“We are the people of the Resurrection and our Endgame is dismantling all that stands between the world as God created it to be and the world as it has become.”
Sermon by Susan Russell at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, April 28, 2019.
Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
In the name of the God who creates, redeems and sustains. Amen.
And just like that it’s the Second Sunday of Easter:
the lilies are browning around the edges,
the ears are off the chocolate bunny,
the Easter dress is at the cleaners
and the awesome impact of those “alleluias”
we gave up for Lent fades
as we confront that “to do” list
of everything we were going to get to “after Easter.”
And we face the great temptation that rises every year
at this point in the liturgical cycle:
making Easter one Sunday to celebrate rather than a truth to live all year long.
My favorite Easter card says:
“The great Easter truth
is not that we will be born again someday —
but that we are to be alive here and now
by the power of the resurrection.”
But “here and now” is sometimes easier said than done …
because – truth be told –
it is a whole lot easier
to settle for celebrating the resurrection
rather than it is to figure out how to participate in it.
If it’s any consolation, we’re in good company.
Throughout these Fifty Days of Easter
we will hear the stories of those who actually
had the direct experience of the Risen Lord –
and still struggled to figure out this resurrection thing.
There were the women at the tomb –
who seemed to have forgotten the part
where Jesus told them he would rise after three days.
It took the angels to remind them of that rather important detail.
And then when they ran back to tell the disciples;
who Luke tells us “dismissed it as an idle tale.”
(Hold that thought.)
There was Mary in the garden
mistaking the risen Jesus for the gardener.
And then there is this morning’s Gospel
where Jesus appears to the disciples:
who John tells us “were huddling in fear behind locked doors.”
Nevertheless, Jesus appeared and “breathed on them.”
Jesus “breathed on them” and the Spirit came:
filling the disciples with faith rather than fear …
and they left the upper room where they had been hiding
and went out to take up the ministry of Jesus on earth:
to become the Body of Christ –
new, here and now, by the power of the resurrection.
This scene of new life is reminiscent of
the original creation story in Genesis,
as the Spirit brooded over creation
and God breathed life into the first humans.
It echoes the wonderful story from Ezekiel,
of new life is breathed into the valley of dry bones.
It is a way of life we live one day at a time:
one step at a time —
sometimes an inch at a time —
trusting that whoever we are
and wherever we find ourselves on the journey of faith
we never journey so far from God
that the life giving breath of that Spirit
is beyond our reach:
even when we find ourselves in that place
where it seems impossible to believe —
the place Thomas found himself in this morning’s gospel.
Thomas,
who is stuck with going down in history as “Doubting Thomas”
for his refusal to accept the testimony of others,
for his demand of his own experience of the risen Lord.
What took him away from the community that day?
Why was he out of the room?
Had they drawn lots for someone to run out for food?
We’ll never know — but there are plenty of possibilities.
Imagine, missing one Sunday, and coming back to hear
“Guess who showed up while you were gone?”
Would you believe it?
It’s always seemed a bit unfair to me
how quick we are to make Thomas
the poster child for faithless doubt when –
truth be told — the rest of the bunch
weren’t exactly stepping up.
What strikes me about this story every single year
is that Thomas came back at all.
Whatever had taken him away from the community,
he came back.
And it was in the community that Jesus came to him,
and — without so much as a confession or absolution —
went straight to Thomas – with hands outstretched –
knowing what Thomas needed to believe and giving it to him, saying:
“Here … check it out. Is this what you need? Touch, me Thomas.”
One of Thomas’ great virtues
was that he absolutely refused
to say that he understood what he did not understand,
or that he believed what he did not believe.
There was an uncompromising honesty about him:
he would never still his doubts by pretending they did not exist.
Thomas had doubts,
but he refused to surrender to the fear
which kept the disciples shut up in that locked room.
He both ventured out
and then had the courage to return:
to face a community which had had an experience he did not share
and to be willing to insist on his own experience of God.
And so for me, Thomas becomes a symbol not of faithless doubt,
but of courage.
Courage to trust
that there are no doubts so profound that God cannot answer —
to believe that Jesus cares enough to show up a second time …
a third time … an umpteenth time …
to breathe that breath of life on Thomas – and on us …
to give us what we need not only to believe
but the courage to act on what we believe.
