Resurrection Glimpses
A Sermon for Easter Sunday
By Griff Martin
For the People of First Austin: a baptist community
of faith
On April 16, 2017
Incarnate
God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living
and breathing Resurrected reality we can all together experience. Be present
here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then
nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else
will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Risen Christ and the
Comforter.
He
Is Risen! (He is Risen Indeed!)
Alleluia!
(bells)
When
I get stuck during the sermon writing process I wander….. I begin walking down
Brazos Street to 5th Street and then I walk to the Mexican American
Art Gallery where I can wander in and out of the iconic, deeply religious art
and then if nothing has come to me, I walk back up Congress Avenue stopping at
the coffee shop that I prefer and then up to the Capital to see what is going
on and then back down Congress Avenue.
Which
is what I have done off and on all week…. Because it’s Easter and Easter is
tricky. Especially when it’s your first Easter at a big steeple new church.
Especially when you want to be impressive and witty and clever.
And
I do. I want to point out something new to all of us this morning, so that you
will leave here and think: “Our new pastor, he’s so brilliant and handsome and
witty and clever, you know that (such and such) fact about the Resurrection
account that Griff brought out, well I never knew that before and that opens it
all up and explains it all.”
But
here’s the truth: today is not a day about me pointing out a fact that no one
has ever noticed before or us knowing something, today is about experiencing
something. Today we seek the same experience of the disciples who after the
women came back with the news of an empty tomb, they themselves go racing- a
literal foot race- to the tombs to experience this truth…. Which begs the
questions: why have we not run here this morning and why are none of us
breathless?
Because
this is a morning we should arrive panting, breathless having raced to get hear
and to hear the truest words that we know as a faith community, the words that
change everything…
He
is Risen! (He is Risen, indeed!)
Alleluia!
(bells)
Because
those words are why we are here today.
And
that is what I was pacing about this week, trying to figure out how to preach
those words to our community. And so I was on my walk and I was at the Capital.
On this particular day there was a large political rally going on and this was
one of those issues where there are very clearly two sides to the issue and
people feel very strongly about their side. I walked up and observed the rally
for a few minutes, saw a few friends who were participating and then turned to
walk back towards Congress.
I
was at the intersection where Congress dead ends into the Capital and no cars
are allowed any further. And as usual there was a crowd of people waiting to
cross the street and that is when the minivan pulled up and essentially parked
in the crosswalk. This being the time and age it is, folks became visibly
uncomfortable, shifted into the tension and a silence formed over the group.
And that is when I saw it, the signs taped to the side of the door: “Repent and
God will forgive you.” “Sin no more.” “Change your ways.” And then I started to
cringe as I heard the praise and worship music playing in the van and then saw
the bullhorn coming out and heard the words “God loves you.”
And
almost instantly security was there to move the van along and this particular
street corner minivan preachers saw security coming and before they got into
any trouble they drove off, or they attempted to, but in their state- the high
of judgmental bliss- they accidently drove onto the sidewalk and almost hit a
few people (because nothing says Jesus loves you like a minivan almost running
you over) and then they course corrected with a heavy thud back onto 11th
Street, praise music still blaring and drove off while cheering for themselves.
The
group of us standing there was still silent, trying to take it all in and then
the woman next to me looked over at me and said (to me and everyone else
listening): “And that is why I don’t go to church, it has nothing better to
offer than that.”
And
then we stood in silence as her 16 word sermon clouded and hovered over our
silence…. “And that is why I don’t go to church, it has nothing better to offer
than that.”
Do
we? And if so, what is it? Because my hunch would tell me that particular woman
has probably sat in an Easter service before, I could hear that in her voice,
it was not that she has never tried church, she was done with church. My hunch
is that she sat in a service and she was told all about the Easter event by a
church where people were not breathless, by folks who knew the story but have
never experienced it.
She
has not experienced the whole story: It’s a truth that starts in the dark of
morning. It starts in what has to be the most hopeless of places, the tomb
where the one you love and the one you believed in has now been placed… it’s
the place of broken dreams, crushed hopes, longings, failure… it’s the very
place of death.
And
yet… (pause)…. The great Words of Easter: And yet.
And
yet it’s here that love is victorious, it’s here that the light gets in, it’s
here that brokenness is restored to wholeness, it’s here where hope returns,
it’s here that we encounter the Risen Lord!
It’s
here we find the greatest truth… He Is Risen! (He is Risen Indeed!)
Alleluia!
(bells)
It’s
here, that early morning when before sunrise, we find the invitation from the
women who have bravely already journeyed to the tomb and what they see there
sends them running back with this invitation: “Come and See”…. Which is
our invitation, to change our vision, to run to see an empty tomb, to
experience the resurrection, to find our truth that is greater than anything
else we have to offer.
And
maybe our problem is that we aren’t breathless… maybe we have forgotten to go
running to the tomb and instead of seeing the resurrection, we have just heard
about it and that is not the invitation….. it’s not come and hear, come and
know. It’s come and see. The truth is that second hand resurrection accounts
will never be enough.
And
maybe Easter after Easter we have simply heard about the resurrection and have
not experienced the resurrection.
Which
is a real shame because it’s happening all around us if we would notice it. You
see this is not a truth that is all the difficult to talk about, there are
opportunities everywhere we look these days. It’s as if God took a play book
from the Anne Lamott school of writing: “tell the truth that everyone already
knows, the fundamental truth and keep telling it in new ways.”
And
the truth of the resurrection is all around us.
