Monday, March 24, 2008

Yes, It's Possible: An Easter Sermon

Yes, It’s Possible
Easter Sermon
March 23, 2008
Rev. Alan Claassen

I have three resurrection stories that I want to share with you this morning.
You decide if you think they are possible, or not. The stories come from a bus driver, a dear friend of Jesus, and a woman in an airport.

A middle-aged school bus driver won the praise of her local police department because she had remained calm when a deranged man took her bus full of mentally ill handicapped children hostage.
When asked by reporters how she managed to talk the man out of using the gun he was waving in he air she said,
“I pray a lot.”
Her answer to the reporter’s was not, “I prayed a lot.”
She said I pray a lot.
In other words she wasn’t asking God to intervene at that moment in her life, God had already intervened in her life and was present even before she stepped on the bus that morning.
It makes me think of Jesus and how, I believe, that he was raised from the dead even before he was crucified.
Christian tradition teaches the trust that faith depends on, is learned in practicing it, both through the discipline of prayer and through trying it out in our daily lives. This is something that this bus driver knew.
The bus driver was immersed in God because she prays a lot. She was abiding in Christ. She was in touch with a place of peace in the midst of crisis.
Just as Jesus abided in God, because he prayed a lot. Not asking for anything in particular to happen, but instead having a living relationship with God, so that in complete trust he could say to God, while deep in anguish and in prayer, “Thy will be done.”

That story came from a book by Kathleen Norris, called Amazing Grace.
Kathleen Norris had a life changing experience when she spent some time in a Benedictine monastery and learned this kind of praying from the monks. From one Benedictine friend, a gentle, thoughtful man who had been in constant physical pain for years and then confined to a wheel chair she learned how he prayed.
From him, Kathleen Norris learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine.

How do we live into the resurrection, not as an after life experience, but as a this life experience?
How can we be raised from the fear of death, the death that comes from fear, fear of failure, the fear of conflict, fear of being lost without knowing our way home. How can we live our lives in a way that are now beyond our imagination?
Which brings us to our second story.
As the Gospel reading this morning said, Mary went looking for Jesus in the tomb. Wrong place.
When she found the tomb empty she began to weep. As she was crying she looked into the tomb and saw two angels. They said to her, “Why are you weeping?” “Because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”
And then she turned around. We need to remember that this phrase “to turn around” is significant in the Bible. To turn around is another way of saying, look at life another way, look at life from the point of view of your neighbor, look at life from the point of view of the stranger, look at life from God’s point of view
When she turned and saw Jesus she didn’t recognize him. She thought he was the gardener.
First Jesus said to her, “Whom do you seek?”
Very interesting first words to hear from the Risen Christ. Especially when you remember the first words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John.
The day after Jesus was baptized he was walking near John the Baptist and two of John’s disciples, Peter and Andrew. John calls out saying, “Behold the Lamb of God.” The disciples then left John and began walking behind Jesus. Jesus saw them and said, “What do you seek?” They want to know where Jesus is staying.
They want to know the same thing that Mary wants to know standing beside the empty tomb.
Where is Jesus? Where is he going? Where has he gone?
To the disciples, Peter and Andrew Jesus said, “Come and see.” And then Jesus took them on a journey like they have never been on before. A journey of healing and teaching and loneliness and great crowds of people.
Jesus answered their question with a lifetime.
Mary was a part of that journey with Jesus and the disciples but she didn’t recognize Jesus until he said her name.
The one that we seek is the one who knows who we are. The one that we seek is the one who created us. The one that we seek is not limited to a particular time or place. The one that we seek knows that we get consumed by jealousies, fears, regrets over mistakes we have made. The one that we seek knows that we hurt sometimes. Knows that we face moments of crisis sometimes. The one that we seek is the one who says, “When you were a child I loved you, it was I who taught you to walk, it was I who lifted you as a little child to my cheek, it was I who fed you.
No matter what you do, no matter what happens to you, no matter who you hang around with, no matter who you lose, I know who you are really, and I love you.
And when Mary hears this from Jesus, when she is recognized, then she recognizes Jesus. The one we seek, is also seeking us, to show us who we are, most truly.


The “Come and see,” at the beginning of the Gospel has now turned into “Go and tell.” The invitation to see the presence of God becomes the desire to tell others what you have seen. Even if it is all a mystery, that we cannot explain how it happened to us, how we came to a deeper trust in God’s presence.
But we know how to love. We know what kind of world we want to live in. And we have an insight onto what kind of world God wants us to live in.
Jesus referred to it often as the kingdom of heaven. Not as a place we go to after we die, but a place that we pray for and work toward, on earth as it is in heaven. A place where we work and pray for reconciliation. A place where we are not afraid. A place all basic needs are met because we share what we have with one another. A place where we can respond to a crisis as the bus driver did --no fear, no-violence, but instead a calm strength that came from a life of prayer and service to others.
To me, this is what Easter is all about, when we let God raise us up to a new understanding of what is possible for humanity, if we would only support one another in living out the commandment that Jesus gave to his disciples, that we love one another.
I have one more story to tell you about this daily resurrection I am talking about. It comes to us from an American author, from Texas, She writes books for children, high school students, and adults. Her mother is American and her father is Palestinian. Her name is Naomi Shihab Nye and the title of this story is Gate 4-A

“Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been detained four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate 4-A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.”
Well – one pauses these days.
Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
“Help,” said the Flight Service Person. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke to her haltingly in Arabic.
The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. It turned out that she thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day.
I said, “You’re fine, you’ll get there, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.” We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride next to her.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for fun. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up about two hours. She was laughing a lot by then.
Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies – little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts – out of her bag – and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament.
The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo – we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving us all apple juice and they were covered with powdered sugar too.
And I noticed my new best friend – by now we were holding hands – had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate – once the crying of confusion stopped – seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate, or on this earth, afraid of any other person.
Is it possible?
Yes! If we carry within our hearts the teachings of Jesus like a plant that keeps us rooted in God.
Will there be resistance and struggle?
Yes! As there was for Jesus.
Will there be others who will carry on the hopeful work, the prayerful practice and dedicated service that Jesus called his disciples to carry on?
The answer is yes! And --- that would be us.
When our believing in Jesus becomes the be-loving of Jesus we become the original blessing that God intended us to be.
This happened in the garden that Mary entered on Sunday morning.
This happened to Naomi Shihab Nye at Gate-4 in the Albuquerque Airport.
This happened to the fearless bus driver.

This can still happen anywhere.
All is not lost.
Christ is risen. Christ is risen in- deed!




The source for the story by Naomi Shihab Nye is a wonderful web site: www.gratefulness.org