The Body: Where God's Love Dances

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 29, 2018)

---

Dancing

While I was studying in England, I was fortunate enough to have several opportunities to watch my favorite soccer team, Liverpool, at its hallowed home stadium.  I remember one such occasion.  I had taken the train in for the day and met a good friend there, Stephen, who happened to be a Liverpudlian himself.  It was a wonderful day.  Stephen gave me a tour around the stadium.  We indulged in a matchday pastime, a hot cup of Bovril, or beef broth.  We sang with the Liverpool faithful a number of their songs, including “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”  And to top it off, Liverpool won!

After the game, I had a couple of hours before my train left, so Stephen led me to O’Neill’s, an Irish pub close to the Lime Street train station.  We entered into a room abuzz with music.  A spirited guitar and violin were seesawing back and forth through a number of traditional folk tunes.  There we sat basking in the glory of victory, reliving our favorite moments from the match, when the guitar and violin struck up a spirited jig that roused half the pub.  Suddenly the open floor was filled with dancers.  I was laughing at the novelty of this experience when all of the sudden two women yanked Stephen and I out of our chairs and onto the floor.  I wasn’t laughing anymore.  Now I was feeling a mixture of fear for myself and pity for the woman.  The closest I’d ever come to an education in dance was the annual Episco Disco at college, and I’m afraid I didn’t learn much more there than how to make folks laugh. 

But I was surprised.  The jig was over before I knew it—and I had managed to dance the entire time.  Of course, much of the credit goes to that woman, who led me well.  (If you’re grabbing partners as indiscriminately as she was, you’re sure to get some experience with non-dancers like myself.)  But even so, I still would have expected a train-wreck. 

All things considered, the dance felt surprisingly natural.  It was as though one step led naturally into another.  I couldn’t help but follow along.

The Priority of the Body

I think that the letter of 1 John is about dancing.  Well, not about literal dancing.  But about the many different dances that our bodies perform throughout life.  It’s about the dances of eating and embracing, of loving and leaving, of being born and dying...and the mysterious dance of rising again.

What I’m trying to say, is that 1 John is about the body.  It’s about flesh and blood.  The letter of 1 John was written in a time of confusion.  Different people were proclaiming different things about Jesus Christ.  Some were saying that Jesus was not actually here in the body, but rather that he was a spirit who had come here to help us escape this world of bodily limitation.

But 1 John proclaims the opposite.  In 1 John 4:2, the writer declares that Jesus Christ has come “in the flesh.”  In the body.  It’s perhaps the simplest and most profound point of our faith.  The gospel of John—the parent text from whose thoughts and ideas 1 John emerged—puts it like this:  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  And one of the early church leaders, Irenaeus, expresses it like this: “The glory of God is a living person.”  In other words, God is most fully God not in some perfect spiritual form but in the frail and fragile body of a person.  It’s sort of funny if you think about it: we humans are commonly dreaming of an escape from this world into some celestial heaven, while God dreams of living here in the flesh.  The glory of the body, then, is clear.  It was clear from the very beginning, from the moment of creation, when God saw that this flesh-and-blood, dirt-and-water world was good, very good. 

As we currently are in the season of Easter, it is especially appropriate now to be reminded of the significance of the body.  For what is the ultimate hope of our faith?  It is not for the immortality of the soul.  That idea is not biblical, it’s Greek.  The ultimate hope of our faith is the resurrection of the body.

Love and the Body

If the letter of 1 John is about dancing—is about the body—then it’s equally as much about love.  And that, I think, is no coincidence.  Love and the body have a lot to do with one another.

How do we know God’s love, for instance?  Is it because of words or because of the body?  According to the gospel of John, we only really came to know God when the Word became flesh.  We only really heard the Word when we touched the body—when Jesus handled our hurts, celebrated our joy, shared our suffering, broke bread and filled our cups.  We know love ultimately not because of words but because of the body. 

Isn’t this a truth that we live out every day in our world?  The body speaks before the mouth does, doesn’t it, and much louder too?  This is why sometimes we know that people are lying.  They say one thing, but we can already see in the hesitation of their eyes or the anxiety of their hands that they feel differently.  The body can tell us much more than words do.

According to today’s scripture, the body is what makes God visible.  The body is where God’s love is made real.  “No one has ever seen God; [but] if we love one another, God lives in us and [God’s] love is perfected [or completed] in us” (4:12).

