Go!

Living God, long ago, faithful women proclaimed that Jesus’ tomb was empty, and the world was forever changed. Help us to watch them. Help us to listen to them. Teach us to keep faith with them, that our witness may be as bold, our love as deep, and our faith as true.[1] Amen.

* * *

The scene is cinematic in its scope: It’s sunrise, first thing in the morning. A huge stone has been rolled away from the tomb’s entrance. Five or more women, charged with anointing the dead body of a man they loved, linger at the entrance, wondering what they’ll find inside. Then, a question:

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Perhaps after two thousand years of telling the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, after hearing it over and over again, we might want to ask them the same thing. If we’re thinking of it as a movie, it’s like a movie we’ve watched dozens of times – we know more than the characters do, and we find ourselves yelling at the screen. 

“The poison’s in the other glass!” or “Don’t leave the deposit in the newspaper, Uncle Billy!” or just “Don’t go in there!” This morning, taking in this scene, maybe we want to yell at these women: “He’s alive! Don’t you get it?”

But they don’t. And of COURSE they don’t! Because these are the women who saw Jesus die. They saw him beaten and nailed to a cross; they watched, from a distance, as he was mocked; they saw him suffer, heard him say, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”; they watched as he breathed his last; they saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Of course they were looking for him among the dead – they saw him die.

But they saw other things as well.

Luke tells us that these women had been following Jesus since Galilee – that means they had been following him since the very beginning of his ministry, on a day perhaps three years before, when he stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth (his hometown) and read from the book of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he said. “and has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind; to set the oppressed free; to proclaim the Lord’s favor!” The women saw how the crowd first adored him, then turned on him.

They watched as he moved from town to town, teaching wherever he went, spreading the news of God’s love in a way that changed people’s lives. And then, in a synagogue one day, they saw something terrifying: a man possessed by a demon, crying out, “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Jesus simply and sternly said, “Be quiet. Come out of him!” The demon obeyed, and the women were amazed.

They watched as he continued casting out demons, freeing people from all the things that tried to possess them. And then, he did something new. It started with a woman whose fever mysteriously went away after Jesus spoke to her; the skin of leprous people cleared up; those who were paralyzed stood and walked; a man born blind was able to see. 

Before long Jesus was inundated with the sick and disabled – people who had long ago believed they would never recover from their maladies – and he brought healing to all of them. The women were astonished at these events, these miracles, but more than that, they were shocked because, unlike every other healer they’d ever seen or heard about, Jesus did it for free.[2]

Along the way, these women saw Jesus take an interest in the lives of all kinds of people. One day, he stopped at a lakeside, inviting some poor fisherman named Peter, James, and John to follow him. Later, as he was passing by a tax booth, he invited a rich tax collector named Levi to join them. 

When people brought children to him, seeking a blessing, he didn’t send them away as his disciples assumed he might; instead he was giddy, saying, “The kingdom of heaven belongs to these ones! The Lord has hidden things from the wise and revealed them instead to little children.”

He spent time with the Pharisees – the religious elites of the day – and went to banquets at their homes. He also ate with people from all walks of life – Jews and Gentiles alike, and even people the Pharisees believed to be unworthy sinners.

As the women listened to Jesus’ sermons, they began to hear him teach more and more about loving their enemies: “Bless those who curse you,” he would say, “and pray for those who mistreat you. … Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” And Jesus didn’t just talk about these things – he did them! He healed a Roman Centurion’s son, even though the Romans were the Jews’ oppressors. He healed Samaritans and told stories in which they were the heroes, even though they practiced a different religion than the Jewish people.

He also talked about the Kingdom of God, which didn’t exactly sound like a particular place. He said it was like a mustard seed – an invasive weed that could take over a whole garden; or like yeast, just a little bit of which can leaven a whole ton of wheat. To the civil authorities, this sounded like code language for rebellion. To the religious authorities, it sounded like a threat to their power.

And that was when the women started to hear people plotting against him. There were whispers at first, and then the threats became bolder and more specific. As time went on, it was more and more obvious that, if Jesus were to set foot back in Jerusalem, he would be killed. His disciples tried to temper his rhetoric: “Why do you always say what you believe?” they asked. “Every proclamation guarantees free ammunition for your enemies!”[3] The problem was, he didn’t just say what he believed; he did what he believed. Despite the protests of those who loved him most, he continued his trek to the city that kills its prophets.

He wasn’t there a week before they arrested him. One of his closest friends betrayed him, everyone deserted him, and the authorities killed him.

And the women saw him die.

That’s why they were looking for him in the tomb that morning.

* * *

It seems odd to me that, of all the characters who appear in today’s scripture reading – the appointed reading for Easter this year – Jesus himself is not one of them. The women don’t find him in the tomb, and neither does Peter. Luke’s story of the first Easter morning does not include an appearance by the risen Christ.

