Sunday, March 27, 2016
1.
If I’m honest this
morning, if I’m completely honest, I have to say that I want to believe. I want to believe that Jesus rose from the
dead, that he slipped from an empty tomb and walked the busy streets
again. I want to believe in the mystery
of his rising and the linen cloths left for some other purpose. But sometimes, sometimes I’m not so
sure. Maybe it’s this way for you
too. But in my life, in my heart, in my
soul, doubt dances with belief most of the time. The two of them, inseparable. That’s what faith feels like, most of the
time. Doubt dancing with belief. Yeah, I smell the lilies and the blossoms
this morning, and the sweet wonder of springtime. It’s unmistakable. But I keep thinking about Brussels Tuesday
morning and Ankara two weeks back, and the cruelty we humans inflict on one
another. I want to believe; but
sometimes I’m not so sure. Most of the
tombs I see these days are pretty well sealed up.
And this morning I’m
imagining the first churches in the first years after Jesus died, meeting in
ramshackle homes and hollowed out caves.
All kinds of craziness and violence in the world around them. And I’m imagining that they too experienced a
strange and bewildering brew of doubt and belief, of grief and wonder. Their hearts broke and broke again as they
grieved Jesus’ death, his absence. And
yet the stories they told, the teachings he left behind, their memories of his
love, his courage, his mercy—these things warmed their hearts. Profoundly.
And they huddled together in their caves, in their little homes, and
these first Christians broke bread in his name. And they wept in their grief,
and they wept in their gratitude, and sometimes it was hard to tell the
gratitude from the grief. So many, many
tears.
And in the long, storied
history of their faith, in the long, storied history of their Jewish faith,
this had always been so. Belief and
doubt, grief and wonder, lost in the wilderness and heading for a promised land. God gave them no guarantees, but insisted on their
trust. Abraham and Sarah, and Hagar and
Ishmael, and Moses and Miriam, and Job and Jeremiah. For all of them, and for the disciples of
Jesus too, faith was a practice, a kind of vulnerability and openness. To love life, to love the world, to love God
meant all kinds of grief, inevitable grief, and wild waves of gratitude too. Such is the bewildering brew of doubt and
belief.
So if that’s where you
are, if that’s the brew you’re drinking this morning, welcome to the
crowd. Welcome to the church. Where faith means vulnerability, and open
hearts sometimes break. Where we want to
believe that love overcomes death. And
where sometimes it really does.
2.
So here’s how church
works, sometimes.
I’ve been leading one
particular bible study, a midweek group, just about every week for fourteen
years. And one day, a couple of weeks
ago, we were reading our way through some of the stories around Jesus’ last
days in Jerusalem. And we were talking
about his loneliness, and our loneliness, and how you bear up when life bears
down so hard. And right from the
beginning, there was a kind of resonance in the room. The stories were making sense. And in some very powerful and even painful
ways.
You know these folks, so I
don’t have to be coy. Our good friend
Curtis, who is of course black, told us about a difficult encounter he’d had somewhere
else in town, an interaction in which a white man had popped off and dismissed
him in an overtly bigoted way. And with
deep integrity and real vulnerability, Curtis talked about being black in a
white world, about being black in a white church, about worrying about fitting
in in just about every situation. And then
he talked about the toll that takes on a man’s soul, a man’s confidence, a
man’s sense of self.
And in the room, the
moment was raw. You know how moments can
be raw? The moment was raw and the
spirit was real, almost palpable. And
there were tears in Curtis’ eyes. This
was his life he was talking about. And there’s
something holy about a man and his story.
About a man and his pain. And he
needed something from us that day.
And next to him, on the
couch in the library, was our good friend Steve. Big, sweet Steve. And Steve is, of course, a gay man; and this
moment, this raw moment, released in him a willingness, even an eagerness to
share his own hurt, his own story. And
he talked about growing up in a family that didn’t understand him, growing up
in a church that was hostile and homophobic, navigating a school system that
didn’t try to help. Steve’s in his
sixties now, but the pain is still fresh.
With tears in his eyes, he talked about experiencing life as an
outsider, even a castoff, a gay man in a straight world. And the toll that takes on a man.
