Threatened with Resurrection

Second Sunday of Easter, March 30, 2008

1 Peter 1:3–9 and John 20:19-31

Elena Delgado, preaching 

      Poet and theologian Julia Esquivel crafted the phrase, “Threatened with Resurrection” to describe her hope as a Christian.  She wrote the poem “Threatened with Resurrection” in the agony of planned ethnic cleansing and extra-judicial murders in her native Guatemala during the 1970’s and ‘80’s.  The recipient herself of anonymous phone calls at midnight, followed by unmarked cars as she left her house in the morning to teach elementary school, these threats were designed to intimidate her, to silence her.   Yet her voice grew louder as the violent oppression of the government increased.  Enduring the sight of friends and colleagues shot dead while going to work or the market, her response to the suffering of more than 100,000 Guatemalans killed or disappeared was to cultivate, somehow, even more faith in the God of life and love.  She writes,

            There is something here within us

            Which doesn't let us sleep, which doesn't let us rest,

            Which doesn't stop pounding deep inside,

            It is the silent, warm weeping of Indian women without their husbands,

            It is the sad gaze of the children

            Fixed there beyond memory,

            In the very pupil of our eyes

            Which during sleep, though closed, keep watch

            With each contraction of the heart

            In every wakening...1 

      Though exhausted from decades of countless murders, “the endless inventory of killings,” she wrote in exile, “We continue to love life and do not accept their death!”   “What keeps us from sleeping is that they have threatened us with resurrection!”

      The appearance of the resurrected Jesus to his frightened disciples, and a week later to Thomas, was a tremendous threat, terrorizing all the hope that had him, menacing their knowledge and ritual of how to deal with death when it comes.  A professor of preaching remarks that she and her students talk about how downright terrifying resurrection is.  “When the dead won’t even stay dead, what can you count on in this world?!  Nothing, that’s what.  What you think is finished may turn out to be just starting.  What you think is a dead end may turn out to be a fork in the road.  Resurrection changes all the rules, and sometimes, that is the worst possible news.”2  You could say the disciples were threatened by resurrection.

      The word “threat” or “to threaten” has an ominous tone, a coercive ring.  The lawyers among us know that a threat is a statement of intent to do harm either against one’s will or to injure one’s person, property or reputation.  “If,” as the homiletics professor says, “if our worst suspicions are confirmed, if the dead will not even stay dead . . . then what could God have in store for us, in this post-Easter world?3  That’s where this morning’s gospel reading finds the disciples, finds us – in a post-Easter world, a world where a resurrected Jesus comes to frightened followers hiding away in a house dead-bolted and shuttered to the world, placing Thomas’ doubtful fingers into the definite wounds of his hands and side – it’s all threat.  What now?

      More than threat by resurrection, what if this Jesus-story is threat with resurrection.  Julia Esquivel, looking deeply into the suffering and wounds of her people, facing the cold terror of personal death threats, was threatened with resurrection.   She puts it this way,

            . . . Because in this marathon of Hope,

            there are always others to relieve us

            in bearing the courage necessary

            to arrive at the goal which lies beyond death...4 

      She experienced one of the essentials of resurrection.  We see it, hear it when the Risen Christ blew his dew-fresh breath into the terrified lungs of the frightened disciples who celebrated the experience of resurrection in their doubt and fear.  Resurrection with them, fear morphed into exuberance, individuals became a community, the huddled few are sent out past locked doors, forgiveness is given and received, and honest “I won’t believe until I see it for myself,” eventually humbly proclaims, “My Lord.  My God!”  This is the threat that resurrection brings – a post-Easter world of brand new thinking, new forms of acting, of being.

      As this congregation looks into its future, what would life be like for us, how would we act, who would forgive and be forgiven, if we were open to resurrection accompanying us in our fear and excitement?   What if Westminster was known as a people threatened with resurrection?  For joy, community, courage to accompany us in all meetings and committee work?  Where worship and education thrilled with newness, and all acts and actions of justice and reconciliation where characterized by courage?  That the “threat” to the world was joy, unity, trust, hope?  What if this congregation’s choral response to the threat of decay in this city, the failure of nerve in local and national leadership was the celebrative affirmation, “Long live life!”?  

• Long live life that is rooted in the God of all life, who calls into existence the things that do not exist!
• Long live life through the mystery of Sunday after Friday
• Long live life powered by the Spirit who comes with new life . . . and comes upon the church
• Long live life that is joyous, abundant, free, daring, generous
• Long live life that is costly obedience out beyond ourselves
• Long live life that propels us to the neighbor5

 

Given the recent report that Buffalo is the second poorest city in the nation, as economic security is threatened by the war in the Middle East, as the mainline church in the US continues to hemorrhage, and as Westminster looks straight into its fears about its future, maybe we are positioned for a visit by the resurrected Christ, “threatening our flat world with his vivid presence.” 6 Then we can say to one another, to this city, to the nation in the words of Julia Esquivel,

            Accompany us then on this vigil

            And you will know what it is to dream!

            You will then know how marvelous it is

            To live threatened with resurrection!

            To dream awake,

            To keep watch asleep

            To live while dying

            And to already know oneself resurrected! 7 

      Let us pray:  O Christ of Resurrection fear and Resurrection faith, in the midst of our doubt, we feel you breathe on us the gift of your peace. Even in our fear, we hear You call us to commitment. Give us faith according to your will. Give us faith to encounter you as our resurrection and our life. For you are our Lord and our God.  Amen.