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"Turned from Stone"
Sermon at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Easter Day
Isaiah 51:9-11
Acts 10:34-43
Luke 24: 1-10
Palm in hand last Sunday, I began the intense and formidable
journey through Holy Week. The palm was to be my divining rod
and guide, a reminder of green when there is none and a reminder
of hope when there seems little of it. First the edges began
to curl, then the color darkened. Life was draining out, death
was setting in. By Wednesday, the suppleness had given way to
stiffness, and then brittleness. A pointy tip fell off, and
then another. In defiance of this transformation, I taped the
ossifying palm frond to my office door. There it stays and will
remain, until I guess it falls to pieces on its own, turning
to dust. Lest anyone think that I have started talking to myself,
under my breath, I scolded the palm: You are dust and to dust
you shall return.
That was when I turned to stone. Not in the way Lot’s
wife had turned into a pillar of salt. I could move around as
usual, but my eyes turned to stone. What I mean is that I started
seeing stone everywhere: the stone angel on the mantel in the
parlor; the stone lion head above the front doors of this church;
the gray and rough sheets of stone that wrap the exterior of
this building; the stone sign on the front lawn; stones on the
prairie path. Then my ears turned to stone as the lyrics and
tune from the 1977 ELO hit started ringing in my ears: “I
turn to stone when you are gone, I turn to stone. Turn to stone,
when you comin’ home, I can’t go on.” The
only way to get a tune like that out of your mind is by striking
your head with a hammer or by turning to Scripture. But when
I tried to escape to the Biblical texts, I found only more stones.
Lying on the dry dessert floor was that loaf-sized stone that
refused to turn to bread. (Luke 4:3). Not far away was an even
larger one – the size of a pillow and the one that Jacob
put under his head to sleep on (Gen 28:11). Then I stumbled
on the hidden stone that patiently awaits the tender and misguided
foot (Psalm 91). I looked back at each of the past Sundays in
Lent, and saw stones everywhere – stones that are silent,
stones that crush and destroy, stones that are crashing to the
ground, until not one is left upon another.
Looking to today’s Gospel, there sits a prominent stone
just off center, the one that has been rolled away from the
tomb, its bulk and roundness having dug a shallow, smooth track
in the ground. Motionless, drab, non-descript and silent, it
is a magnet for my attention. But somehow, being off to the
side, it is disempowered, dwarfed by its mother and the stone
of stones, the tomb itself, which is the magnet for a group
of women who approach early in the morning. Early is an understatement.
I watch from a distance. The hard darkness of night has only
just begun to ease. The women, one after another, go in to the
tomb, disappearing through an entrance into the thick blackness
within. Three of the women are carrying vases and there are
four, five, twelve, twenty others. I’m not sure. There
are many because all were expecting to have to roll the five
hundred pound stone away from the entrance of the tomb. But
that, to their surprise and relief, is already done for them.
When they have all gone in, I approach cautiously, pause in
fear for a moment and then slip across the threshold, joining
the women in a space lost in time. The aromas of eucalyptus,
myrrh, and aloe fill the air. I can’t see the hand in
front of my face. My hand can see as well as my eyes. I reach
out and touch the hewn wall. It is smooth and damp to the touch.
There is a hushed quiet, except for the sound of anxious breathing
and dozens of blind hands that frantically search and probe
the floor. Light begins to flood in through the rounded opening.
I am blinded. The brightness is painfully intense so that I
close my eyes as tightly as I can and look down. Two voices
shatter the tense silence: “Why do you look for the living
among the dead?” I say nothing yet a response comes quickly
to mind “we’re not looking for the living but for
the dead – in the place of the dead.” But no one
speaks. I try to open my eyes but I am doubly blinded first
by darkness and now light. But I can hear the voices say this,
“He is not here, but has risen. Remember. Remember. Remember.”
Those words echoes through my mind and I remember the words
of the Lord in Ezekiel, “I will remove the heart of stone
from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.” (Ezek
11:19). I turn toward the light and begin to take small steps
toward the opening. The women are already ahead of me, pouring
out into the fresh morning air. In groups of twos and threes,
they walk fast and begin to run in the direction from which
they came. That is when I turned from stone and set my mind
on remembering and my eyes on the vision ahead of me, on the
women whose figures disappear in the distance. This is the Easter
moment. This is the Easter stance. This is the Easter experience.
