Resurrection Justice

Sermon

In his 1973 poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” Wendell Berry admonishes us with these words:

“So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute.
Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
…Practice resurrection.”

That last line stuck with me from the first time I read it, and it came back to me this week as I started working on the sermon. It seems like an odd idea, to practice resurrection, because death always comes before resurrection.

This morning our lesson is another post-resurrection story from Luke’s gospel. The two disciples have returned from their momentous walk to and from Emmaus, and as they meet with the other disciples, Jesus appears yet again. He proves who he is by showing his friends his wounds, and he proves he is not a ghost by eating fish with them. He reminds them that in his resurrection, ancient prophecies have come true, and he gets them ready to live by practicing resurrection.

Now many of you know that I am one of those people who really does believe in or at least hope strongly for the physical resurrection not only of human beings but of everything. That has something to do with my understanding of the theology of creation and the theology of the incarnation, but I think all of that is a sermon for a different day.

Today I would like to explore with you what it means to practice resurrection, what it means to live by looking for ways that move us from death to life. In prepping for the sermon, I found an amazing article by Dr. Chris Smith who spoke at the Women in the Word conference at Boston University. Much of my thinking on this has been influenced by the article, which will be referenced in the online version of the sermon on our website.

Constructive Theology of Resurrection | Anna Howard Shaw Center (bu.edu)

So let’s get started!

I think we run the risk of taking resurrection too lightly and at the same time making it too complicated.

We take it too lightly when we think it’s all about individual lives, when our thinking goes something like, “I’ll die and go to Heaven and it doesn’t matter to me what happens to everyone else.” Sometimes we make resurrection too shallow, and we liken it to the tulips blooming in the spring or the dogwoods blossoming once again.

Resurrection is dark and complex and rich like a really good chocolate bar or fabulous espresso. We sing hallelujah on Easter then we go back to the tomb, grateful for the blooming flowers but really too busy or worn out to be bothered with committing to new life that goes beyond the glories of spring.

We make it too complicated when we reduce God’s resurrecting to something that happened only to Jesus, something that cannot be explained or understood or even embraced.

And sometimes I wonder if we avoid resurrection because it always begins with death. As Dr. Smith says, “Let us be clear though, that as we speak about resurrection that it is a risky thing. Resurrection life has everything to do with investing our lives, with committing our lives, with placing our lives in all those places where human beings suffer and are oppressed, and in all those places where people yearn for new life.” In other words, resurrection requires something of us, something that may be sacrificial.

And we might resist resurrection, because resurrection means change, although it does not go back and change the past. Jesus rising from the tomb did not erase the facts of his unjust condemnation and his terrible death. The verdict this week in the Derek Chauvin trial does not erase the fact that George Floyd is still dead.

Resurrection cannot change the past, but it can move us into the future with a new light. And change is hard, as we all know; even good change is hard. Getting sober is good change, but ask anyone who has traveled that particular journey and they will tell you it’s hard. Coming out of the closet where too many LGBTQ people have felt they must live – coming out is good change, but ask anyone who has traveled that particular journey, and they will tell you it’s hard. Choosing life over death may mean change – a good change but a hard one.

If indeed Christians are an Easter people, if this story of Jesus’ being raised from the dead is utterly foundation to our identity, then what does that look like? What does this story invite us to? Where is God leading us into new life?

Resurrection takes place where death has occurred and where injustice has happened. That’s a hard place to begin. Therefore in order to experience resurrection, we have to put ourselves in those places of death and injustice. Chris Smith says, “I believe that Christianity is about forming a people who take the power of resurrection life very seriously and move our bodies and our resources again into places that that power can bring about new life.… Resurrection… demands that we sink down our roots even deeper into the places where we live, and the places we can make a difference. Perhaps resurrection has everything to do with placing our bodies

someplace concretely and strategically and carefully and passionately figuring out what kind of transformation is needed where we live and in this moment of history.”

When you walk around your neighborhood, or for some reason you’re in Westminster’s neighborhood, do you notice what needs transformation? Do you see what is broken, hurting, lacking? Noticing these things is good, and talking to people is good too; that’s a lot of the work that Chris Dela Cruz is doing right now.

When I look around, I wonder what resurrection would look like for all those people living in tents along Third Avenue downtown. What does new life look like for those folks, and social workers who tend to them, and the people who live in that neighborhood in condos and apartments, and people who pass by them on their way to work, and the folks that own the stores and restaurants around them?

Maybe resurrection looks like adequate medical services that address addiction and mental health. Maybe resurrection looks like staying on top of the trash that accumulates. Maybe resurrection looks like honest and compassionate conversations that are followed up with concrete actions committed to by government, business, and nonprofits alike.

I wonder what resurrection would look like in our city where we have had too many deaths by gun violence in the past few months. Maybe new life looks like renewed commitment to saner gun laws. Maybe new life looks like understanding the generational stress in some of our communities that leads to a mindset in which violence is the only answer to conflict. Maybe it looks like neighbors pulling together and demanding more of their leaders and each other.

I wonder what resurrection would look like for all of us as we come out of the isolation of COVID and tenuously move forward into a fuller life. Maybe it looks like all of us continuing to wear our masks out of respect for those who are still so worried about catching this damned virus. Maybe it looks like finding out who in our community is struggling to get the vaccine or struggling with whether or not to get that vaccine and helping them in either or both regards. Maybe it looks like taking things one day at a time, venturing to the grocery store for the first time in a year, or getting your hair cut, or hugging someone.

Resurrection does not have to look like Jesus bursting the bonds of death. That’s way too limiting an understanding of what God does for us in divine love. Resurrection looks like unexpected life in those places and events we thought were dead and buried.

Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff says this: “Wherever in mortal life goodness triumphs over the instincts of hatred, wherever one heart opens to another, wherever a righteous attitude is built and room is created for God, there the resurrection has begun.”

One of the prevailing images of the church is the body of Christ. And we are, indeed, the body of Christ, but not simply the body of Christ, we are the body of the risen Christ. We in the

church cannot help but practice resurrection in all that we proclaim, in all the ways that we witness, in all that we do and say in service to our God.

We as the community of Westminster have the opportunity to practice resurrection all around us, as we love God and the world, as we love those who don’t deserve it. We practice resurrection when we notice where and how our neighbors suffer and join with them in creating newness.

So let us walk together toward the new life.

To the glory of God. Amen.