Rev. Emily Wright-Magoon
April 1, 2018
Sermon Part 1: Good Friday
Easter is an odd time for Unitarian Universalists. We have so much diversity among us in our beliefs about the Christian Easter.
…Diversity about who Jesus was, who God is, why Jesus died, and if and why there was a resurrection. For those of you who were raised in Christian traditions – some of whom still identify as Christian, and some of whom do not – for you in particular, there are often very particular, personal ways that the Good Friday and Easter story have hurt you and/or healed you. All of that is present here with us today.
And the truth is that there is and has always been just as much diversity within the Christian tradition about what Easter means.
Even looking at the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they do not all tell the same tale. There are questions and mysteries written into the text and between the texts. You might be surprised to learn what early Christians believed or didn’t believe about Jesus’ death… And how this varied from century to century and region to region. We could spend a lot of time on that.
But setting aside our own personal beliefs for a minute, I’d contend that we can all agree the story of Jesus is a story that has lasted. It is a story that has been interpreted and reinterpreted over and over again, and always through the lens of the times we live in.
It is a rich and deep story about the human experience – both our brokenness and our yearning for transformation – for new life after death. Even as spring comes after winter, we want to know that our pain will not always be forever, or that forgiveness will happen sometime, or that goodness can be found even within the worst of life. So this is a story that can speak to us all, if not in a belief statement way, then in a parabolic way.
But we cannot skip ahead to the end of the story: to Jesus’s supposed resurrection. First there is his death. And even before that is his life.
We know that Jesus was a poor, dark-skinned, Jewish man. He hung out with all the misfits of his time: the homeless, the day laborers, the prostitutes, the lepers, and even the tax collectors. This was a person, who, yes, some said did miracles, but always miracles that involved healing the sick, bringing food to the hungry, or shaming the greedy. He told parables, tricky mind-benders that helped his listeners shift into a different paradigm. His listeners lived in the Roman Empire, where class divisions were acute, racism was rampant, greed and consumerism were the rule, and war and conquest were seen as the pathway to paradise. The Roman Emperor, who was in fact seen as God, embodied all of these values of wealth, violence, and power. Jesus, in contrast was none of these: humble and poor and peaceful – but not a doormat – he was also a trickster and a rebel.
And he said his way offered an alternative to the status quo. His teachings, his actions, his life… threatened those in power. So much so, that like many other trouble-makers of his time, he was put to death.
So, one Christian understanding of this story is not that God commanded Jesus’ death but that his fellow humans did – and them alone.
…In the same way that humanity continues to put to death all kinds of innocent people. …continues to sacrifice goodness for progress or wealth. …continues to stamp out difference in favor of uniformity. …continues to use power to keep the poor and oppressed down.
I remember growing up Catholic, one of the hymns we’d sing around Good Friday – the day of Jesus’ death – said:
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble…
I also tremble when I see the news: I tremble when I hear that Stephon Clark – the young, unarmed black father killed by police in his backyard was shot 8 times in the back.
I tremble, too, when I remember that a shooter killed twenty 6 and 7-year-olds in Sandy Hook and our country still didn’t change any laws to regulate guns the way we regulate cars or drugs or lottery tickets.
I tremble when I hear of mass species extinction, plastics filling the oceans, the ways climate change will affect especially the poor and isolated of the globe, and all while the powerful continue unabated, spewing toxins into the earth in order to make a higher profit.
What in this world causes you to tremble? Perhaps it’s something in the world that breaks your heart or boils your blood – and/or perhaps it’s something in your own life – some brokenness or pain.
That’s the “Good Friday” part of this story- the part we can’t skip over.
And God did not rush in to save Jesus because perhaps to these Christians God is not only not a God who would command his son to die, but also not a God who can or would be a puppeteer to the human race.
So who is God – or even who is Jesus, in this story? And how can goodness emerge from pain? That will be part 2.
Sermon Part 2: Easter Sunday
When a story turns from the awful to the wonderful, we call it a miracle. Easter is the story of a miracle.
It’s okay in this church to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, but if you do not, there is still meaning to be found for all of us in this Easter story.
Again, the accounts of what happened after Jesus died vary from one to the next – they were meant to be parables after all, which does not mean false, but rather truer than true.
What all the accounts have in common is that Jesus lives on, but interestingly, Jesus only appears within and through community. The story doesn’t depict some heavenly figuring rising alone in rays of light – the stories depict Jesus appearing with and to his friends and community, and continuing to teach them, be with them, work with them.
This is the same metaphorical message I give at most memorial services I officiate – that our loved ones live on through community – through the ways we who love them continue to lift up their legacy, tell their stories, honor their life.
And, boy this happened for Jesus’ community – despite the horror of his death, they did not disband in loneliness and fear. They did not forsake his radical teachings, even though it was clear these teachings could also lead to their deaths. They worked together to let Jesus live on through them.
Resurrection and transformation really only happen through community, as my colleague Rev. Victoria Weinstein describes so well:
Maybe the news from the doctor isn’ t good. Someone is going to be facing a very difficult time, health-wise. They are worried. They bring that worry to the community and everyone who hears it puts that person in their heart, holds them there, worries with them, thinks about ways they can share their strength with that person. Some do it silently, with prayers or loving thoughts, and some do it out loud and in tangible ways. They write cards or they bring soup or they make a phone call or they give backrubs. Either way, that person’ s spirit gathers all this in, and they have moments where they just know they can endure whatever comes. They know that they are not alone and they are not forsaken. There is a Spirit of Life and Love that is with them even as they lie in the hospital bed recovering from surgery, or enduring some other painful trial. How do they know they are not alone and not forsaken? They know it because they’ re a part of a community, and because they are, their own body is just a smaller part of one bigger body. That’s a miracle, too.
And this Easter story isn’t only about our personal pains – the Easter story is also explicitly political.
The biblical scholar Marcus Borg says, “Easter is not about an afterlife or happy endings. …Easter affirms that the domination systems of this world are not of God and that they do not have the final word.”
And again, this message comes through community.
Think of it: the evils in this world have really only ever been healed through common effort.
Think of the ways the youth in this country have taken the horror of mass shootings and risen up together to call for another way. Or the way the #metoo movement has only been possible because of community.
Good Friday and Easter Sunday – put together – tell us that, yes, pain in this world is real – both our personal pains and the systemic evils in the world. That brokenness is real, and it actually does us some good to sit with it, to be with it, to not look away. For a broken heart is actually open, not closed down. A broken heart calls us into community, where true transformation happens.
…Where we can make new life out of death and where we can create wholeness out of brokenness:
A miracle happens when a community of people hears the sacred, ancient call to love our God with all our hearts and souls, all our minds and all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and chooses to enter into that sacred story with full faith, letting it change them for the better. – Rev. Victoria Weinstein
– Rev. Emily Wright-Magoon