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"The Sound of Easter"
Homily at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church,
Glen Ellyn, IL
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter Sunday
The Rev. George Smith
Jeremiah 31: 1-6
Acts 10: 34-43
John 20: 1-18
On the count of three, I want you to say your first name, and
not softly but with some energy. You don’t often get to
hear your own name in your voice, so let’s do it now.
Okay…one, two three: George! Pause. What you have just
heard is the sound of Easter, a sound that has been ringing
through Glen Ellyn, and every village, city and country on earth
since that early morning, 2,000 years ago.
Last Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune published a piece by
Garrison Keillor – who is an author and radio host of
a Prairie Home Companion. He is an amazing story teller. If
butterscotch could talk, it would sound like Garison Keillor
– smooth, steady, a river of comfort, ease and good feeling.
In Wednesday’s article he talked about his relationship
with Christianity and being a new member of a church over the
past year. You see, he wants his young daughter to grow up as
he says in the love of the Lord, and in order to do that, he
has been taking her to church, and sitting in the last pew,
taking in what he is hearing and experiencing. He reflects on
the stories of Holy Week and identifies strongly with the rag-tag
disciples who flee when the going with Jesus gets rough. Like
the disciples, Keillor says that he is skeptical, scared and
uncommitted. And he says this, “I don’t doubt God’s
existence – there he is – but I doubt his interest
in us right now and I haven’t the faintest idea what he
wants from me.”
I think Keillor speaks for many people, perhaps you. The issue
isn’t whether God exists or not. Sure God exists…somewhere
out there. But does God have any interest in our daily lives,
let alone in this nit on a gnat of a planet on the outskirts
of a minor galaxy? And perhaps you too don’t have the
faintest idea what God wants from you, and does it matter anyway?
How could you live up to it? I say skepticism is good, and as
Keillor rightly points out, Jesus was pretty hard on those who
were confident, cool and radiated a glow of smug correctness.
Easter invites skepticism and questions. I encourage you to
poor them on – bring buckets of them to pour into the
open tomb, because Easter is not about defeating skepticism
or questions with easy answers. Easter is about one thing, and
one thing only – LIFE, your life and each and every life.
In our creed, when we say “I believe” – it
means that we give our heart to life itself.
Why is it that Christianity been able to exist for 2,000 years?
How has it survived in a world of persecution, change and unending
trouble? There have been external threats over millennia –
at first there were emperors who wanted to destroy the small,
scattered communities of people who gathered in houses for worship
– people who wouldn’t participate in the religious
system of the empire and pay tribute to the local gods. Later,
there were the Vandals and other Germanic and Nordic barbarians
who sacked Rome repeatedly. Christianity was a punching bag
for invading Muslim armies, plagues and famine. In our own time,
the Soviet Union harassed and made life difficult for its Christians
and clergy. It reported that churches closed and people became
atheists. More that socialism or communism, the greatest threat
to Christianity is prosperity. In many parts of the world Christians
bask in abundance and consumerism that offer countless activities
for fun and recreation and provide a sense of satisfaction,
confidence and control, making religion increasingly irrelevant.
If external threats have threatened the church, internal problems
are even worse. The church itself has been its own worst enemy,
fighting to the death over Creeds, property, control and theology.
Recently, the Episcopal Church and its Anglican sister churches
come to mind as they continue to fight and self-destruct over
the issue of homosexuality, like children tugging at a rope
while the house behind them is burning to the ground. That house,
for example, being the latest report that says a quarter of
all teenage girls are infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
And that today, Sunday, March 23, 30,000 children will die from
preventable causes. And that 4,000 U.S. soldiers and 600,000
civilians have died in Iraq since 2003. For good reason, people
are disillusioned and skeptical about religion in general and
Christianity in particular with its misplaced priorities and
hypocrisy - a church that seems destined to becoming a museum
with a few angry and bitter docents.
But somehow despite its dis-function, the church and Christianity
continue. How is this? Surely not because of itself. Not because
of its programs or strategic plans. Not even because of guilt.
So how is it then? How is it that any of you are here today?
