Easter Sermon

Sermon

Easter 1997

Valerie Ann Hart

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

       What a glorious morning, a glorious time to celebrate resurrection, a glorious time to acknowledge that through Christ’s resurrection each and every one of us has been resurrected, made new, lifted up, healed.

Alleluia, Christ is risen

       One time I was at the grocery store about to buy some corn chips. Next to me was a woman who lifted up a bag and replaced it and said, “no one will buy this bag, it’s full of broken chips.” And indeed it was. I too passed it over in favor or one with nice big whole unbroken chips. But since then I have been thinking about what kind of chips Jesus would choose. What do you think?

       The Christian church is often described as a resurrection community. What does it mean to be a resurrection community? What do we mean by resurrection? To resurrect means to bring to life again that which has been dead, to lift up again that which has fallen, it means the transformation of that which is broken into that which is truly whole. It is taking something that is broken, dead, destroyed and lifting it up to a state that is even better than what it was before it was broken.

       In order for there to be resurrection, there must be a death of some kind. In order for Christ to be resurrected he had to be broken. There is no Easter without Good Friday. Before he could be resurrected Jesus had to be broken. We are reminded of this each time we celebrate the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. The bread does not become for us Christ’s body until it has been broken. Through the breaking of the bread it is transformed. In the same way Jesus had to be broken in body, mind, and spirit - he had to die to who he was - he had to lose his identity as the Galilean Rabbi named Jesus - he had to disappoint his followers who each had some idea to who he ought to be - he had to resist all the demands, inner and outer, for him to be anything other than who he truly was - he had to die to it all in order for him to be resurrected as the Christ.

       We are a resurrection community, because we are a community of people who have been broken. We come to Christ, we look to the resurrection, not because we are already perfect, not because our lives are always wonderful, not because we feel full and complete, but because we are broken, each in our own way. We know that we are not perfect, that we are often in physical, emotional, or spiritual pain. That sometimes we feel lost, abandoned, empty, and afraid. We come because somehow we know, as Peter said, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.”

       We are like the community that surrounded Jesus - a group of men and women who each had their own stories of brokenness. There were prostitutes, and tax collectors, passionate fishermen whose uncontrolled anger had won them the nickname “sons of thunder” and an insecure teacher who came to see Jesus at night. There were those who were greedy, and those who were afraid. There were slaves and army generals. There were those who had been diagnosed as crazy, possessed by demons, and those who had been blind beggars. There were menopausal women and epileptics. Each one had a story of brokenness. It is for this reason that I am convinced that Jesus would have chosen the bag with the broken chips. He always seemed less interested in those who were whole and sure of themselves and more interested in those who knew themselves as broken.

       And with Jesus’ death this motley group became even more broken. They dispersed, they denied their relationship with him and they hid in an upper room. Their expectations about Jesus and his movement had been broken - shattered - by the cross. Even the women who came to the grave responded not initially with joy, but with fear to the knowledge of the resurrection. What was to become of this community of broken people? The most amazing thing about the resurrection stories is not that some of his followers claim to have seen him alive, but the dramatic transformation that took place in these broken followers. Those who were hiding and afraid became fearless speakers, telling the good news of Christ. Peter who once denied he knew him found the courage and the voice to speak eloquently of his love. The women who were afraid to tell anyone eventually did and went on to share the gospel as far as Rome. This band of broken people became a force that changed the world. These frightened people risked their lives, and often lost them, in speaking out for what they believed. This community of broken people was resurrected into a powerful force. Who says you can’t use the broken chips?

       Like Jesus’ followers we are a community of people who have been broken, but we are not just a broken community, we are a resurrection community. That means that our brokenness leads to resurrection. Our brokenness leads to rising again to something that is even better than before we were broken. Just as a doctor will tell you that if you break a bone, after the bone has healed that point is stronger than the rest of the bone. Through the healing it becomes stronger than it was before the break.

       Through the healing of our brokenness we become more than we were before we were broken. Through the healing of our wounds, we become resurrection people. We have died to who we thought we were, died to our self-identity as victims, or abusers, users or sinner, haters or lovers, insecure or self-absorbed. As resurrection people we live into our wholeness. We are ready to die to that which is broken in us, to let ourselves be healed, to let ourselves know ourselves as resurrected people.

