Tag: resurrection

Witnesses to Resurrections

by Becky Klein, a Desert Palm UCC member and Welcome Center volunteer

During the Easter Season, Pastor Tom from Desert Palm UCC asked members of the congregation to share their own personal stories of resurrection.  Becky Klein submitted this reflection in response:

For those of us who volunteer at the Welcome Center, we are witnesses to ‘resurrections’ every time we visit the Center.

We see the exhausted faces of refugees who have made their way to the southern border where they were allowed into the US and detained in a border facility for several weeks while paperwork is processed. After having satisfied the requirements for asylum, asylees board a bus and are taken to one of several Phoenix locations where they are fed, given clean clothing and a place to sleep. Many depart within 24 hours, traveling by plane or bus to their final U.S. destination.   

When the asylees arrive at the Welcome Center it must feel like they have entered another holding facility. Imagine their relief when they realize the Welcome Center is different. They are signed-in, checked by medical doctors, given legal assistance, and, just as the rock was rolled away from the tomb, a new door opens before them! Colorful hallways with signs written in different languages welcome them, offering choices as to what to do next. When was the last time they had such opportunities within reach? Do they see this moment as one of resurrection, remembering when they made the decision to leave everything they knew, to come to America?

Resurrection observations have included the following moments at the Center.

  • The baby will never know the tears his father shed when given three pairs of infant socks, socks that had been worn by another baby before him. The father’s decision to come to the US was affirmed, he knew someone cared about his tiny son, and he cried.
  • Women are looking for a broom, as they offer to sweep the floors in gratitude for their meals, showers and a cot to sleep on. Like the baby’s father, they have found a sanctuary where they can shed themselves of the anguish they suffered on their journey to this building with murals on the walls. At the Center they have renewed life and faith, knowing strangers are helping them.  
  • The man has a confused expression on his face when he is served a meal that is not anything like what he remembers from his homeland. He takes the food, and soon returns to the kitchen serving window with his empty plate, hoping there might be more. He is given a clean plate, with another helping of his now ‘favorite’ American meal. His new reality started with a warm plate of food.
  • We see a stress-free family sitting on a small bench outside the doors of the Center, soaking in the warm sunrays while letting the slight breeze sweep away their anxiety. Even if only for a moment, here was calm, and it felt good.
  • The happiness on the face of a wide-eyed child as she giggles out loud – and then looks to her family to see if her robust antics are ok. The laughter only grows, as her mother joins in the spontaneous bliss in the Center’s cafeteria. There is laughter, and it felt good.

Before closing, we remember the successes for families immigrating to the East Valley hosted by the EV Network at University Presbyterian Church. Three families from Iran, a family from Afghanistan, and a man from Uganda have been given sanctuary as they are guided through the regimen to become US Citizens. Their hopes are being realized, granted sometimes at a very slow pace, with the support of the EV Network which includes Desert Palm.

Everyday there is a moment of resurrection for asylees, a moment filled with hope that cannot be tamped down.

As Pastor Tom says, “May It Be.”

Put it to death

by Rev. Deb Beloved Church

“Sometimes things need to be destroyed so that something new can be created.” So my spiritual director said to me on the first occasion of our meeting–a meeting I had sought as I desperately tried to make sense of my growing understanding that my marriage was coming to an end. 

I recently came upon that same idea in the book we’re discussing in our Sunday morning Adult Education class, [Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope, by Rachel Gilmore, Candace Lewis, Tyler Sit, and Matt Temple]: “Sometimes things must die so that something more in harmony with the (kin)dom of God can emerge.” (Where We Meet, p. 50)

Certainly, that idea is not new, nor is it limited to those two occurrences! Indeed, those statements encapsulate a central tenet of the Christian faith: that resurrection comes only after death. That new life comes only after something dies. That rebirth into a new way of being comes only after the old way of being is no more.

And while we might long for that resurrection while it’s still far off, and welcome that new life once it comes, and celebrate that new way of being once we’re in it–we generally do not like the prospect of “it” [the thing that needs to die, whatever it is] being no more; we’re typically quite resistant to the process of it dying; we’re quite uncomfortable with the reality of its death…

And yet…it is only through death that we get to resurrection. 