God’s love is like a musical score, and our bodies are the instruments.  They are where the music becomes real.  God’s love is like a dance.  But a dance needs bodies.  The body is where God’s love dances.

A Faith Before and Beyond our Mind

The thing that I learned about dancing that night years ago in Liverpool, is that it’s actually pretty natural.  One step leads to another.  You can’t help but follow along. 

And that’s the image that I have in my head when the writer of 1 John talks about love.  Love is a dance.  God takes a step, and then we quite naturally take the next.  Because God loves, we love too.  And so the writer says things like, “Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another,” and, “We love because he first loved us.”

I’ll confess: for much of my life, I have tried to live my faith in my head.  I would suspect that many Christians do the same, because in this world shaped so strongly by the Enlightenment, we often confuse ourselves with our minds.  “I think, therefore I am.”  But we are so much more than our minds.

One of my favorite theopoets, a thoughtful Brazilian man named Rubem Alves, once wondered, “Isn’t it strange that, most of the time, we consider what people think, and not what they love, to be most important?”  I’m certain the writer of 1 John would agree.  What matters most to our faith is not what we think or understand, but whom and what we love.  The question is not what we think about the trinity or miracles or heaven and hell.  The question is, are we dancing?  Is our love as plain as our bodies, when a stranger interrupts our day or when a homeless man looks to us for his dignity or when the poor in spirit cry for help?

Lately I’ve been discovering something about my own faith.  In certain settings, I am reserved and shy, anxious about holding anyone’s eye contact for longer than necessary lest I incur their judgment of my person or even worse their dismissal.  In these moments, my body is constrained and inhibited, and I think it is telling me something about my faith.  I think it is telling me that in these moments my faith in God’s love is weak.  Rather than living freely and confidently from God’s love, I am worrying about what others might think.

This is why gathering with the memory care residents across the street and the L’Arche community here in Richmond has touched me so deeply.  There, in persons whom the world considers slow or behind the curve, my body encounters God’s love.  Many of the folks in these groups are “dancing,” living not in fear or judgment but in an unreserved joy and trust.  Their bodies welcome me with the simplest of gestures: smiles, handshakes and hugs, eyes curious and caring.  I don’t have to prove a thing in their presence.  Whether or not they speak, their bodies have already said, You belong here.  We’re happy that you’re here. 

The body is where God’s love dances.  In their bodies, I know God’s love and I am invited to join in the dance, to follow one step with another.  To love others freely as I have been loved.

It’s like the writer of our scripture says.  “No one has ever seen God.”  But in the body of Christ that danced among us, and in the bodies that are dancing still, we know God’s love.  And we are invited to join the dance, the love—not just in our minds or in our words, but before that and beyond that, in our bodies.

Prayer

Dear Christ,

Whose body

Dances among us

And makes God’s love real

In our lives:

Invite us anew

Into your dance.

Whisk us beyond

Our careful and controlling minds

Into the trustful and joyous and bodily

To-and-fro of your love

As it skips throughout creation,

Renewing all things.

Amen.

More than a Handout (1 John 3:16-24)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 22, 2018)

---

“People Think It’s the Food.  It’s More than That.”

This past week, Lu invited me to lunch in order to introduce me to a woman whose work she’s been following: Rhonda Sneed.  Rhonda spoke softly but her eyes were alight with life and her words danced with real purpose.  I felt in her a quiet strength, although I could not tell you exactly why.

This feeling that I could not explain soon made more sense as I learned Rhonda’s story.  Rhonda moved to Richmond from New York City in 2013.  The homelessness that she saw here surprised her.  She had seen folks in New York living in cardboard boxes, but she had not expected that sort of poverty here.

In her first few years here, she and a couple friends worked together to feed the homeless, distributing soup in styrofoam cups.  In the last couple of years, they have expanded their efforts and enlisted the help of volunteers from across the city.  They call themselves the Blessing Warriors.  Each day they drive to several drop-off points in the city distributing meals, drinks (hot in the winter, cold in the summer), and clothing. 

At each drop-off point, Rhonda blends in with the crowd.  Folks who are waiting greet her with hugs.  Some seem more interested in sitting down and talking with her than in getting food.  Occasionally Rhonda will learn about someone’s birthday, and the proceedings will take a pause as the group sings “Happy Birthday.”  Not too long ago, one man told Rhonda that he’d found a church and would be getting baptized.  Guess who showed up at his baptism to celebrate with him?  On another occasion, Rhonda followed a young woman whom she had been helping to the hospital so that the young woman would have a companion and an advocate there.

