Everything Rising
Matthew 28:1-10
Matthew 28:1-10 (NRSV):
1 After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Some of you come from spiritual traditions where on Easter, one person says “he is risen” and everyone else says “he is risen indeed.” It’s sort of the Easter version of “good morning” or “hey, what’s up man?”
Now, given what I want to say this morning, I need your help. I’m going to say, in a moment “he is risen!” And I want you all to say, in unison, if you’re comfortable: “why should we care, Matt?” I promise God won’t be mad at you for saying this.
Okay, here we go: “He is risen.” (“Why should we care, Matt?”)
I am so glad you asked! It would be a privilege to tell you why you should care.
The Resurrection is pretty important to the Christian tradition, in which Camas Friends Church is rooted, no matter how much we push or stretch the bounds of that tradition.
The resurrection is arguably the key to the Jesus story. You could argue that the birth of Jesus is the key moment—the incarnation, God-become-flesh, which says something profound about flesh, about you and me. You could argue that the life of Jesus is the key to the Jesus story, showing us Love in action and teaching us how to do the same. You could argue the cross, his death, is the key moment, and much of Christianity, and more recently evangelicalism, has done that, which I worry may have, for many, reduced Jesus from a radical, transformative force of Love to a kind of self-serving mechanism.
But you could also argue that the resurrection is the key moment in the Jesus story, and the reason for that is difficult to answer simply and plainly because the meaning of the resurrection is kind of spacious. The resurrection is in a way, fundamentally, a query.
The gospel stories don’t really tell us how it happened, just that it happened. We’re kind of just asked…to go with it. The resurrection is fundamentally mysterious, and in that mystery, it is compelling, enticing, inviting us to suspend our disbelief a bit and just say “ok, let’s just go with it! The resurrection is real!” We don’t need to get into the science of it. We don’t need to appeal to literary criticism or ancient mythic tropes. We don’t need to get defensive. There’s nothing to prove or disprove. We’re invited to move forward as though it is true, and to live accordingly. The appropriate question is not “but where’s his body?” or even “do you believe?” as some kind of ultimate moment of choice. A better question may be: “now what?”
I think you should believe in the resurrection. These two women, Mary and another Mary, said it happened. Do you not believe women? When I say you should believe in the resurrection I don’t mean to imply that if you don’t, you're “flawed” or “doomed” or “an outsider, looking in.” And this has nothing to do with happenedness. We weren’t there. There’s no video footage. Say what you want about the reliability of oral tradition, but the gospels are agenda-driven stories about the life of this man trying to show his legitimacy and thus the legitimacy of those who follow him. The resurrection requires a leap of faith, no matter what. The happenedness of the resurrection doesn’t matter, at least in an external sense. I think what happens internally, as we embrace or even practice resurrection, is what matters. So by “believe” I guess what I really mean is: “notice it.” Or maybe, “Be part of it.”
As the Empire shows its might and violence with this state-sanctioned execution of a man who exposed its cruelty and poured out his life in service to those Empire neglected, maybe a contemporary of Jesus, taking this all in, might feel the Jesus experiment is a failure. No need to continue his work, because it didn’t work. Love doesn’t work. Compassion and nonviolence don’t work. Defying the Empire doesn’t work. Living as a beloved community or ecosystem where all have what they need, this is not a goal worth pursuing. Personal and systemic evil…win. Love…loses.
But with the resurrection, all that Jesus is and was lives on. With the resurrection, Jesus becomes a spark, a seed planted. With the resurrection, all that Jesus was committed to can become our commitments, if we accept them. What are these commitments? Well, according to Matthew…
A commitment to participation in a loving community ready to make real change (3:13-17)
A commitment to resisting authoritarian power (4:10).
A commitment to “curing every disease and sickness” (4:23).
A commitment to elevating the meek, the poor, the merciful, the mourning, the peacemakers (5:3-11).
A commitment to nonviolent resistance (5:38-44, 26:52).
A commitment to integrity, hearing and doing, living the values you say are important to you (7:24-27).
A commitment to restoring the disenfranchised to participation in society and community (8:1-4).