This is essentially the same question that is asked on page
11 of your bulletin. “Woman, why are you weeping? Who
are you looking for?” It is only when Jesus says, “Mary!”
that she sees who he really is. This shout of “Mary!”
by the risen Jesus is the sound of Easter. Because Jesus continues
to shout to the church its name, right to its face, somehow
it sinks in that Jesus is not dead but alive. The church continues
and can only continue through its experience of the risen Jesus,
the risen Christ, an experience of life, an experience of God.
And by the church, I don’t mean the Vatican, St. Mark’s,
St. Pet’s or the Glen Ellyn Bible Church. I mean you –
that Jesus shouts George!, Katie!, Walter!, Elizabeth!, Ian!
Isabelle! Charles! Peter! Tony! Sue! And Lynn! And every name
in and under heaven. The sound of Easter.
You see, Christianity is not about a man who died 2,000 years
ago. It is nothing less or nothing more than an encounter with
the living God, the risen Christ, not 2,000 years ago, and not
to a few saints, but today, March 23, 2008 and to everyone,
everywhere. Does this radically democratic, unpredictable, in-your-face
God make you nervous? I hope so. At times, it can be hard to
believe because Jesus can be standing right in front of you,
and you’d never know it. So I’m not asking you to
cast away skepticism and doubt. Just look up and take a look
at any face that is in front of you. Take a good look, at the
eyes, mouth and chin, cheeks and ears, the lines, the curves
and the shapes. What do you see? It is your mother or father,
your brother, your child, your partner, your neighbor, the person
taking your order at Starbucks, your ex-wife, someone who has
wronged you, an enemy, someone with black skin, white skin,
someone who is old or young. The Scriptures tell us that it
can take a long time to recognize Jesus. You can be standing
right in front of him, walking along with him, eating a meal
with him and not realize who it is. As Mark Twain said, “you
can’t rely on your eyes when your imagination is out of
focus.”
The empty tomb is a sidebar to the Easter story. You could
find a tomb with bones in it and scientifically verify that
they are those of Jesus. Let the tomb be full of bones, I say.
And we will still celebrate Easter because Jesus is risen, and
Jesus comes to you and to me, saying your name – and what
hear is the sound of the living God.
But so what? What does God want from me? The message of Easter
is “life” and that life is in you and each and every
person, and this life is very the image of God. What God wants
from us is to remember, see and claim the image of God in each
of us and each other. The life of Jesus was of a singular purpose
- about seeing the image of God in the poor, the sick, the prisoner,
the outcast and the rich and powerful as well. His death was
the price of such an audacious, radical claim. They did not
kill Jesus because he was the son of God – but because
in the name of God he dared to see value and ultimate worth
in every person. The resurrection of Jesus is the sound of your
name and every name, a sound of God and an image of God that
cannot be destroyed.
Mary is the first to pronounce the Easter message, saying,
“I have seen the Lord!” Mary has seen the image
of God in the face of Jesus, and Jesus has seen it in hers,
as he has seen it in every one he has ever encountered. All
of us can say “I have seen the image of God” –
over and over again. It may be most difficult to see the image
of God in ourselves. We have made mistakes, been cruel to others,
harbor addictions, feel inadequate, ugly, old, awkward, insecure,
and on top of it all, have little faith in God. But Jesus says,
‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit!” Blessed indeed
because you are the image of God which is within you and upon
you. The Easter proclamation changes the world, and this indeed
is what God wants from you, whether you are George Smith or
Garrison Keilor. With the sound of Easter ringing in our ears,
the word “enemy” can no longer stand. How can we
malign an entire group of people, a nation or religion? The
labels that we use to blot out the image of God dissolve –
terrorist, liberal, conservative, loser, snob, rich, homeless,
revealing sacred images of light and life. Isn’t this
why we have children search for eggs on Easter morning? To teach
children to search for eggs, a symbol of life, in places where
they normally don’t appear. We don’t normally keep
eggs under our couch, behind a pillow, under a bush or in the
pulpit. But those are the places to look – the places
and into the faces where you least expected to find it.
May the risen Christ greet you today and every day, in surprising
and unexpected ways, with the sound of your own name. And may
his life give you new life, that in turn you may see life in
others.
Amen.
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