Rhonda knows what the Blessing Warriors look like to a lot of people: a handout group, a soup kitchen, an emergency relief team.  As she has said before, “People think it’s the food.  It’s more than that.”[1]

Indeed it is.  More than food, it’s hugs, it’s listening, it’s singing, it’s sharing the hospital hurts of folks as well as their baptismal bliss.  It’s sharing life with them—so much so that the boundaries blur and sometimes it’s hard to tell where Rhonda’s life ends and the lives of her homeless friends begin.

“Laying Down Our Lives”: Just Another Payment?

Today’s scripture begins with a daunting verse: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (3:16).  For many in the church, faith is simply what Jesus did for us.  “Jesus paid it all,” we sing.  But for the writer of 1 John, what Jesus did for us is simply the beginning.  We are called to show that same love for others.   “Jesus paid it all, and so should we,” the writer of 1 John might say.

It is a challenging summons: “We ought to lay down our lives for one another.”  What does the writer mean by that?  That we should die for others as Christ died for us?  Perhaps, if that is what the situation calls for.  But it appears that the writer is talking about not just the dramatic or the spectacular, but also about the little things that make up our daily life.  For he continues on to say, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?” (3:17).

I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel a little better.  All that talk of laying down lives was a wee bit much.  Here we finally have a description of what that looks like, a concrete rule, and it’s one that I can live with.  If you have worldly goods, then give some to the needy.  Donate some food to the local food pantry, or to Rhonda’s Blessing Warriors.  Write a check to your favorite charity. 

Verses like this one in a world like ours are a dangerous recipe.  Nearly everything in our world is already commodified, which is to say, nearly everything has a dollar sign attached to it.  We pay not just for our needs, like shelter and food.  We pay for our entertainment: Netflix, show tickets, theme park passes.  We pay for our health and fitness: gym memberships, dieting programs, fresh food delivery.  We pay for our education: college degrees, special certifications, online tutorials.  Whatever we want, we pay for it.  The problem is, we might begin to think of our faith in the same way: as just another payment.  We pay the poor, and in return we have a healthy faith.

The Good News Is Greater than God Giving Us “Goods”

Fortunately for our world, which might be tempted to read love as a transaction of goods, the Greek puts it much more bluntly.  Instead of talking about having and giving “goods” to those in need, it talks about having and giving bios to those in need.  Bios.  Perhaps you can hear the similarity between that word and our words “biology,” which is about the study of life,” or “biography,” which is an account of someone’s life.  In other words, our scripture is talking about more than giving money or possessions.  It is talking about giving our bios, our life, our living, any part of us that might bring life to another.

That, of course, is the good news of Jesus Christ.  Some Christians will say that our salvation comes only from one thing that he did, from the single event of his death and resurrection.  In my mind, that turns Jesus into a handout, a single toss of salvation from God’s hands to anyone lucky enough to receive it.  For me, the good news is so much greater than that.  God does not simply walk by and give us “goods.”  God shares our life.  The good news is that Jesus becomes flesh and dwells among us, blends in among us, touches us, eats with us, shares our sorrows, binds our wounds, jumps in the water with us.  The good news of Jesus Christ is not the good news of a handout.  It is the good news of a companion who is always sharing life with us.

And that, I think, is what the writer is trying to say.  We know God’s love for us because Christ became our companion.  In the same way, we ought to share that companionship with our brothers and sisters in need.  Not as a handout of goods but as a life that blends with theirs. 

Or as Rhonda has said: “People think it’s the food.  It’s more than that.”

From Death to Life

I share these thoughts not to say that we all need now to immerse ourselves in communities of the poor and excluded, although some of us may genuinely feel that call.  To do something out of obligation would become just another rule.  Love is unruly.  It is more than a transaction, a payment.

My guess is that we are already laying down our lives for others, giving our living—our bios—to them in small ways.  Is this not what we do with our families?  The invitation of today’s scripture, I think, is to extend this love to others around us who are crying out for it.  For if we listen, we will hear the cry of God in others: not only in our circle of friends, but in Canaanite women and Roman soldiers and tax collectors and convicted criminals, or whatever the equivalent of these are in our world.  Their cry is not for a handout—not simply for food or for an hour of our time, although these things may be needed.  The cry is deeper.  It is for companionship.  It’s for hugs, listening, sharing tears and laughter.  The cry is for love.