A commitment to casting out demons, those forces that overtake otherwise good people, which today go by names like “white supremacy” and “transphobia” and “greed” and “militarism” among other names (8:28-34).
A commitment to helping people discover their own power to heal (9:2-8).
A commitment to breaking social boundaries and connecting with every sacred soul, no matter what others think of them (9:10-13).
A commitment to training others to do the work of compassion (10:1-4).
A commitment to speaking truth to power (10:16-20).
A commitment to doing good, even if it causes tensions and divisions in families (10:34-36).
A commitment to hospitality to those with little power or resources (10:40-42).
A commitment to clarifying for people–often forcefully–how their actions harm others (11:20-24).
A commitment to unburdening the weary (11:28-30).
A commitment to challenging the “rules” and “laws” when they aren’t serving the common good or basic needs of individuals (12:1-7).
A commitment to telling stories and asking thought-provoking questions that upset and disrupt, but also clarify and empower (13:1-50).
A commitment to making sure literally every person, no matter the size of the crowd or community, has something to eat (14:13-21).
A commitment to walking on water, or whatever that seeming impossible thing before us might be, today (14:22-33).
A commitment to learning and growing when given critical feedback, even if you’re Jesus, even if you’re you (15:21-28).
A commitment to transfiguration, helping people see things anew (17:1-13).
A commitment to centering the needs of children…every child (18:1-5, 19:13-15).
A commitment to challenging the rich to give up their riches for the sake of the poor, for the sake of economic justice (19:21).
A commitment not to telling those in need of help “here’s what going to happen” but to asking: “what do you want? What do you need?” (20:29-34).
A commitment to visible, public, political action, done not with the aggression of a war horse but the humility of a donkey (21:1-8).
A commitment to causing holy trouble and loving disruption, when unethical practices have become the norm (21:12-13).
A commitment to lament, a practice of naming and grieving the harms we cause rather than avoiding them (23:1-36).
A commitment to the least of these, those in need of food, drink, shelter, clothing, care, and visitation (25:31-46).
A commitment to doing the brave, hard thing, despite doubts, fears (26:36-46).
A commitment—as seen in Jesus’s last words before his death, according to Matthew at least, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—to authenticity, to real grief, and to solidarity with all who suffer needlessly in our world, who may also feel God has forsaken them (27:46)
These are Jesus’ most sacred commitments. When he dies, he can’t do these things anymore. The resurrection is the possible continuation of these commitments.
Early Friends, consistent with their emphasis on the inward experience of the Divine, as opposed to a focus on correct beliefs or submission or religious authority, tended to emphasize the personal, inward experience of resurrection. Jesus and all his sacred commitments actually and potentially live on, in them, in us, as the power to lovingly change the world and nourish the seeds of Love in each other.
I’ve been slowly reading a book called Making A Way Out of No Way, written by Monica Coleman, a womanist process theologian, the meaning of which I obviously need to explain a little. Coleman blends womanist theology, which centers Black women’s voices and experiences, with process theology. Process theology speaks of the Divine, humans, the world, and the relationship between all of these things, from a belief that all things grow and evolve, that the universe and matter are not static but dynamic, and thus so are we, and so is God. Process theology, in a nutshell, affirms that everything is connected, everything is changing, and everything is sacred.
Coleman writes this: “everything that happens is a product of the past, what’s possible, and what we do with those things. Whether you are a quark, an amoeba, or a person, you undergo this continual process of sorting through these three inputs: what you inherit from the world, what’s possible in your context, and what you do about it. This is the cause of our freedom. We are not bound by the past. It is not a deterministic system. We can do something new. God is the one who offers the possibilities to the world, urging us to choose the paths that lead to a vision of the common good.”
(Monica Coleman, Making A Way out of No Way: A Womanist Theology, 51)
We, as a community that follows Jesus in a Quaker way–which is a description of how this community puts Love into action, not a prescription of what you ought to think–we inherit the commitments of Jesus. We, like him, can discern the possibilities for Love in our context. We also have choices to make about how we live these sacred commitments, in our context. We, too, can do something new.
