{"id":490,"date":"2021-04-06T19:42:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T18:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=490"},"modified":"2021-04-06T19:42:45","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T18:42:45","slug":"easter-still-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=490","title":{"rendered":"Easter: Still Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"STOCK_easter_cross_sunrise_11718148_m\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sermon #50 (4th April 2021 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I invite you to imagine, as best you can, what it might have been like to be a follower of Jesus, one of his inner circle, in the week or so that led up to his death. Being a disciple was a big ask. You\u2019d probably have had to make some serious sacrifices to commit yourself to following him. I can\u2019t help thinking of the hymn we used to sing at my Catholic secondary school: \u2018Follow me, follow me, leave your home and family, leave your fishing nets and boats along the shore…\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Something about this itinerant teacher Jesus \u2013 his presence, his message, perhaps the promise of something more<\/em> he seemed to offer \u2013 his teachings about the \u2018Kingdom of God\u2019, a realm of love and justice that is \u2018close at hand\u2019 \u2013 this vision drew people to drop everything <\/em>and follow. A few people, anyway, and as they joined him on the road a kind-of momentum gathered. During the time of Roman rule, when people were under the thumb of Empire, many were crying out for liberation of some sort or another. For hope of a better life than the one they had. And Jesus caught people\u2019s imagination. By Palm Sunday, you\u2019ve got to say, it was looking good. Jesus and his followers entered into Jerusalem \u2013 the seat of power \u2013 to a rapturous reception. But the hubbub around Jesus didn\u2019t go unnoticed by the authorities. It was a threat to order; a disturbance that might challenge the status quo. Within days Jesus had gone to the temple and chased out the money changers. And the powers-that-be couldn\u2019t let this go unpunished. Jesus was arrested, paraded through the streets, humiliated, and brutally executed by the state. <\/p>\n

Imagine being one of Jesus\u2019 followers \u2013 someone in his inner circle \u2013 as this horror story went down. The crucifixion was meant <\/em>to put the frighteners on you. So most of his supporters scattered, and went to ground, in fear of the consequences of being associated with him, probably in fear of their own lives \u2013 of course they did \u2013 most of us would likely have done the same. Just a few stayed to the bitter end and saw him tortured and killed in the most horrific way. <\/p>\n

If you were a follower of Jesus that day \u2013 his death must have felt like the end of the world. A crushing blow. You\u2019d given up everything to follow him and the hope that he represented. And now he was dead \u2013 hope was dead \u2013 the future you\u2019d dared to dream of was swept away. Reality, in that moment, must have been unbearable. It was a catastrophe; the end of everything. <\/p>\n

(pause)<\/p>\n

The power of the Easter story is, for me, in the way in which it speaks to those moments of devastation in our own lives, and how it speaks to the collective suffering of the human condition. You know that saying \u2018we each have our own cross to bear\u2019<\/em>? Every life has these moments \u2013often not just fleeting moments but long, hard seasons \u2013 of suffering, hardship, devastation. OK \u2013 most of us are not literally <\/em>headed for crucifixion \u2013 but life seems to have an endless variety of ways to bring us suffering and torment, physical or emotional, at varying degrees of severity. And there\u2019s probably not much to be gained from comparing one person\u2019s suffering with another anyway. When you\u2019re in the midst of pain \u2013 when it feels like the end of the world \u2013 that is <\/em>reality for you<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Maybe each of us has a different threshold for what counts as a catastrophe \u2013 some of us are more stoic than others \u2013 but I doubt many of us have made it this far through life without having some experience of facing an unbearable reality, and losing sight of all hope, at least for a time. \u2018End-of-the-world\u2019 moments in my own life include the sudden death of a loved one, 13 years ago, and the loss that came with it of the imagined future that I\u2019d hoped we\u2019d have together; or, on a less personal front, waking up to news that an election had not gone the way I wanted, and feeling a real sense of devastation that we\u2019d lost a chance to collectively choose a path of greater justice and equality; or, one which I guess most of us can relate to, the moment last March when the full implications of the pandemic really started to sink in, that realisation that life-as-we-knew-it would be put on hold for a long, long time (and indeed that things might never be quite the same again). Each of these events, to different degrees of intensity, led to a period of grief and disorientation. <\/p>\n

As I shared those personal examples, memories of your own might have come to mind too \u2013 \u2018end-of-the-world\u2019<\/em> moments in your own life, or in the lives of your loved ones \u2013 perhaps you\u2019ve known breakdowns in mental or physical health, traumatic relationship break-ups, losses of job or home. So many sources of suffering in the run of our everyday lives. No life is untouched by sorrow.<\/p>\n

(pause) <\/p>\n

But what happens after <\/em>the end of the world? When the worst thing imaginable has happened, and then we wake up the next morning anyway, whether we especially want to or not. We\u2019re still here<\/em>. In an unbearable reality we would never have chosen but which \u2013 somehow \u2013 we still have to live in. <\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath, it might come down to emotional first-aid, self-care, community-care. You might have to spend days, or weeks, or months, just doing whatever it takes to get by. You might need to hunker down, take to your bed, or use every self-soothing technique in the book. You might need to lean heavily on friends and family or wider systems of social support. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s return to the Easter story, though, to see what else we might learn from it, for our darkest times. Because Jesus\u2019 disciples do <\/em>wake up the next morning, after this end-of-the-world moment of his crucifixion, in a state of utter brokenness. They\u2019re still here, even if he\u2019s gone, and they are faced with the despairing question: \u2018what now?\u2019<\/em> <\/p>\n

