“A Moveable Feast”: a sermon for Easter Day

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Easter is what’s called “a moveable feast”.  Easter, and the days that depend on Easter, move around a bit in the calendar.

Once, Easter was so late that ANZAC Day was observed on Easter Monday.  (We’re close to that situation again this year with ANZAC Day happening on the Thursday just following Easter.) 

ANZAC Day on Easter Monday that year was particularly tricky.  We put a great deal of effort in explaining to veterans in the congregation (well in advance) that we’d wait until the following week to include ANZAC Day in the service.

One veteran said to me, “But we cannot forget the Honoured Dead.”

I replied, “But Easter is about the Honoured Dead-and-Risen,” to which the reply was a definite “Harrumph!” (as they say in the comic strips). 

However, we did ANZAC Day the following Sunday and gave it a lot of attention.

Another time, Easter was so early that St. Patrick’s Day occurred during Holy Week.  There was some tension in Melbourne between the Catholic Archdiocese and the various Irish social clubs, given that the Archdiocese was discouraging its priests from conducting the usual St. Patrick’s Day masses.  (A bit of pastoral flexibility could have gone a long way, I think.  If the chap in the pulpit brought the themes of Holy Week and Easter into people’s minds on St. Pat’s Day, when they were in a good mood anyway, they could well have come back to church for a second helping of worship on Easter.)

There’s always a certain logic to Good Friday falling on Friday the 13^th.

The ecumenist in me particularly likes it in those years when the Western Churches and the Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Easter on the same Sunday.  Nevertheless, the pastor in me has a real sense of “Holy Envy” toward our neighbours in the Orthodox Churches who, in most years, can celebrate the Resurrection without having to compete with the distractions provided by the longest long weekend of the year.

And the fact that Easter is at the heart of a marathon long weekend can be a problem for the churches as we try to communicate the faith to our communities. 

·        More people are around on Good Friday than they are on Easter. 

·        There are a lot of people – both regular worshippers and others - who attend worship for the more solemn service on Good Friday, but are away by the time of the joyous services of Easter itself.

·        I’m aware of a number of events here in the Hobart area in which a group of churches co-operated on a public event communicating our faith to the wider community.  They were good events.  I attended one.  All were on Friday.  None was today.  Our neighbours overheard our words of solemnity, but not our shouts of joy.   Could that have confirmed some of our neighbours’ stereotypes of what practicing, worshipping Christians are like?

Because of the long, long weekend, there is a big gap between the Easter celebrated by the churches and the Easter celebrated by the wider community.  Over the past few years, comparing Easter with Christmas, I’ve been putting it this way:

·        On the one hand, worshipping Christians and the wider community celebrate essentially the same Christmas as each other.

·        On the other hand, worshipping Christians and the wider community celebrate radically different Easters to each other.

And I think it’s definitely logically consistent for a Christian to seriously want to be “into” the culture’s celebrations at Christmas, yet also for the same Christian to want to be radically countercultural, and even borderline monastic, during Holy Week and Easter.

Back to our “moveable feast.”

In terms of a wider ecumenism, I always like it when Easter and Passover coincide neatly, as they do this year.  Once, there was even a year when Easter, Passover, and a major Muslim feast happened at the same time, so three great branches of the People of God were all celebrating major festivals of faith at the one time.

Last year, two interesting things happened.  One was that Ash Wednesday happened on the same day as St. Valentine’s Day.  This resulted in a few funny posts on social media, focusing on what a Lenten St. Valentine’s Day card would look like.

The other interesting thing last year was the best of all, though.  If you remember, Easter fell on April Fools’ Day.   

This makes particular sense.  In many ways the first Easter was also the first April Fools’ Day.

Think about it.  Death thought it had Jesus just where it wanted him.  But on Easter, Jesus looked Death straight in the eye and said “April Fool!” 

(If people laugh:  Thank you for laughing.  Resurrection people laugh.)

(If people don’t laugh:  It’s OK.  You were allowed to laugh at that.  Resurrection people laugh.)

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

 

"Alive to God in Christ Jesus": a sermon (Romans 6:5-11; Mark 16:1-8)

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

A few things –four, in fact - have jumped out at me as I was preparing to preach for Easter this year.

***

The first thing that jumped out at me is the fact that there are some high-profile legal proceedings going on in Melbourne, and that these legal proceedings promise to go on for a few months.

A senior leader of a mainstream Christian Church has been accused of a number of charges of sexual assault against minors, with many of these charges being decades old.  I don’t know if he’s guilty or not.  I don’t want to speculate on his guilt or innocence.  I believe Cardinal Pell has the same common law right to the presumption of innocence as anyone else accused of a crime, whether this be a VIP or some homeless wino accused of shoplifting.

