Rev. Paul Tellström Irvine United Congregational ChurchEaster Sunday, Year C “The ‘Yes’ of Easter” April 8, 2007
Acts 10:34-43 Gospel Reading: John 20:1-18 word count: 1,895
In this Easter story, God is showing us as clearly as possible that God has no partiality; that the resurrection event is a powerful metaphor of God’s intent for every single atom of creation. What we need to do is to say “Yes.” The story is initially Mary Magdalene’s to tell. She has been a part of the preparation for his burial—she knows about the borrowed tomb, she clearly needs to guard it, to check on it, in her appearance in the darkness of this early morning. Then there is the discovery—the racing to tell others. The story notes that the discovery caused many to race, to run—there is a breathlessness to the account. And then, it says that Mary sees angels—but it doesn’t stop her in her tracks like it would you or me—she is grieving so that she weeps, but she talks to angels as if it was commonplace. But then…there he is. It is so beyond her sense of hope, her ability to feel joy—that she mistakes a man she clearly loves, whose feet she washed with oil and wiped down with her own hair—she mistakes Jesus for someone else—a gardener. The story is Mary’s, though John tells it; and hope and love are communicated in two words: “Mary,” says One; “Teacher,” replies the other. A transformation begins, a life is changed. Mary accepts this event, this presence of new life within a tomb. She will go back and tell others, and they will similarly be changed. Ultimately the world will be changed—but it is up to us to understand what it means to say, “yes” to life—to empower others, to bring hope, to enrich the whole creation by dying to the ways of the world and living into the full possibility of the realm of God. Part of what this story is about for Mary, is saying “Yes.” Here is the gift of this life even when all she sees around her is death and pain and disappointment and brokenness. It shows us that on the other side of pain, there is resurrection. It reminds us of what is possible whenever there is hope. UCC minister and author Joyce Hollyday, tells the story of a school teacher who was assigned to visit children in a large city hospital who received a routine call requesting that she visit a particular child. The teacher took the boy’s name and room number, and was told by the teacher on the other end of the line, “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in this class now. I’d be grateful if you could help him with his homework, so he doesn't fall behind the others.” It wasn’t until the visiting teacher got outside the boy’s room that she realized that it was located in the hospital’s burn unit. No one had prepared her to find a young boy horribly burned and in great pain. The teacher felt that she couldn’t just turn around and walk out. And so she stammered awkwardly, “I’m the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs.” This boy was in so much pain that he barely responded. The young teacher stumbled through his English lesson, ashamed at putting him through such a senseless exercise. The next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, “What did you do to that boy?” Before the teacher could finish apologizing, the nurse interrupted her, and said: “You don’t understand. We’ve been very worried about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back; he’s responding to treatment. It’s as if he has decided to live.” The boy later explained that he had completely given up hope until he saw the teacher. It all changed when he came to a simple realization. The boy simply said: “They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a boy who was dying, would they?”1 This story is about what is possible when there is hope. It is about saying “Yes” to life. It invites us to celebrate the gift of life even when all we seem to see around us is grief and pain and disappointment and brokenness. Like the story of Mary at the tomb, it shows us that on the other side of pain, there is resurrection. The miracle in the resurrection story is that God is showing us as clearly as possible that God has no partiality; that this story reflects God’s intent for every single atom of God’s creation. It is a message of hope. What we need to do is to say “Yes,” and the story embodies the great “yes” of our faith. The difference between Jesus and us is that he said, “Yes.” Everything he did was a living transformation of his humanity from a temporal focus to an eternal focus. He understood that he (that we all) needed to die to all the earthly stuff: to grasping after worldly power rather than depending on a higher power, to hoarding rather than sharing, to trying to sort out the in-crowd from the out-crowd. He understood that when he got out of that zero-based mindset, God could fill him with God’s own self so completely that there was no separation between them. There is good news on Easter morning, and it is that here today, here now, we can also commit ourselves to being transformed. Peter, speaking in the 10th chapter of Acts, says, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who loves God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” God, showing no partiality, may be simply waiting for our acceptance—our own recognition that we are a part of something greater, something