The Night Which Changes Everything: Easter Vigil Sermon on Matthew 28:1-10

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Tonight is the night which changes everything.


Shortly before 6am, before the downtown businesses have opened and the night watchmen have finished their shifts, a couple of blue collar women slip out the back door of their rented row house and catch a bus to the cemetery. They each clutch a small package of grocery-store carnations, trying to protect the blooms a little from the cool spring breeze. Blinded by grief, they stare straight ahead as the events of the last few days swirl through their minds. The whole thing feels so surreal.

Jesus had cared for Mary Magdalene and her friend Mary like few people ever had. He didn’t treat them as lesser for being women and uneducated. No, Jesus had believed in those women and in their struggles. He had walked with them through the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows of their lives. Unlike the other religious leaders, he didn’t shy away from suffering. If anything, he embraced it: Jesus had taught them that God could be found in the suffering of men and women just like them.

They’d never heard anyone talk about God like that before. They’d always believed that God was somewhere out there, you know; up with the fancy folks at the church who had education and titles and pretty outfits. If they were really good, God might throw the normal folks a crumb or two, but beyond that God wasn’t much interested in people like them.

But Jesus made them feel like God was right there with them. Like God wanted to be one of them and move in next store.  Jesus had been on his way to making a big difference in the world. He was going to change things. His disciples were helping him build a movement which was going to bring justice to the streets and hold the corrupt politicians and the drug dealers and the slum landlords responsible for the pain caused to their people.

Where were those men, anyway? The women had hardly seen the disciples since they’d all taken off when Jesus was arrested. After all Jesus had gone through with them, they couldn’t even hang around when he was being sentenced to die. They were terrified, obviously, and it was true that they would have been at greater risk than the women were. No one paid any attention to a couple of crying, blue-collar women. They didn’t matter. But they mattered to Jesus.

Mary Magdalene and her friend Mary lived in a world of scarcity, where there was never enough for everyone; where it was every person for him or herself, and where death held power over life. But what they didn’t know on their way to the grave that day was that this was the night which changes everything. This was the death to conquer all death. This is the climax of our story.

Because we too live in a world which claims there is never enough for everyone, where it is every person for him or herself, and where life seems to be at the mercy of death. We spend much of our lives trying to stay just a step or two ahead of illness, of poverty, of loneliness, and ultimately- of death.  But in the last two days, Jesus has descended deep into the heart of death and has bound its power. In rising from the dead, Jesus has declared for all of creation that death no longer has the final say over our lives. In the resurrection of Jesus, we have been given a different story to live by, one which stands in stark contrast to the story of scarcity: it is the story of abundance. “I am the resurrection and the life,” says Jesus, “I am enough.”

To see the difference between the story of scarcity and the story of abundance, we only need to look at our Gospel for today. Here we meet women who are terrified and yet bold enough to stand in the presence of the angel at the tomb, while it is the guards who are so afraid that they become “like dead men.” This is important because in first century Palestine, Jewish women were the very definition of powerlessness. If anyone should be living by the story of scarcity, it is them. These women had very little control over their lives, their finances, their families, or their health. They had every reason to be afraid.

But in first century Palestine, the Roman soldiers were the definition of power. What their position represented was life and health and abundance, because the emperor had made himself lord over all of this. The emperor controlled who lived- and who died. So it’s strange that we find the gate-keepers of life and death paralyzed with fear in the face of the resurrection.

This is our first hint that something has changed. In defeating the power of death, Jesus has exposed the story of scarcity for what it really is: a lie. The resurrection of Jesus has shown that the power of the emperor is really no power at all, and not something to be feared. Jesus makes it possible for the women to live unafraid. He enables them to see that life is the victor- not death- and he invites them to come and join him in the story of abundance.

It is true that the women leave the angel in fear, but this is a different kind of fear than the soldiers had. It is the sort of fear, mixed with overwhelming joy, which comes from realizing that this is the night which changes everything. This is the climax of their story.

But their story does not begin at the resurrection. New Testament scholar Stanley Hauerwas explains that the women are only enabled to see the resurrection because they have walked with Jesus through the crucifixion. That is why the women are the first to see the resurrected Jesus- they were the ones who walked the whole way with him through his suffering, the ones who wiped his face as he struggled toward Golgotha, the ones who stayed by his side as he died.

In my chaplaincy class at the Vic a few years ago, we were told to take this kind of approach with people who are suffering. My teacher explained that most people’s first reaction, when dealing with a person who suffers, is to try and make it better. We want that person to experience the joy of resurrection right away, without having to descend first into the pain of the crucifixion with them. But as anyone who has suffered knows, this just isn’t possible. When someone treats our pain like a thing to be fixed or avoided, they only make the pain deeper.

The job of a chaplain, my teacher explained, is to descend with the hurting one all the way down, being present with them to the very bottom of their pain just as the women were present with Jesus during those long and dark hours of Thursday and Friday. Then, and only then, once they’ve experienced the crucifixion with him, are they enabled to come up out of that darkness to join him in the joy of the resurrection.

