Sermon: Stirred, Not Shaken

Texts: Jeremiah 31:1-6; Matthew 28:1-10

Date: April 24, 2011 (Easter Sunday)

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

          The choice between the two gospels’ Easter accounts suggested by the lectionary this year seemed abundantly clear.  The gospel of John features a garden; the gospel of Matthew, an earthquake.  So far, 2011 seems more like the year of the earthquake than the year of the garden.  So Matthew it is.

          Fellow humans, are we not are experiencing a time when the ground seems to be shifting beneath our feet?  Things we counted on not long ago, like houses being a solid investment, a growing economy, financially solvent banks, and so forth have proved to be less predictable than we hoped.  The oil to which we are addicted, which once seemed relatively benign, lately wreaks havoc on shorelines, economies, borderlines, bank accounts, and the atmosphere itself.   Nations in the east that from our Western point of view seemed stable are in various stages of revolutionary uproar.  Wikileaks revelations about diplomacy (that sound as if they were cooked up in a junior high school somewhere) undermine both our trust in governments and our trust in the potential for what we view as private communication to remain private.  The incredible pace of technological development leaves many of us feeling stunned and in the dark.  Some of us have had the financial rug yanked out from under us.  Even the weather seems de-stabilized as a season of unusual coolness in some places, unusual heat in others, and violent storms in between, are all interpreted by a growing number of scientists as evidence of human-influenced climate change. 

          The earthquake and tsunami in Japan last month, a terrible tragedy for our neighbors across the Pacific, adds to our general global sense of insecurity.  Speaking for myself, not since the World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001 have I been impacted so deeply by images of destruction as I have been by the news footage of the tsunami sweeping across the low-lying towns and farms in coastal Japan.  One of the haikus written in response to this event reads “Through the shaking / a raucous wave /finds its way.”  The force of that earthquake and raucous wave left an indelible picture of the utter fragility of our lives as houses, trucks, bodies, fences, roads,  safes, dimestores, crops, artworks, and rubber duckies all got scrambled and churned together in the wake of an enormous destructive wave, all that human detritus ending up as chaotic mountains of rubble.   Then just when everyone thought the worst was over, we watched clouds of smoke above a nuclear power plant, listened to words like “meltdown,” got a lesson in millisieverts of radiation, and were forced to ponder once again the destructive capacity of human culture added to nature’s capriciousness.  We sit in our easy chairs in front of the television, an ocean away, and watch, and find all at once that we are sitting in un-easy chairs.  It’s the year of the earthquake, all right.

          Earthquakes are scary.  Why do you suppose Matthew’s story of Christ’s resurrection would include an earthquake, when we think of Easter as a day of unadulterated joy?  There’s the distinct possibility that there was actually an earthquake at the tomb, noted later by a faithful witness.  However, since none of the other resurrection narratives mention it, we must allow for the possibility that this earthshaking detail has a primarily symbolic meaning.  Which brings us back to the question, “Why?”  What do earthquakes communicate in the Bible? 

          Biblical scholar Paul Minear writes, “Nothing is more threatening to established securities, more symptomatic of revolutionary change, more conducive to panic, than an earthquake. This particular [Easter] earthquake belongs in a long series of earthquakes in Scripture, beginning with the story of Sinai (Exod. 19:16-25; Isa. 29:5-9; Jer. 4:19-31). Many prophetic passages anticipate the last judgment as "a great earthquake" (Ezek. 37:1-14; Zech. 14:1-8; Matt. 24; Rev. 11).”  If one can generalize about earthquakes in the biblical narrative, what an earthquake shouts is that the Lord has taken the stage.  Over, under, and around the scaffolding of human life and human culture there is a great cosmic power that dwarfs our existence.  This poem written by Marinela Reka in response to Japan’s earthquake expresses this concept pretty well: “Earth is violent, breaking hearts / Shattering lives furiously / Where the land is fragile / My soul was fast asleep/ There is a larger force than us.”

          There is a larger force than us.  That’s it, in a nutshell.  Now, please don’t leap from this symbolic point to an assumption that God is sitting on a cosmic throne somewhere directing earthquakes at regions that need to learn some kind of lesson.  Tectonic plates shift on our planet, for reasons we don’t completely understand, and on a time schedule that seems pretty random.    It seems to me that we can interpret earthquakes in the biblical narrative as the prophets and theologians who gave us the Bible seemed to, as a metaphor for God’s ultimate transcendence and enigmatic power .  Earthquakes are a visceral reminder of our puniness both literally and literarily speaking.

          This comes clear in the gospel of Matthew where the antagonism of  hostile forces arrayed against Jesus are an important part of the story from the very beginning.  It is Matthew’s gospel that tells the story of another cosmic sign at the time of Jesus’ birth—not an earthquake, but a new star.  And it is in Matthew’s gospel that King Herod vainly tries to stop the coming of a new king by murdering all the Hebrew babies he could find after the visit of the Magi.  Horrible, but unsuccessful; Jesus’ family flees and he is spared from the killing spree.  During and after the crucifixion, it is Matthew’s gospel alone that includes earthquakes. And there is in Matthew alone an account of religious and occupation leaders conspiring to guard the tomb so that the disciples would be prevented from stealing the body and deceiving the people about a resurrection.  Pilate is reported to say to the religious leaders who have come petitioning him, “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make [the tomb] as secure as you can.”  So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.