And so, in these remaining two weeks of Lent, I invite you to join me in considering, what is it that needs to die in our lives so that something new–and more in alignment with God’s desires for peace, for healing, for joy, for reconciliation, for wholeness, for justice, for abundance–and all of that for all of God’s creation!–might be born? 

Perhaps we need to put to death a grudge, or a desperately-held, long-harbored hurt. Or our certainty about what’s right and who’s right. Or a hurtful relationship or a self-destructive habit. 

Perhaps we need to put to death a diminished view of ourselves or others, or possibly, a grandiose view of ourselves or others. Or the lens through which we look, that judges others as less than–or more than–based on their education or ethnicity or religious affiliation or lack thereof. Or our blindness to our privilege or our secret and subtle self-righteousness. 

Perhaps we need to put to death our secret, soul-sucking excesses–alcohol, shopping, fault-finding, Facebook, working, gambling, people-pleasing, eating, or simply endlessly comparing ourselves to others. 

What would you add? What needs to die in our lives, both individually and collectively, right here and right now, so that something new and more in alignment with God’s desires for each of us and all of us and for all of God’s creation might be born? 

Where do we need death, so that we might prepare for and truly experience resurrection?? 

Peace and courage be with us all.

Pastor Deb

An Easter Story

by Abigail Conley

In the days before Easter, I was bombarded with Church—not my own church, but advertisements from the many churches hoping I’d show up there on Easter morning. They wasted advertising dollars on me, for sure, but it was also a reminder of all the anxiety of holidays in the church. Will there be enough food? Will people show up? What if we’re not packed for Easter? Like it or not, Christmas and Easter become the days we wonder if our churches measure up. Those are the days all our anxiety about our future can easily come to rest.

So here’s an Easter story that has absolutely no flash and is full of resurrection and is one of the best Easter miracles I’ve ever witnessed.

On Easter Sunday this year, our lone thirteen year old handed me a handwritten announcement. It was a carefully written invitation to her school’s production of Music Man. This is the first time she’s offered an invitation in this way, even though I know there have been several other plays and musicals. The adults sitting in front of her in worship have told me we should make sure she knows she can sing in the choir.

One of the performance dates is on my calendar. I have no doubt the production will be terrible in all the ways that middle school musicals are and wonderful in all the ways that middle school musicals are. I typed the announcement in this week’s email knowing full well this invitation is wonderful and terrible. I typed the announcement trusting that there will be another adult or two who show up just because this kid from church invited.

Most people don’t know this kid is in foster care. Hesitantly, we hear bits and pieces in prayer requests about other siblings and biological parents. Some people connect the dots while others don’t. Mostly, it doesn’t matter either way. I know more of her story because I’m her pastor, but I can’t share most of it. It’s not mine to share and, well, foster care.

Here is what I do know though: we are doing something right if any thirteen year old can hand an announcement to her pastor and trust it will be well received. That’s not just about the pastor, but a church that loves her and welcomes her and is interested in her life. We are especially doing something right if that kid has all of the baggage that comes with being in foster care and still can learn to trust her church.  

The announcement is now tucked away in a special folder I keep full of notes and cards and letters to go back and look at on the hard days. They are little stories of resurrection, one and all.

So here’s to churches with one thirteen year old or one seven year old or none of those who celebrate any way. Here’s to churches with not quite enough bulletins or way too many and will make do either way. Here’s to the beauty that comes with community—as lovely as the woman headed back to the tomb, as lovely as a potluck breakfast with too many carbs. Here’s to all of us who live in the promise of resurrection, for Christ is risen, and we are rising, indeed.

Beyond Frightened, Terrified, Disbelieving, and Wondering

by Bill Lyons

This sermon was preached at First Congregational UCC in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Year B Easter 3, Sunday April 15, 2018. The text is Luke 24:36b-49

Oh, to have listened to the conversation in the upper room that afternoon.

The morning before our story took place the stone from the tomb in which Jesus had been buried was found rolled back and the tomb empty, the body gone. The women who made the discovery claimed that when they went to anoint the body two men in dazzling clothes announce that Jesus was raised from the dead. The women told their story to the other followers of Jesus who were hiding in the house where they’d eaten Passover with him, “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”[1] On the chance that the women had gone to the correct tomb and that it had in fact been violated, Peter ran to the grave and indeed, found the site just as the women had described it.

