En el nombre de Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador. Amen.
In the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
¡Feliz Pascua! Happy Easter!
Today, we celebrate a holy birthing happening among us - again. The seeds of new life that God planted in us and that we have nurtured through the season of Lent are ready to emerge from the womb of God, live in the light, and bring forth fruit. It’s a sacred cycle we follow year after year, contained within the story of our salvation.
New life, resurrection life in Jesus, is our promise from God in Christ. And it’s about the life we are living now, not one we hope to live after our earthly bodies die.
In the story of our beginnings, Moses led the suffering people of God out of oppression in Egypt into freedom in Canaan. Moses was a prophetic voice ushering in a monumental change in the politics and religion of his time, one that echoes in our present time.
Amid the recent unrest in America and around the world, I’ve been hearing a familiar quote repeated. It is often attributed to The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but he was actually quoting abolitionist, Theodore Parker, who in 1853, said: “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Parker was a prophetic voice ushering in a change toward justice in the form of freedom for enslaved people in America – which happened when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed into law in 1861.
One hundred years later, Rev. Dr. King’s prophetic voice ushered in change in the form of equal opportunity and protection of the law, and freedom from discrimination for all people regardless of race, sex, religion, age, and disability. The Civil Rights Act was signed into law in 1964, followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, recently repealed.
Each of these examples illustrates for us how difficult and slow monumental transitions can be. They also uphold for us how hope endures.
Theologian Walter Bruggeman says, “Hope is subversive.” I agree. When people hope for something better, they are challenging the status quo, and that makes those in power and those benefiting from the status quo nervous, just as Herod and Pilate were when Jesus challenged their status quo. When that happens, those in power gear up and close ranks to protect the established system.
Like most prophets, Rev. Dr. King’s message was subversive because it was a message of hope, of inclusion, of God’s unfailing love for all people. He assured us all that, despite the entrenched practices of the established system, we could bring about change and live together as one people, in freedom and in unity. We were heading there until this present backlash.
One day soon, the oppressed and the oppressor will be reconciled and live together in unity and harmony, each person’s dignity will be respected, and all of creation will be stewarded faithfully for the gifts it offers, not exploited to profit a few.
How do I know this? Because Jesus has promised it and God is accomplishing it.
Our part is to embody the subversive hope we have in Jesus Christ in the midst of global wars and instability, resource hoarding, climate destruction, and the denigration and abuse of LGBTQIA2S+ kin, immigrants, women, and children around the world.
Our Baptism calls us to seek peace, justice, and respect the dignity of all people, remembering what Peter said, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God. You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--who is Lord of all.”
It is our purpose and responsibility as Christians to witness and live as bearers of Christ’s love in this transitional moment in history. It isn’t easy – and often, it isn’t safe either, as the deaths of Rene Goode and Alex Pretti confirm. Yet, we are not afraid because deep in our spirits we continually hear Jesus’ comforting words to the Marys at the empty tomb: “Do not be afraid.”
Every day, we witness the kidnapping, torture, trafficking, and even execution of people by those working to protect the status quo. Is it any wonder God is guiding us into a major transition, a holy birthing, that will upend this status quo and open to us a new way to live together?
Jesus is the source of our subversive hope, and the Holy Spirit is the energy within us that keeps us bending that arc toward God’s justice. The eternal, living presence of God, whose mercy endures forever, is always with us, in us, redeeming all things - sometimes before we even recognize the need for it. In fact, that’s often how we recognize the need for it.
On that first Easter, when Jesus stood up in the grave, shook loose his burial linens, and left that tomb empty, he transformed every future transition for humankind. By overcoming death and the grave, Jesus opened to us a new life - life in the eternal, real presence of God, making every human transition a holy birthing infused by divine life.
The transition Jesus ushered in that first Easter, and every one since, is the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. That’s one of those phrases we say a lot, but do we know what we mean? For us, the kingdom of God is a state of being, a way of existing where God’s love is preeminent, guiding us and uniting us in that divine love.
God is sending us again - today - into the world, as prophetic voices of love to challenge and transform the established systems that oppress, harm, and destroy God’s creation. As we head out, it helps us to remember the example of Peter, who was sent by God, not because he was so astute (right?) but because he was faithful, allowing the holy birthing within him to bear fruit.
Look at Peter’s legacy! God created him, gifted him, and sent him to live out his purpose. And Peter did that – in all his imperfection – and changed the world.
So can we, because God chooses us too in all our imperfection. We have one vital purpose as the Church, the Community of the New Covenant established by Jesus: to restore all people to unity with God and each other through prayer, worship, proclamation of the Good News, and by promoting justice, peace, and love. (BCP, 855)
Reconciled people live in harmony and unity with one another and with God. The goal of the moral arc of the universe, its terminus, is accomplished through faithful, perseverant, reconciliation of the whole world to God - including the tyrants, oppressors, and destroyers of life and nature among us. They are created of God too, broken, dying souls, beloved of God, who need our prayers. As Jesus said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt 5:44) Praying for accountability is an act of love that can set them free.
We gather every Easter to claim the holy birthing God is doing in us. Then we take that new life and proclaim out loud, by our words and our lives, the powerful truth that God is love, a love that never dies, as Jesus demonstrated that first Easter, and that God’s love is for all people and all of creation.
The monumental transition we are currently in will lead to more difficult days ahead. The status quo isn’t easily changed, but it does change, and it’s happening again – right now. We don’t know exactly what form this transition will take, any more than the prophetic voices who went before us did in their time, but that doesn't matter, because our faith assures us that God is love, Christ is risen, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us, enabling us to keep bending that arc toward God’s justice for all.
I close with portions of a prayer poem by Sister Joyce Rupp called, Holy Birthing. I’ve changed it from first person singular to plural.
“Holy Midwife,you rejoiced at the birth of creation.We hold up to you the intuited mysteryof something new being birthed in us.It has no face, no name, no sound, no shape.We only know that something unperceivedis meant to come to lifeinside the womb of our deepest selves....Help us to be attuned to the contractions of our spirits,to relax when we ought and push when we must.Encourage us to believe in what we cannot yet see....Let us have faith in something good slowly taking shapeand be trusting enough to stay in the birthing process.Let us be willing to endure the sweat and the groansand to cheer wildly when new life comes bursting forth.”(Joyce Rupp, Prayers to Sophia, Soren Books, 2010, p 18)
Amen.
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