And herein lies the good news for all of us.  In 1 John 3:14, just a couple verses before our scripture today, the writer summarizes all of faith and life in a beautifully simple statement: “We have passed from death to life because we love one another.”  It is through the love that we give, the life—the bios—that we share with others, that we ourselves pass from death to life. 

Christ is risen.  May we too be raised in his love.

Prayer

Self-giving Christ,

How grateful we are

That you come among us

With more than a handout—

That you touch us

In our hurt,

Walk alongside us

In the dark valley,

Break bread for us

And fill our cup

With gladness.

May your love

Inspire us

To love others

In the same way.  Amen.

---

[1] David Streever, “One Woman’s Quest to Feed Richmond’s Homeless Community,” https://rvamag.com/news/one-womans-quest-to-feed-richmonds-homeless-community.html, accessed April 17, 2018.

When He Is Revealed, We Will Be like Him (1 John 3:1-7)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 15, 2018)

---

The Pet Connection

You know the old adage that pets and their owners look alike?  Perhaps you’ve seen this with your own eyes.  The bearded hipster at the park walking a fuzz-faced dog.  Or the jogger running behind her long, lean canine.  Or the two pairs of drooping eyes, human and dog, gazing contentedly on the lake and its feathered denizens.  Well, in case you had any doubts, psychologist Michael Roy put this adage to the test and proved that it’s true!  Taking separate photos of owners and their pets, he mixed these up and presented them to participants in his study.  They matched owner and pet with remarkable accuracy—greater than chance would have accounted for.[1]

In many cases, there is an undeniable likeness between human and beloved furry companion.  To know one is to know the other.

We sometimes see a similar principle in parent and child.  At an early age, children often mimic their parents: mowing the law, cooking and baking, playing sports.  And vice versa: parents can be seen playfully copying the antics of their child.  Thus there is a likeness between parent and child.  We could often match the two according to their behavior.

The incredible likeness between humans and their beloved furry companions, or between parent and child, is not far from a deep theological truth.  The writer of 1 John declares that when we see God, we also learn something about ourselves.  Like a child learning who they are in the behavior of their parent, or like a pet whose demeanor somehow follows its human companion’s, we discover in Jesus Christ that God is love, and therefore we are loved.  Or as the writer proclaims, we are “children of God” (v. 1).

But the writer does not stop there.  He then proclaims, “But that’s not all.  There’s more to come!  We will be changed further!  Into what, we do not know yet.  We will only know that when we see Christ—for remember, as a dog or cat is like its human companion, or a child is like its parent, so we the beloved are becoming like our love, God.”  That’s a paraphrase, of course.  What the writer actually says is this: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be not has not yet been revealed.  What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

At Harvard and Unhappy:

From Competition to Community

I’ve shared stories before about Henri Nouwen.  He was a celebrated and decorated theologian and priest in the Catholic Church.  His rising renown ultimately led to a teaching post at Harvard.  But there he had a revelation.  He was unhappy.  He found himself in a place of competition, when deep down he desired community.  “After twenty-five years of priesthood,” he writes, “I found myself praying poorly, …isolated from other people, and very much preoccupied with burning issues. …  I woke up one day with the realization that I was living in a very dark place and that the term ‘burnout’ was a convenient psychological translation for a spiritual death.”[2]

What happened next was a surprise for everyone, including Henri.  He had been climbing and climbing all his life, from one academic post to the next, one religious recognition to the next.  But now exhausted, he stepped “down.”  He joined a unique community of persons living with intellectual and physical disability called L’Arche, a community begun in 1964 by Jean Vanier.  Vanier had witnessed the sadness and desperation of persons with disabilities who were hidden away from society in dismal institutions.  But in these same people his eyes were also opened to see the heart of Christ.  For as he puts it, “People with disabilities are not seeking power, but friendship.”[3]  From this revelation sprang the L’Arche community, which has now multiplied into communities all over the globe.  Like any group home, L’Arche offers needed assistance and teaches life skills.  Unlike many group homes, however, the point is ultimately not capability and self-sufficiency.  The point is belonging.  L’Arche is not meant to convert its residents to the way of the world, but rather to invite the world into the trust and togetherness of its residents.  Everyone at L’Arche, assistant and resident, lives together in intentional community, not as helper and helped, but as companion.  Whereas the world teaches an ethics of competition—to make more money, to get more power, to win more hearts, to secure yourself, to prove yourself—L’Arche seeks what its residents seek: friendship. 

