Back to Galilee: Easter 2017

Easter 2017

Year A

Richard Smith

Did you like the special effects in today's gospel story? The two women arrive at the tomb looking for Jesus when, like a lightening bolt, an angel appears. The earth shudders beneath their feet. Single-handedly, the powerful angel rolls back the huge stone, then sits on top of it like it was his throne. 

The men standing guard at the tomb take one look at him and pass out.

And then, the angel turns his gaze on the two women and says "Don't be afraid".

Say what? 

“Do not be afraid!???” Isn’t that a bit counterintuitive? Everything about this messenger is meant to overwhelm, and we humans are programmed to fear what overwhelms us.

But in this case, things are different. Because what overwhelms is a love stronger than death. This thunderbolt messenger, far from being a threat, is at their service. 

“Do not be afraid”, the angel tells them, and then sends them off in a new direction, away from the tomb, this place of death--”He is not here”--sends them to Galilee. "There you will find him." From the tomb to Galilee.

What began in tears and defeat in the place of death now ends with a broken tomb, a garden teeming with life, and Jesus, with a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eye, sending his disciples back to Galilee.

Galilee is where the story of Jesus began. It is where he first called the disciples, where he touched lepers, dined with whores and tax collectors, railed against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, shared bread with hungry crowds, spoke truth to power.

Galilee, that backwater town: Jesus knew well its dusty roads and fragrant fields.

And after all that has just happened to him in Jerusalem--after his trial and condemnation, the abandonment by his friends, his torture and crucifixion, his death and burial--now after all of that, in this moment of resurrection, what does he do? The Risen One goes back to Galilee. He’s starting the story all over again. 

Back to the beginning, but now with a new clarity about where it all leads. Despite what happened on Good Friday when all hell broke loose, the path of Jesus--of caring for the poor and the outcast…--has now been vindicated by God. Despite all appearances to the contrary, the path of violence and retaliation, of indifference to the poverty and racism and homophobia--these things will not have the last word. Today, the path of Jesus, that path of compassion, of service to the least of his sisters and brothers, today this path of Jesus gets revealed as the path to life. It is the triumph of love and laughter and life over all forms of death and oppression.

And if you want life, the angel tells the women, you will find it by joining Jesus there in Galilee--where he continues feeding hungry people, overcoming violence with love; welcoming outcasts, and wiping away tears. 

Do you want to draw close to God? Go to Galilee. "There you will find him."

What about our own Galilee? For we have our own, we know it well. It’s a world: 

• Where the bodies of young people of color and the mentally ill are too often incarcerated or riddled with police bullets
• Where homeless people huddle against the rain under freeway onramps and in tents alongside luxury condos, alongside our church
• Where immigrants and Muslims are vilified, and doors are slammed in the faces of terror-stricken, Syrian children and their impoverished families
• Where children of undocumented parents go to bed afraid of losing their parents to Trump’s deportation force
• Where people in this community have grieved the loss of Judy Eastwood, and other good friends and family members over this past year
• Where some of us struggle with our own health and all that comes with our own aging, broken hips, arthritis, the loss of control over our own lives
• And where, as our city changes so quickly around us, we wonder if we, like so many others, could lose our homes. 

Galilee. We know it very well.

If we would draw close to the Risen One, this is where we will find him, right here in our own Galilee--in this little parish, in this neighborhood with all its terrible beauty. It’s here that we’re invited to work alongside that Risen One, and in doing so, find life. 

We do this 

• in our handing out fresh veggies and bread in our food pantry each Saturday, 
• In providing a warm, dry place for homeless people to sleep each weekday morning
• in our Nightwalks to end the violence in our neighborhood,
• In our vigils at the Federal Building to end the wars, 
• In our offer of Sanctuary to young people fleeing the violence in Central America
• and in our efforts to stop the unjust deportations that tear apart immigrant families…

These are some of the things we do as a community, but there are so many other things, great and small, that we do as individuals among our friends and acquaintances, in our families and with our kids. 