that we can affect through giving our lives more fully to the realm of God. So much is possible when there is hope—so much injustice can be erased, so many fears can be eradicated, so much pain can disappear—if we, too, “die” to all the earthly stuff that we find so important, and rise to bring about better lives, better relationships, a greater sense of community, a safer and more just world; the realm of God. All creation is trembling with the possibility of such resurrection. Someone once said that God’s realm is like a huge power grid, pulsing with energy: ready, waiting. Each of us has a connection—a “switch,” if you will, which allows the energy to flow and transform what is now static into life, what is now silent into song, what is now unlit into radiance.. Every switch matters. Can you imagine this world with 100,000 people who care as much about the outcasts as Father Damien or Mother Teresa or Gandhi? What would this world be like if there were a million people who care as much about justice as Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu?2 In the Easter event that we celebrate today, God indicates that we (meaning you and me) are such people. It was Mary’s story to tell, and then the other disciples’. It was told in various ways, from Mark’s gospel that originally ended with an empty tomb, to stories of witnesses to a resurrection. Some accounts were destroyed by the early church, and copies were found in 1947 in the desert, accounts such as the Gospel of Peter, which clearly names Mary as a “woman disciple of the Lord”. Also, there is the Gospel of Thomas, which does not speak of Jesus’ death, but rather of his teachings as a way to truth and enlightenment. There are so many stories the disciples told, before finally, it became the story of the church. And that’s where it became dangerous. “For there, it found people who prefer certainty to truth, and those who put the purity of dogma ahead of the integrity of love. And what distortion of the gospel it is to have limited sympathies and unlimited certainties, when the very reverse—to have limited certainties and unlimited sympathies—is not only more tolerant but far more Christian.”3 And now the story has come down to us today; it is yours to receive, yours to tell. How you tell it in how you live your life will speak volumes about how you perceive God. The God we celebrate is a God of love. If we accept that, then the God we celebrate invites us to say, “Yes” to living into this creation in ways that are loving, and dying to the ways of the worldly “stuff” that we chase after, and which does not make us better people. “Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself.”4 And my pastor, Bill Coffin, who died a year ago this week, said, “Of God’s love, we can say two things: it is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope to the loneliest wino on the planet; and secondly, God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement5 The story that is central to Easter in all the different ways it is told, demonstrates to me what small effect might ripple out from my corner of the universe if I dare to become the transformation that I long to be. But the miracle of this Easter day is that I don’t need to wait for the opportunity; it is here and now. Eternity is not a possession conferred at death; it is a present endowment. It is going on all the time. We are in it now. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “With God, time is eternity in disguise.” To this, Jesus said, “Yes.” Perhaps God’s intention for all of creation is that it is our turn to live as Easter people in this Good Friday world. Can you say, “Yes!” to the world you meet each day? Can you say, “Yes” when there is a situation that is pulling you down, when there is a tough transition to make, when your health is poor, or when your finances are shot? Can you know that there is a light beyond your grief that you can one day, when you are ready, come back into? Can you be Resurrection people who can put breath and power behind every “alleluia” you are about to sing, and believe that each “alleluia” will fill you with a sense of purpose about your life, your family, your friends, your country, the earth upon which you live, and the eternity that you already occupy, which calls you back into the world today to be more than a paycheck and the world’s symbols of success? First, the story was Mary’s to tell. The miracle in the resurrection story is not that God raised Jesus, but in this Easter event, God is showing us as clearly as possible that God has no partiality; that the resurrection story reflects God’s intent for every single atom of creation. It is a story of hope. What we need to do is to say “Yes.” (yes) Amen (amen) and…Alleluia.
Sermon Resources 1) Donald William Dotterer, “Living The Easter Faith,” CSS Publishing Company, 1994. 2) Andrea La Sonde Anastos, Minister’s Annual Manual, April 16, 2006. p. 322 3) William Sloane Coffin, “Credo,” Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2004 p. 144 4) Ibid. p. 24 5) Ibid. p. 6-7
In honor of my pastor, Bill Coffin, who died on April 12, 2006
Scripture for Sunday, April 8, 2007
Acts 10:34-43
Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all). That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
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