For Mary Magdalene, the worst thing imaginable has happened, the death of her beloved teacher. So what does she do? Well, first, she hunkers down \u2013 she waits in darkness \u2013 as she observes the Sabbath. And then, she does what needs to be done<\/em>. Just puts one foot in front of the other. She sets out to perform the necessary burial rites. There\u2019s still work to be done in the name of love. She shows up for Jesus, devoted to him even in death, even after all hope is \u2013 apparently \u2013 lost. But when Mary gets to the tomb, she finds the stone has been rolled away, and his body is gone. This is one more blow \u2013 just when she thought it couldn\u2019t get any worse \u2013 one final indignity. But as Kathleen McTigue says: \u2018Mary stayed, alone and weeping; maybe something defiant crept in with her grief that made her brave enough to stay.\u2019 <\/em> Mary is very much Still Here. Or to use Anna Blaedel\u2019s term<\/a> \u2013 Mary remains<\/em> \u2013 fully present to reality in all its pain and sorrow. Then someone calls her name. And in that moment she recognises that Jesus is Still Here too. You don\u2019t have to believe that Jesus was resurrected in body, temporarily reanimated after his death, to believe that something of him lived on beyond his brief 30-odd years on Earth. <\/p>\n

In the act of waiting, attending, remaining \u2013 bearing witness to the grim reality of the situation \u2013 a new vision came to Mary. The light, the love, the hope, that Jesus brought to his disciples, lived on. And that light, that love, that hope \u2013 so fragile and faltering in that moment \u2013 could be passed on. Mary ran to the other disciples and told them what she had seen. And \u2013 slowly \u2013 they caught on. After Jesus\u2019 death \u2013 \u2018the end of the world\u2019<\/em> \u2013 they were still here. So they took whatever tiny bit of light and love and hope they could muster \u2013 and they did all they could to nurture it in the world. In the weeks, months, and years that followed (read the book of Acts if you want to know more) the disciples spread out \u2013 in the hostile environment of the Roman Empire \u2013 and spread the word. They spoke of the \u2018Kingdom of God\u2019 <\/em>\u2013 the realm of love and justice \u2013 that was still \u2018at hand\u2019<\/em>, despite everything, despite the crushing blow they had suffered, despite \u2018the end of the world\u2019<\/em>. They held fast to that vision of light and love and hope \u2013 that possibility of a world transfigured \u2013 which slowly spread across the globe, and down the generations, evolving as it went, and taking on different emphasis as it branched into different traditions \u2013 including our own Unitarian way. <\/p>\n

(pause)<\/p>\n

Perhaps the Easter story \u2013 not so much the story of Jesus\u2019 resurrection \u2013 but the story of how Mary Magdalene and the disciples found a tiny seed of light and love and hope in their darkest hour \u2013 and how they nurtured that tiny seed even in the most inauspicious and hostile conditions \u2013 maybe that\u2019s the example we need to look to, when the worst happens in our own lives. We hunker down for a bit, we wait in darkness, we really bear witness to the awful reality. Then we wake up again the next morning, and find ourselves still here, and ask \u2018what now?\u2019<\/em> Are there seeds of light, and love, and hope we can still find, and nurture \u2013 no matter how tiny? Are we being called to share these seeds with others? Is there work that\u2019s uniquely ours to do? As Kathleen McTigue said: \u2018The unfolding story of our time on earth is clouded with pain and cruelty, with missed opportunities, unthinkable heedlessness, and indifference. It is also marked by the bright notes of decency, kindness, freedom, and courage. Easter proclaims that we each have a part to play in how the story unfolds, if we are willing to wake up.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

Easter, understood this way, doesn\u2019t offer us an extravagant kind of hope. It\u2019s pretty modest, quite humble, compared with most interpretations of the story. But \u2013 for me \u2013 it feels more real<\/em>. Within reach. And after the year we\u2019ve had it\u2019d feel all wrong to be exuberantly optimistic. So I\u2019m going to conclude with an echo of the words from M Barclay that opened our service this morning: <\/p>\n

\u2018Keep your proclamations of grandeur. Give me an easter as small as a seed.
\nOne that can be planted while it\u2019s still cold outside. One that can be
\nwatered with tears, and demands time and patience to grow…
\nSpare me the cosmic promises of other-worldly escape
\nand point me to the Sacred possibilities within reach.
\nTell me again about how the nutrients born from decay
\nkeep even the saddest places brimming with potential for life.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

May we each discover, and nurture, those tiny seeds of Easter hope in our own lives. Amen.<\/p>\n

Sermon by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n

An audio recording of this sermon is available:<\/strong><\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/www.kensington-unitarians.org.uk\/pod2011\/KU_jane.blackall_zoom_sermon_04.04.21.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

A video recording of this sermon is available:<\/strong><\/p>\n