Easter: Personal and Political Transformation By Rev. Meghan Cefalu April 8, 2012 UUCM Every year as Easter approaches I become a mix of anxious and excited. It is a theologically juicy day, but it is also an extremely challenging one. I struggle every spring to find another angle for my sermon which will offer a fresh understanding of the story of Jesus death and resurrection. I am aware that there is a temptation among some UUs to declare our congregations Christianityfree zones. As if Christianity is something we just needed to outgrow and now we can move on. I think we do ourselves a disservice when we forget or deny that for the first three hundred years of their existence both Unitarians and Universalists were Christian denominations, as if it is some embarrassing family secret. And though now it is just one of the six named sources from which we draw, Christianity is most certainly our root. And just as it would be unwise to cut a tree off from its roots, though it grows ever upward, extending its branches in many directions, it would also be unwise to sever our religious movement entirely from its origins. Besides, as novelist Flannery O Connor once put it we live in a Christ haunted culture. Stories, images and allusions from the Bible are in the air we breathe and in the books, movies, music and TV shows we experience. This church is a place where we can bring our curiosity and study the stories using the latest biblical scholarship. It is a place where we can come to new understandings in an informed way using reason and our rational minds rather than reactively rejecting anything that smacks of Christianity out of hand. It is in the spirit of openness and curiosity that I invite you to hear my words this morning. As part of my preparation for this sermon I read a book by two prominent Biblical scholars which breaks down the last week of Jesus life in Jerusalem the week bookended by Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. 1 The authors chose to use the gospel of Mark for their study in part because it is widely held that Mark s is the earliest account of Jesus life. It was most likely written around 70 CE about forty years after his death. As with all of the gospels it is not a straightforward history but a combination of history remembered and history interpreted. Scholars believe that Matthew, Luke, and John were written much later as each seems to both draw from and embellish upon what was written in Mark s first account weaving in to their versions some ideas which clearly stem from their own context. The book, aptly named The Last Week, came out just a couple of years after Mel Gibson s renowned Passion of Christ movie. You may remember that this was the controversial movie that 1 Crossan, John Dominic and Borg, Marcus J. The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem. HarperOne 2007. 1
created quite a stir and made clear a divide between Christians who embraced the violent images and messages and those who were deeply disturbed by them. It may seem strange to call Jesus suffering and death his passion, but the term passion is used here in the context of the original Roman Catholic understanding where it comes from the root to suffer. Of course, these days we use the word passion to mean something entirely different. When we are passionate about something we find it to be a consuming interest, a dedicated enthusiasm or a concentrated commitment. We are passionate about tennis or round-a-bouts or working to end hunger. Using the term in our modern way of understanding it we could say Jesus first passion was the kingdom of God. He was passionate about embodying and bringing into being the justice of God by demanding that everyone get a fair share of a world ruled by the covenantal God of Israel. His passion was an invitation to all those with eyes to see and ears to hear not only to personal transformation, but to political transformation. If we focus only on his second passion his death and suffering - without lifting up the passion that defined his life and ultimately got him killed we will have missed the point. If we focus only on his personal invitation to transformation or only his political invitation to transformation we also miss the point. To find meaning in the Easter story, of Good Friday and Easter, we need to look at the whole story of Jesus life, death and resurrection. First a little context: at the time of Jesus Jerusalem had become the center of a domination system. The social system was typical for societies in the preindustrial agrarian world. There are three main features of this kind of social organization: 1) Political Oppression (the many are ruled by the few rich and powerful elites), 2) Economic Exploitation (most of the society s wealth went into the coffers of the wealthy and powerful) and 3) Religious Legitimation (the system was justified with religious language. The people in charge were ordained by God, and the social order reflected the will of God.) Rome had conquered the land and put the temple priests and scribes in the somewhat awkward position of collecting money from the local people for Rome as well as keeping the peace. They had to keep their own people from revolting while also making sure the Roman rulers were pleased or else they would have them replaced. One spring day in the year 30 two processions made their way into Jerusalem. It was the beginning of the week of Passover the annual celebration when thousands of Jewish pilgrims made their way to Jerusalem for the festivities. 2
From one direction the Roman army led by Pontius Pilate marched into Jerusalem in a show of might and strength. Imagine the impeccably groomed horses with armor gleaming in the sunlight, military officers in full regalia, golden eagles mounted on poles, swords and helmets polished, fanfare and trumpets, noise and spectacle. It was standard practice for all Jewish major festivals for the army to come in to the city to make their presence known and keep the peace. It was especially important at Passover when the Jews celebrated liberation from an earlier empire. Pilate s military procession was a demonstration of not only the Roman imperial power but also of Roman imperial theology. According to their theology the emperor was not just the ruler of Rome but the Son of God. So the procession was not just about the imposing presence of the rival social order, but also of a rival theology. While on the other side of town, in a prearranged counter procession, Jesus rides in to Jerusalem on a donkey. Peasants run ahead cheering and laying down their cloaks and leafy branches of trees full to mark his path. They shout Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord! If we could have seen it we might have said it had every indication it was a planned political demonstration. This was the day that has become known as Palm Sunday. The imagery encapsulates the challenges to political and religious authority that lead up to Jesus execution later in the week. Jesus was deeply and openly critical of the priests and scribes and wealthy elite in the temple and their role in the domination system. These men were the ones collaborating with the Roman imperial system which ruled the land and oppressed the majority of the people. These Jerusalem elites were growing personally wealthier while everywhere the peasants were losing their land and becoming impoverished. The priests and scribes were also getting fed up with Jesus because he was bucking the system and threatening their authority. For example, according to the tradition God alone could forgive sins and He did so only through sacrifice at the temple mediated by the priests that was just the way it was done. And now Jesus was healing people and offering them God s forgiveness outside of the temple, without even charging them or asking for a burnt offering. And he had a fast growing following. Jesus had also gotten Rome s attention as a potential threat. He was openly critical of the taxation and oppression of the poor. He was preaching about the coming Kingdom of God where there were no class divisions, where men and women were treated equally, where children were embraced instead of shoed away, where lepers and prostitutes and tax collectors, the untouchables of their society, had an equal place at God s table. 3