When Henri joined the L’Arche community in Ontario, he was invited to be Adam’s assistant.  Adam was severely limited: he could not walk on his own or speak or eat or express himself with smiles and frowns.  “Helping Adam,” Henri writes, “meant waking him up…, taking off his pajamas and dressing him in a bathrobe, walking him to the bathroom, shaving his beard, giving him a bath, choosing clothes for the day, dressing him, combing his hair, walking with him to the kitchen, making his breakfast,” and so on—until he got Adam out of the house and to his day program.[4]  Henri reports that, at first, he felt very much the helper and saw Adam as the helped.  But over time, Adam revealed to Henri his own vulnerabilities.  “Yes,” he writes, “Adam…couldn’t speak, but I spoke too much.  Yes, Adam…couldn’t walk, but I was running around as if life was one emergency after the other.  Yes, [the folks around me] needed help in their daily tasks, but I, too, was constantly saying, ‘Help me, help me.’”[5]  Thus he concludes: “I was faced with a very insecure, needy, and fragile person: myself.”[6]  Henri had achievements, awards, and great admiration, and in a way he had continued to seek these things even at L’Arche.  But his time with Adam was teaching him that these things did not touch his heart.  He realized that he was more like Adam than he knew.  He was weak and needful.  And it was in this weakness and need that he finally discovered what Adam had “known” all along.  The heart of life is belonging.  Togetherness.  Communion.

Henri claims that Adam taught him more than any book or professor ever did.  In Adam, Henri saw Christ.  Adam accepted him unconditionally, loved him, trusted him, and all of this not through strength but through weakness and need.  Gradually Henri became like the Christ whom he saw.  He became like Adam.  As he learned himself to accept and live in his weakness and need, so too he entered into a genuine communion of hearts.  He loved as he was loved.

The Risen and Wounded Christ

“When he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).  Perhaps it is only natural to read this verse and to imagine glorious heavenly bodies immune from weakness or limitation.

But as I reflect on Henri’s story, I begin to wonder if Jesus will confound our expectations.  We want Jesus to come in great achievement and admiration.  We want to share in that glory.  But perhaps this reflects more our own desires than it does Christ.  Perhaps Christ cries out to us in persons like Adam, comes to us in the belonging and togetherness that spring from weakness and need.

We can never know what Christ will look like in the future.  But we know what he has looked like in past experience.  I’ve shared Henri Nouwen’s story.  But our gospel scripture today shares another experience: when the disciples encounter the risen Christ.  In that room where they were gathered, Christ came bearing two things: his wounds and forgiveness.  The victory of the risen Christ is not the victory of conquerors, of great power or force or threat.  The victory of Christ looks a lot like Adam, like the folks at L’Arche.  Wounded, disabled, and crying out for communion.

Wounded and Weak and Wishing for Communion

As between pets and their human companions, parents and their children—there is, declares the writer of 1 John, an indelible likeness between God and humanity.  When we see God as God is, we are transformed into that likeness.

The good news of this Easter season is that Christ is risen—not just two thousand years ago, but today in our own lives.  The risen Christ walks among us, is revealed among us.  But perhaps he—or she—looks different than what we might be looking for.  Many are seeking a god of power, and that is mirrored in the way of our world—our politics, our business, our society.  But the disciples saw a very different God in the risen Christ, and so did Henri.  They saw a God wounded, disabled, bearing nothing but peace and forgiveness.  And they were transformed.

Have you seen the risen Christ?  Where?  In whom?  Did you recognize Christ immediately, or is it taking some time?  Are you being transformed into the likeness of God?  I am so programmed by the world, that it takes me time and reflection and sometimes grace hitting me upside the head.  But I have seen the risen Christ—at the memory care unit across the street, in hospitals, in classrooms full of folks learning English as a second language.  Like Christ in his return: wounded and weak and wishing for communion.  And it is changing me.

Prayer

Risen Christ,

Weaker than we want,

Wounded,

With nothing

But peace and forgiveness to give us—

Grant us recognition

Of your resurrection

Where we have looked

But have not seen,

That we might be transformed

Into your life-giving likeness.  Amen.

