or she will chill out in a vat of liquid nitrogen at The Cryonics Institute of Michigan. If and when medical technology allows, the winner will be thawed out and revived to live again. They hope.

The preacher who shared this story goes on to comment, “How we tend to put Jesus on ice, thaw him out on special occasions, and then slip him back in the tube — or, tomb. A frozen Jesus is much easier to handle than a risen Lord who makes demands upon our lives.”  That’s the potential consequence of making Easter only about Jesus—that we would keep him frozen solid in the past, thaw him out and revive him once a year while we whoop it up with the Hallelujah chorus, chocolate rabbits, lilies and so forth, and then lay him to rest until this time next year. 

          A living Christ who makes demands on our lives is something else entirely.  Paul wrote in Romans 6:5 about being united with Christ in a resurrection like his.  In that particular text he was talking about life after death, but I believe that being united with Christ in Christ’s resurrection is the astounding gift and terrifying challenge we are given even before we experience the death of our bodies.  That’s what I think Gomes means when he says, “Easter is not about Jesus, it’s about you.”  At least it’s not just about Jesus, it’s about you and Jesus, you with Jesus, Jesus alive in you calling you to more abundant life.  It’s about rising to new life with Christ, new life in Christ.

              We could say that Easter is about summoning us to practice resurrection.  We have just wrapped up a 10 week series on Christian practices here at EHCC.  We have been thinking together about those traditions and habits that form us into Christians as we practice them, practices such as contemplation, cultivating diversity, healing, worship, testimony, theological reflection, discernment, forgiveness, hospitality, and the pursuit of justice.  There are a number of different lists of Christian practices; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a list of Christian practices that includes “Resurrection.”  Is it possible to practice resurrection?  Or is it something that will just happen to us through the power of God? 

            I believe it is both.  Resurrection is something that happens through the power of God who lures us into new life.  But in order for that to happen, in this mortal plane anyway, we need to be responsive to the God who would resurrect us.    The discipline of turning toward new life and dying to the old life is where practicing resurrection comes in.  We practice cooperating with the God who said in Isaiah 43:19, “Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

In process theology, God is thought of as the source of novelty in the universe.  Every person is largely constituted by their past.  If we went to bed at night hating raisen bran and loving “American Idol,” with a nasty habit of biting our nails until they bleed, it’s highly likely that we will wake up in the morning with the same preferences and habits.  But among all the inner urges to do the same things we always do and be the same person we always have been there is the still, small voice of God.  God knows you would be happier and healthier (not to mention a much better guitar player) if you would quit chewing up your own fingers.  So day by day there is that little voice, what process theologians call the “lure” of God, to let your fingers heal.  And if you respond to this lure toward health, letting an old destructive habit die so that a new undamaged self can live, you are  practicing resurrection.  This is an extremely trivial example.  It applies to much more significant and complex phenomena.

            The lure of God toward novelty applies to societies as well as individuals.  Peter affirmed a call to fully welcome non-Jews into the Christian community in his sermon in Acts, creating a new community in which he now understands “God shows no partiality.”  We are continually called to new ways to live together.  For instance, we live among people who are used to resorting to violence to solve problems.  I believe God is urging us to solve problems in a new way that involve more diplomacy and fewer bombs.  Because God offers not just the invitation but also the strength to rise up to new forms of interaction, I believe we can one day disengage ourselves from our deadly, death-dealing habits and learn to live more cooperatively in the world.  Because God is still doing a new thing, we may yet rise up as more humane humans.

            While God may invite us to new life, God does not force resurrection upon us.  And since the inertia of the past is so strong, most of us don’t completely relish relinquishing the old life which makes room for the new.  Walt Whitman wrote some profound verses pointing to this, titled “O Living Always, Always Dying.”  Listen:

O living always, always dying!
O the burials of me past and present,
O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever;
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and
look at where I cast them,
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.

“To disengage myself from the corpses of me.”   Isn’t that a massive spiritual challenge?  It seems to me that almost all of us are walking around with some aspects of our lives that are more or less dead, or at least, not fully alive.  Perhaps we suffer from a depression that makes us feel like we’re stumbling half-dead through our days and spending too many nights lying awake wrestling with demons.  Perhaps some of us do daily battle with an addiction that has us reacting to whatever has us on the hook like a robot that cannot make choices.  Perhaps some of us have put our hearts in the deep freeze to avoid the ongoing pain of loneliness.  Perhaps we are stuck in the groove of destructive old habits that have us going around in circles like a kiddie train ride at the county fair.  Perhaps we have numbed ourselves to the suffering of others, too overwhelmed by despair to feel compassion for those who cry out for help.  There are so many ways to be numbered among the living dead.

            God has deep compassion for us as we lurch around like zombies in various phases of deadness.  Too much compassion to leave us be!  God bids us to cast aside the myriad dead aspects of our lives and rise to full and abundant life with Christ.  We can share in Christ’s resurrection now, before we pass on to eternal life.  We just need to meet the power of God halfway by our will to let die what needs to die in our lives, and disengage ourselves from the corpses of our past selves.  O living always, always living!   Leave the corpses behind. 

            The moment in John’s retelling of the Easter story that I find thrilling is the moment when Jesus calls out Mary’s name, and she suddenly recognizes him.  She has been half-dead with grief over the loss of her dear friend, healer, and teacher.  She literally cannot see through her tears or imagine what the future will be like.  When Jesus in his new resurrected form calls out her name it is as if he is calling out her true self—not the woman paralyzed by grief but the courageous disciple who will be a bold witness for Christ in days to come.  She has to cast aside her old self and her old understanding of who Jesus was and emerge as a new person who recognizes Christ in a new form.  Remember, he instructed her not to cling to him—not because he wasn’t glad to see her, but because Christ was evolving into a new being that would expand Christ’s reach far beyond what it had been in his old pre-resurrection life.  Fred Craddock comments,

…even for disciples like Mary, Easter does not return her and Jesus to the past; Easter opens up a new future. The earthly ministry is over; now the ministry of the exalted, glorified, ever-abiding Christ begins. "Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you" (16:7). In fact, the one who believes will do even greater works than Jesus did, "because I am going to the Father" (14:12). Therefore, Jesus says to Mary Magdalene, "Do not hold on to me" (v. 17). Rather, she is to go and announce his resurrection and his ascension to the presence of God, from whose presence the Holy Spirit will come to lead, comfort, and empower the church."

According to John’s gospel, the believers (that’s us!) will do even greater works than Jesus under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, who continues to call and empower those who will listen and rise up.

            African-American poet Maya Angelou has written a splendid poem titled “Still I Rise” about rising up from the dead weight of oppression.  It speaks to me about the practice of resurrection against all odds.  Listen:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

How is God calling you to rise up and join in Christ’s resurrection?  In what ways are you being lured to a new thing?  In days to come, how will you surprise those who think personal and societal change is impossible?  “People who say that something is impossible should not interrupt those who are managing to get it done.”  God is still getting it done, this resurrection phenonemon.  It’s your time now to be united with Christ in his resurrection as you leave the deadness of your old self behind.  This time next year, this time next hour, this time next breath, let it be your refrain: Still I rise.  I rise.  I rise.  I rise.

Whitman, Walt  Leaves of Grass, 1892

cited in : http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/john20x1.htm

Angelou, Maya   Maya Angelou Poems New York: Bantam, 1986, p. 154-55