Nevertheless, this case will be hard for many people:
·        the Cardinal,
·        his accusers,
·        any other person who is a survivor of child sexual abuse,
·        any family member of a survivor or a victim of child sexual abuse.

This will also be a hard time for the life of all the Christian churches in this country, not merely for the Catholics.

Following the findings of the Royal Commission last year, as far as the average person in our community is concerned,
·        for the bulk of our neighbours,
·        for the sort of people who aren’t worshippers because the churches haven’t given them any good reason to become worshippers,
·        particularly for the sort of person who is attracted by the example of Jesus but repelled by the social conservatism of the churches,
this case merely confirms the worst of everything they’ve come to believe about the Christian churches. 

A few years ago, they would have said, “I don’t bother with the churches.  They’re all the same:  full of wowsers and hypocrites.” 

Now they say, “I don’t bother with the churches.  They’re all the same:  full of wowsers, hypocrites, and paedophiles.” 

In a real sense, the credibility of the churches – the credibility of all the churches - is at rock bottom.  I believe the churches will rebuild our credibility, slowly, steadily.  We will only do so if we are honest about our past, humble about our present, and hopeful about our future. 

In all of this, we are nevertheless fearful about the future of the churches. 

Our gospel lesson speaks to this issue of fear.  Mark tells of the first witnesses to the resurrection, Mary Magdalene and her friends, being seized by fear and saying nothing to anyone.  This was the earliest ending to Mark’s gospel. 

Those who read this ending knew two things:
·        The first was that the fear was real.
·        The second was that the fear wasn’t the end of the story.  The good news got out, despite the fear.  Otherwise the gospel would have never been written in the first place.

The good news of Easter is this:
·        Fear never has the final word.
·        Sin never has the final word.
·        Death never has the final word.

*** 

The second thing that jumped out at me had to do with some comments made by a senior Australian politician to the effect that a number of people who were critics of his policies were, effectively, “dead” to him.  This, of course, provoked a great deal of comment, both in social media and in the media media. 

A friend of mine, who is a lay Anglican and one of the most competent lay theologians I know, made the comment on Facebook that, in this, is found the meaning of life.  We need to live lives that are so full, so meaningful, and so loving that, in effect, we are “dead” to Peter Dutton.

I added the comment, “and that, once dead, our funerals are picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church”.

Thinking about it a bit more I thought about Paul’s comments in Romans 6, the part about considering ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.  (This lesson is one of the ones for the Easter Vigil, so if we had our service in the middle of the night last night that would have been one of our lessons.)  Anyway, we had this as one of our readings this morning.  We are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.

I was encouraged to see a Facebook post by Father Rod, the bloke who maintains that brilliant church signboard in Gosford, New South Wales, who also made the same link between the politician’s comments and those of Paul.

A lot depends on how we define “sin”.  Many of us were brought up to define “sin” as being a bit too frisky in our sex lives, or being a bit too rowdy in our choice of beverages.  But, if we’re serious about being “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”, we need a far wider and broader definition of sin. 
·        We must consider ourselves “dead to bigotry and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.
·        We must consider ourselves “dead to cruelty and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.
·        We must consider ourselves “dead to greed and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.

***

The third thing that jumped out at me is the fact that, here in the Southern Hemisphere, we celebrate Easter during the autumn.  The springtime imagery we find in many Easter hymns and in many secular Easter songs … spring flowers and chubby little bunny rabbits … just doesn’t cut it in the Southern Hemisphere, … in Australia, or New Zealand, or South Africa, or Argentina, or Chile, or anywhere else south of the Equator.

Here, Easter takes place in the autumn, at the time of harvest, at a time when the earth produces food.  There are some creative possibilities here for Christians celebrating Easter within the Southern Hemisphere.
·        We celebrate the Risen Christ, who is the first fruits of God’s great harvest of humanity.
·        We celebrate the Risen Christ, who gives himself to us as food from the earth, as bread and as wine.

I looked through our hymnbook and found precisely one hymn that links this theme of harvest to that of Easter (Pamela Stotter’s hymn “Christ is alive, with joy we sing…”).  We’ll sing it just after this sermon.

***

The fourth thing that jumped out at me is the fact that, in addition to being Easter Day, today is also April Fool’s Day.  (At the beginning of Lent this year, Ash Wednesday was also St. Valentine’s Day.)

In a real sense, that first Easter Day was also the first April Fool’s Day. 

On the first Good Friday, Death thought it had prevailed against Jesus, against humanity, and against God.

On that first Easter, Jesus looked Death squarely in the eye and said “April Fool!”