Here, in our Galilee, the risen Christ invites us to join him more and more closely in his great work. 

In a moment, we will approach the font to renew our baptismal vows. Like the women in today’s gospel, we vow to join the work of Jesus right here in our own Galilee. This is how we draw close to him, by becoming his heart and hands and feet right here.

The poet Jan Richardson writes from the standpoint of the angel at the tomb speaking to the women that morning.

Easter Blessing

If you are looking

for a blessing,

do not linger

here.

Here

is only

emptiness,

a hollow,

a husk

where a blessing

used to be.

This blessing

was not content

in its confinement.

It could not abide

its isolation,

the unrelenting silence,

the pressing stench

of death.

So if it is

a blessing

that you seek,

open your own

mouth.

Fill your lungs

with the air

that this new

morning brings

and then

release it

with a cry.

Hear how the blessing

breaks forth

in your own voice

how your own lips

form every word

you never dreamed

to say.

See how the blessing

circles back again

wanting you to

repeat it

but louder

how it draws you

pulls you

sends you

to proclaim

its only word:

risen

risen

risen.

Raising Lazarus

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A

by the Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

It’s the Fifth Sunday of Lent, and the Easter Vigil, the most sacred night of the church year, is not far off. It's time to get ready to stir once again the baptismal waters. It's time to practice resurrection.

To help us do this, we’re given this story about Lazarus of Bethany. It’s a warm-up exercise for practicing resurrection.

Lazarus of Bethany. The name “Lazarus” means “God helps,” and the name “Bethany” means “house of the afflicted.” So this is a story about how God helps those in the house of the afflicted, which could be just about any of us at any given moment--when we lose a job, or our good health, or the person we love the most.

If we can pay attention to what happens in this story, and find our place in it, we might get a glimpse of how resurrection works, not only for Lazarus, but for us as well.

In this story, a man falls sick, then dies, then lies in a tomb. Those who love him wonder how this can be happening. They weep. They lose hope.

And Jesus arrives at Lazarus' tomb--but on the fourth day, the day beyond all hope.  Through many stories in Scripture, the pattern repeats itself: first come three days of crisis and struggle, and then comes the third day, when God acts victoriously. It is on the third day that God acts.

But now, in the Lazarus story, it’s too late for that. It is now the fourth day. Jesus arrives on the hopeless day.

He bears the wrath of Martha, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Do you hear a silent sub-text from Martha here, “Where the hell were you?”

Up to this point in the story, death, tears, and sadness are in control. But when Jesus appears that begins to change.

What happens next is a collaboration, a dance if you will, between Jesus and Lazarus and the community.

Jesus, through his own tears of grief at the loss of his friend, bellows out three commands: one to Lazarus himself, and two to his community.

The first command is to the community. “Take away the stone.”

Sometimes the stone that entombs a person is so huge, so seemingly unmovable, that the individual can’t budge it by themselves. If they are ever to escape their tomb, they need a community of people working shoulder-to-shoulder to roll away the stone.

Moms and dads losing their kids to gang and police violence, refugees fleeing the violence and poverty of Central America, little kids losing their parents to deportation, elders like Iris Canada living in isolation and fear of eviction, addicts wanting to become clean, victims of collateral damage in war.

People become trapped in tombs like these. They can’t escape these tombs by themselves. It takes a community to roll back the stones.

Communities have done this, have rolled back huge stones. Like the village in southern France, an entire town that, at great risk, sheltered 5,000 Jews during the Holocaust. Or the wonderfully diverse community that surrounded Dr. King at Selma, or Cesar Chavez in his pilgrimage from Delano to Sacramento. Communities of people working shoulder-to-shoulder to remove the heavy stones from the tombs of their brothers and sisters.

“Take away the stone,” Jesus says to the community gathered at Lazarus’ tomb.

Then Jesus gives a second command, and this one is to Lazarus. “Lazarus, come out!”

Now it is Lazarus who must act.

