Preached by Winton Boyd on Sunday, April 4 (Easter Sunday)
Throughout Lent this year, we have explored the power of testimony; the power of giving witness to the grace of God in our lives – in the face of doubt, with not just our words but our hands and bodies as well, when we are misunderstood, when are discouraged. We’ve explored the power of bearing witness as people of faith and as a community. We’ve heard several from our congregation share their own stories, their own living witness of the Spirit’s presence in daily life.
It seems appropriate that as we come to the Easter story and celebrate the Resurrection– our text would lift up a powerless woman bearing witness to the Living Christ; a testimony lived in spite of the confusion and apprehension of her own experience and the fear of those closest to her. Her witness, and her invitation to us, is to remember that the truth of the resurrection, the truth of new life, is its power over all forms of death, chief among them fear.
While the Easter story is a profound story of life and hope, what grounds it in our own lives as much as anything is that it emerges in the midst of a set of fears that we actually know in our lives too. While Judas is the betrayer, his main fear seems to be that all that he has worked for is slipping away; that his deep hope of a revolutionary leader will not be realized. Peter is afraid that his own influence might wane, and that others might emerge to be more important in the eyes of his friend. All of the disciples were facing the real and imagined fear the movement they followed, the one they entrusted their lives to would thought to be a hoax. Finally, Mary herself was afraid that what she knew to be true might not be understood or believed by the other, more powerful, male disciples.
The story is in part a case study of what it means to give witness to God’s promise of new life in the midst of real and understandable apprehension. As a main character in this drama, Mary demonstrates a straightforward response that Christians have noted for centuries. She simply went forth and did what needed to be done. She brought spices and attention to what she expected to be the deceased body of her friend and Lord. It wasn’t dramatic and it wasn’t revolutionary. In fact, it was noteworthy in its plainness. By carrying forth even as others were confused or afraid, she was able to understand and know that indeed life had prevailed; Jesus had not been confined to the tomb. She left the garden and told others what she had seen. Thinking they would want to know what she knew, that they would want to hear what she had seen, she –in the words of Winston Churchill during WWII – “kept bubbling on.”
And so it is with our lives – Easter means carrying on in the face of all that would rob us of life.
The book, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, is a fictional account of a young mute child living in northern Wisconsin with his parents whose occupation is raising and training full-grown dogs. As a 9 year old, Edgar is given the opportunity and responsibility, for the first time, of tending to the birth and raising and training of a litter of dogs. One afternoon, while his mom Trudy is away on errands, he is playing with young pups from his litter in the upper level of the barn while his father is doing chores amidst the kennels in a converted barn below. Unexpectedly, the 40 year old father has a brain aneurysm and collapses on the barn floor. Edgar finds him as he is dying, but because he is alone and can’t talk , is unable to communicate what has happened to the telephone operator. Desperate to find a way to communicate, he runs up and down the long row of kennels, scrapping his hands along the chain link fences in hopes of causing panic and fear in the dogs, who will then bark, possibly alerting the confused operator, or even a car traveling by, which farm he is calling from. Eventually his strategy works and help arrives, but it is too late and the father has died.
On the evening of his death, after the police have left and while a friend cooks them dinner, his mother Trudy and Son Edgar head back to the barn to do evening chores…
“Outside, Trudy stopped and took Edgar by the shoulders and wrapped her arms around him. She whispered into his ear, “Edgar, if we want to keep this place, we have to look like we can do it, right from the start. I don’t know if I should ask you to do this, but I’m going to anyway. Listen to me, honey. Can you walk back into that barn with me now? We’ll do it together – I know it will be bad , and if you just can’t then we won’t okay? But believe me when I say that the sooner you go in there, the better it will be.”
She leaned back and looked at him. He nodded.
Sure?
No. He smiled a little, and so did she, and her eyes grew wet all of a sudden.
I couldn’t without you, I know that.
“You won’t have to go there without me for as long as you need.”
When they came to the barn she unlatched the doors without a pause and threw them open wide; the aisle lights, so feeble in the daytime, now fanned across the snow, casting Edgar’s and his mother shadows back along the snowdrifts…
They fed and watered the dogs and cleaned the pens and tossed in fresh straw. Edgar scooped a coffee can full of quicklime from the bag by the back door and wheeled the manure down the path. After he’d dumped the manure, he dusted it with the quicklime. He found his mother in a whelping pen when he returned. One of the newborn pups had died, perhaps in fright from all the noise. Perhaps the mother had panicked and stepped on it.” As they completed the chores “they pulled on their coats and extinguished the lights. The snow had stopped falling but the wind rushed against the barn, whirling the dry snowflakes into frigid galaxies. Clouds hung low over the trees, the sky barricaded and gray. They crossed to the house…When they reached the porch they paused to kick the snow off their boots and they climbed the steps and walked inside.” (131-33).
