As many chances as we need to become what we are to be (Sunday, April 24, 2022)

 Scripture Reading:  Acts 5:12-21a, 27-33, 40 

In Jerusalem, many signs and wonders were being performed among the people by the apostles.  All the believers met regularly in the part of the Temple called Solomon’s Porch.  No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.

Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. And because of what the apostles were doing, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.  Crowds also came in from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.

The high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy.  They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people all about this new life.”  At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people. 

[Later that morning, when the high priest sent to the jail to have Peter and the others brought in for questioning, he was told they were gone, and were back preaching in the Temple.  Immediately he sent the captain of the guard to bring them back in.]

At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles back in. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.

The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”

Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!  The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead – the one whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Leader and Saviour that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins.  We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. [After much discussion,] they had the apostles flogged, ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

Meditation 

For the followers of Jesus, it was like déjà vu all over again.  A bad dream being relived.  A sad tale being acted out once again.

Although, it also wasn’t.

A few months earlier, when Jesus was put to death, the Sanhedrin had a hand in what happened.  They were the City Council responsible to oversee the political, legal, economic and religious life of the city.  Because Rome recognized and worked with them as the local authority to keep things in order, whatever they recommended was pretty well guaranteed Roman support and action. 

So, when Jesus was arrested by the Sanhedrin and put on trial for being holy and disorderly, it made perfect sense for his followers to flee, go into hiding, pretend they didn’t know him, and try to figure out what on Earth to do now.  Except, it broke their heart and maybe even broke their spirit, to do it.

And now, here they are – as they go about acting in Jesus’ way and in Jesus’ name, arrested by the same Sanhedrin, accused of being holy and disorderly, and asked to recant, to deny, to cease and desist once again for their own well-being.

It reminds me of the movie, “Groundhog Day.”  In it, Bill Murray plays a cynical, self-centred, unhappy weatherman on his fourth annual pilgrimage from the big city of Pittsburgh to the town of Punxsutawney – the ultimate sign of how unsuccessful his career and his life have been.  With plans to get out of there as soon as his job is done, he gets stuck, though, first by a blizzard that forces him to stay overnight and then by a time warp that forces him to relive the day – Groundhog Day, over and over and over and over again, until he gets it right.

 

At first, it’s baffling.  Then frustrating and enraging as he lives the same day over and over again, and the only one in town who is.  As he gets used to it, though, he seizes on opportunities to get whatever he wants.  But then, as he spends more and more time over and over again with these same people, in the same situations, facing the same accidents and heartaches and needs and unrealized dreams day after day, he actually starts to care about them, learns to take care of them, and in the process become a real human being.  At which point – spoiler alert – the time warp ends and he is able to move on into the rest of his life as a person with a warm and loving heart, happily committed to loving and caring for the people he once despised and looked down on.

They say that life will teach us what we need to know, and will give us chances – always and as many and as often as we need, to grow into what we are meant to be.

That’s one thing the disciples experienced in their openness to the resurrection of Jesus.  God’s raising of Jesus from the dead is sometimes called the great overturning. 

It’s an overturning of the death itself.  The one who was put to death and buried by the world, is raised up to life by God.  Death, often assumed to be the final word, is shown to be not.  God and God’s word is not only the first word, but also the last. 

It's an overturning of the world’s verdict about Jesus.  The world ultimately said – and still often says, “No” to Jesus’ way.  That it’s not practical.  Not sustainable.  Not reasonable to follow.  God, in raising Jesus, says it’s ultimately the only way to follow and put into practice for the world’s good. 

It's also an overturning of the expectations Jesus’ followers have about how God’s kingdom comes to be on Earth.  All the way along, the followers of Jesus harbour unrefined notions and dark dreams of somehow beating the world at its own game.  Of out-powering the powers, out-killing the killers, out-suppressing the oppressors, out-hating the haters.  According to Acts 1, right up until the day of Jesus’ ascension they were asking, “Now, Jesus?  Now will the kingdom come in power?”

But the answer that comes, and that his followers step by step find themselves living out is that the way he lived and showed in the flesh among them – the way of love, of healing and open invitation, of vulnerability, forgiveness and reconciliation – is the way.  Always and only and forever the way of God’s kingdom on Earth, never to be superceded or replaced by another, more worldly and self-serving way.

Which is why his followers find themselves doing and living as he did when he was with them in the flesh – being a channel of healing for others around them who are broken, inviting people of all kinds to the table and gathering them into community, worshiping the God who is Lord and Lover of all – even of their enemies, and taking care of one another and whoever their neighbour is revealed to be.

Which is also why within just a few weeks or months his followers find themselves in the same place as Jesus was – arrested by the Sanhedrin, accused of being holy and disorderly.  Except this time, instead of denying, scattering, ceasing and desisting, they do as Jesus did. 