So what does that mean?

It means we’ve got to go! We’ve got to get up and go and find him. We’ve got to stop looking for the living among the dead. Perhaps this seems like a daunting task – it’s hard to know where to begin. But the women in this story can help us, because they’ve followed him throughout his ministry. They’ve seen where he’s been. They know where he would go.

He cast out demons. We should look for Christ among those who are wrestling with drug addiction, credit card debt, self-harm, alcoholism, depression.

He healed the sick. We should look for Christ in the cold and flu aisle, in the ambulance screaming down the highway, in the operating room, in the ICU, in the rehab center, in the assisted living facility.

He welcomed children. We should look for Christ in classrooms and schoolyards and daycare centers; in orphanages and foster homes and juvenile detention centers; on the ball field and the ballet studio and the playground.

He ate with the poor and the rich. We should look for Christ at the fast-food drive-thru and the French restaurant and our own humble kitchen tables.

He embraced his enemies. We should look for Christ in the people we’d most like to avoid – at work, in our families, perhaps even in this very sanctuary; we should look for Christ in the political candidate we’d be least likely to vote for; we should look for Christ in suicide bomber.

He sought out the lost. We should look for Christ among the grief-stricken families in Brussels, the undocumented workers in our country, the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, the refugees throughout the world.

This is what resurrection means: the Kingdom of God is not a place we discover after we die, but a place God is making, here and now, in this broken and hurting world. The empty tomb is a call to each one of us, to go! Go out into the world, seeking the risen Christ wherever he may be found, serving everyone we encounter along the way. 

So go! Go! He is risen! He is risen indeed! 

Amen.

---

[1] Adapted from a prayer written by a woman named Kris

[2] Reza Aslan, Zealot. New York: Random House, 2013. (103)

[3] “Non-Stop” from the Hamilton soundtrack, Lin-Manuel Miranda, original Broadway cast of Hamilton.

Stones Shall Shout

Our raucous parade is over;

hosannas waft into the cloudy sky.

Hush.

What do you hear?

The choir’s last suspended note.

Bird song.

Cars and semis rumbling down 29.

An Amtrak whistle.

March winds swishing pine needles.

A sluggish wasp in flight.

The constant buzz of tinnitus.

Put those sounds aside.

Listen.

The mountains, rocks, and stones

are cheering.

a poem for Palm/Passion Sunday 2016

by Rachel Horsley

Mary Knows

"Mary and Martha" by He Qi

she shopped
for the spikenard oil
exchanged denarii
with the high-end herbalist

Mary knows

this perfume is for His burial
yet when Jesus arrives
at her brother's house
it is His life she anoints

Mary knows

the fragrance is strong
heady incense
she wipes the excess
from His feet with her hair

Mary doesn't know
in the violent days to come
she will seek solace
drawing scented tresses
about her face.

a poem for the fifth Sunday in Lent by Rachel Horsley

based on John 12:1-8

Hungry

New Testament: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

“The Hunger Games” is series of books set far in the future, after the United States has collapsed and then been pulled back together by an oppressive, dictatorial leader. Every year, each of the twelve districts are forced to send two children to The Capital to fight to the death on national television. It’s a dark vision of human nature – one that highlights some of the most disturbing truths about the selfishness and desire for control that often define us.

But it’s also a story of hope, and as I was reflecting on the story of the Prodigal Son, his hunger reminded me of a crucial scene in the first book of the series. The main character, Katniss, is forced to grow up too early; she had to take responsibility for providing for her mother and younger sister after her father was killed.

There comes a point where Katniss has nothing for her family to eat – she even looks through the trash bins, discovering they’ve just been emptied.

“When I passed the baker’s,” she narrates, “the smell of fresh bread was so overwhelming I felt dizzy. The ovens were in the back, and a golden glow spilled out the open kitchen door. I stood mesmerized by the heat and the luscious scent until the rain interfered, running its icy fingers down my back, forcing me back to life.”

All of a sudden, the baker’s wife is yelling at Katniss, telling her to move on, shrieking that she’s sick of brats always coming around. The young girl notices a boy peering out from behind the screaming woman and recognizes him from school. She will come to learn that his name is Peeta, but at this point he is a complete stranger to her. Katniss moves along, trying to take some shelter under a tree that’s just beyond the baker’s pigsty.

“The realization that I’d have nothing to take home had finally sunk in,” she says. “My knees buckled and I slid down the tree trunk to its roots. It was too much. I was too sick and weak and tired, oh, so tired.

“There was a clatter in the bakery and I heard the woman screaming again … Feet sloshed toward me through the mud. … It was the boy. In his arms, he carried two large loaves of bread that must have fallen into the fire because the crusts were scorched black.

“His mother was yelling, ‘Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one … will buy burned bread!’