          I searched in vain for any information about what they would use in that day to seal the tomb.  I suppose there was some kind of mortar.  There is a tradition that says the guard sealed the tomb seven times over.  I can just see them gathered there, trembling, applying their cement, their paste, their melted wax, their gorilla glue, duct tape, super glue and spray epoxy.  In the end, of course, it’s no more effective than trying to mend a broken concrete block with scotch tape would be.  As Biblical scholar Raymond Brown puts it, “Sealing the stone and setting the guard will be infantile precautions against the power that God is about to release.”  The Powers that Be have done their level best to remain in control of this situation, using all the tools available to them, but to no avail.  The Lord steps onto the stage, announced by a teensy little earthquake, and the vigorously sealed tomb pops open with the ease of a champagne cork in the hands of an experienced sommelier.  A heavenly being arrives on a lightning chariot to be the Lord’s spokesangel.  The heavily armored guards collapse like a house of cards.  There is a force larger than ourselves at large.

          It’s not just the religious authorities and political authorities anxious to control that are put in their place in this scene.  Death itself is overwhelmed and dwarfed by the immensity of Divine Life.  The tools of death, wielded by those who crave control, are swept into a refuse heap, crosses  and spears snapped like twigs in the wake of a raucous wave of Life bursting from a recently vacated tomb.  No wonder an earthquake is invoked to get the people’s attention, to awaken the slumbering souls. 

          Let’s go back for a moment to Paul Minear’s commentary on earthquakes: “Nothing is more threatening to established securities, more symptomatic of revolutionary change, more conducive to panic, than an earthquake.”  We see in the resurrection chapter of the gospel of Matthew all of these things, heralded by the God-quake.  “Established securities” are threatened.  They are represented in the gospel story by religious and political authorities who each have their motivations for trying to keep people under their control.  In our day, we would add economic forces, corporations and such, who are motivated to keep us under their control, doing their bidding.  The untamed love and justice of God are a threat to established securities! 

The God who is heralded by earthquake, wind, fire, and resurrection certainly is not going to be content with leaving the messed-up world alone.  If even death won’t halt the dawning of the Kingdom of God, a conversion is underway.  Whenever people inspired by God stand up for justice, not counting the cost, revolutionary change is afoot. 

And then there’s that third thing Minear mentions that accompanies earthquake, PANIC.  The guards play their part nicely, shaking and becoming “like dead men.”  I suppose that means they fainted; that’s the way the scene is depicted in most artwork.  But it’s a very picturesque way to describe it, “[they] became like dead men.”  A dead man has become like a live one, and in response these poor saps become like dead men.  (I guess somebody’s got to act dead.)

          Panic is not a foregone conclusion, however.  The women who are there to honor Jesus do not panic.  There’s no doubt they are on the verge.  But after the soothing words from the angelic messenger, (saying what angels always say) “Do not be afraid,” and the thrilling news the angel shares about the resurrection, they manage to tamp down their perfectly natural fear to somewhere below panic levels.  It’s as if the earthquake had shaken off the unstable topsoil and gravel and revealed solid bedrock underneath, and they have found their feet again.  That’s the paradox of this symbolic God-quake—to be reminded of a force larger than ourselves, larger than our whole unstable world, is to set our feet on solid, unshakeable ground.  The earthquake in Matthew, when all is done and said, is actually an UN-quake.  God’s steadfast Presence, God’s imperishable Life, God’s indestructible Love are the immovable Rock upon which we build our lives. 

          Another of the earthquake inspired haikus (this one by Gabi Greve) gets at this: “earthquake night - / the stars are as silent / as ever.”  I don’t know what the poet was feeling when she wrote that; perhaps she felt abandoned.  But I found in her verse a certain sense of tranquility.  There is a transcendent realm that is far beyond the shaking and quaking and dizzy spinning of our earth.  We live in a world of unrelenting change, and we often find the ground shifting beneath our feet; it’s very easy to get all shook up by frightful events and circumstances.  Yet in the midst of this God’s realm breaks in, God’s presence comforts us, God’s wisdom guides us, God’s promise galvanizes us, God’s covenant gives us purpose.  The prophet Jeremiah spoke on God’s behalf during the turbulent time of Israel’s exile to remind the shaken people, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”  That’s a bedrock promise not only to the Israelites of old but to the faithful followers of today: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” 

          The first disciples, faithful women who went to the tomb looking for Jesus, are our models.  They did not conquer their fear altogether—the gospels says they left the tomb with fear and great joy-- but they didn’t panic.  They wrapped their fear around with great joy and tore away in anticipation of meeting the risen Christ whom God promised would go before them.  I don’t suppose their doubts were all dispelled, even by the sight of the angel and empty tomb; but they wrapped their doubt around with faith and charged off in the direction of new life. 

          The guards of the status quo and the disciples of the new life stand for paths open to all of us.  Do you know how James Bond likes his martinis?  Shaken, not stirred, right?  That’s the way of the guards of the status quo.  Shaken, not stirred.  So shaken by fear, so shaken by newness of life beyond their comprehension, that they became like dead men.  That’s always an option for us, fellow humans.  We can live shaking in fear, make our deadened lives as secure as we know how, defend ourselves against revolutionary changes, numb our feelings and our ethics with the Novocain of life-as-usual, and in general become like dead men and women. 

          The disciples at the scene of the resurrection, though, what were they?  Stirred, not shaken.  Stirred by sudden hope, stirred by courage, stirred by the promise that Christ went ahead of them even through the dismal passage of death and was going ahead of them in new life now. 

Stirred, not shaken.  That is our calling, God-loving, Christ-centered, Spirit-led people of faith.  We, too, can be stirred by hope, courage, and excitement.  We can be stirred by the promise that abundant, eternal life is a gift offered to each of us.  We can be stirred by Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God which is still breaking into our turbulent times.  We are standing on solid rock, all appearances to the contrary, for underneath us is the one who loves us with an everlasting love.    Let us find our footing once more and sprint with joy toward the new life that continually opens up for us.