       We come to Christ as broken people, asking to be resurrected into something more, something greater. Yet, you wouldn’t know that looking around. For some reason, especially on Easter, we feel a need to present ourselves in the best possible light when we come to church. We put on our best clothes, fix our hair, shave or put on makeup. We want to look our best. And we bring our families and tell our children to behave and our spouses to make a good impression. We hide our brokenness from each other as if we believed that we are the only ones with a story of pain and suffering, of doubt and fear, of abandonment and loneliness. We forget, that this resurrection community is not about proving we are already well, but seeking out healing, it is not about already being perfect, but about being forgiven, it is not about being fearless, but learning to transform the fear, the doubt, the pain. It is about the process of resurrection. And we come together as a community to remember and celebrate Christ’s resurrection - through which we are assured that there is more, much more, unimaginably more, to life and death than we had ever dreamed. We celebrate that through his resurrection we have the potential to be resurrected, to be lifted up, and to become more. We are reassured that who we really are is so much more than the broken, struggling human being we think we are. That who we really are is a loved, resurrected, child of God, who is full of grace and joy and peace. And all we have to do to know that is to die - to die to who we think we are, to die to our pretensions of wholeness and admit our brokenness, to die to our fears and doubts, to die to the illusion that we can do it on our own, to die into the loving arms of Christ who will resurrect us from out current state into a superior state - who will lift us up - who will show us what it means to truly live.

2 Easter B

2 Easter B

Transcribed from a sermon given

April 15, 2012

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

On this second Sunday of Easter season, the Sunday after we celebrate Easter, the readings are an interesting combination of looking forward and acknowledging the resurrection. There is a clear sense when you look at them that the resurrection was not an end in itself, but a new beginning. It begins with the collect for the day, the prayer for the day, which usually sets up the main themes of the readings. If you read it you will see that it prays for all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s body that they may show forth in their lives what they profess in their faith. In other words, it is a prayer for the church, for the people of God.

Then we have this first reading from Acts, which describes in idyllic terms what the early church looked like. Everyone was of one mind and there was complete unity. People sold what they had and gave it to the disciples. Then the disciples gave to the ones who needed it. I do find it kind of interesting that very rarely do I hear this passage talked about by those who say that they want the United States to be a Christian nation. But that’s all right, because it didn’t last for long.

Next we have the psalm that continues the theme of how good it is for people to be in unity. Once again reaffirming how important it is for the church, the whole body of Christ, to be one.

Then follows the reading from the first letter of John in which he states, “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” There is this sense of passing on his experience, his experiences with Christ, to the gathered community so that they can know the joy of the resurrected Christ, and to serve as the community of believers.

Finally we read from John’s Gospel the description of Christ’s appearance to the disciples. Right there in that first resurrection appearance to the disciples he breathes on them and says to them, “As the father has sent me so I send you.” There was not even a week off after Easter. After all the trauma of the crucifixion, they experience the risen Christ and immediately they are sent. They have work to do. This is a new beginning.

We always read his particular Gospel on the first Sunday after Easter. This Sunday is often called Thomas Sunday because we always read about Thomas’ doubt. And that is important because I think every single one of us here, every Christian in the world, has at some point in their lives had some doubt. If you haven’t had some doubt at some point about the resurrection than you really haven’t taken it on as your own or really struggled with this amazing and highly improbable thing that happened. But what strikes me today was not so much Thomas and his doubt, but how Jesus became known to the disciples through the scars on his hands and on his side. The scars are not important in other resurrection appearances in the other Gospels. On the journey to Emmaus with a couple of disciples he becomes known in the breaking of the bread. For Mary Magdalene in the garden outside the tomb Christ made himself known by speaking her name. But here in the Gospel attributed to John, Christ makes himself known through his scars. This is the only place where it is so important. And it is obviously very important to John. Not only does Jesus say peace be with you the first time he appears, but he then shows his hands and his side. It is only after they have seen his scars that the disciples rejoice. And to make sure that nobody misses the importance of the scars, Thomas says I’m not going to believe unless I touch the nail holes in his hand and put my hand in his side.

