Year B, Easter Sunday
April 5th, 2015
By Thomas L. and Laura C. Truby
Acts 10:34-43 (Common English Bible, 2011)
The Resurrection of Inclusion
What does it mean to worship a Jesus who is raised from the dead? Does it mean followingone whose forgiveness covers all, erasing all boundaries—even the boundary between life and death? Does it mean embracinga leader who loves all humans, even those who may consider themselves his enemy? Does it mean laying hold of a living God who sees no distinction between Greek and Jew, Jew and Muslim, Muslim and Christian? And does this apply to the world of April, 2015, where we just reached apreliminary agreement with the Iranians, where the Nigerians elected a leader with a Muslim name who promises to clear out corruption and bring the chaotic northeast corner of Nigeria under control. Does this have anything to do with Indiana and Arkansas where the state government was forced to make it clear that the new law on religious freedom did not allow discrimination against anyone?
In Acts Peter says “I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another.” The writer of Acts claims thisas the message of peace communicated through the good news of Jesus Christ.
It seems to me the resurrection powers all of this. Brian Zahnd in his book, Beauty Will Save the World, has a chapter entirely driven by the resurrection. It tells the story of an Algerian monk who stays in Algeria though he knows it may cost him his life at the hands of radical Islam. Anticipating his own martyrdom, which did occur in May of 1996,Christian de Chergé writes a statement that interprets his own death to his family, friends and his executioner. In a poignant paragraph he writes:
Obviously, my death will justify the opinion of all those who dismissed me as naïve or idealistic:….But such people should know that my death will satisfy my most burning curiosity. At last, I will be able—if God pleases—to see the children of Islam as He sees them, illuminated in the glory of Christ, sharing in the gift of God’s Passion and of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to bring forth our common humanity amidst our differences.
It appears worshiping the risen Jesus includes seeing beyond all divisions the fear of death puts on us. It means seeing “the children of Islam as he sees them, illuminated in the glory of Christ.” As Peter discovers, “he (Jesus) is Lord of All.” Not of just Jews, not Greeks, Muslims, Christians, non-believers. No, he is Lord of All. He is the new Caesar come from Nazareth instead of Rome and his peace is built on inclusion and love rather than exclusion and violence. It’s the resurrection that makes it all work.
Having laid the claim that Jesus brings a new kind of peace; the writer of Acts goes back and picks up how it all started. John the Baptist called for something new and baptized people to get it rolling. He really didn’t know what the new thing needed to be; just that something new was needed. Jesus took up the challenge, was baptized and God anointedhim with power. Peter saw Jesus’ special power lived out when Jesus traveled around doing good and healed everyone oppressed by the devil. The “devil” is the New Testament’s way of talking about those mechanisms of oppression we build into our cultures that keep some down and exalt others; the ways we humans oppose God by showing partiality.
Of course, flouting the system of privileges and penalties had consequences for Jesus. “They killed him by hanging him on a tree but God raised him up on the third day.” The writer of Acts is quite matter-of fact about it. It happened—both the crucifixion and resurrection. The resurrection is why Christian de Chergé could face his own death with such an effervescent, forgiving and positive spirit.
The gospel account of the resurrection is not there toidealize benevolent values. The crucifixion and resurrection did happen. “Humankind declares Jesus guilty and executes him; God declares Jesus innocent and raises him.” It’s as simple as that! This is not a story devised to perpetuate the memory of a good but doomed man. It was not concocted by New Testament writers to found a new religion. No, Peter says, God raised him up and allowed us to see him. We ate and drank with him after God raised him from the dead.
Suzanne Ross of the Raven Foundation posted an article this week entitled “My Brainiac Faith on the Resurrection.” She writes:
For a long time I thought I was too smart for the resurrection. My progressive UCC congregation made a comfortable home for my intellectual faith—I wasn’t letting anyone force me to leave my brain at the sanctuary door…. But then my pastor, the one who had told me I didn’t have to leave my brain at the door, knocked me for a loop. Some unsuspecting newbie to our community asked him if he believed in the resurrection. I felt sorry for the poor questioner because I knew what my pastor was going to say—or so I thought! When he said, “Of course I believe in the resurrection,” my brain nearly exploded! My rational mind couldn’t figure out how a fellow rationalist could “believe” in something so unscientific and irrational….I was seriously at a loss, but that’s a good place to be, it turns out, if you want to follow Jesus into anew life.
After years of letting my brain work through the anthropological impact of Jesus life, death and resurrection on humanity, my heart began to see things more clearly. By denying the power of God to raise Jesus into new life, I had been engaging in a secret form of idolatry. My logic had been simple: if humans couldn’t do it, then neither could God. Not only was I limiting God’s power by forcing God to behave within human limits, I had become an atheist without realizing it. Because if no power existed that was greater than human power, then no God existed. It was logical. But it was sterile, too. My faith and my life were drying up, cut off as they were from the source of life that God had made available to me, to us all, on that first Easter morning.
“Do not be afraid this Easter – the stone has been rolled away and he has gone ahead of you. He is waiting even now for us to arrive.”
Peter said this Lord of all “commanded us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.” And are we ever lucky it is he who is judge! The one who died to show us what we do and who, while we were doing it to him, forgives us – this one is our judge! The one God raised up to bless us, and not to seek revenge,judges us. Could we have a more compassionate judge? Christian de Chergéprovides a contemporary example of how it works. He modeled himself after Jesus, Lord of all.
This is news that deconstructs the world. It dismantles all our thinking and forces us to reconfigure everything.
“Overcome with terror and dread, they (the women) fled the tomb.” Do we blame them? Were they afraid their understanding of the world had been turned upside down? A Resurrection can do that. Maybe Jesus had broken the cycle of resentment and rage that has been driving the world since the beginning of civilization. It would take a resurrection to break a cycle that strong.
After his resurrection he told his disciples to meet him in Galilee, the place it all began, where he would be waiting for them. Should we go and see if he meets us? I’m going. Will you come with me? Amen.
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