josephholubsermons


 

April 24, 2011   -   Easter Sunday
Matthew 28:1-10

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Living Imprint     

I begin with a question.  I will pluralize it and ask it in several different ways.  Who are the people that have made a profound impact on your life?  Who are the people who have influenced you in a transformational way, that is, have affected change in your life and altered your life course?   Who are those special people that have left a living imprint on your being?  What are the qualities you have experienced in them that have challenged you to transcend self imposed limits?  

At the top of my list are those people who have a broad vision of what life can be for the common good;  people who are not limited by narrow expectations for what is possible; people who see possibilities, and then take the initiative to realize those possibilities in reality; people who are not discouraged by the obstacles that stop most of us..

When I was a pastor in Anchorage, Alaska in the 90’s, a young man came into my office one day, a member of the church, and he issued a challenge.  It was even more than a challenge.  It was a summons to action!  Tom sat down, leaned forward in his chair, looked me intensely in the eye and with conviction he said, “Pastor: Gloria Dei Lutheran Church must take the lead and finance and build a Habitat for Humanity House to kick start the Anchorage faith community!”  I could literally feel an energy fill the room that electrified that moment and place in time.

Contrarily, my mind was instantly thinking of all the reasons we could not do this, and my heart was timid in the face of the great effort I knew it would require.  But like the Jesus’ disciples occasionally kept their mouths shut when he said something that seemed to them  totally outrageous,  I kept my doubts to myself in the face of Tom’s passion.  What did come out of my mouth, in spite of my doubting mind and timid heart was, “Tom, you are right!  We must!”  In that moment, the energy and passion of his summons took me beyond my narrow expectations that would have stifled his vision.    

Of course, at that moment, I had no idea what door had just been opened.  To make a long story short, in that first year not only did our congregation get involved, but the entire Lutheran Community of Anchorage got on board.  Not only did we build one house, but in that first year we built two, simultaneously side by side, which meant raising the funds for two.  Many thought that would be impossible.  However, inspired by Tom’s vision, the Lutheran Community, in merely a couple of months, raised $60,000.  The following summer two houses were brought to completion due to the many volunteers who also were caught up in Tom’s vision. 

The irony of the situation was this.  Every project needs a director, right?   This project had co-directors, and guess who was one of those co-directors?  Yes, doubting Thomas himself, yours truly!  Tom’s vision inspired me to transcend my doubting mind, timid heart and narrow expectations.  Tom’s passionate vision left a living imprint on my life as I was swept up into his vision and made it my own.  To this day the faith community of Anchorage  continues to participate with Habitat for Humanity.  We could say, Tom’s vision lives! 

For me, that is analogous to what it was like for the disciples of Jesus.  Jesus unannounced walked into their lives and issued an invitation to follow him.  We could say it was like a summons, and with the summons  came a vision of what could be.  Jesus’ vision was called the Kingdom of God.  Mark testifies in his gospel that Jesus arrived on the public scene preaching these words, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand…”

The Kingdom of God is not heaven or afterlife.  The Kingdom of God is the Divine vision for the world.  It was the core (crux, nucleus) of Jesus’ teaching, preaching and living.  Jesus embodied the Kingdom of God in his own life and challenged his disciples  to embody it in their lives.  But, the gospels reveal that the more Jesus taught and embodied the vision of the Kingdom of God, the more people were confused, conflicted,  dumbfounded and even resisted.  Why?   Because his vision was so different from the way life was; so different from the way things were; so different from what was perceived as normalcy; so different from the way anyone thought the world could ever be.   

When Jesus included, as equals, those who were considered to be subservient and marginalized: women, children, Gentiles, the unclean, outcasts and sinners of various kinds, didn’t he know he was going against the embedded traditions and prejudices of culture and religion?

When Jesus repeatedly taught that in the Kingdom of God, the last and least were first; that servant love was the way to fulfillment, didn’t he know he was going against a “survival of the fittest” kind of world, and that people were locked into their station and rank by political, social and religious design – a design enforced by sheer, brute power? 

When Jesus demonstrated that grace existed outside of religion’s claim to have a monopoly on it, didn’t he know he was taking on the supreme powers of institutional religion and was exacting their deepest resentment?

When Jesus lifted up the poor and their plight, didn’t he know he was going against an economic and political system that favored the rich and powerful at the expense and exploitation of the poor? 

When Jesus taught the way of the Kingdom of God is a way of non-violence, forgiveness and love for the enemy, didn’t he know that the world was ruled by violence and revenge, and he looked like a fool to that world?  Didn’t he know?  Of course the answer is, “Yes he did! He kew full well.” 

On more than one occasion he told them what was going to happen to him, and what   he told them would happen - happened.  The powers that be, for whom he had become an intolerable threat, killed him.  We gathered in this place Friday evening to relfect and mediate upon the cause and menaing of his death.  The gospels tell us his followers were overwhelmed with fear, despair and hopelessness.  Some hid out for the fear they were next, and others went back to their lives with heavy and disillusioned hearts.   The leaders of the powers that be were sure they would not hear of him again or any movement that might have formed around him.  That was the Roman imperial way – kill the leader; chop the head off, and the body will die.  It had always worked before, and there was no reason to think it wouldn’t work again.

But then something happened!  Each gospel presents what happened differently.  The details matter not.  What matters is that because it did we are gathered in this place today.  Resurrection happened!  What matters is the way resurrection affected the lives of those early followers.  The ultimate result of resurrection is that the resurrection became a personal event in the consciousness of those early disciples.  Jesus ceased being a dead hero and fallen martyr and was experienced as a living presence, imprinted on the depths of their beings.  The Divine presence they had experienced in Jesus’ astounding humanity, they began to discover in themselves.  He lived inside of them!  What they had seen and encountered in Jesus began to take up residence in their hearts and beings.  They continued to experience Jesus not as a fading memory but a vivid life presence. 

Just as they experienced the Divine in the depths of Jesus humanity and his vision of the Kingdom of God, they began to experience the Divine in the depths of their beings and made Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God their own.   All of their old narrow expectations of what life could be evaporated like the morning mist, and they began to live courageously guided by the vision Jesus gave them, the vision of the Kingdom of God. 

They transcended their own fear of anything in life or death because of the dynamic presence within them.  They transcended their own self-imposed limits.  The more they made the vision of the Kingdom of God their own and shaped their lives  by it, the more they experienced the presence of Jesus.

That is what the resurrection meant to the early followers, and what it can mean for us.  That was the power of the resurrection at work in their lives, and that is how the power of the resurrection can work in our lives.

As I look back to that day over 16 years ago that Tom walked into my office and issued his summons, I now see that the energy I felt in that room that day was nonthing less than a Christ-presence; and the summons was not Tom’s alone, but a summons grounded in the Divine and the vision of the Kingdom of God.

The  truth of the resurrection lies in our experience of it in the present, and the power it has to move us into the future with transformed expectations of what can be, guided by the vision of the Kingdom of God.  The living Jesus still issues the summons he issued to those disciples of long ago.  It can come in many ways, and often it takes us by surprise and moves us in directions we never thought possible, even to transcend our own expectations of what can be.  It’s a summons to make his vision our own; to open ourselves up and let him live through us.  Amen.