"Resurrection"
Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie
Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010
© 2010 Beth Lefever

(Sung) "I am the resurrection, and the life; if you believe in me you'll never die."
(Repeat)

Those were words I used to sing at Easter as part of a folk group I was in several decades ago at a United Church of Christ church. It was the energy of the song that I liked – and its music; not the theology. As well, it was a less objectionable theology than any other I knew of at the time, so I put up with it in order to be part of a church, in order to be able to sing in a folk group.

As I matured, I found that compromising my integrity by singing of a theology I did not embrace was becoming increasingly difficult. Even if it assured my place in a church community -- something I cherished, and even if it assured my spot in a music group I favored, it was becoming more and more distasteful. Eventually, I became uncomfortable enough that I left the church, remaining unchurched for many years.

I would like to say I spent those unchurched years on a vigorous spiritual quest for a theological truth more in keeping with my integrity, more resonant with my soul's internal "Yes!" to those occasional personal flashes of divine insight. But the fact is, largely I drifted. I drifted for a long time until the pursuit of something greater than myself -- greater than my own experience as well as my perceptions of the experiences of others – began to call to me too loudly for me to ignore.

Not having yet learned of Unitarian Universalism, I returned to the occasional church of my childhood, a Church of the Brethren, where I began to more seriously consider the meaning and substance of doctrine and belief.

The Church of the Brethren I chose to attend was, as I think I have said here before, a good church in many ways. But I kept finding myself shifting uncomfortably in the pew as I listened to the sermons and sang the words of the hymns – words which, unlike those in UU hymnals, had not been changed from the hymnals of old, despite newer cultural sensitivities and awarenesses.

I found myself shifting uncomfortably as I sat through committee meetings in an effort to help with the work of the church. I found myself shifting uncomfortably as I began to feel more and more like an imposter in my newly chosen church.

My experience at the Church of the Brethren did not enhance my spiritual journey much beyond further clarifying what I did not embrace. What it did do for me, though, was introduce me to my husband who then introduced me to Unitarian Universalism, which he was just beginning to explore. And from there, the journey began.

Mine is not all that different a route than that which some of you have taken into this church; it is a route common to the Unitarian Universalist experience. It happens to be a factor common to the Christian experience, too, for many, with one important difference: a lot – but not all – of those Christians will never allow the journey their hearts may long to travel to lead them here, to Unitarian Universalist Churches.

They will remain where they are, continuing to make sometimes painful efforts to embrace the stories of their faith. They will continue to attempt to make real those important but sometimes improbable biblical stories upon which their beliefs depend; or if they are more liberal, to tease the true meaning from the mythology of their tradition.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. There are many reasons to stay with a particular church or faith, the mythology being an important one. The mythologies of many traditions are beautiful, and resonant with cherished meaning.

But for some, the mythology is, or becomes, a problem, and the staying can be difficult. I am not making assumptions here, or guessing about this. I am blessed to count among my friends and relatives seven ordained ministers from outside the Unitarian Universalist denomination: four United Methodists, one Presbyterian, one Church of the Brethren minister and one from the United Church of Christ.

We talk about such things as doctrine, specifically and in general, and I hear their attempts to articulate fully the meaning they draw from the Christian story; I hear their interpretations of scripture – some with which they frankly say they struggle. Nowhere is that more the case, I suspect, than with the story of the resurrection. And no story is as critical to the Christian faith as is the resurrection story. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians (15:14-17): "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God… If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile."

The resurrection is crucial to the Christian faith. But did a literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus really happen as it is outlined (quite differently, I might add) in each of the four Gospels? And if not, where does that leave the faith that is wholly based upon the resurrection of Jesus?

Not one of my clergy friends believes that the resurrection story is literally true, and while one of them really seems to suffer over his disbelief, they all struggle with how to frame the story for those parishioners who take it more literally than do their pastors.

It's a worthy struggle, for there is much the pastors believe is true in the story, and it is that truth they seek to lift up for their parishioners. It is truth rather than fact they seek to impart when they step into their pulpits on Easter Sunday. No where does the saying, "All of these things are true; some of them actually happened," serve better than in church pulpits on Easter Sunday mornings.

So what truth do they find in the resurrection story? And is there something within their interpretations that might speak to those in our churches, and the broader culture, who are not Christian?

My friend Janet, the UCC minister, said, "People debate whether the resurrection of Jesus was a bodily resurrection. The majority of Christians, even some liberal Christians, believe that it was, even though we know, scientifically, that that is not possible.

"When confronted with the fact that it is not possible," Janet continues, "they respond with ‘Well, can't God work miracles?'"

My response would be, of course, if God can work miracles, what's with that whole Katrina-Tsunami-Haiti thing? What's up with cancer, HIV, Ebola? The Black Death of the Middle Ages – what was that all about?