As one author put it, The reason Jesus ran into trouble with Rome was because he didn t just preach loving kindness. He also preached justice -- and it wasn't Rome's justice; it was God's justice. 2 This dynamic has not changed in thousands of years. Our own country has used assassination to silence people who threaten the powers that be in the same way the Romans used crucifixion to silence enemies of the state. After the first years rallying black and white people to nonviolent action in support of civil rights Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began speaking out more and more against the actions of the US government. His speeches began to deal with the horrors of Viet Nam and then he began empowering workers. Like Jesus he was advocating and actively organizing nonviolent resistance against the powers that be, against the status quo. And then he was assassinated. As we know the scapegoat was James Earl Ray but many people, including King s family, never believed he was murdered by a lone shooter. Most people do not know that in 1999 in a wrongful death lawsuit a Memphis jury found that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a conspiracy that included agencies of his own government. The jury heard evidence that clearly indicated that the CIA, the Memphis police and the mafia were guilty of working together to assassinate MLK. Preaching loving kindness is one thing, but speaking out about God s justice when it threatens the authority of those in power is clearly another. MLK s passion led to his death. Earlier in Mark Jesus says, If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (8:34). In first century Christianity the cross had two meanings. First, it represented execution by the Roman Empire only the empire crucified people and only for one reason denial of imperial authority. And secondly the cross had become a symbol for the path to personal transformation. The death and resurrection symbolized dying to an old life and being born to a new life. So we realize now that Jesus words were both a political and a personal invitation to transformation. It was an invitation to be willing to be bold enough with your faith to threaten the status quo and the powers that be by holding up their vision of God s Kingdom on earth. And it was also an invitation to be deeply and personally changed. Many Christians focus mainly on the personal call to transformation. A common question is repeated: Do you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? Few acknowledge that the Easter 2 Rossano, Matt J. Why Was Jesus Crucified? Huffington Post. 04/2/2011 4
story is also an invitation to political transformation. The other equally important question would be, Do you accept Jesus as your political Lord and Savior? I have a feeling that, despite the Lord and Savior language that may not resonate for us, the political invitation is the one people here have an easier time accepting. Unitarian Universalists get all fired up when it comes to challenging the powers that be. We love marches for justice and rallies for peace. Some of you may even have placards in the trunks of your cars right now ready to bust out at the first sign of an Occupy gathering. But on the whole I think we have a more difficult time accepting Jesus invitation to personal transformation. In the book of John Jesus says, Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it cannot bear fruit (12:24). Jesus was challenging people on an individual basis to give up their small selves, to stop being so preoccupied with their fears and anxieties, and to trust and have faith that they are held in the embrace of something larger, in his language the love of God the Father. It is an invitation to die to an old way of being and be reborn into a new way of being. Many of us have had transformation experiences in our lives. Maybe it was through the crucible of grief when you lost someone important, or when you became a parent for the first time, or when you overcame an addiction. We know what it feels like to have part of our lives die and a new part come into being. Jesus invitation was like that, it was about turning your life over to God. That language is not common coming from this pulpit, I know. But let s see if we can make it make sense for us. It is about making a choice to embody a deeply held belief, to let Love with a capital L guide everything you do, to let go of all that binds you to your small self, to become the person your soul is longing to be. God, or the Spirit of Life or the Universe or whatever you name that which has given rise to life and is known to us through love and grace that essence invites you to make a change, to become someone more loving, more compassionate and more forgiving. The path of personal transformation may ask you to forgive someone when you do not think it is possible or reasonable to do so - and maybe that someone is yourself. It may ask you to make a dramatic change in your life that will have you living in closer alignment with your true self. It can mean leaving your partner or coming out as gay or lesbian or transgender or entering rehab. It may mean dedicating yourself to a vegan lifestyle or the commitment to being antiracist or to telling everyone you love that you love them. Most often personal transformation is terrifying. We re talking about dying to your old self. There is no way to know from this side what will be waiting on the other side. But you can trust that ultimately it is about becoming more personally whole and living in full alignment with Joy. 5
Personal transformations profoundly affect how you see yourself and how others see you. Often when such a transformation happens it is helpful to mark it with a ritual of some kind. People may change their name to reflect their new identity. They may cut off their hair, or get a tattoo or piercing so that what has changed inside becomes visible to people on the outside. On this Easter Sunday the story of Jesus death and resurrection is an invitation to each of us, Christian or not, to be transformed personally as well as politically. The challenge is before us to surrender to the process of dying to our small selves, our egos. And we are greeted on Easter with the hope and promise of being reborn into a new way of being transformed by Love. I leave you this morning with these questions to ponder: Which procession will you be in? Will you take up the cross? Meaning, will you be bold enough with your faith to both threaten the status quo as well as be deeply and personally changed? May it be so. ~Amen, Shalom, Salaam. 6