Sermons

READING ~ #628 Rolling Away the Stone by Sara Moores Campbell

In the tomb of the soul, we carry secret yearnings, pains, frustrations, loneliness, fears, regrets, worries.

In the tomb of the soul, we take refuge from the world and it's heaviness.

In the tomb of the soul, we wrap ourselves in the security of darkness.

Sometimes this is a comfort, sometimes it is an escape.

Sometimes it prepares us for experience, sometimes it insulates us from life.

Sometimes this tomb life gives us time to feel the pain of the world and reach out to heal others. Sometimes it numbs us and locks us up with our own concerns.

In this season where light and dark balance the day, we seek balance for ourselves.

Grateful for the darkness that has nourished us, we push away the stone and invite the light to awaken us to the possibilities within us and among us, possibilities for new life in ourselves, in our world.

 

READING ~ The Danger of a Single Story – by Chimamanda Adichie
Transcript Courtesy of TED

The single story creates stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

…

Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.

 

SERMON ~ “Easter – No Single Story”

“The truth about stories is, that's all we are.” – Thomas King – The Truth About Stories, A Native Narrative (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

Stories.  Stories is all we are.  Stories are all we have.

We may call it history.    We may call it memory.

Still, it’s the story as told by someone, somewhere, with all that the person brings to creation and the recitation of their story.

Easter.    Yes, let’s wish each other and everyone a Happy Easter.

What we know about Easter is the stories told long ago and up to today.

How many Easter stories are there?

Let’s begin by asking, “How many Easters are there?”

I can think of three different Easters – three, at least.

There are the ancient, ancient stories of the time long before Easter was connected with Jesus.  Pagan, Earth-centered, and Goddess traditions celebrated the change of the seasons, including stories of new life and resurrection.  Ēostre was a goddess celebrated with a festival during the spring equinox and according to some scholars, her association with hares is the origin of the Easter Bunny story, although this is still hotly debated.

That gives us the second Easter.  The Easter Bunny, baskets, chocolate candy, and colored eggs.  In some places, live baby chicks.  In other places yellow marshmallow peeps. And jelly beans.  There are stories that tie our contemporary Easter with these ancient symbols, practices, and celebrations.

The third Easter is the Christian holy day that commemorates Jesus’ resurrection from death.  How we get Christian Easter on the day of ancient pagan festivals is a common story – the story of appropriation.  Early imperial Christians found that it was easier to adopt and transform the festivals already celebrated by people far and wide into a re-make of a Christian holy day than it was to stomp out, obliterate, or erase the non-Christian festivals.  So, as it is with Christmas at the Winter Solstice, we have Easter occurring around the spring Equinox.

Ancient Spring rituals, Bunnies and colored eggs, Jesus rising from death.  All of these are Easter.  Stories.  You each will be able to tell us how to celebrate today.  And you will be right.  You will be right because your story has legitimacy and meaning in your life.  Everyone’s story of Easter does not need to be the same in order to be true.  In order to be true, the story needs to be meaningful and important to the keepers and tellers of the story.

In my story of Easter – as far back as my memory goes – the day begins with siblings gathering in the den at first light. Forbidden by parents from roaming the house before they were up and about, we huddled in the den and waited for the word that the day could begin.  The Easter Bunny visited our house – perhaps yours as well.  The Bunny left a trail of jelly beans through the whole house that eventually ended in the dining room where the table was piled high with seven Easter baskets.  To this day, jelly beans are an essential part of my Easter.

Also part of my Easter story is being hustled through breakfast so we would all get to church on time.

After church, Dad had us all line up in the front yard still in our Easter Sunday best outfits – not always with a bonnet, praise the goddess – and he took family pictures.

Family stories of Easter are important – like all family stories.

If I asked each of my six siblings to tell you all the story of how the Beckmans celebrated Easter - - - you would hear six different, but somewhat coherent, versions of the story I just told.

Each of our versions is true.

Each of our versions is meaningful.

There is no ONE STORY of our family.  There can’t be a single story when there are multiple story tellers.  We each share memories and impressions and details that we recall, and we each attempt to make meaning from the story we tell.

That is just the way it is with the Easter story that tells of Jesus on the Sunday following his execution and burial in a tomb on Friday.

There are several different stories about Jesus on that Sunday morning.

There are thousands of interpretations of the story.

In a way – all the stories are true and none of the stories is a complete.

The Biblical account of Easter is told by five people.

The Apostle Paul and the Gospel accounts from Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.