“He began to tear off chunks from the burned parts and toss them into the trough … [He] took one look back to the bakery as if checking that the coast was clear, then, his attention back on the pig, he threw a loaf of bread in my direction. The second [loaf] quickly followed, and he sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door tightly behind him.

“By the time I reached home, the loaves had cooled somewhat, but the insides were still warm. When I dropped them on the table, [my sister’s] hands reached to tear off a chunk, but I made her sit, forced my mother to join us at the table, and poured warm tea. … We ate an entire loaf, slice by slice. It was good, hearty bread, filled with raisins and nuts.”[1]

This story reminds me of the situation in which many of us – perhaps all of us – find ourselves, at one time or another. I expect that everyone here has food enough to keep them from the kind of physical hunger that Katniss and the Prodigal Son experienced. But scripture tells us that people don’t live by bread alone. That’s something that Jesus knew very well. He quoted that passage of scripture when he was fasting in the wilderness and Satan tried to tempt him into turning stones into bread that he could eat. There are so many things for which we hunger.

I believe there is food out there, and sustenance for a starving world. People don’t live on bread alone. Physical exercise keeps our bodies strong and active. Our minds are nourished as we engage in critical thinking and test what we believe.

Positive, encouraging relationships help us to grow in our sense of who we are and what we can accomplish. Spiritual practices like prayer, confession, meditation, reading scripture, and gathering for worship nourish our connection with God and the people around us. We have to pay attention to each of these aspects of our lives, making sure that we receive the sustenance we need for each of them.

We don’t just live by bread alone.

Often, we are hungry for something else. Jesus understood how people can spiritually starve to death, and I think that’s why he decided that the last thing he’d do with his disciples was share a meal with them. He gathered them all together to eat the Passover meal – but he changed things a little. As he gave out the bread, he said, “This is my body.” And he blessed it and broke it. He told them that, every time they ate bread, they should remember God and remember how God feeds people. Not just our bodies, but our spirits as well.

If we look at Katniss’ experience, it may be more similar to ours than we’d like to admit.

First, she tried to feed herself – and we try to do that, too. We try to solve our own problems and tell ourselves that we’re strong enough or smart enough to get through life all on our own. That didn’t work for Katniss, and it doesn’t work for us. Next, she looked in the trash, and we do that sometimes. We look for our spiritual food in the wrong places – in destructive relationships, in drugs and alcohol, in the latest technology or the most prestigious job or whatever it is that the world tells us should satisfy our deep, insatiable longing. But those things are fleeting, and while they might make us feel better for a minute or a day or even a week, they don’t last. Soon enough that hunger returns.

Finally, Katniss gave up. She laid down with hunger gnawing at her stomach, and that was when the bread finally came. Unearned. Undeserved. From an unexpected source – a stranger who would one day become an ally, perhaps even a friend. And that bread wasn’t trash, it wasn’t stale or dry – “It was good hearty bread, filled with
raisins and nuts.”

Friends, that is the kind of spiritual bread that Christ offers to us: bread that is fulfilling and nourishing, bread that awakens our spirits, even when we feel trapped in the cold and the rain, even when we feel like we might be dead inside. The task for us is admit that we’re hungry, and to look to the one who is willing to risk a beating for us – who is willing to take on death itself – to provide the food and connection that we so desperately need.

For what do you hunger today? Love? Justice? Hope? Courage? Forgiveness? Companionship? Connection? Christ offers us all these things and more at his table. Sometimes his table looks like the table at the front of our sanctuary; and sometimes it looks like the table where a father and his two sons share a fatted calf; and sometimes it looks like the table where a daughter, mother, and sister share a loaf of hearty bread; and sometimes it just looks like your own kitchen table, battered and banged up over the years. Native American poet Joy Harjo writes beautifully about the metaphor of a table:

The world begins at a kitchen table, she writes. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.[2]

So come: you who have much faith and you who have little,

you who have been here often,

and you who have not been for a long time,

you who have tried to follow and you who have failed.

Come, not because I invite you: it is the Lord,

and it is God’s will that those who desire life should meet God here,[3]

in good, hearty bread – to the last sweet bite.

---

[1] Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008, p.31

[2] "Perhaps the World Ends Here" from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1994 by Joy Harjo. 

[3] From the Iona community

The Prodigal

It's a transparent story:
world-weary son,
driven by hunger,
back to his father's farm —
reduced to barefoot begging,
praying for menial work.

From a distance,
the father recognizes
something in the walk,
the posture,
the son he assumed
died dissolutely,
trudging toward him.

It only takes a second
to forgive.

Then the gifts:
the best robe, a ring,
sandals for his callused feet,
the roasting of a calf,
a party.

The thing is: we're all invited.
Let's put on our robes of love,
slip rings of faith on our fingers,
tie on our working/ dancing shoes,
feast at the table of spiritual cuisine;
let's rejoice!

a poem for the fourth Sunday in Lent, 2016.

by Rachel Horsley