Easter Sunday 2016 A sermon given by Pastor Elaine Hewes Redeemer Lutheran Church March 27, 2016 Mary Oliver wrote a very small poem which she titled Praying, but which I think might just as well be titled Easter. It goes like this It doesn t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don t try to make them elaborate, this isn t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. Easter it doesn t have to be the blue iris or the white lily or the Hallelujah Chorus or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir It could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don t try to make them elaborate, this isn t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. As a pastor and a preacher, I love thinking of this poem being titled Easter with its insistence that what we say about the promise and hope of this day doesn t have to be as exquisitely perfect as the blue iris, or elaborate in the way of something like the Hallelujah Chorus, or worthy of being entered into some contest for best and most powerful Easter proclamations I love how, if it was titled Easter, the poem would have us go looking for signs of love s triumph over death amongst weeds in a vacant lot or in a collection of small stones I love how it would suggest we just pay attention and patch a few words together, and then imagine Easter as a doorway into thanks a silence, in which another voice may speak I love that idea, because for one thing it s beautifully in keeping with the triptychs we ve made for our sanctuary windows during the
season of Lent this year, and the Lenten reflections we ve shared on Wednesday evenings, and the cross we ve decorated with images from Maine, all of which seek to speak to the question of where we sense Easter in our Good Friday world and all of which end up in places as ordinary as weeds in a vacant lot Like the triptych that shows a photo of a family just an ordinary bunch of people in an ordinary family on the way to healing after the devastating effects of generational alcoholism Or the triptych that show a rose set amongst gravestones kneedeep in snow or the one with a little green shoot growing in the pocket of a tree or the one with a flower blooming amidst a stormy sea And then there s the square on our Maine cross on which is pasted a photograph cut from the Ellsworth America in March of 2006 that shows a dragon crossing a blueberry barren with its three columns of fire, scorching all the weeds in its wake for the sake of the little green blueberry shoots And there s the round mirror cut in half at the center of our Maine cross; implying Easter s presence in our ordinary reflections as we are received into the body of Christ, broken for our sakes for the sake of accompanying love Every one of these images being far from blue iris perfect or elaborate but all of them somehow feeling for the folks who have shared them over the Lenten season (and for those of us who have seen them) like the presence and promise of Easter a doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak
I love the idea of Mary Oliver s poem being titled Easter because I think it s very much in keeping with John s telling of the Easter story, which despite the rather cosmic and ethereal way in which the Gospel begins (with its eloquent and perfectly blue iris words In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, ) moves deeper and deeper into the less elegant, ordinary, fleshy business of incarnation, of washing and drying feet, of servant love, all the way to the most climactic moment in John s Gospel, which is not Easter morning itself, but the moment Jesus breathes his last and says, It is finished, which in Greek is the word teleos, which also means made perfect, or brought to completeness to wholeness As if to say (which is what John means to say), If you want to see the fullest, truest, deepest, most complete depiction of the presence of God, look here among the weeds and stones of a vacant lot, situated outside of town on a hill reserved for crucifixion look here Look here, where it looks as if God is NOWHERE to be seen This is certainly what the disciples thought in the aftermath of Jesus passion and death That God was NOWHERE to be seen. After all the hopes they d had as they d traveled with Jesus and the discomforts they d endured because of him, assuming through it all that in the end Jesus would bring the power of God to bear on the Roman Empire and upend all the forces of evil in the strong-armed way such forces always need to be dealt with But it hadn t turned out that way at all. Jesus had been humiliated and scorned and flogged and mocked and crucified and buried along with the disciples hopes and their faith in the God with
the mighty arm whom they had thought had been brought to bear to the world in the person of Jesus So, as John tells the story, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb on Sunday morning when it was still dark. Alone. She went alone. When it was still dark. Still hearing the gruesome sounds of crucifixion screaming in her head. Still seeing the sight of Jesus tortured body in her mind s eye. Still despairing that despite all she had come to hope and believe about God s kingdom come in the person of Jesus, God was actually NOWHERE No wonder then that she wanted to hang onto Jesus once she recognized him in the sound of his voice calling her name No wonder she wanted to solidify her hold on him to return him to the Jesus she had known and loved, and in whom she had placed all her hope But Jesus, the Word made flesh God-saturated Jesus Jesus, every sinew of his body stretched like the strings of a cello over which the bow of God was drawn Jesus was a creature on fire with love Jesus was a creature on fire with love not unlike the one story-teller Brian Andreas speaks of when he says, There is a creature on fire with love, but it s still scary since most people think love only looks like one thing, instead of the whole world. So when Mary reached out to hold onto Jesus in the garden that morning when she tried to put him back in the skin she and the disciples had known him in, she couldn t do it Because when the creature on fire with love had stretched himself out on the cross to receive all the sorrow and hatred and despair and death the world had
