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Sermon April 4, 2021
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers,
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
Easter Sunday
http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Easter/BEasterPrin_RCL.html#gsp2
Audio: /documents/Eucharist__Easter_Sunday__April_4__2021
Video: https://youtu.be/0_sW0iAFp6Y
So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Mark 16:8
Today is April 4, a day I have always remembered. That is because this is the day that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. It was 53 years ago.
I have puzzled for many years about why his death so affected me. I was only 11 years old. I have an image of myself in the family room of my home, watching the black and white tv and crying and crying. I remember feeling so angry that the adults in the world had not protected Dr. King. How could they have let him be killed? I think some of my feelings were about the possibility of riots, similar to those that had occurred in the summer of 1967.
Well, no matter how my strong emotions on that day can be explained, I have gone on many pilgrimages and read many books and written about this man of God, this drum major for justice as he wanted to be remembered.
Dr. King’s work was rooted in love. It was rooted in his understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus Christ and the teaching of Christ to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Here is what Dr. King said in 1957 about his work and love in a piece entitled, “The Role of the Church in Facing the Nation's Chief Moral Dilemma,”:
“…the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. The type of love that I stress here is not eros, a sort of esthetic or romantic love; not philia, a sort of reciprocal love between personal friends; but it is agape which is understanding goodwill for all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of men. This is the love that may well be the salvation of our civilization.”
The love Dr. King knew, and that was a result of his being a follower of Jesus Christ, was a love for all people. It was an unconditional love that sought nothing in return. It was the love of God working in all of our lives. It was a love that creates a beloved community and it was a love that could save all of civilization.
So here we are on the anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination because of his unwavering demand that we live in love; because of his unwavering fight for us to build the beloved community. And it is Easter Day when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We heard today that the women who went to the tomb with spices to carry out the prescribed burial ritual of anointing Jesus, were met with a surprise. On the way, they wondered who would roll away the stone at the entrance of the tomb. When they got there, though, the stone was rolled away and they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe and sitting on the right side. They were alarmed by what they found. It was not at all what they expected.
The messenger told them that Jesus, whom they had seen crucified and whom they knew had died and was buried in the tomb, had been raised. Jesus was no longer there. The messenger told them to go tell Peter that Jesus was going on to Galilee, where they would all see him. Before he died, Jesus told them he would meet them in Galilee after his death.
We can understand that the women would be in shock and disbelief. We hear that terror and amazement had seized them. We hear they said nothing to anyone. We hear they were afraid.
Now, they must have finally said something to someone, because the experience is recorded for us. Yet, it seems that initially, they could not even speak about it. They could not even process what they were seeing and what they were hearing. It took some time.
And I have always wondered why they were afraid. Wouldn’t it be exciting and such a joy to know that this wonderful teacher who loved you unconditionally was not dead as you had thought? Wouldn’t it be so exciting and such a joy to know that he had been raised from the dead?
On Friday I read a piece by Esau McCaulley, an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. The title was The Unsetttling Power of Easter. I honestly just wanted to read the piece to you as the sermon today, because I found it so powerful.
Here is what Dr. McCaulley said in part:
“The women did not go to the tomb looking for hope. They were searching for a place to grieve. They wanted to be left alone in despair. The terrifying prospect of Easter is that God called these women to return to the same world that crucified Jesus with a very dangerous gift: hope in the power of God, the unending reservoir of forgiveness and an abundance of love. It would make them seem like fools. Who could believe such a thing?
Christians, at their best, are the fools who dare believe in God’s power to call dead things to life.”
Hope in the power of God…the unending reservoir of forgiveness…an abundance of love. God’s power to call dead things to life. How foolish is that?
Love calls us to be in this world with all of its challenges. Love calls us, even in our imperfections, to do our best to love the world God created. Love calls us to work for justice; to work for and pray for what is best for each other and for ourselves. Love calls us out of selfishness and into relationship. Love calls us to new and abundant life in community.
Love is not a noun. As Presiding Bishop Curry says in his book Love Is the Way, p. 19-20
This love is a verb: It’s an action, with force and follow-through. …Love as an action is the only thing that has ever changed the world for the better.
No wonder the women were terrified and dare I say, confused. Jesus resurrection was calling them to a kind of love deeper than they had ever known…a kind of love that is terrifying…a kind of love that demands action.
This is a kind of love that seems impossible for us. Yet, for thousands of years, Christians have continued to walk in the way of Jesus and follow Jesus. We join the throng of those who have gone before us.
We have studied his words and teachings, albeit imperfectly and at times abominably. Yet, God keeps calling us to this kind of love and way of life. God created us to be confident and capable in fashioning a world rooted in love. May we, like the women at the tomb, move past our terror and live into the foolishness that is embodying the love that Jesus taught.
Amen
The Unsettling Power of Easter: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/opinion/easter-celebration.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