The resurrection isn’t good news because it denies our suffering. That would be as much of a lie as the story of scarcity. Until God’s kingdom comes in all its fullness, pain and suffering continue to break in on our lives even though they have lost their final power. The resurrection is good news because it means we have a God who goes deep, down into our suffering and dwells there with us- but that God does not allow our pain and brokenness to have the final say.

Jesus enables us, as he enabled Mary Magdalene, to live unafraid. In a world where suffering appears to be the only truth, we are given new eyes to see life bursting forth everywhere. In a world where there never seems to be enough for everyone, we are given hope that in Christ there is enough. In a world where death appears to have the final say, we are given a narrative which declares that life wins in the end, despite all evidence to the contrary.

In a few minutes, we will be invited to renew again the promises of our baptism, declaring our intention to live by the story of abundance and not by the story of scarcity. Declaring that we too wish to die with Jesus because we know that in his death, death itself has lost its power. Declaring that we too wish to be resurrected with Jesus because we know that in his resurrection, we are given real life.

Living as a people of abundance will make no sense to the world around us, just as it made no sense to the Roman soldiers. As a resurrection people, we are called to live as if the death and destruction and darkness in our world hold no power. Because on this side of the kingdom we continue to be wounded and to die, but that is not the end of the story for us.

Jesus’ resurrection was not the resuscitation of his corpse, like coming back from a coma. No, Jesus’ resurrection was the victory of life over death. Jesus’ resurrection means that he will never die again and in him we can become people of resurrection both in life and in death. When we die with Jesus, the narrative of death no longer reigns over our lives.

Over the coming year we will explore with Mary Magdalene and with the early Church what it actually looks like to die and be raised with Jesus. We will wrestle with the implications of living as a people of abundance in the midst of a culture of scarcity. But for now, only one thing matters: He is Risen!

The women have just met with Jesus in the back alley behind the cemetery and they hurry to catch a bus home to tell his disciples. The sun has risen now, but they aren’t worried about who will see them anymore. Just as they were overwhelmed by grief only an hour or two ago, so now they are so overcome with excitement they can hardly contain themselves. They have a growing sense that nothing is going to be the same after this. Christ is risen. Life has won. Alleluia.

The Ancient Things We Do: Confession

I was a little shocked when one Sunday during Lent my priest stood up and announced that the clergy would be hearing confessions throughout the Lenten season. But my shock gave way to intrigue as the idea rolled around in my mind over the coming weeks. Imagine saying all those things you've being carrying around for years to one other human being, and then being absolved and set free. At the very least, it was worth trying as an ethnographic experiment.

Eight years later, I find myself kneeling before my confessor in a hospital chapel for what has become my bi-annual practice. It occurs to me that I have less time to collect sin between Advent and Lent (three months) than between Lent and Advent (nine months!), so this shouldn’t take very long. I reach into my coat pocket and draw out a crinkled piece of paper with my list.

As I trudged through a snowy field on my way to the chapel this afternoon, I wondered why I keep coming to the confessional long after the intrigue of the thing has faded. Not a common Anglican practice, even my confessor seems to find my diligence a little odd. My mind skips back to another confession not long ago. It had been a long and difficult year, and by the time I arrived at Lent’s doorstep I was holding more than I could carry. My confessor at that time, Andrew, had recently preached about clay. He spoke of our difficulty in allowing ourselves and others to be clay. We try to pretend we’re made of tougher stuff and we expect others to do the same, but God created us to be clay and called it good. Clay, Andrew told the crowd at our early morning worship service, is mouldable. With warm and gentle hands, it can by softened and sculpted and changed. Clay is what we are called to be.

I went to Andrew for confession later that Lent to lay down all those things I was carrying which prevented me from being soft, mouldable clay. Anything causing- or being caused by- guilt, fear, anxiety or shame, I brought and named before Andrew and God that day. I named things I had done, but should not have; and things I had not done, but should have. I brought him my “sins,” those one-time events I was individually responsible for, and my “Sin,” that greater societal brokenness of which I am apart. And when I finished naming those things out loud, Andrew asked if I also forgave those who had hurt me. And then he told me that through Jesus I was absolved of all sins and all Sin and was restored to wholeness.

When those words have been said over me, I can no longer carry those things around with me anymore- like an old backpack slowly collecting stuff as it becomes heavier and heavier- because all that was preventing me from becoming soft clay has been given away. I am not free to take any of it back. One time, the priest took my list and set it on fire, preventing me from even looking at it again. Sometimes, as I walk away, I am tempted to revisit the things I’ve left behind. To turn them over in my hands just one more time, making sure I haven’t missed anything. But I can’t. They are gone.