(Thanks.  I was hoping someone would laugh.  Resurrection people laugh.)

 Alleluia!  Christ is risen! 
He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Now that Lent is over, here's what I gave up for Lent ... and why.

Normally, when I give something up for Lent, I've recently been in the practice lately of treating it on a "need to know" basis until Lent is over.  I've found from experience that some people find it very witty to wave a chocolate bar, for example, under the nose of someone who's giving chocolate up for Lent. 

• Sometimes, these are people who are uncomfortable with Christian faith and practice in any form and wish to take the mickey out of it. 
• Sometimes, these are people with a hyper-"Protestant"  (whether "evangelical" or "progressive") approach to Christian faith and practice who seem to feel threatened or offended by anyone in a "Protestant" church - let alone a minister - who feels led to give something up for Lent.

So, in recent years, I treat what I give up for Lent on a "need to know" basis (i.e., such as anyone whom I may be visiting for a meal during Lent) until Lent is over.  This post won't show up on my blog until the early evening of the Saturday of Easter weekend, at a time when some churches will be beginning to have their Easter services, as opposed to Holy Week services, and Lent will be over.

This year, I haven't given up chocolate, or whiskey, or any of my usual "go-to" Lenten challenges.  For Lent this year, I've given up pork, ham, bacon, and any other pig-related meat.  Here's why.

In the scriptures, there are many encouragements to link one's fasting - and other religious disciplines - to one's search for social justice.  By giving up pork, ham, bacon, or any other pig-based meat I'm linking my faith with living justly in three ways.

1.  The two faith communities within our western culture, Jews and Muslims, who experience the highest levels of prejudice and discrimination are also faiths with dietary practices that exclude pork. 

• In 15th and 16th century Spain, the Inquisition frequently offered suspected marranos and moriscos the challenge "Eat pork or die!"  
• In France today, there are some bigoted educational bureaucrats who (when planning school lunch menus) still declare that Muslim and Jewish schoolchildren can either "eat pork or go hungry". 
• Many people in many countries (including, sadly, the various English-speaking democracies) use the vexed politics of the Middle East as an excuse for giving expression to bigotries toward Jews and/or Muslims in their own communities, bigotries that are frequently only marginally connected to people's views on the Middle Eastern situation. 

By giving up pork for Lent, I feel I'm standing alongside two communities who experience high levels of bigotry within our own western society.  As well, I like to think I'm standing alongside Jesus the Jew, who ate a kosher diet.

But that's not the only reason.

2.   According to many reports, some of the highest levels of animal cruelty in the meat industry in Australia occur within the raising and slaughtering of pigs.  By giving up ham, bacon, pork and other pig-based meats for Lent, I'm also stating my horror over the mistreatment of many animals who are raised for our food.

And, as they say in the TV advertisements for overpriced steak knives, there's more.

3.  Here in Tasmania, the one reliable local producer of free-range pork products is owned by a member of the Exclusive Brethren.  Whether we call the Exclusive Brethren a sect or a cult, it's a group I'd rather not support, in terms of their treatment of women and young people in their group, in terms of their "shunning" of people who choose to leave their group, and in terms of their support of far-right-wing politicians.  Buying free-range (but Brethren-raised) pork products, I was always uneasy to imagine what activities were funded by a tithe of the profits of my Christmas ham.  By giving up pig-based meat for Lent, I'm standing alongside the many people who have been hurt by their involvement in religious fundamentalism of any sort.

As it turns out, I fell "off the wagon" unintentionally once during Lent.  I was at Hobart's annual "Festa Italia" and, as you do, ordered some pasta with meatballs, assuming that the meatballs were made from beef.  Between paying for the food and receiving it, I hear the seller say that the meatballs were made from a mixture of beef and pork.  On the grounds that it was ethically far worse to waste good food than to nibble a meatball of which I gave up 50% for Lent, I ate the meatballs.  (Kyrie eleison.)

While Lent is supposed to be a spiritual de-tox rather than a physical one, I think I'm experiencing some physical benefits from going porkless during Lent.  While I know the jury is still out on the health benefits of a pork-free diet, I feel generally a bit healthier for the experience. 

As a result, even though Lent is over and I can return to my pre-Lenten practices, I won't be getting into a furious bacon-fest over Easter.  While I'm relaxed about it, I'm not in any particular hurry to return to a porcine diet in the near future.

“An idle tale?”: a sermon for Easter Day (Luke 24:1-12)

Alleluia!  Christ is risen
He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Mary Magdalene and her friends went to Jesus’ tomb to perform the ancient burial rites of the Jewish faith.  On Friday, Jesus’ body was put in the tomb quickly, without ceremony.  The burial needed to be completed before the Jewish Sabbath began on Friday night.  The burial rites had to wait. 

