"The Mini-Apocalypse of Isaiah"

 Rev. Debra McKnight's Sermon 

April 19, 2020

God is in the kitchen, puttering around a little flour in her hair and setting the table for the whole world. And it’s not just any table; it is the finest wine and the richest food, no worries about carbs or cholesterol  at God’s table. This Divine feast begins with God swallowing up death and drying tears; it is a revelation, a culmination of all things - and it is beautiful. This little morsel of meaning is brought to you by what scholars call, “The Mini-apocalypse of Isaiah” and you might rightfully be thinking, well…I don’t often put the word mini with the word apocalypse. Fair enough, when we think apocalypse, we think of a big budget movie with dramatic sound effects and huge explosions.  We don’t tend to think of it as the short film that precedes the movie. The truth is when we think of apocalyptic literature, we think mostly of the Book of Revelation.

If this is a new book for you, it’s at the end of the Christian scriptures and it is, well…wild. Step tenderly if and when you enter its pages. Revelation, like other literature in the Biblical narrative, proposes a culmination of all things and it is layered with mystery, symbols and history. It is attributed to a man called John of Patmos, while in exile, and composed to a people under the boot of one of the most violent and oppressive empires in the history of the world - Rome. It is hard for us to read as modern folks, not only because its violence may shock us, but because we are so far removed from this original audience and author. This kind of writing happens often when people face oppression and can only imagine a future where the change is so drastic it must be God-size intervention. We modern readers could look at it with the same understanding spirituals carried during the violence of slavery.  It was a language of coded meaning, to communicate without being caught, to be understood by the right folks and evade the oppressor’s violence. 

Unfortunately when I was growing up, all of the folks who had studied biblical languages and the historic context of the New Testament, who should have shared this kind of wisdom about the images in Revelation (or at the very least warned that we have more in-common with the beasts of Rome and Babylon than we do with John of Patmos) didn’t. Most of the 20th Century has done damage to and with these texts. The folks best equipped to invite exploration haven’t, they know enough to know they don’t know enough and that this conversation is hard…particularly when you are organizing the trustees meeting or trying to keep the peace in your church council. This meant that in my hometown, like hundreds of others, the only folks who wanted to talk about Revelation, were a local police officer and the high school cross country coach (who certainly studied, but likely only knew enough to be dangerous). Of course they were confident at the same time and, like most fundamentalist explanations, the space for mystery and ambiguity is absent. 

One evening in 1990something, I learned about the apocalypse and, to this day, I think if folks have to have letters to participate in sex education, they sure as hell should have letters for this kind of lesson plan, too. I stayed after the meal at FCA.  I usually had dance class and so mostly I ate with folks and was there for a few songs or the opening prayer, but not tonight. This particular night we watched a video, part of a series where the mysterious images of ancient literature were placed in the context I knew. Planes were crashing because pilots were raptured and cars were careening away as drivers disappeared. It was violent and emotional and terrifying and not just some ancient text that seemed unapproachable, but set in all the stuff of modern life - fast food and high school and some preppy cute guys like Kirk Cameron. The good people were taken up and the rest were left on this violent hellscape. So the point of all this, it turns out, was a hard sell on being one of the good people by giving your life to Christ and saving others by asking them to, as well.

But this isn’t the whole story of these narratives. There are tensions in the Bible. It’s true sometimes God comes to town like Wyatt Earp, with a crew of horsemen and beasts, and the bad folks get what they have coming. But that isn’t the only narrative or choice. Sometimes God is a little more like Julia Child, puttering around the kitchen and rather than wreaking havoc and participating in a violent end to the culmination of all things, She sets a fine table, includes everyone, and then swallows up death. Even as this kind of literature is so difficult to explore, I think we need it. And we don’t have to think of it as God’s strategic plan, just like we don’t have to think of the creation stories as a text book. We need it, but not like we need a newspaper's truth.  We need it like we need the truth of poetry and art and song. Because we need to cling on to the hope of an abundant table and a day when tears are dried. We need it just like the folks needed it when it was first composed. They are in a place where it is easy to give up hope, where despair lingers around the corner, and eyes are swollen with grief. 

