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.