They let go of self-saving fear.  They also let go self-serving hatred of their enemies, of any vengeful desire for their enemies’ destruction.  As Jesus did and always does, they simply state what they know to be true and invite their judges to decide for themselves, what they will do.  This time ‘round, in the power of the resurrection, they get it right.

And I wonder if at that point, they feel like Bill Murray does at the end of “Groundhog Day”?  That the time warp is ended, and now that they have learned at last to be real followers of Jesus, real children of God, real people of the kingdom of love, the rest of their life can begin?  And they can now start to live it out what they have learned and have become, each and every new day rising to the challenges and opportunities life always gives us.

On one hand, that may sound tiring -- having to do it right, over and over again in every new day, every new situation, every new circumstance.  I think sometimes we want faith in God to be like a test at school we can study for, pass and then put behind us so we can get on with other stuff that we want to do and want to accomplish in life.

But, the day by new day rising in the way of Jesus is the only way.

For one reason, because each of us, like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day’ and like the first followers of Jesus in the New Testament, has what’s called our own “besetting sin”– our own personal, distinctive and persistent way of not living the way of Jesus, of serving ourselves instead, of not fully loving others, of avoiding real community.  I have my ways; you have yours.  We each have our own habitual ways of less-than-holy being.  And they never really go away, do they?

For another reason, the world also never really grows fully and finally into what God intends.  There is always some evil, some oppression, some cruelty, some blindness, some hatred, some new way of being a place of death and sorrow for so many rather than life and well-being for all.

And is there anything better than the joy, the sense of fullness, the sense of rightness with God and the world and ourselves, each and every time we “get it right”?  Each and every time we grow and take a step beyond our little selves, and find ourselves humbly living God’s way of love and Jesus’ way of healing and empowering community with others?

They say that life gives us chances – always and as many and as often as we need, to grow into what we are to be, and to help at least our little part of the world to be what God intends it to become, over and over again, world without end.  Thanks be to God – the God of Easter’s promise of rising and rising and rising again to the occasion.   

 

Amen.

 

New dawn comes only after the night (Easter sermon, Sunday April 17)

The Lord's Prayer focus for Easter Sunday:

"Forever and ever.  Amen."

Scripture Reading:  Luke 24:1-12 (Good News)

Very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, carrying the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, so they went in; but they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. They stood there puzzled about this, when suddenly two men in bright shining clothes stood by them. Full of fear, the women bowed down to the ground, as the men said to them, “Why are you looking among the dead for one who is alive? He is not here; he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and three days later rise to life.’”

Then the women remembered his words, returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven disciples and all the rest. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; they and the other women with them told these things to the apostles. But the apostles thought that what the women said was nonsense, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; he bent down and saw the grave cloths but nothing else. Then he went back home amazed at what had happened.

Meditation 

Easter is a wonder.  Resurrection, an ever-present mystery.  It’s something more to be experienced, embraced and shared in, than just to be believed and taught and turned into doctrine.

So, maybe let’s start with a children’s story – or at least something like it.  An object lesson.

Do you remember this Lenten cross with its six purple candles (all extinguished), and what we used it for the last six weeks? 

It was our guide to help light our way into the Lord’s Prayer, line by line, step by step, lighting it a candle at a time – one each for a different part of the Prayer all through Lent.  We did it because that prayer, when we pray it with attention and commitment, helps enlighten our lives in the pattern of Jesus’ life and the life of God’s kingdom, of God’s people alive in the world.

Candle one was, what?  “Our Father who art in heaven” or as the ancient Aramaic suggests, “Our Father-Mother, Source together of all life, who breathes our life into this world.” (Relight candle.)

Candle two?  “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.”  Focus your light and your love in us and through us, that your name and your way may be known in the world.  (Relight candle.)

Candle three?  “Give us this day our daily bread.”  Give us what we need to share for the good of all.  (Relight candle.)

Candle four?  “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  What a good life this is – the kind of life the world really needs.  (Relight candle.)

Candle five?  “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  How good is that, to do good, not evil; and to do it in God’s way, not in some way that undoes the good that’s intended.  (Relight candle.)

And candle six: “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.”  The rule of thine, not of mine, is the way in which the world comes to reveal the good will of God for the well-being of all.  (Relight candle.)

That’s the light that Jesus was.  The light he brought into the world, to enlighten us. Until on Good Friday he was put to death on the cross, and in remembrance of that we snuffed out and extinguished the candles one by one as well.  Until all was dark again – the light of Christ and of Christ’s way once again gone from the world.

And it surely seemed to his disciples on the day of his death, that the light was put out too soon.  With his execution and his death on the cross, the world was once again plunged into darkness.  Evil once again asserted its power.

Except … as we have prayed the prayer today, as a people of God and disciples of Jesus, look what’s happened.  It’s all lit again; the light has returned.  We’ve come to the truth of the last thing this prayer asks for – the line that says, “forever and ever, Amen.”