And there are two things we must do: search for the living and
remember.
On this Easter morning, at this moment, we are all in the
tomb. You have come up the steps or along the ramp through those
double doors on Main Street into this house clad with stone.
It is the Easter moment and we are in an Easter tomb. There
is abundant light, some of it splashing in colors of red, blue
and yellow on the stone window sills. There is the smell of
incense and fragrant lilies. It is cavernous, with plenty of
room for everyone. The whole world, in fact. And what we are
doing is seeking the living and remembering, literally re-membering
by coming together as the body of Christ and with our minds,
remembering the stories and commandments of Jesus.
First, we must remember deeply, to the first story, the story
of creation, to that moment when things had gone terribly wrong.
It began with reaching and taking something that was not allowed,
then terror, lies and blame followed. And the story says, “God
drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he
placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard
the way to the tree of life.” Driven from the garden,
the man entered a tomb, a place of cursed ground, thorns and
thistles abundant with stones. Only with God’s continuing
care, water from rocks, manna in the dessert, were the descendants
of Adam able to survive. The entrance to the garden remained
blocked with flames and impenetrable sharp tips of steel, and
path there forgotten. That is until that Easter morning, when
those gathered in the tomb were set free in a baptism of light
and voice, to seek the living instead of the dead and to remember.
The tables had now been turned, because long ago it was God
in the garden who had looked for and called to the man and asked,
“Where are you?” Now we are the ones who are looking
for God, and we have been told where to look – among the
living. It is the easiest Easter egg hunt imaginable. The places
to look are all around us. All we need to do is remember –
remember what Jesus said and where he was.
You may have heard of the acronym WWJD, “what would
Jesus do” or WIJD “what is Jesus doing” but
there is much better one. WDJD – what did Jesus do. This
is how we remember. This is the map to the living. Every Sunday
we recall what Jesus did as we read from one of the Gospels:
Mark, Mathew, Luke and John. This year, we have been hearing
the stories from Luke’s Gospel. There are too many to
list all of them, but here are some of the familiar ones. Jesus
stretched out his hand and touched a man covered with leprosy.
He encountered and forgave the sins of a paralyzed man. He allowed
a prostitute to bathe his feet with her tears and dry them with
her hair and kiss and anoint them. He gathered around him the
marginalized and outcasts, the crippled, the poor, tax collectors,
soldiers and thieves. He was at the center of disputes about
theology and religious rules. He was at the Temple and in the
dessert, in the countryside, towns, villages and the capital
city. He was in a garden. He was on a cross. Where was Jesus?
Among the living and the dying. Even Herod, like the rock next
to the tomb, moves slowly and very short distances, who had
wanted for a long time to see Jesus, finally got his chance.
We remember the stories, remember what Jesus said and did,
then must go seek the living God. I can suggest places to look.
DuPage PADS runs a welcome center at First United Methodist
Church in Glen Ellyn, which is open every Sunday from 2 to 6
p.m. Wynscape is a nursing home in Wheaton, where care is provided
to the elderly – who in our society are often forgotten,
abused, neglected and avoided. Cathedral Shelter on Ogden Avenue
in Chicago provides support for people recovering from drug
addictions. Many are young, African-American men, without question
the most marginalized, feared and stigmatized group of people
in our country. Travel to many parts of the world, and you will
meet some of the three billion people who live on less than
$2 per day. Of course, you don’t even need to leave this
Easter tomb to seek and find the living God. If you remember
our faith stories, you will recall that Jesus was among all
of the people, each of whom suffered, some in ways obvious and
visible, and others in deep, dark hidden places. Like each of
us here today. You can seek the living God and find him in the
face of any and every person. Remember what Jesus did.
This is the Easter story and we are Easter people. Through
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have found the
path back to the garden of life – a life of joy, hope,
fullness and love. We may walk up to the tree of life and eat
of its fruit – the bread and wine, the sacred texts, the
community of faith. Take and eat. This is Christ’s body,
which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of him. Let us
keep the feast, Alleluia!
Amen.
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