Isaiah names this struggle, as he looks to a people in despair.  He doesn’t just name a beautiful ending without the struggle; the earth is broken and the systems seem unfixable. He writes:

The earth dries up and withers,

   the world languishes and withers;

   the heavens languish together with the earth. 

The earth lies polluted

   under its inhabitants;

for they have transgressed laws,

   violated the statutes,

   broken the everlasting covenant. 

He names heavy loss, the wine for festivals and the table dries up and it can not even be produced in the future. 

The wine dries up,

   the vine languishes,

   all the merry-hearted sigh. 

The mirth of the timbrels is stilled,

   the noise of the jubilant has ceased,

   the mirth of the lyre is stilled. 

No longer do they drink wine with singing;

   strong drink is bitter to those who drink it. 

The wine is gone, the music is gone, the joy and resilience of the people are gone. And the drink that once was for festival and celebration becomes the consumption for numbing pain and loss. But that is not the end of the story, the Kings and forces of injustice are rounded up, taking from the seats of power and God does something new.

Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;

   cities of ruthless nations will fear you. 

For you have been a refuge to the poor,

   a refuge to the needy in their distress,

   a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.

When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, 

   the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place,

you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds;

   the song of the ruthless was stilled. 

God does something new, They set a table in the sacred place, the holy mountain where covenants happen. 

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

   a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,

   of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear. 

And unlike other stories, everyone is invited. It is rich and abundant, no leftovers or fillers. It is fit for a king but everyone is invited, right and poor, insider and outsider, friend and enemy, good guy and bad guy. Everyone gets a seat and you don’t have to be the biggest donor. God sets the table for all and just as the feast is about to start, the moment gets more dramatic and generous. She eats something else, the shroud of death. God swallows up death and grief and loss forever. The heaviness that we all bear, grief of losing ones we love and our fear of mortality, gone in a single moment... gone. Then she dries up all the tears. 

And he will destroy on this mountain

   the shroud that is cast over all peoples,

   the sheet that is spread over all nations; 

he will swallow up death for ever.

Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,

   and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,

   for the Lord has spoken. 

We have a choice: what stories do we live into, what poetry do we cling to when we, weary with grief, are prone to despair. I imagine Jesus clinging to this image of God, maybe it's a part of why he fed people every chance he got and taught us to do the same. Maybe that’s why he ate with folks on the margins and outside the boundaries and spent time in the homes of his friends lingering at the table in love and fellowship and connection. 

We need these stories. They form us into people who set the table and shape our lives into the image of love that nourishes all people and dries all the tears. 

May we have the courage. Amen.

Easter People

 

Rev. Debra McKnight's Sermon

Easter, 4.12.2020

 

Every year we gather for the same story, not because we are boring, but because it roots us in the essentials of who we are as people of faith. We gather every year and share the story of Easter and the first lesson is that different voices are essential. Mathew, Mark, Luke and John tell the story of Crucifixion and Resurrection with the same truth and different details. Every gospel begins Easter with Mary Magdalene at the tomb; in Matthew, Mark and Luke she is not alone. It’s always Mary and a group of women, many of whom are also named Mary. Sort of like Barbie and the Rockers, these women hit the road together. In all of these gospels they have women’s work to do, the caretaking of Jesus’ body - because that’s what women do from birth to death is the tender, hard work of caretaking. These women have been there for the crucifixion, they have done the heavy lifting of grief, witnessed the violence - and these women care for the body in love. Each gospel has angels; sometimes there are two and sometimes just a solo artist; beings in dazzling robes…sometimes they are sitting, standing…talking…chilling in the tomb. But all of them, no matter how many or what they are up to, point to the divine presence as boldly as an airplane being signaled in to land. And yet…Mary and the Mary’s often miss them. 

