(The Church is Easter – Anne Weems)
This past week my thoughts have been
wrestling with the concepts of life and death … death, because as a community
we’ve gathered – and we truly gathered – to say farewell to Donnie and to
celebrate his life and legacy and memories among us. And LIFE, because the
heart of what we’ve done this week remembering and celebrating Donnie has been
a celebration of Life – life in this realm, and life beyond this realm.
In my preparations for Donnie’s service
I found myself revisiting the various (and MANY) resources I’ve tucked away in
my ministry about memorials, funerals and so on.
On of the texts I revisted is a
quotation from a preacher named Joseph Sittler who observes:
We must stop this conspiracy
of silence about death and talk openly about it. One can go to Church a whole
lifetime and never hear a sermon on death.
If I were a young preach
again, I would preach the Christian gospel of eternal life in God, but I would
preach it sooner in my ministry, preach it throughout, and I would preach it
more realistically. The Bible really has nothing to say about eternal life.
That sounds like a shocking statement, but it is literally true: there is not a
single clear and concrete word in the Bible about life and death. It affirms
that life with God is life with that which does not die. But any specification
about life after death is steadily avoided by the biblical writers.
In Romans, the most mature
of Paul’s epistles, he says “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die we
die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s”
PERIOD! That is the fundamental and absolute word of Scripture. But that word
is immensely satisfying to old people. I never try to give any blueprints or
eternity or heaven or eternal life, since by definition it is utterly
impossible.
I think instead of trying to
answer all the questions about death, we ought to follow the example of Paul
and the New Testament and say, “by faith we are saved.”
By faith we are saved.
(Death. ed. Virginia Sloyan, LTP 1990)
Our readings today build the foundation
of that very idea – by faith we are saved … The reading from the Book of Acts,
the very stories of the first flickerings of the early church as it comes into
being – begins with Peter and John encountering a lame man in the precincts of
the temple, where in the name of Christ they heal the man …
By faith he was saved.
Peter then seizes the moment to share
the motivation and faith that lead to this miraculous healing … he tells them
about the Risen Christ and the power that has been vested in the followers who
are bound together by the Resurrection.
In the Gospel of Luke, we have the
moment in time when that power was given to the Church – the disciples of Jesus
- the men and women who had followed him through the wilds of Galilea and
through the deserts and mountains to Judeah and Jerusalem – are sent into the
world to proclaim, embody, share and invite others to join in this Gospel of
transformation and salvation …
By faith we are saved …
If we pause and consider for a moment
what the disciples and followers of Jesus were experiencing, we will see a very
obvious transformation in process. They begin fear-filled and hiding away
expecting that the next loud noise, or the next knock at the door will mean
their end is about to come … but suddenly, they become more bold and more
willing to go OUT into the world and share the Good News.
By faith we are saved - But even more
than that, what the disciples were called and commissioned to, and what we are
ultimately called and commissioned to is a ministry that embraces the fullness
of life, and doesn’t deny the reality of death … we are called to proclaim the
Good News that speaks of LIFE – life with God – Life in all its fullness – Life
here and Life beyond this moment.
But we don’t like to talk about life in
its fullness because that means acknowledging the reality of death, and it
means speaking about something that makes us kind of uncomfortable … we’ll
speak of death in hushed whispers and as a sort of forbidden topic rather than
something substantive and meaningful … yet, we have every indication that our
faith is about life, death and life beyond death and what binds ALL of that
life together is FAITH.
It’s an interesting day to acknowledge
and speak of death. It’s Earth Day – the day when we are being challenged and
reminded to care for this planet we call home. The day we are being reminded to
tread gently on the planet and to make positive choices when it comes to our consumer,
economic and ultimately relationship decisions … So, to preach about death on a
day like this really isn’t much of a stretch because without this planet to
sustain us there is no life … without God’s gift of the planet Earth we would
have only death …
By faith we are saved, today becomes the
gold standard by which we build our relationships with each other, with our
families, with our friends and neighbours and with our community, and our
world.
One of the commentaries I read this week
speaks of our faith in God’s gifts saying that our epistle reading from 1 John declares that God's love for us is so great
that we are called God’s children. Just as we love our children freely, so
God’s love is a gift that we do nothing to merit. However, we can return that
love by caring for our neighbours. All children need models from which to learn
how to treat others. As children of God, our model is Jesus, God’s Anointed
One. Jesus cared for the poor, spoke in defense of the persecuted, loved the
most weak and vulnerable. John makes it clear that if we reach out to others as
Jesus did then God will abide in us as well.
By faith we are not only saved – by
faith our relationships with each other, with the world and with creation are
transformed by LOVE.
The point of life is to live, share,
celebrate and embody LOVE.
Life gives way to death and death to
life everlasting, and what remains in that moment when all else falls away is
LOVE.
Our readings today mark the shaky first
steps of the Early Church as it stumbles its way from the discovery of the
empty tomb that first Easter morning, into the fearfilled uncertainty of that
evening gathered behind locked doors trying to make sense of everything out
into the public porticoes of the Temple where Peter, John, Mary and all the
others including Thomas who have experienced for themselves the transformative
power of the Resurrection are able to boldly proclaim their faith and enact
miracles in the name of the Risen Christ. All of this is because of faith.
By Faith they were saved …Faith that
embraced the fullness of life and even in the face of death lived with boldness
and courage.
In the last few days I’ve heard many
people muse what kind of a world we could have if more people were like Donnie
and spent their time and energy looking out for, and looking after other people
… that’s the whole point of Earth Day ultimately – being concerned about the
wellbeing of the planet, not just for ourselves, but for future generations.
At the end of the day, the motivating
factor in caring for others is this gift of love … the very core of our faith …
what all of us crave and yearn for and deserve …
As a community we’ve been blessed to be
reminded that it is not the perks and privileges nor the wealth and power that
makes a good life – instead it is the realization that it truly is the positive
impressions of love and care that we leave on others that make the REAL
difference in the world.
As community of faith – as the very
children of God, we are called and commissioned to go into the world sharing
the Good News that not only are we loved, but that by faith we are saved …
Life is about finding peace and
contentment, and through the gift of faith we know the way – life with God here
and forever – and that offers us a truly contented life if we dare to trust and
follow.
And Johane von Goethe told us what a
contented life is:
Health
enough to make work a pleasure
Wealth
enough to support your needs
Strength
enough to battle with difficulties and foresake them
Grace
enough to admit your sins and overcome them
Patience
enough to toil until some good is accomplished
Charity
enough to see some good in your neighbor
Love
enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others
Faith
enough to make real the things of God
Hope
enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future
By faith we are saved … from God we are
given life …
May it be so … thanks be to God … let us
pray …
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