John 20:1-18 "Creasters"

         Winter here in Maine is that season of snow, sleet, ice, freezing rain, and cold punctuated just enough by occasional tantalizingly warm temperatures that when the snow, sleet, ice, freezing rain, and most of all the cold inevitably returns, it seems more bone-chilling than ever.  Winter here in Maine is also that season bookended by the two most highly attended celebrations in the church year – Christmas and Easter.  In fact, that bookend effect is the basis for the word “chreasters”, a term reserved for those folks who attend worship only on those festival holidays. 

         But Christmas and Easter are so different.  It is really quite amazing that the two holidays would draw a “chreaster” crowd. Presbyterian theologian Frederick Buechner describes the former (Christmas) as having a colorful cast of characters in addition to the three principals (Mary, Joseph, and the baby).  We find rustic shepherds, mystical magi, a heavenly choir, a kind-hearted innkeeper, a mysterious star.  Even the animals have carved out their special role in the story. 

        We know every detail of the narrative of Jesus’ birth like the back of our hand – and its Hallmark-created sweetness cries out for old familiar carols to be sung from November on and children’s pageants to be performed and candles to lighten our living rooms and brighten our days and Christmas letters and cards to be sent in order to reconnect us to our former lives.  Christmas is a big production. 

         But Easter?  Well, Hallmark has been hands off when it comes to the Biblical basis of the story.  But then, come to think of it, the Bible story itself is short on details.  The Gospels are not very clear at all about what happened.  Whatever went on, it was all in the dark in the pre-dawn hours.  It was carried out in silence – or, at best, in whispers.

         The stone had been rolled aside.  The writers seem to agree on that as they do on Mary Magdalene being among the first to arrive at the tomb.  But only Matthew speaks of an earthquake after the sun came up.  The Gospel writers cannot even agree on who greeted the first responders or what exactly was said.  Was it one white-clad figure or two?  Were he, she, or they in the tomb or sitting outside? And what about Jesus himself?  Did he hang around in the garden or meet up with his friends on the road or slip into an upper room in Jerusalem?  What did he say?  What did he do?  So many questions are left unanswered, and contradictions abound – leaving us with more confusion than our little rational minds can stand.

         Compared to Christmas, Easter is a pretty minor production with a lot of major holes. I mean - try setting a children’s pageant in a graveyard and coming up with a costume for a rock – let alone someone excited to take that part.

         Besides, there are simply no songs to sing for weeks on end or candles blazing in our windows or Easter letters sent in order to reconnect us to our former lives. Not that we have not tried to beef up the day a bit with sales on fashionable dresses for Easter brunch at Target and Old Navy, Easter egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, and marshmallow chickens. 

         But it has really been all for not.  As Buechner observes, “It's not really even much of a story when you come right down to it, and that is of course the power of it. It doesn't have the ring of great drama. It has the ring of truth.  If the Gospel writers had wanted to tell it in a way to convince the world that Jesus indeed rose from the dead, they would presumably have done it with all the skill and fanfare they could muster. Here there is no skill, no fanfare. They seem to be telling it simply the way it was. The narrative is as fragmented, shadowy, incomplete as life itself. When it comes to just what happened, there can be no certainty. That something unimaginable happened, there can be no doubt.”

         In the Gospel writer of John’s account, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb alone.  Can you picture it?  Mary walking among the dead in a cemetery in the dark? 

         Of course, it makes perfect sense that it was in the dark.  After all, her whole world was in the dark – and, as far as she was concerned, probably always would be going forward.  You see, she had been there – looking on – and had seen Jesus give up his life with a groan that bespoke the strange combination of despair and relief that accompanied his pain-filled and shameful passing. 

         She had watched, stunned, as his body was taken down from the cross and carried to the tomb. She had heard the stone being heaved in front of it and the grunts of the men doing the heaving, thereby sealing off the corpse from the all the malice and resentment and vitriol that had finally claimed it. 

         And now – in the dark – Mary saw that the rock had been rolled away.  One would have thought that she might have yelled, “He is risen!”  After all, that is what Jesus said would happen. 

         However, she did not even peek into the tomb.  She thought she knew what had occurred.  Since the tomb was clearly empty, the body must have been stolen.  It had been her greatest fear all along, and so she ran to tell Peter who engaged in a footrace with another disciple:  Helter skelter to the garden they ran. 

         The other disciple got there first and saw the grave clothes neatly folded in the corner.  The Gospel writer tells us that he believed – though we are left to wonder just what he believed.        Perhaps he believed that Mary was right.  Yup: this tomb is empty.  After all, he did not pump his arms in jubilation and declare, “He is risen indeed.”  He and Peter simply scratched their heads and went back home for breakfast and a second cup of coffee.

