“The time for pain is over and the time for truth has come. What is your truth that must be told? Go and tell!”
Sermon by Mike Kinman at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018.
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“They were very frightened, but the youth reassured them. ‘Do not be amazed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the one who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. Now go and tell.’”
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Maya Angelou writes: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”
What is yours?
What is the word that God has implanted in your heart?
What is your truth that must be told that you have kept silent far too long?
What is the story that leaving your lips will set you free?
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.
Go and tell.
Go and tell.
Go and tell.
Good Friday ends in silence.
It is finished.
The final exhale.
Then silence.
Silence is the sound of death.
Silence leads to death.
Silence follows death.
And then, on this morning, the silence is shattered.
This morning, God shatters the silence, calls you by name and says “I love you.”
This morning, God shatters the silence, calls you by name and says “I delight in you.”
This morning, God shatters the silence, calls you by name and says, “You make me so proud!”
This morning, God calls you by name and says “You are beautiful and you are powerful and you are worthy and your very existence demands that you be treated with dignity, your very existence demands that whatever has happened to you in your life deserves to be heard, whatever injustices you have suffered demand to be rectified, whatever wounds you have received demand to be healed.”
This morning, God calls each of us by name and says “I am planting a truth in your heart. A truth of love. A truth of justice. A truth of compassion. A truth of life.
This morning, God shatters the silence, calls out to each of us and all of us and says, “You have a word. You have a truth. You have a story.
Go.
And.
Tell.
This morning, faithful women. Women who had been used and abused. Women who had been told since birth that they were less than, that they were nothing more than the property of men. Women who had silently borne so much of the emotional labor of the Jesus movement and were now bearing the physical labor of caring for his body when all the men had fled in fear. This morning, these faithful women come to the tomb and they are the first witnesses of the resurrection. They are given the first command to preach the good news of the risen Christ. They are given the liberating invitation at last to go and tell…
And what happens?
They say nothing to anyone because they are so afraid.
Women with life-changing, empire-convicting, liberating truths to tell saying nothing to anyone because they are so afraid.
Sound familiar?
The youth at the tomb says “Go and tell!” Be set free! Be silenced no more! But it’s not that easy. Because the women have been told their whole lives that they had better be quiet or else.
The truth of a Risen Christ is the truth that we are loved and beautiful and powerful and worthy. And yet…
We learn not to speak our truth.
We learn to keep it inside.
We learn “there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you” and we bear that pain all the same.
We have been told that if we speak the truth of love, the truth of life, the truth of the Risen Christ there will be consequences. Damn right there will be. That’s what Good Friday is about. That’s what the cross is about. Those in power are always saying “You better not tell your story. You better not stand up for love. You better not stand up for yourself or one another. You better not stand up for human dignity or look what will happen to you.”
You will be humiliated. You will be isolated. You will never work in this town, in this industry, in this church again.
You will die slowly, painfully and alone.
The fear is real. But, sisters, brothers and gender nonconforming siblings, Good Friday is over, a new day is dawning and the silence is about to be shattered.
Make no mistake, the powers that would silence still have death on their side, but this morning we stand and sing Alleluia because we have life on ours.
This morning we stand and sing Alleluia, this morning we go and tell because we know that, in the words of Audre Lorde,
“When we speak we are afraid
Our words will not be heard
Nor welcomed
But when we are silent
We are still afraid
So it is better to speak
Remembering
We were never meant to survive.”
This morning we stand and sing Alleluia because the resurrected Christ tells us as real as death is, it has no power over us. Jesus doesn’t tell us “don’t worry, that which you fear won’t happen to you,” but rather “that which you fear may very well happen to you, only it is nothing to fear.”
We don’t have to fear for our lives because, like Jesus, we were never meant to survive. Because Easter means death fear will never get the final word
This morning we stand together and look that fear full in the face. We feel the word of God on our heart, the word of love, the word of hope, the word of joy, the word of dignity, the word of justice, the word of life.
This morning, we feel our truth that must be told and that we have kept silent far too long.
This morning, we feel the story that leaving our lips will set us free.
This morning we feel all those things and we stand together and we look the fear full in the face, we look the threat of humiliation, isolation, even the fear of death full in the face and together with one voice we say:
Bring.
It.
On.
Go and tell.
Go and tell.
Go and tell.
#MeToo
Go and tell
#Enough
Go and tell
#BlackLivesMatter
Go and tell
Si se Puede
Vayan y cuentenlo
What is the word that God has implanted in your heart?
What is your truth that must be told that you have kept silent far too long?
What is the story that leaving your lips will set you free?
Go and tell.
Go and tell.
Go and tell.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. And this morning, Jesus is telling us the time for pain is over and the time for truth has come.
Go and tell!
This is how movements rise.
This is how Empires fall.
Not with a sword or a gun but with a voice.
Not with hate but with love.
Assata Shakur said “One of the things that always happened to me after long periods of solitary confinement is I would forget how to talk.”
God’s beloved children have been isolated and silenced too long. Good Friday is over. Easter is here.
Go and tell.
Speak your truth even if nobody is listening.
Lift up your sign even if nobody is watching.
Stand in the streets – and in the courtrooms — and in the classrooms – and in the boardrooms and in the bedrooms.
Go and tell.
The very act of truth-telling is an act of liberation. Even if nobody pays us heed it is saying that we will no longer be held captive by fear. That the powers of death and hell and Empire will never have a hold on us again.
Go and tell the truth of life that is greater than death.
Go and tell the truth of love that is greater than fear.
It is the day of resurrection. And we are its witnesses.
What is the word that God has implanted in your heart?
What is your truth that must be told that you have kept silent far too long?
What is the story that leaving your lips will set you free?
It is the day of resurrection. And we are its witnesses.
We will no longer keep silent.
We will no longer live in fear.
Go and tell.
Go and tell.
Go and tell.
Alleluia. Amen.