Jesus calls him by name, calls to his friend in all his uniqueness, knowing what makes him laugh, what makes him cry, his favorite recipes, and songs, and hiding places. Loving all these things about him, he calls his friend by name--to come out of the death and darkness that surrounds him; out of the despair, the lack of joy, the loss of purpose.

Lazarus must make a choice here. He must pry himself loose from the darkness of the tomb, his old ways of thinking, his old ruts, and imagine new possibilities, gently turning a new way, toward life.

It’s true, as philosophers say, that one of the fears that can cripple us is our fear of death. But there is another fear that can cripple us even more: the fear of life--life with all its risks and rewards, its pleasures and pains, its loves and losses. It’s this fear of life that Lazarus must now come to terms with as he hears Jesus cry out to him, “Lazarus, come out of that tomb!”

Lazarus must choose to live.

Slowly, courageously, Lazarus takes his first steps out of the tomb. But as he moves into the sunlight, he still wears his burial clothes. His hands and nose and eyes and mouth and ears are bound. His feet are bound, too, so he can’t walk easily.

So Jesus utters one final command. As with the first command, this one is to the community: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

It’s as though the community is needed to complete the action of resurrection. Jesus has called Lazarus forth to new life--“Lazarus, come out!"--and Lazarus has responded to that call. But now that Lazarus is back among them, it is up to the community to unbind him so that he can once again take his rightful place. He can't do this by himself.

Yazmin Liliana Elias Obregon (detainee number A: 076-373-569). Yazmin is a single mother of three U.S. citizen children all born in the US. She's is now detained at West County Detention Center in Richmond which houses undocumented immigrants apprehended by ICE..

Yazmin came to the U.S. at the age of 4 and lived in Santa Rosa. When she was 14 years old, Yazmin entered an abusive relationship with a man who would become the father of her children. He abused her for nearly 10 years, beat her, sexually abused her, and forced her to use drugs so she would abort her pregnancies. This ex-partner, now in Mexico, has continued to threaten Yazmin. If she is deported to Mexico, Yazmin fears for her life.

As a long-time survivor of severe physical violence, Yazmin coped by self-medicating her trauma with alcohol. She later completed a 3-month inpatient program to treat her alcohol and trauma. She entered rehab for the sake of her kids; she wants to be a stronger mother to provide for them.

Yazmin had completed rehab and was continuing an outpatient 6-month program when ICE detained her. The reason they gave was an old DUI conviction that she has long since resolved

Prior to being detained, Yazmin had paid her debt to society and was well on the way to a new life for herself and her kids. The dry bones of her life were slowly knitting themselves together.

She was working two jobs to support her kids. They, too, have been through a lot. They suffer from PTSD, ADHD, and depression. They were making great strides after the treatment they received, but now that their mother has been taken from them, they are regressing.

As her youngest son, Elijah says: “Since my mom got detained, I have been feeling sad and it’s hard for me to focus on school. I really need for my mom to come back. Adults think I need medicine, counselors, social workers, but all I need right now is my mom.”

The question is whether our society will unbind her, give her a second, well-deserved, chance. Over 25 organizations have rallied to her side now, but under the current administration, the appeals have gone nowhere.

If the community is not there for Yazmin, does not unbind her from past mistakes and from all the ways the world has conspired against her, then her chances of returning to her kids and starting a new life are slim.

The question as she struggles to put her life back together--as she struggles out of the tomb--is whether we, like the community around her, will help unbind her.

We'll know tomorrow afternoon. Her hearing before the immigration judge is tomorrow afternoon.

So where are you in this story of Lazarus?

Maybe you identify with Jesus in this story. Maybe you know someone or some group of people who are slowly emerging from their tombs. What do you now want to say to them? Is there anything you want to do to help unbind them?

Or maybe you identify with Lazarus. Maybe you find yourself in a tomb at this time in your life. What is it like to hear Jesus call you by your name, call you out of that tomb, invite you back to life? What would it require for you to respond to that call? Are there any resistances you would you need to overcome?

In short, how do you, in these final days of Lent, intend to practice resurrection?