A Easter Day BFC
OL 2017
Matthew 14:1-2;
John 12:9-11; Matthew 28:1-6
April 16, 2017
This sermon was given within the context of a Children's Sermon where I shared with the children that early Christians would buck up the courage of one another and the loyalty to Christ's resurrection by starting out with, "Christ is risen!" and your compa would then say, "He is risen indeed!" We got progressively louder as our courage grew.
If
your house is anything like mine, it is consumed by zombies. Seriously.
Our youngest son, Abe, regularly became a fan of the TV series, “The
Walking Dead.” Three years ago, I took
my 8th grade daughter to see the romantic comedy zombie movie, “Warm
Bodies.” You may never ever hear the
phrase, “romantic comedy zombie movie” again, so mark the day. Yes, I am a horrific father. For the viewing of this zombie movie
apparently provided the gateway zombie material for our daughter. Because Abe then hooked Sophia into becoming
a fan of the TV series, “The Walking Dead.”
Just not good parenting. I did
something wrong.
Our culture is replete with zombie
references. Every two to three months, I
hear of some new zombie media in the form of a movie, meme, or app. In the year 2003, the number of annual zombie
movies jumped from 13 to 24 and increased to an annual high of 55, close to 450
zombie movies in just the past 15 years.
Part of Abe’s track career was to participate in a race rife with
zombies. Five years ago, one of my
colleagues at the University of Illinois, reported a real electronic emergency
message that was tweeted out across the university “Illini-Alert System.” It read, “Hazardous materials released at
Institute for Genomic Biology. Escape area if safe to do so. Otherwise seek
shelter.” Wow, what do you when you live
on campus and see that electronic message come across your computer? I believe it was the university newspaper
that referred to this electronic message as “The Tweet That Begins the Zombie
Apocalypse.”[1]
Escape area if safe to do so. Otherwise
seek shelter. Zombies and notice of the coming zombie apocalypse seem to be
everywhere.
In the event that the zombie
apocalypse does occur, Abe has been straight with us. When he gets word that the apocalypse is
heading our direction, Abe is not retreating home to be safe and save his
family. Oh no. Instead, our beloved son told us in high
school, that he would be swiftly sprinting to the home of a family that would
supply superior survival skills compared to the limited skill set of his father. You can feel the love.
Well,
to be frank, what was I going to do when the zombies approached? Preach a longer sermon to lull the
brain-eaters into a greater stupor?
Generally, that has worked for my congregations. Maybe?
Again, such is the limited skill set I offer in the face of the zombie
apocalypse.
Let’s make it clear what zombies
are. Zombies are the dead, resurrected
from the grave, without real brains or heart . . . without thought or
compassion . . . mindless, soulless
entities, which merely consume and consume and consume. And Neil DeGrasse Tyson, famed populizer of
science, has to be the buzzkill. Tyson
tells us that the zombie apocalypse and zombies themselves are scientifically
impossible.
If Neil DeGrasse Tyson is right, and
people physically rising from the dead is scientifically impossible, and
science and faith are not to be at odds, what do we do with one of our most
radical faith affirmations? Christ is
risen! He is risen indeed! During this
Easter season, this liturgical season of resurrection, what do we do with the
one we call the Risen One? Again, is it just a case of science and religion not
mixing? What do we have left of faith
when we do use our non-consumed brains?
For ancient peoples, people in First
Century Rome, this idea of whether something really, literally happened might
seem quizzical. Ancient communities told
stories and parables not for their historical veracity but for their meaning
and authority for their people, their group, or their nation. Like a good movie or poem, whether the events
actually occurred is sometimes not as important as whether the movie or poem
speaks with authority and truth. As John
Dominic Crossan has said, “My point . . . is not that those ancient people told
literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that
they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”[2] So many of the Biblical stories are meant to
be understood symbolically, poetically. What
is the poetic meaning of resurrection?
What does it mean to be resurrected in First Century Rome?
What does it mean to proclaim Christ’s
resurrection, even more so now when we know that individuals and groups, other
than Christians, made claim to resurrection in the First Century? As we learned from the gospel lesson today,
Christ is not even the first resurrection made reference to in the gospels.
