Hi friends,
As I write this it is Wednesday afternoon, and I like thousands of other clergy people, am gearing up to jump into the teeth of Holy Week and Easter. I have often said that one of the ironic things about being a clergy member is that often I find myself so busy doing “church stuff” that i miss out on some of those meaningful moments that I am in fact called to hold before people. Easter and Holy Week is one of those occasions. There is the Maundy Thursday Seder dinner, the Good Friday Tenebrae Service, the Sunrise Service the Easter Services... (I also have a wedding on Saturday... this is the last time I will say “oh that date is pretty early, sure I can do that wedding”, without checking to see how early Easter is this year!)
One thing that I have found interesting this year, is to listen to what other people have to say about Easter. Is it just me, or have you noticed that there is more advertising around the notion of gifts to be bought for Easter this year than in years past?. I have always been down with the chocolate Easter bunnies. I know there is the whole pagan worship mixed metaphor thing there, but there is something satisfying about biting the ears off of a chocolate bunny! It seems that Easter is the next target for the consumer driven culture we are a part of. It makes me wonder what those saints who came before us would think of the baskets full of video games, candy, gifts, new dresses and shoes, when they were giving their lives to another empire that was ruled by a risen Jesus. It makes me wonder what they would think of our ability to turn Jesus and Easter into a metaphorical and existential self help program that leads us to pin stripe suites and shiny cars, when they were proclaiming the bodily resurrection of Jesus and that death, the ultimate weapon of tyrants and empires of injustice had no more power.
Having heard those voices proclaiming Jesus as the ultimate self help guru, and Easter as consumer Christmas Ch 2 I’ve decided to title my Easter sermon this year “Easter didn’t happen” for two reasons 1. The Jesus as gateway to Hummer H2's and pinstripe suites isn’t the Jesus of our Holy cannon, The easter devoid of resurrection and re-creation seems to be absent from our scriptures as well. And 2. Even if we proclaim the bodily resurrection of Jesus and all its ramifications to the empires of this world, it isn’t merely an event of the past that “happened”. It is a reality that is happening and will happen in the future if we truly cling to the miraculous, revolutionary message of of a risen savior and reconciliation of all creation. One of my favorite Charlie Brown comic strips ends with Charlie saying “The greatest burden in life is to have great potential”
I hope Easter is a holy day for you and that these last few days of lent usher you towards a life of resurrection, hope and life!
Have a wonderful Easter friends.
3 comments:
I agreed with your heading, but I dunno about the rest. This explanation seemed quite convincing to me:
http://merkavah-vision.blogspot.com/2008/03/easter-sermon-part-33-resurrection.html
Thanks for the comment Tom,
I must admit the tradition of denying the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus due to literary criticism with claims the story was added later, and using writings that the scholarly community has treated as suspect at best such as the gospel of Peter or the Gospel of Thomas never was very convincing to me especially since it was the bodily, resurrection of Christ that wasthe crux of the faith of the early church that lead to their persecution. No leader would persecute someone for proclaiming a self-help philosophy that results in financial prosperity, but will eradicate any one who threatens to take away their ultimate weapon - death or at least fear of death.
Also to say that early Christian communities didn't believe the resurrection may well be true. That doesn't prove or disprove the resurrection for me. There are lots of things that Christian communities believe that are not remotely rooted in scripture - take the belief of heaven as a giant "huggies" commercial with clouds harps and angel wings. That is a myth deeply embedded in most christian's faith that I believe isn't biblical, true or good for the world.
Ha! sorry i'm slow... I just got the "Tom Wrong" as apposed to "Tom Wright" good one...
I'm more of a Ben Witherington III fan but his name is harder to spoof :-)
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