It’s
happening in the bougainvillea plants that are coming back to life with huge
almost comical hot pink blooms this season, it’s the roses bushes bursting
forth with truth, it’s the bulbs we planted last winter now shooting green
sprouts, it’s the Texas red yucca with their red stalks almost looking
extra-terrestrial extending high above the ground with such obvious- even show
offish- resurrection boldness, it’s every tree replacing it’s leaves with new growth.
It’s very season of spring and how out of the dirt things we thought were once
dead have now come alive.
It’s
the musician who stands at the corner of 4th and Congress and plays
the saxophone each day even if no one stops to listen, who plays a melody for
all to hear as they rush by him without noticing…
It’s
the woman with cancer who shows up here each week to stand and to worship God.
It’s the man with depression who is here week after week because he knows that
depression is not the end of his story. It’s every teenager who is facing all
the horrible questions of life and identity and esteem and here because they
know the answer lies way beyond them. It’s the children who are here because
there is something in this story that is truer than any other story they are
being taught. It’s those in grief who come here because here there is a word of
hope.
It’s
prisoners at the Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, California that are
taking a class on murals and are creating incredible works of art from behind
bars as part of their rehabilitation. They are being taught to use the pain of
their lives, both the pain they have felt and the pain they have caused, and to
create something beautiful from it, something that will speak to the world.
It’s
the widow who recently walked down the center aisle of this church after
burying their beloved and who at the end turned and looked at me, right in the
eyes, and said, “I am going to be okay.”
It’s
the churches in Egypt where last week priest resided over services wearing
blood stained stoles after their churches were targeted and bombed and who this
morning are proclaiming resurrection in the face of very real danger.
It’s
every time that we sit on a pew with folks who vote the opposite way we do but
we decide in that moment to worship together, it’s every time someone who was
once excluded (for being queer, transgender, liberal, conservative- the list
goes on and one) person is embraced and included, it’s when the racism and
prejudice inside all of us finally comes to the light and we say no more and
deal with it, it’s every time a homeless neighbor finds their way out, it’s
when we battle our own addictions and face the ugly in our own hearts, it’s
being honest about our own wounds.
It’s
the stories of the light getting through that we have heard all of Lent: grief
over losing a father, a politician finding his calling for justice in a battle
with cancer, a grieving widow finding her next step, a dog that teaches us
about letting go of perfection and control, it’s beating an addiction that is
robbing us of life.
Resurrection
is every time we find the grace to forgive or we are given the grace of being
forgiven, it’s every time we allow transformation to occur, it’s those moments
where resistance becomes revival, it’s when there is life where there should be
death, hope where there should be none, laughter where there should be tears,
love where there should be hate, belief where there should be unbelief, and
beauty where there should be ash. It is those places where love is victorious.
It’s the places where the impossible becomes a house of possibility.
And
church we have the vocabulary for these moments, we have the words:
It’s
resurrection.
He
is Risen! (He is Risen, indeed!)
Alleluia.
(bells)
These
are resurrection stories and in the Kingdom of God resurrection is everywhere.
So
to the woman at the crosswalk, I apologize because we do have something better
to say…. We have just failed in saying it. We have failed to be a community
that invites you not to know the Resurrection, but to experience it. We
have failed to tell the story of a Jesus who came and embodied every truth that
matters- that love is the greater good, that it’s worth taking huge risks for
people, that stories and questions are the only ways to communicate, that the
only way to live is giving all, that truth must be spoken to power, even though
doing so would get him killed. We have failed to be breathless about our
God, who will always find a way to birth hope, will bring light to the
darkness, will create a way when there is no way, will refuse to let death be
the final answer, who will always find a way for love to burst forth, who
wanted to know what it meant to be human and in doing so was willing to give everything
for us.
But
you can’t name it until you experience it, and you can’t be breathless until
you go running to find it, to see it for yourself, to be part of the story. And
church we have nothing to offer the world until we ourselves become a community
of resurrection, until these are the stories of our being, these are the
stories we live, … to remember that resurrection is not only a past tense verb
(it did happen) but that it's still happening, all around us and within us.
A
few weeks ago the New York Times featured an article that was a conversation
between the famous composer Esa Pekka Salonen and the cellist YoYo Ma. The
conversation was about a concert that Salonen had composed with YoYo Ma in
mind, every movement was built with his in mind and this debuted recently in
Chicago. The entire concert is essentially the cello doing battle with the
entire symphony.
At
one point near the end, YoYo has to play a b-flat that is essentially off the
charts… describing it he says: “Your wrote me a note that is basically at the
very limits. That is the outer limit. It’s not unlike the boy who flew too
close to the sun. Is it burning you? Do you break free?.... We talked about
wanting to hear a sound that is inside us and can’t get out.”
And
that note is Resurrection. And this morning it has burst forth.
He
is Risen. (He is Risen, indeed!)
Alleluia
(bells)
Later
on in that conversation Salonen the composer talks about one of his hopes for
this particular work: (in his words) to “creates a
space where an experience can happen….. hoping it would become an environment.”
Perhaps it finally can. Maybe today the Resurrection can
be more than something we just know or a story you hear second hand, maybe it
can be something we together experience, a present reality, and in doing so- in
that experience may we create a new environment, a new reality, a new Kingdom.
May
we come and see.
May
we come and see so that we can go and tell.
May
we continually be breathless because of this experience.
Resurrection.
Love wins. The impossible becomes a house of possibility. No way becomes a way.
He
is Risen. (He is Risen, indeed!)
Alleluia
(bells).
Amen and Amen.
*photo taken by Bob Avant
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