Now I realize how intimate
this is, and how personal it is for two men we all know and love. But I’m sharing it with you because it was church,
and it was risky for them, and it was a sacred experience for all of us. For the black man saw that the gay man
understood. He felt it. Curtis saw in Steve’s eyes that Steve felt
something like the same pain. Something
like it. And Curtis reached across to take
big Steve’s hand. And you know how
Curtis can be. “You’re getting me,” he
said, with a smile and a tear. “You’re
really getting me now.” And they both
cried. And we all cried. And sometimes that’s what church is like.
So I really don’t know
much about empty tombs and angels in dazzling clothes. I’ve met some pretty fantastic people in my
time, maybe even some angels: but never angels in dazzling clothes, hanging out
in empty tombs. And I really don’t know
how that would work for a first century rabbi to get raised up from the grave
and sent out into the world again. Maybe. I love the story.
And it happens here a
lot. Just look around. It happens here a lot.
Theologian James Carroll
suggests that the first inkling of the resurrection of Jesus was probably felt,
probably experienced in those homes where the first Christians gathered after
his death. As they grieved
together. As they wept together. As they shared a plate of food cooked up on a
fire and told their favorite Jesus stories: Jesus feeding thousands in the
woods with just a couple of stinky fish, Jesus partying all night long with
ruffians and renegades, and Jesus washing Peter’s feet as Peter trembled and
the others chuckled.
James Carroll suggests
that it was there—in their grieving and in their stories—that the Christians
began to experience something beyond expectation, something beyond their
imagining. And it was Jesus. Not just the idea of Jesus. Not just some vague appreciation of
Jesus. But it was Jesus. His presence in their tears. His presence in their laughter. His body as their body. And his purpose as their purpose. And I want to tell you, that’s what I
experienced with Curtis and Steve two weeks ago. Not just the idea of Jesus. But Jesus himself. His body.
His purpose. His presence. “Glory, glory, hallelujah, when I lay my
burden down.”
4.
One of my heroes, going
back a long ways, is the old farmer and civil rights warrior Clarence Jordan. He was a Baptist in the South and a scholar
of New Testament Greek and he founded Koinonia Farm as an integrated community in
the early 1940s. Clarence insisted that
the church could be, that the church had to be a beloved community on earth as
in heaven. And he liked to say that:
“The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the
full hearts of his transformed disciples.
The crowning evidence that he lives,” Clarence’d say, “is not a vacant
grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship; not a rolled-away stone, but a
carried-away church.” Catch that last
part again: “The crowning evidence that Jesus lives is not a vacant grave, but
a spirit-filled fellowship; not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.”
See where this is going? (Take a peek at the program: we'll be dancing soon.) You can look around this morning,
friends, and you can see the faces of a 'carried-away church.' A carried-away church! Look around. Curtis and Steve discovering a connection, a
bond, and overcoming despair; young Ella about to be baptized, and finding
mentors for her journey into faith and adolescence; renegade Roman Catholics
and agnostic Christians, and all kinds of people who want to change the
world. These are the faces of a
spirit-filled fellowship. This is the
experience of a 'carried-away church.' We are alive! And we'll be dancing soon.
So I want you to revel in the
spirit that calls us, all of us, into communion; and weaves us (all of us) into community;
and names us (all of us) Peace United Church. Of
Christ. I want you to appreciate the
great feast many are fixing for homeless guests tonight in our own upper room. And I want you to appreciate the important
conference others are preparing later next month, advancing the cause of peace
in the Middle East. And I want you to
know there’s a new group in the works preparing to take our ministry into the watershed
holy lands of our Central Coast, blessing the earth and loving the earth as
God’s own flesh and blood. How great is
that? Protecting watersheds as holy vocation! We are alive!
We are not a mighty
army. We are not a mega church. And we don’t want to be a mighty army. And we don’t want to be a mega church. But my friends, Jesus lives in us. Jesus is risen in us. Not just the idea of Jesus. Not just some vague appreciation of
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus lives in us. You’re looking at him. We are indeed a spirit-filled
fellowship. We are indeed a carried-away
church. And Jesus indeed is risen. In us.
So take the shackles off your
feet this fine Easter Sunday. Let your
doubt dance with belief. Let your grief
mingle with gratitude. Let the crazy
world take you for a crazy ride. Jesus
is risen in us. Jesus lives in us. So take the shackles off your feet.
And let’s dance!
(AND WE DID...AS THE BAND PLAYED...SHACKLES!)
(AND WE DID...AS THE BAND PLAYED...SHACKLES!)