        Mary, however, hung around weeping.  And it was through her tears that she saw first the angels who could not figure out why she was carrying on so – and then the gardener.  At least, she thought it was the gardener.  It sure looked like the gardener. 

         But then he called her name – and it was at precisely that moment that she understood that she was not looking into the eyes of the underpaid illegal immigrant groundskeeper.  She was looking into the eyes of Jesus himself.  He was risen – but not like she ever dreamed he would be risen.  But, yes, he was risen.  He was risen indeed.  And so Mary hightailed it off to tell the others.  “I have seen the Lord.”

         That is the story you came here to listen to this morning.  But I do not know why you really came to church.  I do not know if it is out of habit – just what you do on any Sunday morning.  Or perhaps you are doing the “creaster” thing and marking the end of a long and arduous winter. 

         However, I do know that if you came here to buffer your chances of living forever or to figure out once and for all what happened that first Easter morning, well, you will not find what you are looking for in this church. You see, here we travel together – and invite all of you to travel with us - into the mystery of Easter, reflecting all the while on what Jesus taught, which was way more about this life than the next.  And as for providing you with rational answers, well, I can tell the story no better than the writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

         However, I do know that the empty tomb has – almost miraculously - retained its power and meaning - and that power and meaning has tumbled down through the ages for some 2000 plus years – all the way to us – and for one reason more important, I think, than all the others.  The story still keeps coming to us and is not forgotten and lost in the mists of time because of the life that preceded it.  If Jesus was not who he was and did not teach what he taught, the empty tomb would have been old news in a very short while.  A twitter feed lost in cyperspace.

         As UCC pastor Chris Moore wrote, “It is because of Jesus’ life that the resurrection has meaning. Jesus’ life…sets before us ethics on justice and inclusion, wisdom teachings about our interconnectedness and the example of living with passion and hope. It is (Jesus’ life) that invites us, some 20 centuries later, to imagine a different world than even the one we live in, with not only the assertion that God is love, but the trust that God is love…a trust so profoundly modeled for us by Jesus that he bet his life on it.”

         You see, Jesus embodied – incarnated - everything that God dreamed we as humans could be.  And God reaffirmed that dream on Easter with what has become its anchor image: the empty tomb. And so we who are Christians say confidently that on that day millennia ago, life overcame death.  We say that the empty tomb is proof that love lives.  We say, as theologian Marcus Borg noted, that on Easter, God said no to the powers of the world - from radical isolationism to rampant consumerism – and God said yes to the power of love, connectedness, inclusion, and ministering to the least of these. 

         As Presbyterian pastor Mary Jane Cornell wrote, “Back then, Jesus had dared (his followers) to imagine a different world, a world where masters wash servants' feet; and the winner is the one who comes in last, a world where the myth of scarcity was proven false by a 5,000-plate banquet served from the contents of a little boy's lunchbox with more leftovers than the Tupperware could contain.  A world where, instead of survival of the fittest, wolves and lambs were sitting side-by-side at the table, and homelessness was unheard of.”  The image of the empty tomb reminds us of the power of love. That is the message of resurrection.

         There was once a proper United Church of Christ woman who had a parrot for a pet.  The parrot’s name was Polly.  She was a really nice parrot – prim and pretty.  However, she had one problem, and it was a bad habit.  Whenever she met someone, she would screech, “Whoopie, Charlie, I’m a good time girl.”

         Polly kept embarrassing her owner until one day – you guessed it – the pastor came to call.  As soon as he walked in, that parrot shouted, “Whoopie, Charlie, I’m a good time girl.”  Needless to say, the pastor was rather shocked, and the woman was mortified. 

         I’m so sorry,” the owner said. 

         “I think I can help you,” the pastor replied.  “There’s an evangelical pastor down the road who keeps two parrots.  They are very pious and upstanding.  All they do all day is pray.”

         And so misbehaving Polly went to live with the two proper parrots that, sure enough, were praying when she arrived. As you would expect, Polly immediately screeched, “Whoopie, Charlie, I’m a good time girl.” 

         The two parrots stirred, and one, with its wing, nudged the other energetically.  “Hey, Luke, wake up.  We finally got what we’ve been praying for.”

         I do not know what your Easter prayers will be, but mine for you are that, like Mary, you will see that the tomb is empty and that there is no point in looking for the living among the dead. I pray that, like Mary, you will look into the eyes of the gardener, the Syrian refugee, the homeless, the lost, the lonely, the least of these. 