Everything is connected, everything is changing, everything is sacred. Jesus’ resurrection is not something that happens just to one body, but to every body, because we all have the Light, the Spirit, Divine Love within us. Everything is connected. Jesus, in the resurrection, becomes something new. We are all becoming something new, always, and we are here, sustaining an evolving tradition. Everything is changing. Jesus’ resurrection might tell us that his life mattered, his suffering mattered, his body mattered, just like your life matters, your suffering matters, your body matters, and no body is expendable, whether Jesus’, your neighbor’s, or your own. Everything is sacred.
There’s a whole genre of social media posts that pop up this time of year, and they start with something like: “If the resurrection didn’t literally happen…” and then someone makes a very empathic pronouncement, like “then there’s no point in getting up tomorrow.” One pastor got some flack 3-4 years ago for saying something like: “If the resurrection didn’t literally happen, then I’m going straight to the orgy…” Like, really? That’s the only thing keeping you from “going straight to the orgy?” Part of me is like “I don’t think I would want this fragile man as my pastor” and another part of me is like “just go to the orgy, man! Geez!”
I really hope that a particular, dogmatic way of thinking about resurrection is not the only thing keeping people from becoming the most unhinged versions of themselves. But I do think the resurrection matters. Not because it validates Christianity as the right religion. Not because it completes a salvation process. Not because it keeps you from enacting your weird fantasies. Not because it shows God’s terrifying, quaking power.
But maybe it matters because, for these women and the disciples, it did seem to reinforce their commitment to carrying on his mission of resistance and compassion. Maybe it did feel like a promise of a kind of salvation, or transformation, a way forward. Maybe it does prove that Love is powerful and worthwhile, that Love does work.
So, what are we carrying on? How do we carry the past, his past, with us? What possibilities for Love exist now? What choices lie before us? Where is the need? How will we tap into that same powerful force of Love that defined him? What will we do? What new, good things will we bring into being?
It may be best not to overanalyze the resurrection story, but to feel it, to experience it in your body, somehow. A new day is dawning. The Marys are grieving. The ground is quaking. The stone is rolling. The guards are shaking. The Divine is speaking. Love is moving. The women are rejoicing. The women are touching a real body, real feet. The others are waiting, with hope. Waiting for him to rise. Who is waiting for us to rise?
Let me wind down with kind of a final question: What does the resurrection sustain? What does a resurrection community sustain? I’ve said Love, but also…Life. That’s kind of an obvious point, right, the resurrection is Life beyond death, or Life defeating death.
Look around you, at our context. Bombs, dropped abroad. Death. School shootings, a regular occurrence. Death. Detained immigrants, dying in ICE custody. Death. Homelessness and the vulnerability to illness, addiction, malnourishment, and isolation that come with it. Death. Adequate resources and care denied to some because of some identity marker, whether gender, race, ability, socioeconomic status, or something else. Death. Shared existential threats, like climate change or the possibility of nuclear war. Death. How do we carry the past–that enduring Love–into this deathly context? How will we use our power to stop preventable death and sustain life?
Jesus died, and probably in horrific fashion. No telling of the Christian story should soften or sugarcoat this point with some variation of “it was good that he died, because…” or “God wanted or needed him to die because…” These are not helpful ways to think about an unjust, unfortunate, preventable, and cruel death. But maybe resurrection says that the presence and work of Jesus are not dead, that this work is very much alive and ready to be more fully taken up by…anyone.
“Why should we care, Matt?” you asked me earlier. That was such a good question you all came up with, at the same time.
Jesus’ final words in Matthew: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:20). Some people would like to keep the radical and liberating Love he embodied, dead. If we believe in the resurrection, maybe that means we believe seemingly impossible things are possible–which might be the hope we need in this time, with how daunting the possibility of real change may seem today. But maybe it also means that we can help keep Love alive. Is Love alive? The resurrection says yes, Love is alive, unstoppable, and with us, to the end of the age.
Queries:
Why should we care about the resurrection?
Where is the ministry of Jesus most needed today?
How can we participate in the Love that is rising up and making all things new?