---

[1] David Robson, “Dogs Look Like Their Owners—It’s a Scientific Fact,” http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151111-why-do-dogs-look-like-their-owners, accessed on April 10, 2018.

[2] Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1989), 10-11.

[3] Kathryn Jean Lopez, “Men and Women with Disabilities Are Tender Teachers,” https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/movie-summer-in-the-forest-community-people-intellectual-disabilities/, accessed April 10, 2018.

[4] Henri Nouwen, Adam: God’s Beloved (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1997), 41.

[5] Nouwen, Adam, 77.

[6] Nouwen, Adam, 78.

Where the Resurrection Becomes Real (John 20:1-18)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 1, 2018, Easter Day)

---

Loss

One of the little things that is guaranteed to break my heart, is watching a young child lose or break a toy.  Before that tragic moment, their face is alive with joy.  They are happy, as I believe they should be.  But then suddenly the toy is lost, and the child in disbelief begins to cry.  And somewhere inside I begin crying too.  Because they did not intend for the tragedy that befell their toy.  They did not deserve it.  But it happened nonetheless.

And that is the way of life.  The same thing happens to us, only with things much more precious than toys. 

We Are All with Mary This Morning

And so it is not difficult to imagine where Mary Magdalene was this morning.  Because we are all with her.

There is no escaping what Mary felt early in the darkness.  There is no escaping the feeling of loss.  We all live with it.  Maybe it is the absence of a loved one.  Maybe it is the loss of an old way of life.  Maybe it is simply the little things that we have tried to let go of this Lent.

And when Mary walks to the tomb, we walk with her.  We return again and again to the place of our loss, whether in an attempt to reclaim what is gone or simply to cherish the last remnants of what no longer exists.

When Mary sees that the tomb is empty, that the final remains of her beloved friend are missing, that there is nothing at all left of him, she begins weeping.  And we weep with her.  The way we might weep if a treasured photograph of a departed friend or family member was lost. 

Life, like Laughter

When the toy is lost, or is broken, and the young child breaks out in tears, her mother and father come running to her.  “What is the matter, little one?  Why are you weeping?  There, there.”  But the child is inconsolable.  The joy that she held in her hands is gone forever.  She weeps into the past.

And so for a time, she misses out on life.  Her parents have no new toy to give her.  There is no magical restoration of what is missing.

But still they stay with her.  “What is the matter, little one?  Why are you weeping?”  And then in a moment of inspiration, they say the child’s name to get her attention, and they make a silly joke or a goofy face or simply a smile that the child cannot defend against.  And the child laughs.  Or maybe that’s not quite right.  The child wants to keep crying, wants to hold onto the past, but the power of the joke is too strong.  It overtakes her body, which trembles despite itself in laughter.  The child does not choose to laugh.  She does not even want to laugh.  But she laughs all the same.

Life, like laughter, is not entirely a choice.  It happens upon us.  It bursts through us.  It overtakes us.  When we are weeping.  When we are clinging to the past.  When we are unwilling to recognize it.  The gospel writer tells us that Mary “saw Jesus…but did not know that it was Jesus.”  Resurrection had happened, but she did not know it.  It’s sort of like the joke had been told, but she wanted to keep crying.

But even so, her body could not help but laugh.  Could not help but come alive at the sound of her name spoken in love.  Could not help but blurt out, “‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher)” (20:16). 

Lots of Little Resurrections

What I find most curious about the resurrection stories in the gospels, is that they never directly show us the resurrection of Jesus.  The gospels show us his birth, his baptism, his trials in the wilderness, his ministry throughout Galilee, his entry into Jerusalem, the crucifixion—all the important events of his life, they show us.  But they do not show us the resurrection.  They only show us the result.  They do not show us the moment that he receives life back into his lifeless body.  They only show us what happens afterward, when he gives life. 

Today’s scripture is a perfect example.  The only resurrection in today’s scripture is Mary’s.  She rises from weeping to wonder, from crying tears to crying out the good news. 

The gospels don’t show us the resurrection.  They show us lots of little resurrections, like Mary’s, or the disciples’ in the locked room, or Peter’s at the shore.  Which is to say, they show us our own resurrection.  It is as though the resurrection of Christ only becomes real in our own resurrection.  Or to paraphrase a favorite mystic of mine, Meister Eckhart, we might ask: what good is it if Christ was raised from the dead, if we are not raised with him?[1]  That is the whole point of Jesus’ life, according to the gospel of John, which concludes its many stories with this explanation of purpose: “So that you”—we the readers, we the audience—“may have life!” (20:30).[2]

Our Own Resurrection

So that we may have life.  We who are weeping like Mary.  We who are clinging to the past.  We who are uninterested in the stranger before us.