Resurrection appears first in the
Gospel of Matthew when King Herod hears about Jesus. Herod fears that the man he had imprisoned,
most certainly tortured, and then executed, John the Baptist, has come back
from the dead to threaten him with resurrection in the person of Jesus. Herod does not consider the resurrection of
John the Baptist good news. So too when
Lazarus is resurrected in the gospel of John.
The religious authorities see the resurrection of Lazarus as a threat to
their authority and power.
Indeed, while w sing “alleluias” and
praise to the Risen Christ all through this liturgical season of Easter, the
first reaction to resurrection was one of threat, terror, and amazement. Herod is threatened. At the end of Matthew’s gospel, as witnesses
to the Resurrection of Christ, the women at the tomb run back to the rest of
the disciples, “terrified and amazed.”
In contrast to what I had been taught
about resurrection growing up in the Christian Church, resurrections were
commonly known in the First Century. And
the most widely known resurrection in First Century Rome was that of Julius
Caesar. Before his death, Julius Caesar
adopted his nephew, Octavian, as son and heir to the throne. On Friday, March 17, in the year 44 BCE,
Julius Caesar received his state funeral and was resurrected as god by the will
of the people.[3] With Julius proclaimed as divine, Octavian
took for himself the title son of god—that title minted on the Roman
currency. Fourteen years after the
resurrection of Julius Caesar, in 30 BCE, Octavian Caesar, after years of Roman
civil war, defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra VII and ushered in the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace. In
bringing the Roman civil war to an end through military triumph, Octavian also
took the title prince of peace. Octavian
kept that peace through the violence of military might and economic
domination. He called himself,
“Augustus”, the one to be worshipped.
Maybe your Christmas celebrations were
like mine in that every year my dad would sit down with his brother and sisters
and a collection of cousins, dust off the family Bible, and begin our Christmas
with the words from Luke, chapter 2, “In those days a decree went out from
Caesar Augustus . . . .” Caesar Augustus
provides a frame for the Christmas story.
Hear
in all those titles Octavian took for himself the broadest religious and
political consolidation possible. Luke,
Chapter 3, begins the story of John the Baptist with the words, “In the
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar . . . .” Client kings like Herod, and later his sons, ruled
at the pleasure of Caesar Augustus and Tiberius Caesar. This is the matrix, the context, for the
gospels and the resurrection of Christ, the rule and reign of Caesar. Behind all of the Caesars’ religious and
political power, we are to hear Roman authority anchored in the resurrection of
Julius Caesar. That resurrection
conveyed a mythological symbol of eternal power. Julius Caesar’s resurrection functioned as a
warning to Rome’s subject peoples. God
favors us. You cannot kill us. Even when we are not around, we will haunt
your days.
At
the order of Caesar, Roman armies haunted the occupied populace by purposely
devastating the countryside, burning villages, pillaging towns, and
slaughtering and enslaving peoples. Resistance
to Roman violence and rule was met with an ever greater vengeance.[4] They sucked the oxygen out of the local
populace and set the air on fire with violence.[5]
Any resurrections apart from Julius
Caesar would be seen as an attempt to dis-establish that imperial authority and
as a threat to the status quo. That is
what Herod feared in the resurrection of John the Baptist. Herod, educated in Rome, was also a Jew, and
resurrection in Jewish circles had come to mean God’s validation of a righteous
Jew. John’s resurrection would confirm
that some divine force, apart from the divine Caesar, was moving in the world
to disturb, confront, resist, and provoke.
The
literal meaning of the Greek word for resurrection, “anastasis” means to stand up again.
The deceased would become dust, and God would literally stand the dead
up in the grave, re-create them, and dis-establish any phony claims to power
over and against the legitimate power the Living God sought to establish in
justice, righteousness, and steadfast love.
Resurrections
for sovereigns and Caesars affirmed power and the strength and violence of
empire. Resurrections for peasants and
prophets challenged the status quo and asked deep questions about whether God
could be found in the violence wrought by Rome’s military might and economic
domination. Be careful then, in
affirming the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because Christ may return to
disturb, resist, and provoke our way in the world rather than confirm and
establish.
