“Eternity in the Moment”

Spirit of peace United Church of Christ

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007

Scripture:  John 20: 11-18

Rev. Jean Morrow

The stories from which the promises of Easter have grown have been foundational for the Christian faith.  The Resurrection proclamation that “Christ is Alive” has been an unwavering element in Christian preaching throughout the ages.  There is scarcely a sermon in the Book of Acts or proclamation in the letters from Paul that do not offer some statement of belief in the Resurrection.  I know this because I have recently waded through most of the resurrection-oriented text in the Bible in preparation for this sermon.

I do it every year, trying to hear some new nugget of truth.

I’m not the only one who has poured over these texts.  Texts related to the resurrection have been subjected to an amazing number of critiques and examinations.  Scholars and preachers, lawyers and skeptics, people like you and me have all scrutinized the resurrection accounts, declarations and proclamations trying to figure out what happened…all in an attempt, I think, to reconcile their faith in God they know through their own experiences and through the life and teachings of Jesus…to reconcile that faith with centuries of church doctrine and teachings about the resurrection.

But, no matter how you read them, the gospels offer different stories of what happened and the details are confusing.  Many of the things that happen are, at best, improbable…and then there are the several contradictions when you compare the stories with each other.

Personally, I’m not all that surprised by the confusion of detail among those early writers, attempting to relate such a difficult, important event.  (PAUSE)  I’m not really surprised…because of my own story about the cat.

While an undergraduate at Iowa State, I had snagged a great summer job.  I was a medical transcriptionist at the local hospital.  Cushy. Air-conditioned. Well paid. It was great!

But, my friend Mac had not been so fortunate.  She was doing odd jobs, among them house-sitting.  Sometimes she was watching over teenagers…sometimes doing yard work…other times pet care. For one of her cat-sitting jobs, she needed assistance…and she called upon me, a cat officianoto, for some help.

I don’t remember where the house was…I don’t think I could find it today if my life depended on it.  I don’t remember the month or the week…and I’d have to work a little to figure out the exact year.

But at this particular house…with my able assistance…Mac had taken on the task of giving the cat its special medicine.  A big pill had to be pushed down the cat’s throat and then the mouth had to be held shut until the cat swallowed the pill.

I can’t remember a lot of details about the cat anymore (I don’t remember if it was male or female…or even its name), but do I remember that those were some truly horrible days of the summer I was a medical transcriptionist.  Mac remembers the cat adventures as well.  We don’t agree on who had to push the pill…or who had to hold the cat, but we remember the struggle to catch the cat, to hold the cat, and the wounds we received pilling the cat.  It was not a pretty picture…and none of us were happy…especially the cat.

Mac’s version and my version contain numerous discrepancies and contradictions, but both of us are absolutely sure we were undergraduates, it was summer, there was a cat and that cat got its medicine.

In any age, story telling is a bit like my cat story.  I don’t mean to make light of the Easter story, but our biblical authors were looking back and recounting an event that took place 30 to 80 years earlier.  (At best, that is like me, recounting the details of the cat story.)  Because of the dating of the gospels and letters, biblical scholars believe that most of our early writers were not even first hand eye-witnesses.

Yet, they wrote and the stories…along with an emerging faith tradition…survived…because, I would suggest, there was something so extraordinary about experience of Jesus…his presence, his teachings, his actions… his death wrapped up with the promise of new life, there was something so extraordinary about Jesus that people wanted to remember and recount…to write down and share how life-changing it all was.

And so we have at our fingertips a rich collection of stories in the Bible, with a rich diversity of players and details.  All four of the Gospels are earnestly trying to convey to the reader…those in ancient times and today…that all that happened around Jesus’ life and death is Good News…and it has something to do with new life and life abundant…and it has something to do with eternity…it has something to do with infinite, everlasting love…and it definitely has something to do with how we should live our lives now…right now.