Later that same Sunday, two of Jesus’ followers were walking to Emmaus when they met a fellow traveler. The conversation turned to the events of the last few days about “Jesus of Nazareth, who [they believed] was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how [their] chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 [how they] had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”[2] The traveler explained how everything that happened was necessary according to Scripture, and in they invited Jesus to spend the night with them. During the evening meal, when the traveler blessed and broke the bread they suddenly realized this was no stranger but Jesus himself! But just as quickly as they realized the truth, Jesus vanished.

The next morning they rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the others in the Passover room their experience. When they got their they learned that Jesus had also appeared to Peter. 36 While they were talking about [all of] this, Jesus himself stood among them and said…, “Peace be with you.”[3]

As you can imagine, 37…the whole group was startled and frightened, [beyond frightened – terrified] thinking they were seeing a ghost! [4]

So Jesus invited them to apply the ancient world’s test for ghosts.

  • He invited them to look at him carefully – Not just for their eyes to register him, but for their whole beings to perceive him with understanding. (v. 39)
  • He invited them to touch him, to check extremities (most easily, hands and feet) for bones, make sure that a person’s feet were touching the ground. (40-43)
  • He showed them his teeth were able to consume food. Eating with them meant he was really human! (vv. 41-42)
  • He explained the sacred writing to them in ways that opened their minds to possibilities about him and about themselves they had not considered or even imagined before. (vv. 44-47)
  • He declared them to be witnesses of what they’d seen and heard with him

When we try to find ourselves in the story we immediately relate to the disciples.  We are ourselves followers of Jesus. In this story the followers of Jesus are described with words like frightened, terrified, disbelieving, and astonished or wondering. It’s easy to find ourselves in those descriptors.

Brennan Walker, 14, woke up late Thursday morning and missed his bus to Rochester High School. The teen, without a phone after his mother took it away, decided to knock on a person’s door in Rochester Hills for help, FOX 2 Detroit reported.

“I got to the house, and I knocked on the lady’s door. Then she started yelling at me and she was like, ‘Why are you trying to break into my house?’ I was trying to explain to her that I was trying to get directions to Rochester High. And she kept yelling at me. Then the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the gun, I saw it and started to run. And that’s when I heard the gunshot,”

Brennan’s mom, Lisa Wright, said, “We should not have to live in a society where we have to fend for ourselves. If I have a question, I should be able to turn to my village and knock on a door and ask a question. I shouldn’t be fearful of a child, let alone a skin tone.”

Lisa Wright said she was at work when received the call about her son. Her husband is currently deployed in Syria.[5]

There is plenty of terror to go around in Syria. If not from the atrocities committed by the Asad regime then by the illegal acts of war committed by the Trump administration. Open Doors, a non-profit that for 60 years has worked in the world’s most oppressive countries empowering Christians who are being persecuted for their beliefs tells us that in Syria 22% of the 899,000 Christians have experienced violence and 86% have experienced pressure in their church, national, community, family and private lives over their religious beliefs. In areas controlled by Islamist militant groups the numbers are higher. But the main perpetrators of persecution of Christians are extended family members.

My own fear escalated with the news of US attacks on Friday. My son-in-law is deployed with the Air Force in the middle east.

And if we are honest, we still wrestle with bodily resurrection of Jesus. After thousands of years of Christian witness and in spite of the witness of our sacred texts, some of us wonder. Some of us, like the disciples in that upper room, are disbelieving.

And like them, our joy in Christ is not grounded in human experience, but in our faith. That’s the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is rooted in our circumstances. Joy is grounded in what lies beyond our circumstances.

It was joy that flooded over me in Washington, D.C. on Palm Sunday weekend as I watched 800,000 people – the largest convergence on our nation’s capitol in history – most of them young people, commit themselves to creating a different future for our land. And tears of joy welled up in my eyes as I listened to Maya and Cecil from this congregation, and 11 other teens from around the Southwest Conference share what they experienced and learned and were going to do when they got home about the national sin of gun violence. It was truly joy watching and listening to them. The circumstances in which they walk into school everyday stole any happiness from the moment. The positive emotions I felt were held in tension with the possibility that any one of those teens could find herself or himself or themself in the midst of America’s next school shooting on the next day they walked into class.

It’s easy to find ourselves identifying with the disciples as they are described in our text: frightened, terrified, disbelieving, and astonished or wondering. But as post-Pentecost Christians looking back at these resurrection narratives, we are more than disciples of Jesus.