So, on Sunday morning, after the Sabbath was over, the women went to the tomb so that Jesus’ body could receive the washing, anointing, and embalming that was expected in the culture of the times.  Mary Magdalene and the other women went to the tomb to do the decent thing for the dead body of a friend.  They were surprised to find the stone rolled away and the tomb empty, but they were still looking for a corpse.  But two strangers, attired (as Luke tells us) “in dazzling clothes”, said to them:   “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”

They went to tell some of the other disciples, some of the men, but - except for Peter - they weren’t really interested in their story.  “...these words seemed to them an idle tale...”  

And, in our culture, there are many “idle tales” floating around … about many different things.

Some of the “idle tales” take the form of gossip; gossip about neighbours or co-workers; gossip about entertainers, sportspeople, politicians, or those vague “celebrities” who are famous just for being famous.  Some gossip is deliberately malicious; some gossip is well-meaning.  All gossip is destructive.

Some of the idle tales take the form of racial, ethnic, religious or other stereotypes.  Some people persist in attributing a wide range of faults and vices to all members of any particular group, without exception: to all Jews, to all Muslims, to all Catholics, to all Aborigines, to all Freemasons, to all Mormons, to all gay or lesbian people, … and so on.

Some of the idle tales take the form of conspiracy theories; far-fetched theories that say that widely disparate groups of people have conspired with each other to keep you and I “in the dark” either about historical events or about present realities.  People are prepared to pay good money to hear or to read even the wildest of these conspiracy theories.  Just ask Dan Brown (the “Da Vinci Code” guy).  Just ask any climate change sceptic, creationist, or holocaust denier.

In our culture, and in many cultures, there are many “idle tales” floating about.

Some of the male disciples thought that Mary and her friends were indulging themselves in an “idle tale”.  Peter, though, ran to the tomb and found it empty.    

In our own day, we too are called to look for the presence of the risen Christ in the midst of life, not death.  We often find the risen Christ in the presence of those who may themselves not be aware that he is there.

Whenever individuals seriously try to face the difficult ethical decisions of life with integrity, it is not “an idle tale”:   the risen Christ is there.  

Whenever families seek to nurture their children as people of honesty, kindness, and generosity, it is not “an idle tale”:   the risen Christ is there. 

Whenever communities, divided by fear and prejudice, seek to discover new ways of reconciliation in their common life, it is not “an idle tale”:  the risen Christ is there. 

Whenever nations reject the paths of war to explore new options for peace, it is not “an idle tale”:   the risen Christ is there. 

Whenever congregations gather week after week, not to be dazzled by the latest religious gimmickry, but to break open the Word and to bread the bread”:  the risen Christ is there. 

For some, these signs of new life may be viewed cynically as “an idle tale”, but, for us we can see these as signs of the risen Christ.  

Christ is risen, bringing us:
life in the face of death; ...

... life despite death; ...

... life in defiance of death.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen

He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”: a sermon for Good Friday (Matthew 27:45–49)

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

The experience of humanity in recent centuries is the experience of God-forsaken-ness. 

There was a time, many centuries ago, when all life in western nations was infused with the experience of Christian faith.  Back in those times we call the Middle Ages, everyday life in all its concerns was intimately connected with the life of faith.  What we today call the “secular” dimension of life was not something of which people were aware.  Everything was all bound up with the life of faith.

Times since then have changed.  In many ways - we would all say – times have changed for the better. 

• Diseases that used to kill people are now very curable.
• Public sanitation and personal hygiene are much better.
• People’s diets are much better.
• More people have access to education.
• There is a greater social equality among people.
• People, for the most part, are much less superstitious.

There are many ways in which society has changed for the better in the centuries since the Middle Ages.

But, as well, in the centuries since the Middle Ages, it’s been a lot harder to have faith in God.  There has been a reduction ... century after century ... year after year ... in the role that most people see for God in our lives.   One Christian writer some years ago wrote of the “God of the Gaps”.  As science is able to explain more and more about the world around us, the role played by God in many people’s minds is shrinking.

And, as a result, we come to our own day.  For an increasingly number of people, God is absent from life.  For many people, humanity is profoundly alone in the universe.  For many people, their existence seems radically God-forsaken.  The experience of humanity in our own day is the experience of God-forsaken-ness. 