         And I pray that you will hear them whisper your name, for they are desperately whispering the names of all of us.  And I pray that you will turn to really look at them – look beyond the dirt under their fingernails, beyond their national origin and religious heritage, beyond the cardboard sign they hold up on the street corner – and see that who is really there is the Risen Christ.  If you do that, I am confident that you will finally understand that you will not find Jesus sitting in the front pew of the tombs that are so many of our churches today.

         I pray that you will understand more deeply– whether you are a “creaster” or a regular - that life has never been the same because of what happened in that cemetery and later in that garden. 

         I pray that you will trust that love does win and so will dare to work for justice and peace and fullness of life for everyone.  I pray that you will even see glimpses of that victory now and then, glimpses that will give you the great high hope you need to keep envisioning God’s future and the strength and courage it will take to keep walking toward it. But most of all, I pray that, like Mary Magdalene, you will never stop searching until you have found his face (Buechner) – over and over again. 

           

Isaiah 58:6-12 "Jesus Left the Building...."

         The Israelites remembered the good old days – back when religion was religion, no bones about it.  The temple in Jerusalem was standing room only. No one ever missed a service. The enormous congregation sang psalms with impassioned yet reverent gusto – old ones, new ones, all kinds of psalms. They spoke heartfelt prayers and gave generous offerings – not just leftover change tossed in the plate but tithe upon tithe.  The fires never went out, and the air was infused with the fragrance of roasting sacrificial lambs and doves.  Synagogues all over the nation were building educational wings to house their burgeoning children’s programs. Youth groups were bursting at the seams.

         But the religious heyday did not last forever. Nebuchadnezzar, flanked by his Babylonian empirical military complex, conquered the tiny but strategically significant nation of the Israelites.  And in an immense show of imperial authority, he flattened the Temple in Jerusalem and exiled the brightest and the best to one of his backwater provinces. 

         No wonder worship attendance declined precipitously.  For those left behind, with the temple now a pile of rubble, where were they to worship Yahweh/God?  

         And what about those struggling to make a life for themselves in exile?  They mostly sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept, remembering Zion and the way life used to be.  How, oh how, they wondered could they ever sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land, in a new place, under strange and fearful circumstances?

         However, as luck would have it – or perhaps as Yahweh/God had ordained - the Israelites were allowed to return to their homeland after 70 or so years.  That would have been around 538 BCE.  Unfortunately, it was not quite as they had pictured it in their mind’s eye. 

         You see, they had expected God to come and establish God’s kingdom over all the earth with the Israelites themselves, of course, at its epicenter.  But times continued to be hard, and the future was far from certain.  Why - it had been almost a century now, and there was still no new realm and no golden age.

         However, in spite of that disappointment, they were home.  They had been restored to their land and to their loved ones.  If they hoped hard enough and did all the right things, then surely they would live into the promises that prophets like Isaiah had spoken on behalf of their God – promises of light breaking into darkness, promises of wolves lying down with lambs, promises of deserts flowering and teeming with abundant life. 

         Now was the time to try extra hard to make all things right so that never again would they walk down that path that had led them to such harsh judgment and cruel punishment.  Now was the time to reconnect with their God and with one another.  True - the temple had not yet been rebuilt, but they were ready to worship. 

         And so they returned to their sacred places and did what they had always done – because, well, because they had always done it that way.  They sang the psalms they had always sung because the old psalms brought them such comfort.  They returned to their tried and true familiar worship practices because to change them did not seem right in such a time of uncertainty.  They fasted just like they had always fasted.  The ritual was exactly the same because, if had worked and gotten God’s attention 100 years ago, it ought to still work today, right?

         But something was terribly wrong.  The Israelites did not get God’s attention.  In spite of all their perfectly harmonized psalms and impeccably performed rituals, the priests and spiritual hotshots still found themselves scratching their heads and furrowing their brows, shrugging their shoulders and asking themselves: 

“‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you (God) have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’”

 Even though their intentions seemed to be genuine, somewhere along the line they had missed the boat.  They had mistaken the point of worship and failed to understand what it was really all about. 

         It was in the midst of their aimless wondering and religious floundering that the old but circumspect prophet Isaiah spoke out in order to bring the Israelites back to God’s way of thinking.  As Presbyterian pastor Elizabeth Milford writes, “Isaiah critiques their worship practices, particularly their fasting, as self-serving and hollow, pretending to be righteous while allowing injustice to continue in their own backyards. He offers stern reminders that fasting, and other worship, is not about just going through the motions. It’s not about excessive piety and fancy shows. It’s about what happens after that. Namely, how they live in the world.”

         In that singsong poetic way of his, Isaiah reminded them that on their days of reverent fasting, they still exploited their workers.  When they left the synagogue, they still went back to quarrelling with their spouses and children. 