Let me give you an example of how this
understanding of resurrection, as a displacement of imperial power, plays out
in the modern world. In the 1950s, Guatemala
was a fledgling democracy when our CIA and the U.S.-based United Fruit Company
conspired to overthrow the Guatemalan government and install a client
king. What followed the overthrow of
democracy was a brutal civil war that lasted well into the 1980s. In the 1980s, through military coup, General
Efrain Rios Montt took the presidential office by force. By Montt’s order, the Guatemalan military killed
or disappeared thousands of people across the country, and sent hundreds of
thousands more into exile, many of them poor, indigenous Mayan peasants.
Looking
to the north for support, General Efrain Rios Montt, our client king, referred
to those murdered and exiled as subversives, communists, or terrorists. Into this brutality and pain, Julia Esquivel,
a Guatemalan poet wrote a beautiful poem to confront, disturb, and provoke. Esquivel did so by helping us to imagine
what the world might look like if those Guatemalan peasants returned to us
resurrected. In that poem, are the
echoes of the resurrection of John the Baptist, Lazarus, and Jesus, and how
these resurrections were meant to terrify and threaten the religious and
political rulers of their time. Here is
part of that beautiful poem:
…There is something here within us
Which doesn’t let us sleep, which doesn’t let us rest,
Which doesn’t stop pounding deep inside,
It is the silent, warm weeping of Indian women without their husbands,
It is the sad gaze of the children
Fixed there beyond memory,
In the very pupil of our eyes
Which during sleep, though closed, keep watch
With each contraction of the heart
In every wakening…
Which doesn’t let us sleep, which doesn’t let us rest,
Which doesn’t stop pounding deep inside,
It is the silent, warm weeping of Indian women without their husbands,
It is the sad gaze of the children
Fixed there beyond memory,
In the very pupil of our eyes
Which during sleep, though closed, keep watch
With each contraction of the heart
In every wakening…
What keeps us from sleeping,
Is that they have threatened us with resurrection!
Is that they have threatened us with resurrection!
es que nos han amenazado de Resurrección!
Because at each nightfall,
Though exhausted from the endless inventory
Of killings since 1954,
Yet we continue to love life,
And do not accept their death!
Because at each nightfall,
Though exhausted from the endless inventory
Of killings since 1954,
Yet we continue to love life,
And do not accept their death!
They have threatened us with resurrection!
Nos han amenazado de Resurrección,
…Because in this marathon of Hope,
there are always others to relieve us
in bearing the courage necessary
to arrive at the goal which lies beyond death…
there are always others to relieve us
in bearing the courage necessary
to arrive at the goal which lies beyond death…
Accompany us then on this vigil
And you will know what it is to dream!
You will then know how marvelous it is
To live threatened with resurrection!
And you will know what it is to dream!
You will then know how marvelous it is
To live threatened with resurrection!
vivir amenazado de Resurrección!
To dream awake,
To keep watch asleep
To live while dying
And to already know oneself resurrected![6]
To dream awake,
To keep watch asleep
To live while dying
And to already know oneself resurrected![6]
When
so many of our gospel resurrection stories begin with weeping of women, or
followers walking the long road to Emmaus with sad gazes, or disciples locked
in some upper room in fear, what does it mean to dream? Our gospel stories are like Indian women who
weep without their husbands, or the sad gaze of children, or peasants living in
fear since 1954 from a long line of crucifixions. How do we run this marathon of hope, have the
courage necessary to dare dream beyond systems and structures which intend violence
and death?
We
are quickly returning to a time when zombie institutions and zombie banks seek
to make us into zombies ourselves by eating our brains so that we lose not only
our heads but our hearts to just consume, consume, consume. Let’s be honest about what zombies are.
John
the Baptist is still disappeared into some prison or black site by either
Caesar or some client king, tortured or water boarded, whatever term works for
you, and too often executed. The death
of Lazarus, the unmasker of the imperial lies and revealer of real resurrection
power, is still being plotted by the religious authorities.