And that’s what the disciples found, beginning with the women who came to the tomb that first Easter morning.  For one thing, the tomb was not dark any more, but illumined by two young men in dazzlingly white garments.  For another thing, the body of Jesus was not there, because he was not dead, but alive again.  Alive still.  Alive once more.  Alive in a new way.  We hardly know what words to use. 

What we know is that the prayer – the life and the way of Jesus, does not end.  It is persistent.  It keeps coming back.  Like a weed, the evil powers of the world cannot root it out.  It’s breathed by God over and over and over again, each day and each year and each age into the life of all the Earth.  The Word is constantly and forever spoken.  It is constantly and forever enfleshed.  As the prayer says at the start, “O Father-Mother, Source together of all life, who breathes and breathes and breathes again your life into this world in us.”

In the world as it is, this means everything.  It’s what gives us hope, and the ability to face even the worst that the present moment brings.

I received recently a poem written in response to the collective suffering of the people of Ukraine.  The poem is written by Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who leads the Centre for Contemplation and Action in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He reflects on what’s happening there through the lens of crucifixion and resurrection, which he sees not as separate realities, but as two inter-twined parts of one holy way.

How can we not feel shock or rage at what is happening
to the people of Ukraine—
As we watch their suffering unfold in real time
from an unfair distance?
Who of us does not feel inept or powerless
before such manifest evil?  In this, at least, we are united.
Our partisan divisions now appear small and trivial.

Remember what we teach: both evil and goodness are,
first of all, social phenomena.
The Body of Christ is crucified and resurrected
at the same time.  May we stand faithfully
Inside both these mysteries (in contemplation).

In loving solidarity, we each bear what is ours to carry,
the unjust weight of crucifixion,
in expectant hope for God’s transformation.
May we be led to do what we can on any level (of action)
to create [or, to share in] resurrection!

The people of Ukraine have much to teach the world.

What I take from this is that the hope of resurrection, the promise of the persistence of what is of God and of God’s Spirit in a people – in this case the people of Ukraine, will not end, but will persist even underground and under the radar, will be held by God and will flare forth and rise up again, beyond even its apparent destruction, beyond even the evil of genocide, and that this hope, this promise and this faith is what calls us as fellow people of God to be in solidarity with them, as God is.

And thinking of other times and situations … is this -- the conjoined mystery of crucifixion and resurrection in the life of the world, what sustained Nelson Mandela through his years of imprisonment?  Living day by day and year by year not in increasing bitterness and anger towards his oppressors, but towards the hope not only of freedom for himself and his people, but of reconciliation and new life together for both black and white?  The experience of apartheid and imprisonment, an experience and sign of crucifixion; the hope and experience of reconciliation, an experience and sign of qualitatively new, resurrected life?

In our own time and country, is this what we see in the persistence and refinement of life and energy among the First Nations of Canada?  After five hundred years of diminishment, devaluation, discrimination, death and burial, indigenous people now emerging in so many ways with new dignity, power and identity as one of God’s peoples in this land?  Especially after the crucifixion trauma that many suffered in the residential schools, the unearthing of bodies giving rise to resurrection energy not for revenge and further violence, but for transformative truth-telling and reconciliation?

And are we as white settler society also being called to this crucifixion/resurrection mystery, in the call to embrace the dying and the death of our illusions and assumptions about ourselves, our history, our moral high ground, and the absolute rightness of our structures of authority?  To be opened to something new, more honest and more truly holy on the other side of our dying?

On a different scale, and in a different setting, is this also what the church is being called to as we come out of the pandemic and into new ways of living and carrying out God’s mission.  Over the past few years we have suffered the loss of some of our members, and have also been pushed to face the passing of some of the old ways of doing things and old assumptions about our place in the community and how we live it out.  In the wake of these losses, new things and new people and new ways have emerged.  And the question comes to us, as it did to the women who were first at the tomb: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”  It’s an important question as we begin to think about life returning to some kind of “normal.”  Is it return to the “old normal” that we seek, or resurrection to a “new normal” that we desire?

And is this not the question we hear and the faith and hope we are called to, on a deeply personal level each time we stand at, and then walk away from the graveside of a loved one?  Believing in, looking for, and trusting in the promise and the gift of new life beyond the dying, both for the other on the other side of the veil, and for ourselves, still on this side of it?

Is not this – all of this and more, our Easter faith – that as we let go of what must pass, what is no longer good or possible or sustainable, and what is taken away or lost, there is the promise of new life?  Easter is a promise of the persistence and new-liveliness of God, of God’s Word and of God’s Spirit for us, in us and through us, in always new, always needed ways. 

Not just in the past.  Not just in the future.  Even more, especially, and – when you think about it, maybe always only, right now. 

As we are taught to say, "Forever and ever.  Amen."