         Isaiah reminded them that the whole process of fasting was more than sackcloth and ashes just as worship for us is more than the choral anthem – no matter how beautifully done – the sermon – no matter how artfully worded – and the prayers – no matter how passionate.  The rituals of fasting and worship were more than opportunities to look humble and feel good about oneself.  Isaiah was pretty outspoken in that regard:

“Is not this the kind of fasting (and we today might substitute “worship”)… “Is not this the kind of worship I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?  Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?  Then your light will break forth like the dawn…

If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,  and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness. Then your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Then – and only then - will justice flow down like mighty waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.       

         So – Is Isaiah letting us off the hook when it comes to worship – telling us that choosing to be here on Sunday morning is not all that important?  I really do not think so.  As I have said many times before, there is a high value simply being in community with other like-minded people who are as concerned as we about the world’s injustice. There is high value in standing up and speaking out in community – as the Body of Christ - and not going it alone. 

         I believe our rituals are necessary and have the potential to be deeply meaningful.  They can imbue us with power, strength, and courage to bring forth justice. 

That being said, however, our worship rituals also have the potential to become selfish and self-serving, an end in themselves. 

         We run that risk when worship becomes, as Biblical scholar Edward Young wrote:

·      Impersonal and turned inward

·      A time ruled by habit and tradition – the way things have always been done

·      Self-serving (What can God do for me?)

·      Escapist and isolationist (God will save us from this terrible and fearful world, so I’ll just sit tight in the pew here)

·      Predictable, controlled, no surprises, runs on autopilot

·      Passive involvement even though God is a deeply personal being

         In the end, Isaiah is forthright in declaring that, if our worship is to be acceptable to God, then it must be reflected in our behaviors. It must motivate us to help someone in need, to make a difference in the world.  The question is not, “What does my worship do for me?’  It is rather “What does my worship make me do for others?’

          Lutheran pastor Robin Fish puts it so well when she writes that the most important part of our worship is not the liturgy we perform together each Sunday morning. “Our worship is in the life we live when we leave this place and return to the things and the people God has filled our lives with, to do the work (God) sets before us to do.  We serve God, and worship (God), when we serve our neighbor in his or her need.  Our neighbor includes our immediate family, and those who live around us, and everyone with whom we come in contact.  Our work is our job, or our chores at home, or taking an interest in those around us.” 

         Justice and making a difference in people’s lives is the foundation of worship.  If we are not changing lives, then no matter how well the choir sings, how lovely the sanctuary looks, how inspiring the preacher is, if we are not changing lives and making a difference in the world, then we are not the church – at least, not the church that Jesus called us to be. 

         A taxi driver once wrote about one of his fares.  He arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes he honked again.

         Since this was going to be my last fare of my shift (he said), I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

         After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman, apparently in her 90's, stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase.

         The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

         'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist her. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.' 'Oh, you're such a fine boy’, she said.

         When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?' 'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly. 'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. The address I gave you is a nursing facility.’

         I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice.' The doctor says I probably don't have very long.' I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. 'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

         For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the former department store where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and she would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing at all.

         As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let's go now.’ We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door.

         The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. 'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse. 'Nothing,' I said 'You have to make a living,' she answered. 'I have plenty of other passengers,' I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. 'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said. 'Thank you.'

         I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the light of morning. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life. I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. For a while, I drove aimlessly lost in thought. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?  

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

         There are many forms of oppression, hunger, nakedness, and injustice – old ladies with no family who hunger for a human touch, young men oppressed by addiction, children left psychologically naked by bullying peers. 

         Perhaps we are not called to save the world – though it behooves us to know about and respond as individuals and as the church to the unrest in the Middle East and to the fact that Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan are on the brink of famine.  

         But whether we choose to take on global causes or local or even personal ones, we are challenged to begin somewhere.  We are called to proclaim that there is still work for us to do. 

         Like the ancient Israelites, I wonder if the old ways of worship may not work any more.  I wonder if our rituals need to be ever more grounded in our pursuit of justice. 

I wonder if we are not called today as Jesus’ 21^st century disciples to openly and intentionally pay more attention to the least of these, the forgotten ones, to speak more openly and intentionally the language of love and not malice, and, most of all, to roll up our sleeves and do something. 

         The U.C.C. church I grew up in has a tradition that each month with a fifth Sunday, the congregation worships for a brief 10 minutes or so and then goes out into the community for a morning of service.  They hang a banner for all to see on the closed doors of the sanctuary.  It says:  “Jesus left the building – and we followed.”

         As we come to final days of our Lenten journey, may we reflect on how we – and this church - will do likewise.