Ellen Wondra's Easter Vigil sermon, with Dean Gary Hall presiding at the service.
Easter, 2005
Hold Resurrection Accountable
I saw that sign in the window of a shop on Dempster a couple of weeks ago. There's another one: “We love St. Francis. Say No to Resurrection.” Maybe you've seen these too. They have to do with the failure of the Resurrection Hospital system to fulfill certain assurances about health care for the poor, I gather. They have to do with expectations, not just fantasy, but expectation that a particular kind of thing will happen because somebody said it will.
Hold Resurrection Accountable
Finally the news we have been waiting for has come: Christ is risen! Risen in deed, in power, in truth, and in newness of life. The resurrection has come! Christ's resurrection as the first fruits of those who sleep. Christ's resurrection as God's new creation. Christ's resurrection as earnest of our resurrection and the life of the world to come.
Well, I say: Hold Resurrection Accountable
We've already done that by getting up early, in confidence that there will be new light, and getting here, to this Chapel, following this pillar of fire. We've put our trust in where it leads us - into and through the Red Sea and out the other side, where God has triumphed gloriously.
And so here we are, at the crack of dawn, playing with fire, telling stories in the dark, calling into our midst the whole long difficult glorious aggravating en-heartening story of God's doings with the world and particularly with those made in the image of God. We're standing among and with the ancestors, muddy feet and all.
- We're holding before God and each other that history of turmoil, and struggle, and exodus, and wandering, and of return-of teachers heeded and teachers mocked and the greatest of teachers killed.
- We're holding before God all of the confusion, and the betrayal, and the grievous loss, all the cruelty and heedlessness and fear and cowardice of human life.
- We're wiping the mud off our feet, and watching dry bones get knit back together and filled with the breath of life, we're listening to the beat of new hearts, and the rhythm of new spirits.
And we're saying: "Resurrection!"
We've already held resurrection accountable by having the nerve to baptize Melody Grace into Christ's death. Even before Christ's resurrection has been proclaimed anew yet one more year, we've taken the chance that Christ's resurrection actually means something for her young life, and for her teenaged life, and for young adult life, and for her grown-up life - for all her life. We've made resurrection part of her life.
We've had the audacity to reaffirm our own baptismal vows, our own proclamation that we want to be - that we are - part of Christ's resurrection, and that it actually means something. Renouncing the Evil One and all his works. Keeping the apostles fellowship, and breaking the bread, and praying. Seeing Christ in the face of friend and stranger. We're holding resurrection accountable.
We're saying "There is new life! And we want to be part of it! We are a part of it! And we won't settle for anything less! Alleluia! Christ is risen!"
We're saying:
- Raise it all up with Christ! Bring it into new life with Christ! Make it whole! Make it holy!
We're saying:
- Wipe away the tear from every eye!
- Give the meek the earth!
- Put that lion down next to that lamb!
- Make the whole world new!
Resurrection!
But surely it can't be that easy? Can it? Can it? Well, the earliest followers of Christ didn't find it all that easy. They were too overcome by death - by Jesus' death, by the possibility of their own deaths, by the death of what they hoped for - to have much sense of what was happening to them - or what was happening to Jesus. No matter that he said that he would die, and then rise again. All they see, to start, is that huge misplaced stone, and that empty tomb, and a stranger or two saying the strangest things.
But then, once they get it, once they see and hear the risen Christ - then they are grasped by it, then they are taken over by resurrection. Then, everything is about resurrection. They hold resurrection accountable: they stake their lives on it. They give their lives over to God's power to bring new life out of the worst forms of death.
So what would it mean for us to give our lives over to God's power to bring new life out of death? Don't answer too quickly! It's your life at stake here, remember.
Holding resurrection accountable:
- Maybe it means receiving healing from not just the usual places, or even the unlikely and unlooked for places—from behind stones, in the dark. Maybe it means receiving healing also from impossible places, places that have dealt out only pain and deprivation before.
- Maybe it means letting go of our carefully cherished injuries, and wounds, our judgments and our self-righteousness that are warranted by our long-suffering—just letting them go. Maybe that's part of resurrection.
- Maybe it means reaching out hands for healing, and kindness, and generosity, not just to those for whom we already care, but for those for whom we pretty actively don't care. Those whom, we judge, don't deserve it. Those whose healing we don't think we can afford. Maybe it means being hopeful and prayerful toward the Bush Administration. Maybe it means being generous toward Nashotah House. Maybe that's part of resurrection. Maybe that's what we stake our lives on.
- Maybe it means refusing discouragement, and dismay. Maybe it means not just looking for but seeing the hand of God at work over the face of the earth.
- Maybe it means wiping away the tears from every eye. Maybe that's part of resurrection.
- Maybe it means wiping away everything that puts tears in people's eyes, or in God's eye. Maybe it means not settling for the fact of tears, and sorrow, and suffering. Maybe it means actually removing people's suffering, taking away the causes, taking away the deprivations and the cruelties and the degradations. Maybe that's holding resurrection accountable; maybe that's saying life can and will and does trample down death.
- Maybe it means actually giving the meek the earth, and not just saying we believe they might inherit it some day, if they persevere, but surely not now, or maybe it's only a metaphor anyway. That's holding resurrection accountable; that's exalting the humble and putting the last first.
- Maybe it means actually making peace, and saying no to war, not just saying that minimal hostilities, particularly as long as they're Somewhere Else are really tolerable—as long as they're not in my backyard. Maybe that's what we stake our lives on.
- Maybe it means actually getting the mighty down from their thrones, and insisting that might be used for right, for justice, for mercy, for compassion. May be it means actually letting go of our own might, our privilege, our sense of superiority and certainty. Maybe that's holding resurrection accountable.
- Maybe it means letting go of some of those things we want, those things we feel we really, really need in order to be truly human—oh, not so much possessions for most of us, but status, position, being regarded well by others (in all our humility, of course), being right. Maybe it means simply being human. That's holding resurrection accountable.
- Maybe it means actually living our lives, every moment, every day as if it were actually true—
- As if Christ had come out of the tomb, trampling down death by death
- As if the new creation really had begun with this new day, and the next new day, and the one after that and the one after that
- As if we ourselves are wholly taken up into that new creation
- As if we ourselves have new hearts, and new minds, and new spirits, and bones that are reconnected and full of life
- As if we ourselves are going ahead into Galilee as proclaimers, and healers, and doers of resurrection
- As if we ourselves are saying to God: we know you will raise it all, because you raised Christ
- As if we ourselves are saying to God: we're part of raising it all too, because we follow Christ.
- As if we ourselves are saying to God: raise us too. Please, raise us too.
Hold resurrection accountable