 

I have come to love John’s story most of all. His Mary doesn’t have any work to do, she just goes to the tomb in the morning like any one of us would. She goes in grief. The men, actually powerful men, have done the women’s work. Joseph of Aramathea used his connections to have Jesus buried in a tomb, taken down from the cross. And Nicodemus, the one who came at night, brought spices and ointments fit for a king. Even in his burial, Jesus undoes the normal hierarchy. Mary arrives free to be there, with no obligation. Mary Magdalene is a capable, brilliant leader, and if you take nothing else from this sermon please take my annual PSA: Mary has been sexualized by history probably because we have so much trouble with women leaders...especially in the church. Mary is not a sex worker and frankly it would be fine if she was. Pope Gregory, apparently not great at fact checking, conflated two stories in scripture and the narrative took off from there, which you can now find in church windows and Dan Brown novels. But some historians like, John Dominic Crossan, imagine her not as an age contemporary/love interest but as a wise elder, perhaps funding Jesus’ ministry with money and knowhow; an independent business woman from the fishing regions Jesus was organizing. A woman with some experience and wisdom. Perhaps this is why she is always at odds with Peter. Her presence pushes the disciples and is perhaps why Paul said there is no male or female. Mary has been sexualized over history, like capable women before her and ever since, so we don’t have to take her so seriously. But we should take her seriously or we miss out. 

 

Mary arrives in John’s gospel with her grief, free to be present rather than driven by a to-do list. We arrive with her if we listen. Grief makes us tired and weary; we can understand her loss and her eyes wet with tears and her heart heavy. Easter begins with Mary’s grief; we can understand this perhaps more deeply than ever as we are woven together with a collective grief. Every evening we see the numbers of people infected by COVID-19, the numbers of people dying, and the numbers of folks recovering. Daily we see the brokenness of our systems and the violence of crucifixions laid before our eyes with the stories of heartbreak. Even if we are not personally grieving a loved one, we are heavy, anticipating such a moment, and we certainly grieve a diversity of changes and limits we previously could not have imagined. We gather with Mary, weary with grief, heavy with loss and our eyes swollen with tears. This Easter we know what it means to visit the tombs.  

 

Mary goes to the tomb and notices the stone; sensing something is not right she runs for help and perhaps another set of eyes. The Gospel takes a short comedic break on a dreary morning. Peter and the Beloved Disciple race to the tomb like middle school boys and the Gospel of John has to point out that Peter is slow, literally and figuratively slow. The Beloved Disciple wins the race but pauses with care at the door before crossing the sacred ground. Peter, true to form, barges right in with total disregard for the boundaries he is crossing, I imagine him every year, panting to catch his breath, hands on his knees as he looks around and says, “Yep.” These two, presumably men, look around and confirm Mary’s eyesight is working and then they leave. It floors me every time. The man they love is gone, crucified by the most powerful empire on earth, and now his body is missing and they are like, ‘Meh’ and head back to the others. They don’t ask questions; they don’t try to make a plan to recover Jesus’ body or strategize; it’s like they shrug and move on to breakfast. Mary stays. Maybe she stays because she is always the one who makes the plans, she is the one who has brought them this far, maybe she stays to think, to ask for help and to investigate how to set it right. Maybe she starts to wonder if Joseph and Nicodemus were really trustworthy because they were closeted in their following…maybe she should have just done it herself. There, in her grief and loss and worry, two angels show up and she don’t even notice them until at long last she sees a stranger she presumes to be the gardener and she begs him for help. “Do you know where they have laid him?” she asks, desperate for any information about the man that she loves, the teacher she has followed and the person who has changed her life. And she hears her name, “Mary.” Suddenly the stranger is transformed. She sees Christ. Suddenly she senses presence where she expected absence, connection where she assumed a stranger, and hope where she was in despair. Her eyes are open. She tries to hold on and Jesus sends her to tell the story. She runs to proclaim resurrection to the disciples. Crucifixion is not the end of the story, life rises up. Where there were tombs and despair and death, Easter happens. She is the first preacher of Easter’s resurrection, and they don’t believe her. She doesn’t even have a history of fake news at a press conference and they don’t believe her - at least not yet.

 

The disciples start to have their own experiences. They are all different and the same, they are hazy, strange and mystical. Folks can’t quite see at first glance. Disciples traveling on the road to Emmaus have the same heavy eyes as Mary, yet in their grief they do what Jesus taught them, they see a stranger and include them in the journey and the conversation; they make him less vulnerable. The day grows into evening and they invite him to stay the night. They offer hospitality and keep someone from being vulnerable…just like Jesus taught them. And when the stranger breaks bread, they see Christ. Resurrection is eyes opening as life is springing up from the tombs and companions gather on the roads weary with grief. When you least expect it, life shows up. When you expected crucifixion to be the end of the story, life rolls away the stone and sings out a new chapter. 

