Week's thoughts...
- Royal wedding- Katherine and William got married. I did not watch all of the wedding, well not much of it at all. The one thing I did hear was the prayer that they both wrote. I liked it. I think they are both genuine people. I hope the media and the position don't mess them up and that they can be a real force for good in the world. The thing that gets me is the very banal, stupid, superficial and idiotic media attention. What is the dress like? How do you score it? Who is the most beautiful princess? Will it be Diana revisited? etc. etc. I cannot believe how people can keep on writing such dribble! Get a life and just let them live and be who they are!
- The week's news - A guy gets beaten up by four car loads of people in Dunedin. NATO forces bomb Libya, people are being killed. A woman is sexually assaulted in Napier. Stabbing in a bar in Hamilton. Suspicious circumstances surround a burnt car with a body inside. A drug addict gets involved in armed robbery. .... etc. I feel so sad for the mess we get ourselves into and wonder why the hell we bother. Surely we can learn to live more civilly?
I share with you essentially my Easter Sunday sermon outline.
The reading was Matthew 28:1 - 10... the story of the two Marys discovering the empty tomb. In my sermon I said that "it is not necessary to get all hung up about the historicity of this story, but rather we should listen for the experience and message being communicated." To be more honest than I was in Church, (I'll tell you if you promise to tell no one) I don't believe there was a great "earthquake", an angel of the Lord who came "down and rolled the stone away and sat on it". (I actually agree with a vicar who wrote in the local paper saying she believed that "Jesus' bones were still in Palestine".) So what do I believe the Gospel writers and early disciples were up to?
Trying to pass on a deep experience.
I spent a week in Christchurch working under the Salvation Army banner. One evening my partner received a text from her husband, obviously asking about her day. She said to me, "How on earth do we explain to the people back home what we are experiencing here?" We had knocked on so many doors and discovered heart breaking situations. We had met and related to so many people. We had experienced the liquefaction, the porta-loos in the street, the holes in the road etc etc. We had been lumped together with 14 other people in a team and become immediate friends. How do you communicate to other people what it was like? It is like that with deep experiences. They are difficult to communicate. I believe the resurrection stories are the disciples of Jesus, and the early church, using story telling techniques of the day, trying to communicate some deep experiences that they had after the death of Jesus. I use those stories to try to understand their experiences, without necessarily having to believe in the historical truth of those stories. What are some of those experiences?
You can't stop the fire!
There was a bush fire in a rural area north of Dunedin a few years ago. Fire crews and eventually helicopters went out to fight the fire. They extinguished it successfully. But a week or so later it burst into flames again. (A big embarrassment for firefighters) Out they went and fought the fire again. But a week or so later it burst into flames again! They discovered that the fire was burning in the roots of trees and bushes underground, surfacing and re-igniting! That really is what the early followers of Jesus experienced! He had been killed and buried. Extinguished! But somehow they discovered that the essence of his "life" was not dead and gone, that it still burned brightly. They discovered that his life was bigger than death. His impact and power was not dependent on his physical presence, but somehow it was still at work in them and around them, even though he was dead and buried. The words put into the mouth of the angel were true, "He is not here (among the dead) ....he is going ahead of you to Galilee" (Or Dunedin or wherever.) That's the experience they tried to communicate in these hard-to-believe stories. We 2000 years later can discover the same thing. I invite you to be open to it.
Be open to his eternal truth.
In Bill Bryson's "A Short History of nearly everything" there is a photo of human fossil remains. It is a mother and her little daughter. They are, get this, 900,000 years old! They lived THAT long ago! When we were in Aberdeen we saw an artifact that was found about a block away from where we were standing, showing that a community lived there 4,000 years ago. My niece had a baby daughter a week and a bit ago. (the baby has had several operations in that time and is battling for her life - pray for her please!) Jesus came and taught a message of love, of generosity, of sharing and compassion. That truth was real, relevant for the mum and daughter who lived 900,000 years ago, the community living at Aberdeen 4000 years ago, and for my niece and her daughter now. It will be true for our descendants years from now. One thing followers of Jesus discover is that his truth is eternal, it is at the heart of the universe and is bigger than fads or fashions, the passing of nations and powers and death itself. Be open to sense this life!
Sense the flow of his life...
In similar vein be open to sense the flow of Jesus life! Again and again in history you can see the spirit of Jesus emerging and making itself felt, bringing changes and enhancement to human life. Francis of Assisi, Florence Nightingale, William Wilberforce, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, the Salvation Army workers in earthquake afflicted Christchurch, the people down at the homeless shelter, the conscientious politician keen to make a positive difference for people etc. .. are all part of this flow. There are countless unknown ordinary faithful people who have lived responsibly and compassionately, expressing the flow of his life. If you are open to it, you can sense the flow of the same "LIFE" that was expressed in Jesus, and sense that same spirit and compassion in your own inner being. A life that is bigger than Jesus' death, a flame and baton that goes on, an unstoppable force overcoming evil with the good again and again.
Sense him in people in your life...
There are people and experiences of relationships which are expressions of the life of Jesus. I have had friends who will listen to me rant, who will know and see my weaknesses, but still believe that I am a person of worth. After my first stint in Christchurch an ambulance officer reached out to me, invited me to have coffee with him and let me debrief. I see Curly Griffith, one of my church elders spend hours playing pool, befriending people who are difficult to love, listening, respecting and caring for them at our drop-in centre. Jesus life is bursting out of him. In our Space2b I see friends sitting having their lunch, supporting one another in conversation, encouraging, including and affirming. The healing love of Jesus is present. In the most unlikely looking people, I see Jesus' life.
Sense his partnership in your life...
I was doing some carpentry the other day and I could "feel" the presence of Martin a carpenter friend, advising me on what to do. When I am in my vege garden, Uncle Harry, long dead, is with me, I hear his advice and feel his partnership. (I used to garden with him as a teenager) When I cut my goats' toenails the other week, I talked to my goats just like Uncle George used to talk to his sheep in the sheep yards doing the same thing... he was "there". We often have these "mentors" as thinking buddies with us in life. In a similar, but much deeper way, Jesus can be "alive" and "with us" in the midst of life, shaping, moulding and guiding us in our journey. He can come and challenge your way of living. He can come and affirm you when you are rejected, alone or sense failure. He can be a partner with you when you reach beyond your comfort zone in your growth, in your caring for others or in your extending yourself. As you express his love, especially when you go against the flow around you, he can "sit beside you" as a partner. (You see how difficult it is to communicate deep experiences - these are real experiences but you slip into metaphorical language to explain them.)
In brief outline, this is how my sermon went on Easter Sunday.
Square peg....
So went my sermon on Easter Sunday. I experience the "life-that-is-bigger-than-death" of Jesus, though I don't believe the historicity of the resurrection stories. Now traditional Christianity has us celebrating empty tombs. It has us asserting and arguing for the "bodily resurrection". Traditional Christianity says, "Well because there is an empty tomb I can be assured of life after death." The traditional Christian easter "hope" is all about getting to heaven. I don't fit that mould!
I firmly believe that the life of Jesus has the power to make a difference in my life, in this rough old world of assaults, murders, wars, corruption and plain superficiality.
My resurrection beliefs, the "different" priorities, and my perspectives on scripture, however, often make me a square peg in a round hole in church circles as a minister, preacher and worship leader.
Photo: A photo taken by my friend Jane (http://daybydaybyjane.blogspot.com/) I love the mysterious nature of the light in the clouds. The sacred journey always has an element of mystery.... the sacred is always "bigger" than words can express.
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