This sense of God-forsaken-ness has ethical implications.  Even for many people with a religious faith, there is a profound sense in which God is ethically absent.  This experience of living in a world in which God is ethically absent has its many monuments.  The monuments are littered around the world, monuments with names such as Auschwitz, …Dachau, … Hiroshima, … Nagasaki, … Tienanmen Square, … Risdon Cove, … Chernobyl,  … Fukushima, … Dunblane, … Port Arthur, … Columbine, … Ferguson, … and Charleston.  Humanity has profoundly suffered from this sense of God’s absence.

On the cross, Jesus also felt abandoned by God:   “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  At that moment, Jesus also felt profoundly alone in the universe.  At that moment, Jesus felt a profound God-forsaken-ness in his own existence.

On this day when we remember Jesus’ crucifixion, let us also remember that Jesus experienced that same sense of abandonment, aloneness, and God-forsaken-ness that is the deep-seated experience of our culture. 

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

As we reflect today on the cross and Jesus’ experience of God’s absence, we know that this is not the end of the story.  If Good Friday is about God’s absence, Easter Day is about God’s enduring presence.  We know that Good Friday is not the end of the story. If Jesus’ experience of God-forsaken-ness was not the end of the story for Jesus, neither need it be the end of the story for us, or for our world.  I believe a sermon for Good Friday could appropriately conclude with those words that often appear the end of a television programme where the story continues, and the plot is resolved, in the following episode:  “To be continued”.

On the cross, Jesus experienced God’s profound absence.  He did so in solidarity with us, who also experience God’s profound absence:

• either individually or as a culture,
• either occasionally or constantly.

Jesus experienced God’s absence on the cross so that we could experience God’s presence.  

 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  

... To be continued ...

"Do not be alarmed.": a sermon for Easter (Mark 16:1-8, 1st Corinthians 15:1-11)

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised ….” 

Even though Mary Magdalene and her friends were told not to be alarmed, our lesson ends with these words.

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized the; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Our gospel lesson for Easter ends with these words.  And, in fact, the oldest known copies of Mark’s gospel end with these words.  Many New Testament scholars (not all, but many) believe that this is the original ending of Mark’s gospel, with the eleven or so verses following to be a later addition.

It’s very interesting if this is the real ending.  The oldest one of the gospels ends with Mary Magdalene and her friends being given the good news of the resurrection, and their response was to run away, to say nothing, and to do nothing, … out of fear.

If this is the real ending, it makes sense in many ways.
·        It fits well into Mark’s gospel.  At many points in Mark’s gospel, Jesus does something spectacular and tells his disciples not to tell anyone about this – yet.  And what do they do?  They tell the immediate world.  Once someone’s told to share the news, what do they do?  They clam up.  It’s called irony.
·        It also fits well into the situation faced by the first generation of Christians that read Mark’s gospel.  They too experienced fear.  It may have comforted them to know that the first people to receive the good news of the resurrection were themselves too afraid to share the news, at least at first.  The fact that the news got out meant that they eventually developed the courage to get the message out.
·        And it also fits well into our situation today.  The world in which we live is a scary place for many people.  Fear has become part of our day-to-day lives, and many politicians and media figures  encourage us to be fearful.

But, the resurrection of Jesus addresses our fear.
·        The resurrection addresses our fear as it addressed the fear of Mary Magdalene and her friends on the first Easter morning.
·        The resurrection addresses our fear as it addressed the fear of that first generation of Christians who first read about Mary’s initial fear when Mark first put pen to papyrus.

The message that the stranger gave Mary Magdalene and her friends was intended to address her fears: 

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised; he is not here.  Look, there is the place they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

But of course, the first part of the message had the opposite effect: “Do not be alarmed.”  It’s a bit like saying, “Don’t be afraid, but ….”  It often has the opposite effect to that desired.

But part of the good news is that the good news got out.  In our lesson from the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks of the good news that he received, the good news that he passed on to the Corinthian Church, and the good news which the Corinthians were, in turn passing on:  the good news that Christ was raised, and that that his resurrection was not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of humanity, for the benefit of the same flawed humanity that connived in his death.

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised ….” 

And the story did not stop there.  From Mary Magdalene and her friends, the story continued to be told.  The story motivated many people … throughout the centuries … in lands around the world … to overcome their fears … to promote peace, justice, mercy, and reconciliation … to change their world.

And the story continues to be told today.  We are also links in that same chain that began with the message to Mary Magdalene and her friends two thousand  years ago; and we are given the same task that was given to Mary Magdalene and to Paul … to St. Patrick and to St. Nicholas … to St. Francis of Assisi and to John Wesley … to Martin Luther King and to Dietrich Bonhoeffer … to John Flynn and to Father Damian … to St. Mary McKillop and to Mother Theresa … and to you and I and the people on either side of you … the task of keeping alive the message:

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised ….”