None of these men were witness to the events they recount.

No one who was present when Jesus died or on the third day wrote an account of what they experienced.

No one.

Every story we have – and remember all we are is stories – comes from decades after Jesus’ life and is written by someone who wasn’t there.

Imagine that for a minute.

Suppose we only had accounts of the assassination of President Lincoln from people who had become ardent disciples of our 16^th President and the cause of abolition and equality of the races.  Lincoln died on April 15, 1865.  Now, suppose the earliest account of that day was written in 1901 by someone who wasn’t in Washington in 1865, but who thought Lincoln was a hero and a martyr and the finest President American has seen.

Imagine the account that person would write.  The writer would gather oral history and accounts from anyone who seemed to have knowledge – first hand or by tradition.  The writer would also have their own perspective on what happened, and the writer would keep their intended audience in mind as they wrote the story – to reassure or to convince.

Now suppose another writer set about to tell the story of Lincoln’s final days. This second writer blamed Lincoln for all the devastation brought on the nation and for the ruin of the Southern way of life.  A very different story might emerge from this writer – who used the same sources of oral tradition and personal perspective.

So it is with the stories of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

I do not mean to debunk the Biblical record.

I simply mean to point out that there is no single story of Easter.

There are many stories of Easter.

And, for the curious, there are no known accounts of Jesus’ execution, death, and resurrection from any source outside of the biblical accounts.

The Apostle Paul was the first to write about the risen Jesus in a letter to the Corinthian church years later.  Remember, Paul never met Jesus.  Paul experienced the risen living Jesus in a vision.  He made no claim about a physical bodily resurrection.  His resurrection account was of a spiritual resurrection – a resurrection that is a spiritual triumph of life over death that might be possible for all believers.

The four gospel accounts by Mark, then Matthew, then Luke and eventually John came into being from about 70 AD to 100 or 120 AD.  So - – long after the events of which they write.  No wonder the details are different.  The outline is the same. Jesus was executed, was buried in a tomb, came back to life and was seen by a few or many people who had known him.  From there, the accounts are different and cannot be reconciled into a single story.

Does mean that Easter is a fiction?  Shall we debunk everything Christianity says about Jesus?  In no way.

What this means, I suggest, is that the listeners (or readers) of the Easter stories are free to make of them what they will.

No single version is supreme or definitive.

There are those who try to reduce the richness of the experiences of the variety of story tellers into a single story.  This is, I think, a big mistake.  A single story becomes elevated in perception, and it can, and often is intended to, cancel out any other version of the story.  Truth is sacrificed to conformity. I like the fact that there are different versions of major events – from creation to resurrection.  It allows me to enter into the story and make of it what is meaningful to me.

None of the Easter stories is an eyewitness, or even a contemporary, account.  All of them are the result of oral accounts carried by many disciples, believers and followers across decades.   The meaning of the story, the impact of the story on the lives of the followers, the truth that people found in experiencing Jesus for themselves through these stories is far more valuable than the details or factual accuracy of the story.

Faith.  Faith does not depend on facts.  Faith is a matter of heart and spirit.  What I believe I cannot prove, that is the nature of faith.  It is the stories I carry within my soul that give my faith meaning and my life.

For millions of Christians, today is the single most important day of the year.  For them, the resurrection is the necessary culmination of the life and purpose of Jesus – son God and son of woman – on earth.  They cannot conceive of a faith does not hinge on the resurrection.

Alternatively, for millions of Christians, the resurrection stories are problematic and can even be a stumbling block to their faith.  The stories are confusing and do not resonate in their minds, hearts, and souls.

I am more sympathetic to this second group of Christians.  For me, the importance of Easter is found in the way that life continues to emerge from death.  New life comes even in a time of unspeakable grief or tragedy or damage.  I am much more moved through the life of Jesus than I am through his death or resurrection.  Perhaps that makes me a not-very-good Christian, but I make no claim to be a good Christian.  My goal is to be a good person.  It is the life of Jesus that helps me with that.

So, Happy Easter.  Whatever your story of Easter is, may it bring you both purpose and joy.

Let us raise our voices in praise for spring time; for new life risen from the compost of past life; for bunnies and baby chicks and colored eggs; for warmer days and flowers almost blooming; for faith that life triumphs and that with each passing season we are granted a fresh chance to live life to its fullest and to share with all those we encounter the one love that gives us all life and that will never let us go.

Blessed Be.   I Love You.   Amen.