to give in that moment when Jesus said, It is finished, as in brought to its fullness, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit, it was if there came a great silence and a doorway into thanks from which another voice could speak, and it said, God is NOW HERE. And once the here-ness and the now-ness of God was declared to be incarnate in accompanying suffering love, synonymous with accompanying suffering love, made manifest in accompanying suffering love, it was let loose in the world in such a way that it could never again be declared to be NOWHERE It was let loose in the world on the cross, love made perfect, brought to its fullness in its willingness to be emptied of everything except what love needs it to be let loose so it could become incarnate again and again and again in vacant lots and cancer wards and refugee camps and war zones and AA meetings and graveyards and ordinary kitchens and ordinary congregations and ordinary neighborhoods when hands and hearts are extended across every divide No wonder one theologian, commenting on Jesus postresurrection appearances, in which none of his followers in any of the Gospels recognized him by his physical appearance No wonder one theologian has said about each of these occasions when Jesus came and went, recognized only by the sound of his voice, or the sight of his wounds, or the way he broke bread No wonder one theologian has said that Jesus had to vanish each time to make the disciples see To make them see that God is a creature on fire with love, and that it s scary, because while most people think love looks like just one thing, it looks like well, let me tell you
So I had the perfect blue iris Easter image to share with you this morning Actually an image I ve carried around with me since a year ago September when a crew from Redeemer went down to Blue Hill on our God s Work, our Hands Sunday to put a stairway and an entry way into a basement in which a couple in their 60 s have lived for some time. (This couple, like many other folks in our area who barely have enough to scrape by, live in the basement of their home; the plan being that when they have enough cash built up to build a real home on top, they will do so.) This couple is part of the Yurchick clan; an extended family of lobstermen who have fished out of Stonington for decades. The clan is sometimes called the Stonington mafia, and you don t want to mess with them. Ever. (I officiated at the funeral of Mike Yurchick at the funeral home in Stonington a few years back because Sophie Yurchick, his wife, and our old cleaning lady, has decided that since they don t really go to church or have a pastor to call on for emergencies and important family occasions, I will do Sophie was the cleaning lady who left me a note after the first time she cleaned our house that said, Mrs. Hewes, your house needs a DEEP cleaning. Mike Yurchick s funeral was filled to capacity with lobstermen who came to pay their respects, and the phrase I heard spoken most often that day went something like this, He was a mean SOB, but boy he was some wicked beautiful out there on the water. ) So anyway, our little crew from Redeemer went to help Mike Yurchick s brother Chet and his wife Debra. Chet had been a lobsterman too until his health failed him and he couldn t handle the rigors and demands of fishing. After that, money was tight, and the house Chet and Debra had planned to build on top of their basement no longer seemed possible.
The problem was that after many health issues, Chet could no longer climb the steep steps out of the basement. And so he was confined to that windowless, airless space. Until the crew from Redeemer went down to their house, and over the course of many days involving backhoes and digging and sawing and hammering, made a stairway Chet could climb and an entry way and stoop that made access from the basement to the outside world possible As Neal Pratt, supervisor of the Redeemer crew wrote of the experience, One of the most vivid memories I have is the day the project was done. Chet walked slowly up the stairs to the top, with Debra behind him, and for the first time in years (?) saw the light of day. He walked onto the stoop and sat in a chair in the sun And Debra hugged him, stroked his head and said, I love you. It is a perfect blue iris Easter image isn t it? Chet climbing those stairs, and coming up into the sun of a late autumn afternoon where he and Debra could sit together It is a perfect blue iris Easter image But what I want to say is that when I asked Harry Madson and Neal Pratt to tell me what was most memorable about their experience, it was, oddly enough, what happened in the basement while the work on the stairs was being planned and talked about and done Down there in the windowless basement, where Chet and Debra shared drink, food and conversation with the Redeemer crew. As Harry Madson wrote in a little reflection, Chet and Debra were really nice people. They wanted to share with us, to give as well as receive during this project And Chet always seemed happy, upbeat, even though he had health issues, little money, difficulty walking Chet could see the good in his life and celebrated that good as we worked together.
So what I want to say is that Easter doesn t only have to be the blue iris moment when a man comes up out of the basement into the light of day it could be a basement in Blue Hill, Maine and a bag of chips on a table, put out for sharing It could be a man who used to know the sea and his wife who always dreamed of a house with windows and a few Lutherans who were humbled in the sight of such people in the midst of such meager surroundings It doesn t have to be the blue iris Just pay attention then patch a few words together and don t try to make them elaborate. This isn t a contest, but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak A silence in which another voice may speak, saying, God is NOW HERE. This is the good news of Easter The great good news that God is a creature on fire with love on fire with a love that doesn t look like just one thing. But often comes even in its opposite now, here, there, everywhere even in those times and places where the world would declare, God is NOWHERE. Even in a place that is cruciform in shape and devoid of hope Even there we can declare God is now here. Because God has been there. And has taken all the suffering and hatred and despair and death the world has to give, and has given back only love Letting love loose in the world to Easter us through the unelaborate, ordinary gifts of bread and wine and water and the word of grace and mercy Letting love loose in the world to Easter us through the un-elaborate, ordinary gifts of little green shoots coming up
through the ashes and a husband who decides to quit drinking and a quilt put over us when we re sleeping Letting love loose in the world in ways so un-elaborate and ordinary and visceral and gritty and bone-to-bone and skin-to-skin and foot-washingly disgusting and scandalous it s scary frightening Because it never looks like just one thing, and seldom how we might imagine it to look And because what that love intends to do to us is Easter us to break us open to open our eyes and hearts and minds and hands to the presence of that creature on fire with love, the crucified and risen Christ Emmanuel God with us, in us, through us, making of us a doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak A silence in which another voice may speak saying in word and in deed, in this Good Friday world where it often seems that God is NOWHERE God is NOW HERE. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. And love is on the loose again