THOUGHTS: "Donald Trump's Easter?"

Lenten Musings
March 27, 2020
DGJ

There's Donald Trump's version of Easter...and then there's the version that shakes the church to its very core.  There's Donald Trump's vision of resurrection and hope...and then there's the vision of the first witnesses...an empty tomb, a strange question, a curious invitation.  

Imagine.  Donald Trump would have us believe that Easter is a quintessentially American holiday, a capitalist celebration of market-driven growth, fanatical consumerism and big-bellied profiteers.  The Gospel would have us investigate an empty tomb, grieve the madness of violence and empire, and risk a new journey into simplicity, community and the commonwealth of God. 

There's a difference here, my friends.  It's dynamic and important, and it drives the church to ministry in a different key.  Easter's about a revolution from the ground up, disciples invested in jubilee ethics, an insurrection of hope and love.  Easter's about communities of compassion seeking the common good.  Hospitals that bring together healers and administrators, researchers and communicators.  Schools that weave into whole cloth: ethics and mysticism, science and literature.  Governments that respond to public movements, that invest in leadership and expertise and wisdom.  Institutions that matter!

Trump's faith is all about the tired old notion of trickle-down economics and ravishing wealth.  Trump's faith is all about family lineage and staying out of jail.  Trump's Easter mocks science, and mocks diversity, and mocks any spirituality but his own.  And institutions?  Forget about them.  There's a difference here, my friends.

Imagine those ancient witnesses--hearts broken, bodies worn, hope displaced--standing before his tomb and looking inside.  Imagine their grief, their unimaginable fear, their rage.  

"He is not here."

We must step into the empty spaces, into the tombs created by empires and viruses, into the darkened hopelessness of violence and poverty.  We must lean into conversations that offer no answers, no dogmatics, no horrid certainties.  We must meet one another in Jesus' tomb.

Only there, in our exasperation, in our mourning, in our fears for the planet we love--only there might we hear a voice from beyond, a voice breaking through, a voice able to meet our pain with love.  Only there, in his tomb, might we hear an angel of shalom, a word of grace, a prophetic voice: speaking of Galilee and Washington Heights, Roxbury and Rochester, calling us back to soup kitchens and community centers, inviting us to solidarity on the borders of our many communities and souls.

"He is not here."

Not in Donald Trump's Easter, anyway.  But in someplace entirely new.