Janet's is, perhaps, more pastoral. She says, "It's a moot point. The fact is Jesus, who seems to embody the presence of the Holy, lives on in people's lives. The truth of the resurrection is that goodness and light, promise and hope, prevail over darkness, hopelessness and despair."

That's a truth I can live with. I believe the Christian resurrection story is a powerful myth in which great truth resides.

Jesus was a man who lived his ideals, and died a lonely, excruciating death because of them.

But though he was killed, he was not annihilated, and in fact, lives on more powerfully now than ever. His spirit -- that is, the love and values he expressed with passion and intention – his spirit, like that of all great prophets and all great men and women, live on in the best of that which is humankind. When embraced genuinely and generously, his spirit -- the love and values by which he lived -- provides the inspiration, and a structure, by which darkness, hatred and bitterness can be defeated.

Where I diverge from some of my Christian friends is that I believe that while Jesus was a more highly evolved soul (at least figuratively) than most of the rest of us, we all are part of the same divine universal order, and as such, have that same innate capacity to heal and make whole, that same capacity through which others may experience resurrection. We all have the ability to bring each other back to life.

Think about that for a minute! We all have the ability to touch the lives of others, and to be touched by others, in ways that reanimate, reinvigorate and revivify us.

That is the real miracle of the resurrection story. It is the story of the continual spark of divine essence that resides within each of us and cannot be extinguished – even in death our light shines on in those who have known us – and in those who have known those who knew us. With this inherent spark of holy essence, we may reignite another whose spark may be flickering, or light the way for someone else whose spark is temporarily shaded. And so we may similarly be served when our own ember burns low.

My friend, Janet, is right. Whether the body of Jesus was resurrected or not is a moot point.

The resurrection story is the story of goodness reaching out to otherness in ways that shape and change us, and from which we may breathe in new life and press on. It is my victory reaching out to your defeat; your triumph reaching out to my travail. It is my wholeness reaching out to your brokenness, and your hope reaching out to my despair. It is the story of love made manifest, over and over again, personally and universally – Love, that very, most amazing thing!

In the movie "Missing in America," Danny Glover plays aging Vietnam War veteran Jack Neeley who has been hiding from his memories in the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest for 35 years. His only contact with society is through an occasional supply stop in town where he mingles as briefly as possible with a widowed shopkeeper before hurrying back to his lone and lonely existence.

But a dying army buddy tracks him down and leaves his young daughter on Jake's doorstep.

Forced to take care of the child, who is half Vietnamese, Jake's life is thrown into utter and unwanted turmoil. The girl, who has seen her own share of pain, slowly works her way into Jake's damaged heart, as well as into the hearts of a whole community of forgotten vets hiding out in the woods, isolated, even from each other, with their own devastating emotional wounds.

Without giving away too much of the ending, I will say that this is a classic resurrection story. It is a story in which the protagonist, Jake Neely, is given new life through the gift of love and trust offered by a gutsy yet vulnerable child. It is a story in which he is born again in the most real sense of the phrase -- raised from the dead, insofar as loneliness, guilt and brokenness equal death.

There are many such stories in the human narrative – in the arts, literature, dance… There are stories in our own histories, as well – times that you and I can point to in which we were transformed with new hope, new energy, a new and more life-affirming perspective.

They may have involved things as small as a nod when we were feeling unnoticed, or a smile when we were feeling unwelcome; or they may have been bigger dynamics – forgiveness when we were feeling ashamed, inclusion when we were feeling isolated or abandoned, love when we were feeling unworthy. They may have been as innocent as an infant's grasp of our finger, or as powerful as a lover's embrace, but whatever they were, they impacted our lives with a sense of renewal and replenishment.

We were resurrected, yet again, perhaps joyfully, perhaps reluctantly, but still -- tugged, nudged, or embraced insistently back into the "yesness" of life.

Barbara Pescan says in her meditation, "Eastering":

Why this sadness toward spring?
Half smiles at the first yellow flowers, tears pooling for no reason with each rain and sunset?
Each year this green show blows wide winter's coverings and lets us see the swell and push of beginning again.
Am I meant to rise too?
To push away what leans against the door of my pinched heart?
I cannot.
Compassion for myself is a slow growing crop; however carefully tended it yields an unreliable harvest.
These resurrections ask more than I can give.
Every time this hurts more than the pains of my body, than the old world full of sorrows – this offering of love, this unbearable gift of another chance.

Jake Neely would have agreed. He had no desire to be resurrected by a vulnerable child's love.

He resented it; he hated it; he felt it was more than he could give. It hurt more than he felt he could endure. And yet he responded. As unbearable as it was, this gift of yet another chance, yet another resurrection, he responded, as we are all drawn, again and again, to respond.

Perhaps there was more truth than I ever believed in those words I sang as part of a folk group so many years ago: "I am the resurrection, and the life…" I am the resurrection. And so are you. And so are we all. And that is the miracle of Easter. That is the miracle of this day.