Sisters and brothers, resurrections
always begin with fear, terror, and amazement.
The question is, “Whose resurrection threatens us more, Caesar’s or
Christ’s?” Are we threatened more by the
resurrection of empire maintained by the violence of military might and
economic domination, the Pax Romana, or are we threatened more by the resurrection
of one who unseats empire through a call to non-violent confrontation,
distributive justice, mutual healing, and compassion for the lost, least, and
last, the peace of Christ, the Pax
Christi? In what is our hope
placed?
In
what is our hope placed—in the power and might of empire or in the weeping of
Indian women and the sad gaze of children?
Where does the Christian Church place its hope? For, in the end, resurrection may have more
to do with the continuing communities of faith than it ever had to do with
Jesus alone.
One of the more curious images of the
resurrection is found at the ancient Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem,
also referred to as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In that historical church, is a beautiful
painting of Christ arising from the dead, majestically, but not as this
muscle-bound, triumphant, solitary figure as he is so often portrayed in
Western art. No, Christ does not rise
alone. The apocalypse, the revealing, is
beginning and there are four other figures there with the Rising Christ. The gates of Hell are shattered beneath
Christ’s feet and he is extending his hand tenderly and graciously to grasp the
hand of Adam and Eve with one hand. With
the other hand, he tenderly and graciously grasps the hand of John the Baptist,
a victim of violence and the first martyr of the New Testament. Standing behind him John is Abel, a victim of
violence, the first martyr of Hebrew Scripture of the Old Testament. Above the painting is the Greek word, anastasis, the word for resurrection
that means “to stand up again.” This
painting is what is referred to within Christian tradition as the Harrowing of
Hell, where Christ breaks the bonds of death and violence. God raises Christ to stand again and again to
liberate, not in isolation, as Julius Caesar’s resurrection did, but to bring
all of humankind into resurrection with him and to end the reign of violence in
the world.[7] In this incredible painting, which is on the
front of each of your bulletins, Christ is the mother of all liberation and
peace for all of humankind, all of creation.
Caesar, the mother of all violence
manifested on Maundy Thursday, will forever try to convince you of his
resurrection, and, in terror, get you to recoil in fear to do nothing but
consume and consume and consume. Be of
good courage, sisters and brothers. We
are not raised to be zombies. I hope you
are more threatened by the silent, warm weeping of Indian women and the sad
gaze of children, and what they might say to you if we do not join them. For in their resurrection is an invitation to
know what it is to dream, to keep watch while asleep, to live while dying, and
to already know ourselves to be resurrected.
The
zombie apocalypse is coming. Wake the
kids. Phone the neighbors. We now begin the liturgical season of
resurrection. Be of good courage,
sisters and brothers, to stand up again and again and again in non-violent
confrontation, distributive justice, mutual healing, and compassion for the
lost, least, and last. “Do not be
afraid,” the angels are forever telling us. “Peace I leave with you,” the Risen Christ
says. For I say to you, in certain hope
that the world might be transformed, “Christ is risen!” And, to buck up my courage, in mutuality, you
say back to me, “He is risen indeed!”
“Christ is risen!”
“He is
risen indeed!” Alleluia. Amen.
[1] Alexis Madrigal, “The Tweet That Begins the Zombie
Apocalypse.” The Atlantic , May 29, 2012. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/the-tweet-that-begins-the-zombie-apocalypse/257742/
[2] John Dominic Crossan and Richard G. Watts, Who Is Jesus? Answers to Your Questions About the Historical Jesus, Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1996,
p. 79
[4] Richard Horsley, Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2014),
pp. 54, 57.
[5] Bill Roggio from the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies describes the effects of the “Mother of All Bombs” dropped on Achin
province on Maundy Thursday. https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/14/us_drops_its_biggest_non_nuclear.
[6] Julia Esquivel, Threatened
with Resurrection; Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan Ann Woehrle, trans. (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1994), p. 97 ff.
[7] John Dominic Crossan, “The Communal Resurrection of
Jesus,” HuffPost Religion, May 11,
2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-dominic-crossan/the-communal-resurrection-jesus_b_847507.html
No comments:
Post a Comment