 

As we gather with Mary and those disciples on the road to Emmaus, we gather more familiar with Good Friday even though we have celebrated Easter for 2000+ years. We gather this year and it is easy to see crucifixion. If we are honest it’s not just this year. Our bodies are weary, our brains are good at remembering hurts and wounds perhaps to protect us, and this Easter like every other, we know the stories of brokenness. We know crucifixion so well, it can overwhelm us and make us indifferent. We know the violence of poverty; it may not sound like a gun or cut like a knife, but we know it kills. We know about crumbling public schools and economic disparity. We know about our history of white supremacy, redlining people out of possibility, crowding in our prisons and separating families at our southern border in detention centers that make a profit. We know crucifixion. And this year the brokenness of our systems is lifted up before our eyes; our sins are laid bare as the world halts because a tiny virus requires it. And while the virus may not care if you are the CEO or the janitor, the systems of support that give you a fighting chance often do. We see the brokenness of our healthcare system exposed, we see this in statistics every night on the news; the tests needed, the equipment shortages and the reality that we do not even have enough personal protective gear for our healthcare providers. The vast statistics represent real life, hundreds of thousands of hearts breaking, like the woman in Detroit who lost her husband and her son and couldn’t even have a hug at their funeral. The bruised faces of doctors pleading on social media for more masks, the people who need tests and the exhausted nurse who shared a patient’s last words as, “who will pay for this?” Business are closing and people are losing their jobs and folks wonder why don’t they have savings; but we live in a world where three men have as much money as millions combined and we haven’t done much to change stagnated wages and the math of real life just doesn’t pay for most families who work a job or three on minimum wage. 

 

We see crucifixion everywhere. It is laid bare before us. The thing that makes us Easter people is showing up at the cross, witnessing the crucifixion, and then being a part of something new. It means we go to the tombs and we look for the divine at work, where the stones are rolled away and the glimpse of light shines through. We see this in the fashion houses transformed into PPE workshops and home sewing machines making masks and gowns for the fight. We see it in big checks written to food banks and health systems and in everyday people writing bigger checks because it is a greater sacrifice. We see it in folks cheering each other on, in folks staying home, in teachers making lessons so the most vulnerable students might have a fighting chance. We see it in advocates for domestic violence and our homeless shelters that are still doing everything they can to make safe space for our vulnerable neighbors. We see it in distilleries making hand sanitizer, love notes on windows and sidewalk chalk, Zoom family gatherings, and creative solutions popping up everywhere like those resilient spring flowers that break through winter’s crust. 

 

Life is springing up even in the tombs of death, and you might be tempted to say this is just looking on the bright side - like Easter is just about focusing on the positive and ignoring the rest. But Easter people are not just people who show up in a cute bonnet, fabulous shoes and a great outfit where everything coordinates. Easter people are not just sweet and nice and positive. Easter people show up and witness the crucifixion to be a part of proclaiming resurrection. Easter people show up with the masks they have made, turning every scrap of fabric into something that gives life. And they ask, “Why? Why can we not provide the most basic protection for our healthcare workers?” Easter people show up with food for people who are hungry and ask, “Why? And what are we going to do about it?” Easter people show up at the shelter and demand a different future. Easter people are not just nice church folks who help out once a month and then go home. Easter people relentlessly pursue resurrection; we proclaim it in word and deed. Easter people show up in our grief, our weariness and our uncertainty and we let our hearts be broken so we can make change. Every year we tell the story of Mary coming to the tomb expecting death and becoming the first preacher of resurrection because she can’t be the last.

 

We must acknowledge that this work is hard, it is tiring, it requires care of self and others, and it requires risk. Easter people across history risked it all; their money, their power and even their lives. This year we are in a season where the systems of crucifixion are laid bare; they are so exposed that if we do not take action and we do not raise our voices and reweave the systems so all may have life and have it abundantly, we have missed our call. Easter people: may we have the courage. Amen.