I’ve often heard Protestants say that confession can be made to God, and that’s enough. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes there’s something about bringing those hard parts of our clay-selves and naming them before another one made from clay. Naming all of our fear and brokenness and sin out loud tends to release the power those things hold over us. Accountability has been a Christian discipline for centuries, and this is one way of doing that in a safe and structured environment.

And I do love structure. But the formal practice of confession isn’t for everyone. I know one priest that makes a point of having lay people as confessors, thereby stating his conviction that all baptised people are called to the ministry of reconciliation. Still other people are able to name things before God, in the silence of their hearts, and then walk away.

The word “repentance” means turns turning around and walking in the other direction. The liturgy of reconciliation enables me to focus more on the turning around part than the dropping-off-the-heavy-backpack part. I informed Andrew one time, “But it seems too easy!” and he just smiled and responded gently, “It was never meant to be hard.”

But sometimes it is hard. I have met people in the winter years of their lives who’ve carried around deep secrets for decades, wrought with shame and unable to forgive themselves. Jesus reminds us, “Come to me! All you who are weary and burdened- and I will give you rest.” Jesus takes all of that heaviness with him to the cross tonight and tomorrow so that we need not carry it into our own winter years. Jesus takes those things into the battle with death so that life can reign in our lives. Death and sin and brokenness no longer have the final say.

Being Transformed: New DNA (Romans 12)

Some thoughts on Romans 12 and living into our new identity in Christ, from the April 6th Evensong with All the King's Men at St. John's College: Being Transformed

The Ancient Things we Do: Mothering Sunday

In churchland we maintain some remarkably odd practices. Take Mothering Sunday, for instance. An odd name for Mother’s Day, I presumed? Nope. Last week my priest buddy, less green and more intense than myself, sent me a text announcing that I needed to find the small bottles of oil in the college chapel used for anointing the sick, the dying, and the newly baptized, and bring them to the cathedral to be refilled.

No problem, I thought to myself. Just grab those bottles and take them to the church. Wrong.

It turns out that Mothering Sunday is one of those ancient practices we continue to observe which look like it’s been pulled from historical fiction. As I followed my friend’s instructions, down to the finest detail, I felt like I was LARPing rather than doing my job. The process was fascinating.

The oils left from several years ago had gone completely rancid, sticking to the bottom of the bottle like old honey. Nothing new could be added until the old had been removed. I called my mentor. “You’re sure I can’t just pour this down the sink?” I asked, a little whiny. Nope. The oil had to be burned.

How does one burn rancid oil out of the bottom of a tiny glass jar, you’re wondering to yourself?? After several failed ideas and consultations, I came up with a solid plan. Squatting in front of my fire place, I carefully wiped out each jar with a rag and lit the rags on fire, consuming all the oil. As I watched the flame soar up from the earth, I felt like I was sitting on holy ground. Here was sacred oil, sent out into the world to be a blessing to the vulnerable, being returned to God in fire and ashes.

At the cathedral service, the new oil was blessed, that it would be comfort and hope to those to be anointed, spread out across our diocese in all the diversity of their homes and lives. I thought of how elemental it is to take something as common as oil and make it into something sacred which nourishes community and draws us into the life of the Holy One. And just as oil brings flavour to food and fills our bodily cravings, so now this oil is sent out to flavour our life in spirit.

This Christian tradition of ours, with its ancient rituals and mysterious rites, has an intriguing way of mixing the sacred with the profane, using the stuff of normal days to usher us into relationship with the Divine. Quite unlike the powerful top-down institution it has often become, the call of Christianity has always been to affirm the goodness of everyday life and to find God in all the small and normal places. There’s a reason our God took on humanity and pitched his tent among us.

In a culture where everything is disposable and even our most valuable possessions are made to break (as I write on a cracked computer screen!) there’s something life-giving about investing sacred qualities in physical things. Sure, I could have just dumped out my oil and no one would have known or cared. I could simply anoint a dying woman with oil from my kitchen. But when I am careful to return to the earth by fire that which has been consecrated for holy use, I am declaring my belief that God inhabits our time and space. God comes and dwells among us and uses the stuff of our lives to create life and mystery and hope.

In a world where even human beings are treated like commodities, the blessing of oil says that the simplest things are chosen and used by God. The oil is a tangible reminder that we are never alone in our journey or sickness or even in death- that the Holy One comes and dwells with us just as Jesus walked among us on this same dusty earth.

I’m struck by how the burning of the old and the blessing of the new mirrors my own messy life. That old oil can stick to me like crystalized honey sometimes, but it has to be burned away before it can be filled with bright new oil. The old might not be bad exactly, but it is not the best. It has grown stagnant and it is difficult to bless others with that old oil. But just as the Holy Spirit dwells with the sacred oil, so the Holy Spirit dwells with me, filling me up to be a gift which overflows Christ onto the world. It is not, of course, the oil that is sacred. The oil comes from Superstore! But it’s what God chooses to do with that oil that marks the story of our faith. And it's an ancient story.