For some reason the writer of John’s Gospel felt it was very important that the risen Christ still had the scars, and that is what jumped out at me this week as I was thinking about this sermon. Why would that be? Especially since John’s Gospel is the one that starts out by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” It has a very high Christology, this sense of Jesus being the Christ and also being one with God. And yet, when it comes to the resurrection the focus is on the scars. A very incarnate aspect of who the Christ was.

Now I don’t claim to have a final theological interpretation of this, I am sure that lots has been written on it, but I couldn’t find any this week. But I had to wonder why it was so important to John that there be the scars? One of the reasons might have been that one of the primary controversies in the very early church was a debate between the Gnostics and the people who later became the orthodox Christians. Some of the Gnostics claimed that God, Jesus, couldn’t have actually died on the cross but he was watching it, and that whatever it was that was nailed to the cross wasn’t really Jesus. Not another person but some kind of representation because the Christ, the risen one, couldn’t have suffered on the cross.

It is kind of like the problem that the Muslims have with Christianity because they say, understandably, that God could not have suffered. God could not have died on a cross and you are claiming that. And yes we do. We claim that God suffered and died on a cross.

So at the time of the writing of John’s Gospel there was a debate about that. About what was, who was this risen Christ. Was it the man Jesus that died on the cross? Was it an angel? Was it his spiritual essence, but not his body? Who was this? And it is a question we ask today. Who is this risen Christ? For the writer of the Gospel of John it was important to say that this risen Christ still had the marks on his hands.  This risen Christ is the same one that was nailed to the cross. This is the one who suffered. This is the one who died.

So what difference does that make? Well to me it makes a lot of difference. When I pray, when talk to Christ, when I walk with Christ, I find great solace in the fact that it is the one who has suffered. That I walk with the one who was crucified. That through his pain and his suffering there is a connection as a human being. It is meaningful to me that the one I relate to fully experienced all of what it meant to be human, including the pain, and the suffering and the wounds.

And I think this is important when we think about the Church as I was talking about at the beginning of the sermon. The Church, the community of all believers, is the body of Christ in the world. We are part of the body of Christ. And in spite of that first idealized description of them all being together in unity and giving up everything, we know that didn’t last for very long. If you read just a little bit further in Acts you’ll discover that there was one family that didn’t give everything they got for selling their house and there were some repercussions. I’ll let you read that for yourself. It is a very interesting story.

And we know from Paul’s letters that the churches that he began that started out with such unity and joy began to fray around the edges and to not always treat people equally. And we know when we look around the church in the world today that it is far from perfect. It has a lot of wounds, a lot of scars, like the body of the risen Christ. The body of the risen Christ had holes in his hands and his side. And the body of Christ as the Church is also wounded. We have scars. Each one of us has our own personal scars. Each church community has its own community scars. But that is part of what we have to offer. That is part of what we have to give to others - our woundedness. Many of us have read about the concept of the wounded healer. The idea that for the therapist or the doctor or the nurse it is often their own wounds, their own suffering, their own scars that gives them the power to help others and to heal them. And for us as a church community one of the most precious things that we offer to one another is our scars and our woundedness, to walk with one another through our pain and our suffering.

The church, the community of Christ, the Body of Christ in the world, is in many ways broken and wounded and scared because it is made up of people who are broken, and wounded and scared, but Christ’s resurrection was known to his disciples through his scars. Let us be the body of Christ in the world.

Amen

Easter sermon

What are we hoping for, expecting, on Easter.

Easter Morning 2012

Transcribed from a sermon given

By The Rev. Valerie Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

We have a pretty good idea about why Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. The one she loved and had been following was dead. He hadn’t had a proper burial and she wanted to anoint his body. We can understand that if someone has died and hasn’t had his body prepared we would want to go and do what we can. That was her intention. What she expected was to find a stone rolled across the front of the tomb and a decaying body within.

But I ask you today, what brought you here this morning? Some of you I know are here because you come to church every Sunday morning. It’s just what you do. And I’m sure that some of you are here because someone you care about a lot wants you to be here with them. And then there is everything in between. Some of you may be here because Easter is an important time for you. Others may be here because it just seems like the thing to do and you don’t quite know why you are here but it seems like the right place to be. Each one of us got up this morning and made the decision to come here, expecting something.