The good news of the resurrection is our resurrection!  It is the good news that no suffering, no loss, not even death—not even death on a cross—is beyond the life-giving reach of God’s love.

The tricky thing about resurrection, of course, is that it is not something we choose to do.  It is something that happens to us.  It bursts through us.  It overtakes our body.  The best news of Easter, then, is also the most difficult news: it is that we must trust the impossible gospel of resurrection long enough to do what Mary Magdalene did that morning: to look beyond our tears into the eyes of a stranger.  To let go of the past long enough to see the present.  And when our body begins to tremble in spite of ourselves, in laughter and in joy, to recognize and receive the risen Christ in front of us, raising us to new life, his resurrection becoming our resurrection, even today.

Prayer

Risen Christ,

Raise us with you.

Where we are weeping

Or clinging to the past

Or unwilling to face the future—

Overtake our bodies

Despite ourselves

With tremors and trembles

Of your love,

Which brings life

And inspires us

To share it with the world.  

Amen.

---

[1] Regarding the birth of Christ, Eckhart asked, “What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself?” 

[2] Lest this point be mistaken as an indication of the priority of individual or human salvation over the salvation of the rest of creation, one might also refer to the Pauline universalist proclamations (e.g., Eph 1:10; Col 1:20) and to the inheritance of this thought in early church tradition, e.g., St. Ambrose’s proclamation that when Christ rose, in him all heaven and earth rose too.

The Morning (John 20:1-18)

(Meditation for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 1, 2018, Easter Sunrise)

---

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark.”  Today’s gospel story begins in the morning.  Which is a momentous time.

Morning is the moment when light breaks upon darkness.

Morning is the moment when the world wakes and rises to new life.

Morning is the moment that we break our fast together, breaking bread, perhaps, and filling our empty stomachs with energy for the day ahead.

On this morning nearly 2,000 years ago, one follower of Christ got up from her sleep.

But I imagine that she did not notice the light breaking upon the darkness.

And I imagine that she did not really wake up (from what had been a nightmare).

And I imagine that she did not even think about eating.

But all of that would change.

---

The gospel stories of what happened next, share some common images:

Light.

Wakeful excitement.

Food.

Light: the light of dawn, the light of a charcoal fire on the beach, the light dazzling on the mysterious strangers at the empty tomb.

Wakeful excitement: terror and amazement, exclamation, pre-dawn skinny-dipping, hand-grabbing.

And food: bread blessed and broken, fish cooked over the fire, folks gathered around a table.

Light.

Wakeful excitement.

Food.

Which are three images that are very much a part of the morning.

---

The church has its sacraments.  You know, baptism, marriage, last rites.  I think it missed one.

The morning.

Is it a coincidence that the followers of Jesus encountered the empty tomb and the risen Christ in the morning? 

The moment when light breaks upon darkness;

The moment when the world wakes and rises to new life;

The moment when we break our fast together, breaking bread, perhaps, and filling our empty stomachs with energy for the day ahead?

How well the morning proclaims the gospel!  In the morning, there is light, there is waking up, there is the Table! 

In this way, the morning is a beautiful parable of the risen Christ.  And so as we celebrate this morning, while the light breaks upon us, while slowly but surely we wake, while we break our fast together, let us remember: these gifts of the morning are but hints of the risen Christ.  The morning is a wonderful moment, but even more wonderful is the resurrection-dawn that we encounter in the risen Christ.  So as we look upon the light of the sun this morning, let us look also beyond it to see the light of Christ!  And as our bodies stir and awaken, so may our souls also stir and awaken in Christ!  And as we gather around the table, let us feast not only on food that perishes but also on the love that gives life to the world!

He is risen this morning, and because of this, so are we.  Hallelujah!  Thanks be to God.

Prayer

Risen Christ,

May this special Easter morning

And every morning

Remind us of the good news:

That like the morning,

You are always breaking upon

The darkness of our horizon;

Always waking us from sleep

And raising us to new life;

Always breaking our hunger

With communion,

Inspiring and empowering us 

For the day ahead.

Hallelujah!

Amen.