We are Jesus in this story. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians: Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.[6] We are the living body of Christ in our world. Together – the you in this verse is plural – we are the resurrected Christ in our world.

That means our joy in the Living Jesus pushes us beyond the fright, terror, disbelief, astonishment and wonder of our circumstances to do the things a back-from-the-dead Jesus does in the world. Our text invites us to 5 activities in our world as the Living Body of Christ. Over and over again we read about the earliest church doing these 5 things as the Living Body of Christ in their world. And we need to be about these same 5 things in our world if we are going to fulfill our calling to be the Living Jesus for our world.

  • Invite the world to LOOK at us.

LOOK at the life-giving Power of God at work in and through us. Look at how the life-giving power of God is leading us into the glorious new life of God’s continuing testament – God is Still Speaking – into the glorious new life of extravagant welcome, into the glorious new life of changing the world by changing lives.

The living Jesus wants to show himself to our world, and the world needs to clearly see the Living Jesus when they look at the Body of Christ.

  • Invite the world to TOUCH us to let them know we are real.

They need to touch be touched by a living Body of Christ, to know that we have substance and that we are for real, to touch our bones if you will, our spine of justice and our hands of love, our feet that are solidly planted on the goodness and health of our earth.

  • Invite the world to eat with us.

We need to let the world experience our humanity. Not just that we eat the same food they eat, but that we share our food with them. Let our voice be the voice that calls people to their place at the table – the table of privilege, the table of power, the table of equity.

  • Invite the world to a deeper understanding of the Scriptures.

Progressive Christians aren’t just political liberals with a religious vocabulary. We are the moral voice of the prophets rekindled. Continuing testament, extravagant welcome, and changed lives is what our sacred texts tell us God has been up to from in the beginning. The Bible is concerned with more than human beings going to heaven. As Jesus did that day after his resurrection, let us open the world’s minds to possibilities about God and about themselves they had not considered or even imagined before.

  • Invite the world to be witnesses to the Living Jesus in their midst.

The witness of the world to the Church in their world has not always been flattering or what our God would hope people would be saying about us. We need to acknowledge that, repent, and let the world bear witness to our dying to our old selves and our rising to walk in newness of life (Rom 6). Tell your transformation story. Invite your neighbor into a transformational relationship with Christ and his Church. And celebrate the transformational stories of people changed by the Good news of Jesus. Let the w of terror and fear the Living Body of Christ showed up among them and brought them joy.

Beloved, the living Jesus wants to show himself to our world, and the world needs to clearly see the Living Jesus when they look at the Body of Christ. Our world desperately needs a moment when a living Jesus enters the room with an invitation to wholeness and an offer of peace! As the body of Christ we are that Jesus and this is our moment if we will take it. You may have come here as a disciple of Jesus. Let us leave here as the Living Body of Christ in the world. Amen.

 

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Lk 24:11). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Lk 24:19–21). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Lk 24:36). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[4] Tyndale House Publishers. (2013). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Lk 24:37). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

[5] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/04/14/michigan-teen-misses-bus-gets-shot-at-after-asking-for-directions.html

[6] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (1 Co 12:27). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Opened Minds – Hearts on Fire: Exploring the Easter Stories

by Karen Richter

I don’t know about you, but if I were writing the story of Easter… I would make it Extra. Extra miracles, extra teaching, extra healings, maybe a Big Finish.

I wouldn’t write the stories that we have. Someone told me this past week that the Easter stories just don’t seem that impressive. I concur. Well there are angels and fainting guards and earthquake (Matthew 28!). But walking anonymously down the road, breathing weirdly on people, cooking breakfast… I’ll take a pass.