Living with Easter faith sometimes involves carrying on, not because one feels a sense of resurrection, but because one knows that the surest way to fend off death and fear and despair is to simply take another step, live another day. It’s not dramatic, but it is bearing witness to a trust in God’s presence nonetheless, a statement that we will not be overwhelmed.
And yet, for Mary to proclaim that Jesus was alive was also an act of courage. It was a statement that she shared with great risk to her own safety and well being. The message seems to be that fear isn’t enough to drown the voice of faith. Irshad Manji, in our devotional reading for today wrote that faith based “courage is not the absence of fear; (but) the recognition that some things are more important than fear. Far more important than fear is voice: having it and using it on behalf of others who don’t yet have the privilege of it.”
As some of you know, a group from this church and First United Methodist just returned yesterday from El Salvador, building homes with Habitat for Humanity in a small village south of San Salvador. By chance, we arrived last weekend as the country celebrated the assassination of its most famous martyr, Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, on March 24, 1980. It’s easy to forget the audacity surrounding his death, as he was killed by a government supported marksman, shot in cold blood while celebrating mass, while attending to the Eucharist. Killed because he fearlessly spoke up for the poor and against the very church he served and the ruthless government that oppressed its own people. Killed by the state while celebrating a Catholic mass in a country whose name means “savior of the world” and where a person in his position as Archbishop would have ordinarily been supportive of and supported by the state and the military. Killed, sadly enough, because the government had little to fear itself, knowing that in direct and indirect ways it had the support of our government. Killed in a public and intimidating way that accompanied a tragic period in Salvadorian history in which tens of thousands of its citizens were killed or disappeared at the hands of their own government.
Celebrating Palm Sunday in the lower level of the national Cathedral, in what is known as the people’s mass, literally a few feet from his sarcophagus, was an amazing and powerful experience. Ordinary Salvadorans by the thousands celebrated the rituals and practices of kneeling at his feet, laying palms on his tomb, kissing his archbishop miter. These acts are not part of my tradition, but it was obvious that for many he remains a vibrant, necessary, and tangible presence in their lives. It highlighted an ancient truth evident in the Easter story and relived throughout history ever since; that while the killing was intended to instill fear in the poor people of El Salvador (we now call it terrorism, and this was state sponsored terrorism), what emerged from that killing was a resurgent, faith based witness of love and grace and memory.
Romero’s gift was his willingness to use his voice on behalf of the voiceless; to use his privilege and power to challenge the forces of death and oppression. His gift to the Salvadoran people, and to people of faith all over the world, was his willingness to live an Easter faith – a faith motivated not by fear or convenience or comfort – but by the belief God’s love extended to all people, especially those living in the grip of the forces of death and oppression. His gift to us 30 years hence is the reminder that we too have a voice that can be used to advocate for the voiceless; we too can bear witness to a grace and a hope that defies those who would oppress and silence others.
We live surrounded by all kinds of fear and panic. Some are real aspects of our time in history – be it the fear of crime, the fear of uncertain futures, the fear of violence breaking out, the fear of resurgent racism and classism. Some of our uncertainties are internal –the fear of change, failure, or being exposed as something other than what we present to the world. We may have concerns about our own aging, our children’s future, our competence as partners/and spouses, as parents, as caregivers. There are the even more elusive fears of how others might perceive us or how others might judge us.
The fears we live with are real, but not new to us. Therefore, maybe the best Easter prayer is to ask God to help us see the world with open eyes; knowing that sometimes to bear witness to divine love will require great courage; sometimes we are called to beyond ourselves as a voice for the voiceless and for justice and compassion. When we see and know that this is indeed our calling, we pray for strength, vision, companionship and hope.
At other occasions, to bear witness to the power of new life, the truth of light in the darkness may mean that we continue with ordinary acts of life; daily living that signifies no matter what comes our way, despair will not overtake the resurrection we know to be true. In this case, we pray for the power and faith to take the next step, to keep bubbling on.
Whatever Easter life asks of us, let us not shrink from our calling, but let us be encouraged and strengthened in hope. Amen
Biblical Story: John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