Maybe you expected to have some great music which I trust we are going to continue to experience. Some of you may have come because you love the Easter decorations, the feel of Easter and the smell of Easter lilies. Some of you may have come hoping you will hear some words of wisdom. Some of you may have come to see friends. Some of you may have come expecting to be a little bit bored. We all are here for a reason.

What happens to Mary Magdalene is not what she expected. The stone was rolled away; Jesus’ body wasn’t there. It was nothing like what she expected, so she began looking, searching. She was looking for was Jesus, that is she was looking for his body. So, even when he was standing right there she didn’t immediately recognize him.

What are you looking for? What are you looking for today? No matter what you think was the reason you are here, there is something that you are looking for – something that you are yearning for. Maybe you want a little bit of a sense of peace. Maybe you are looking for hope. Maybe you are looking for a break from unending worry. Maybe you are looking for some joy. Maybe you are looking for something to change your life. What is it that you are looking for?

Sometimes it is hard to put a word to what it is that we are yearning for. But we all have those deep soul desires. Something that we are looking for, searching for.

For Mary Magdalene it was Jesus. But what she found shocked her. What she found was so amazing she couldn’t believe it at first. She didn’t recognize him until he spoke to her.

We have to remember that no one, no one at time period, expected a human being to die and then three days later be up walking around. It was not part of anyone’s expectations. Even those who believed in a life after death, did not believe it could be a body walking around. Not the Jewish people, not the pagans, not the Romans, no one expected someone who was dead to be up and walking around.

Read today of several different ways that people encountered the risen Christ. We heard Peter talking about his own experience of the resurrected Christ. We have Paul telling the story of how first Christ appeared to the disciples, and then to over 500 at one time, and then to James and much later, much later, Jesus appeared to Paul. This appearance was after the ascension, after Pentecost. There was already a Christian church, because Paul was persecuting the church. He was trying to destroy it because he didn’t believe it.

Paul was riding on a donkey on his way to Damascus when something knocked him off his Donkey and blinded him. While he was lying there on the ground he had an experience of seeing Jesus. It changed his life. He describes it as having been the most recent one to have seen Christ. He didn’t say I had a feeling that Christ was there. He didn’t say I had a dream that I saw Christ. He saw the risen Christ and it changed his life.

Now these people who had the experience of the presence of the risen Christ didn’t say “I believe that Christ is risen.” They said, “I know that Christ is risen.” When you have seen something yourself you don’t believe that it is there, you know that it is there. You can be told by someone else about something and you can say that I believe that what they are telling me is the truth. But once you’ve seen it for yourself, you no longer believe it because someone else told you, it becomes the truth to you. It becomes a fact.

There are a lot of people who don’t say they believe that Christ is risen they know it. What we say at the beginning of our service is not Jesus was raised from the dead as if it happened long ago. What we say is “Christ is risen”, right now, today. Christ is Risen. The presence of the risen Christ is as much real today as it was on that road to Damascus.

What are we looking for? What are we really looking for? I think we all are searching for the same thing that Mary Magdalene was. She was searching for Jesus. We are searching and yearning to know that risen presence. There is something within us that has brought us here today, something that has brought us here today that says I need an experience of the risen Christ.

Those experiences can look very different. Some people experience the risen Christ as a still small voice inside that they can barely hear. Some people experience the risen Christ as something that is so powerful they almost feel like they have been knocked off their donkey (to put it politely). Some people may experience the risen Christ in the face of another person.

My prayer today is that everyone gathered here today has an experience of the risen Christ. You may have had it this morning with the glorious sunrise, you may have had it as you walked into the church and you saw the decorations. You may experience it in the music, or in the readings, or in the face of someone sitting near you. Perhaps you’ll experience the risen Christ when you see the children come in. They are going to be carrying a cross with flowers. Maybe, maybe your experience of the risen Christ will be while the children are looking for Easter eggs – or when we share in the bread and wine and remember that Christ asked us to remember him by breaking bread and blessing wine.

My prayer is that each one of us get a glimpse of the living Christ, the Christ that is risen, the Christ that is here with us, and that that glimpse will answer whatever it is that you are searching for, and change your life and make it so that you no longer say “I believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead” but you can feel in the depths of your being that you know that Christ is risen and present with us today.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!