The other day I made a super-nerdy Easter story matrix. Here’s what I learned:

  • As the gospel tradition moves forward through history (from Mark written about 70 CE to John written just after 100 CE), the Easter appearance stories get bigger: more complex and more weird. Mark’s Gospel originally has only the empty tomb tradition, with some risen vision stories tacked on later like a Holy Post-It note. John’s gospel has six different stories.
  • They’re all different from one another across the 4 Gospels, unlike other Jesus stories of our tradition such as the feeding miracles.
  • In each story, Jesus is somehow different and somehow the same. He’s not easily recognized even by friends, but he retains his Crucifixion wounds. Embodied, but transformed, maybe.
  • All 3 synoptic Gospels have angels at the tomb. This is interesting, since we associate angels with Christmas so much more than with Easter.
  • Jesus doesn’t do any last minute teaching in the Risen Vision stories. There are no “Remember the Beatitudes!” reminders or one last parable to share. For me, this speaks to trust. The disciples will be on their own soon. Easter is graduation day, or maybe confirmation, for them.
  • Jesus doesn’t spend his post-Resurrection time on miracles. The time for loaves and fishes and healing on the Sabbath seems to have passed. John does recount an extra large catch of fish and an extra strong net, but as miracles go, it’s pretty low key.

So if, as time passes, Resurrection stories and experiences expand, becoming more complex and more weird, what are our Easter stories? Maybe – just maybe – the most impressive and exciting Easter stories are yet to come. In Luke 24, the disciples have their hearts burning and their minds opened by their encounters with Jesus. What is our tale of Easter? How will we share our burning hearts and opened minds with the world?

Opened Minds – Hearts on Fire: Exploring the Easter Stories by Karen Richter, Southwest Conference Blog, United Church of Christ

One more Easter observation… Jesus seems to really like fish.

Eastertide Peace to you all.

It’s the Fear of New Life

by Talitha Arnold

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear (of the Jews), Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.'” – John 20:19

According to John, it was fear “of the Jews” that made the disciples huddle behind locked doors.  Not only have such statements spawned Christian anti-Semitism for centuries, but I think John got it wrong as to the root cause of their fear.  They weren’t just afraid of the “other” (aka “the Jews”) nor even of death. I think they feared new life.  I know I do sometimes. Perhaps you do, too.

The truth is, such fear resonates through the Resurrection stories. The women ran from the tomb in fear. The guards trembled with fear, “like dead men.” When the disciples saw the Risen Christ by the Sea of Tiberias, they were afraid to ask who he was because, John states, “they knew it was the Lord.”  If that were true, their lives would never be the same. Now there’s a scary thought.

So perhaps they locked the doors out of fear of the religious leaders or the Romans or anyone else they were afraid would do them harm. But perhaps they also shut the doors because they were afraid of him, the Resurrected One, the one who promised them new life. Because if he lived, they would have to live, too.  Really live.

No wonder they bolted the doors. Of course, if he were strong enough to break the bonds of death, he could make it through their doors—and their fears. He probably could make it through ours as well.

Prayer

Risen Christ, break through our defenses and our doors. Give us the courage to be open to your new life.

Are You Resurrection Brave?

by Amanda Peterson

Easter Sunday is filled with joyful celebration of the resurrection.  Yet what I read in Scripture and what I witness at Pathways of Grace is more complex than that.  To be in the presence of a resurrection moment means the willingness to face fears, be vulnerable and courageous.

The first witnesses of the empty tomb were afraid.  Later we read the disciples were huddled in a room afraid to go out.  Those who walk through the door of Pathways of Grace for the first time are often nervous because they don’t know what to expect.  It isn’t often advertised that facing spiritual growth can be frightening.  Especially when it is new.  Saying yes I want resurrection in my life is a courageous statement not a warm fuzzy teddy bear.  In fact being willing to claim resurrection in one’s own life often means letting go of much of what was once comfortable.  That is very scary.

I have witnessed many who stop on the journey because they run into fear.  They are told of course you can do this it is a happy joyful thing and what they experience is vulnerability, change and challenge and feels like failure in the midst of a celebration only gospel.  I want to let those of you who may have had this experienced and stopped because of fear and change that it is worth the risk to try again.  Not for some mountain top high but because it is in the midst of that experience that one really gets to know God in one’s soul.  (and it may even mean coming up with another word or understanding of God).

The good news in the Scriptures and in life is this journey, though individual, is not done alone.  In the Gospels, the resurrection scenes have Jesus there to encourage and inspire.  In our lives today Jesus appears in the form of a book or spiritual director or a new friend or a workshop or a vision or in some other way.  As we get ready to celebrate Easter that is what we are truly celebrating, the fact that no matter how frightening, challenging, joyful or changing this life may be, if we are willing to go to places beyond our imagination we will find God there.

Please consider the offerings at Pathways of Grace the space of encouragement to allow you to enter this scary, powerful, amazing relationship with God.