And it is going to take every ounce of that courage
if we’re going to be the change we want to see in the world —
if we are going to sing the redemption song
we were challenged to sing by our preachers on Easter Day —
if we are going to dismantle all that stands between
the world as God created it to be
and the world as it has become:
a world where differences are systematically weaponized into divisions;
a world where there seems to be no end to the escalating cycle of violence as we absorb the news of the tragic shooting in the Poway synagogue while still grieving the church bombings in Sri Lanka;
a world where the powerful continue to choose profit over climate care as future of this fragile Earth, our island home, hangs in the balance;
a world where the systemic oppression of voices from the margins
is as present in this morning’s news cycle
and as it was in the Gospel According to John.
And that brings me back to
Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James
and to the artwork on this morning’s service leaflet.
A very quick review reminds us
that Mary’s encounter with the Risen Lord in the garden
is the first resurrection story in John’s Gospel.
The second and third
are the ones we hear this morning:
Jesus appears to the disciples
in the upper room with and without Thomas.
The fourth and final one is the one we will hear next week —
when Jesus appears to the disciples on the lakeshore.
And yet at the conclusion of that lakeshore story, John 21:14 reads:
“This was now the third time Jesus appeared after he was raised from the dead.”
So either John couldn’t count …
or the appearance to Mary didn’t count because she was a woman.
I’ll let you do the math.
Over and over again
women who have dared to point out that our scriptural record
came to us from spiritual ancestors
who were utterly blinded by unexamined patriarchal privilege
are accused of “playing the woman card” – or worse.
Historically that is how the voices of women
have been silenced, marginalized and devalued.
It’s as ancient as the disciples who dismissed the women
who first proclaimed the resurrection
and as recent as a conversation I had with a colleague
about unexamined male privilege
that ended with the words:
“I’m not privileged. My parents were working class people.”
And of course it doesn’t stop with sexism.
People of color who name the racial inequality
that infects our nation are accused of “fomenting racial division.”
Historically that is how white privilege works –
abusing the power of that privilege
by refusing to acknowledge that it exists.
It is as old as the sin of racism
that has been part of our DNA before we even were a nation
and it is as current as the blog posts and twitter feeds
continuing to tear down those
who to dare to speak the truth that Black Lives Matter.
The reason we speak the truth Black Lives Matter
is because we know that all lives matter —
and until we become a nation that acts like all lives matter equally
the #BlackLivesMatter sign we hang on our Quad Lawn
or carry in our Palm Sunday protest
reminds us that we will swim in the water of racism
until we become the change we want to see –
the change that will make liberty and justice for all not
just a pledge we make but a reality we live.
Many years ago I attended a baptism at St. Mary’s in Palms.
After the baptism, the priest said,
said the familiar words:
“Let us welcome the newly baptized.”
but he added this:
“And how is she going to learn to be a Christian?”
he asked: holding the baby high in his arms to face the congregation, he said,
“By watching you.”
On this Second Sunday of Easter
there are plenty of people out there
who think they know enough about being a Christian
not to want to be one …
because nothing they learned about Christianity
by watching the Christians around them
has any appeal whatsoever.
And who can blame them?
When poll numbers continue to show
a solid base of support for the current resident of the White House
by members of the evangelical Christian community
and leaders like Franklin Graham
continue to make Jesus look bad one interview at a time
we have our work cut out for us.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
And it is up to us to change it.
And so my brothers, sisters and gender-fluid siblings:
Listen to Jesus
who says to us this morning what He said to Thomas
in that upper room:
See me.
Touch me.
Ask for what you need in order to believe
and I will give it to you.
And then:
Go out like Thomas did —
into the world without fear
challenging those who presume to speak for Christianity.
And when they say “we’ll take it from here”
tell them “we’ve got this.”
Tell them that their privilege has reached its expiration date;
Tell them that their time is up;
Tell them that we are the ones we have been waiting for:
Because we are the people of the Resurrection.
and our Endgame is dismantling all that stands between
the world as God created it to be
and the world as it has become.
And our super power?
Our super power is nothing less
than the indestructible power
of God’s inexhaustible love.