As I mentioned, I have poured through much of the texts about resurrection recently, and reading them, I’ve experienced an interesting phenomenon.  The more I read, the more drawn I am to go back and read about the life and teachings of Jesus.  No matter how I try to focus on his death and his being risen, I lose interest and I find myself flipping back into the heart of the gospels or reflecting on my favorite stories and teachings.

Perhaps this is a trait of an undisciplined mind…or perhaps I simply cannot resist the Spirit’s leading.  I’m not positive which it is, but to the Gospels I eagerly go…and with enthusiasm I pour through the life and teachings of Jesus again.

I compare them with each other.  I push and pull on the stories to see what they reveal about life and death and how I should live my life.  What did Jesus teach about God and how did he show that in the way he lived?  How did the people react?  How did the poor and oppressed respond?  How did the affluent respond?  How did the power structures of the day respond?

How should I respond?

It is all so very, very revealing.  Jesus’ life and teachings reveal a God whose presence did not stop at the boundaries of human fear and death…a God whose presence did not stop at the boundaries of human mortality.  Jesus lived as though death were not the end. 

Jesus taught lessons about God’s kingdom, God’s realm, God’s love that were an affront to the powerful in his culture…he knew he was creating tension, he knew his teachings were challenging the powerful, but he still kept teaching.  Jesus engaged in behaviors and actions that were an affront to his own very powerful religious community, threatening and angering them, but he still kept reaching across boundaries to demonstrate and reveal God’s presence and lessons of love, inclusion and forgiveness.

Just think of it, Jesus had revealed to all those people a God who was different than any they had ever known before…certainly different that the deities that the Romans proclaimed…or the fussy, nit-picky, demanding God for whom the Temple elite demanded purity, with its many costs. 

You know the stories as well as I do.  Jesus revealed a God who was like the father who welcomed the prodigal son, like the mother hen who protects her chicks, like the widow who searched endlessly for the lost coin, like the generous steward who paid people who worked one hour the same wage as those who had contracted for a whole day, God was like the traveler who stopped, interrupted his own journey, to care for the one injured and left behind. 

In his actions, Jesus revealed a God who reached across tribal barriers, gender barriers, religious barriers… he broke societal and religious rules left and right…he touched the unclean for the sake of healing, he harvested on the Sabbath for the sake of the hungry, he defended the defenseless in the face of powerful accusers.

In the words of Bishop John Spong, in all that he taught, in all that he did, in all that he said, “he showed the people a God whose love did not stop at the boundary of their own love, or at the border of their tribe, their prejudice, their sense of superiority or inferiority, their moral judgment, or even their religion. 

The God that Jesus revealed was a God of infinite life, love, and forgiveness”…and it was for this God, revealed, that Jesus called his followers to a new way of life, to new life, in this life.  They were called to become a new people and to live a new way in this life.  In the same way, as we read the stories and let them take life in our own lives, we are called to become a new people and to live a new way in this life.

And if we live Jesus’ way, we will commit ourselves to reaching across boundaries and barriers, dangerous though that may be, to love and give and heal and share and eat and drink and stand up for and reach out to our friends and our neighbors, our enemies and the stranger…all to reveal God’s infinite, abundant love.  For when we live and love fully, Jesus teaches, we live fully inside God…and when we live fully inside God, we touch eternity in this moment…right here…right now.

And that is enough for me.  That is enough for me to want to rejoice and be glad that Jesus is alive in my life and I am alive in God’s presence.  That is enough for me to want to live this moment as if it matters…to me…to God…and to eternity. 

Of course, I could be wrong.  I could be missing something in those resurrection texts…but I don’t think so.  To quote Bishop Spong, who said it more eloquently than I, “I trust the God revealed to me by Jesus as the source of life, the source of love and the ground of being…and I shall worship this God by living fully, loving wastefully, and daring to be all that I can be now and forever.  When I do so, I will know the truth and power of the resurrection.”

Today is Easter.  We have been given the promise of new life and life abundant.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it!!  Amen!