"THE STUFF OF RECOGNITION"

 “THE STUFF OF RECOGNITION”

We are in the season of the Resurrection, though the church doesn’t quite know what to do with the doctrine.  We often use it as a guarantor of eternal life, but beyond that it is often embarrassing and puzzling.  We’re much more comfortable with the Cross, because we know very well the struggles of our own hearts, struggles that lead us to hurt ourselves and hurt others.  On this particular date for Easter, April 4, all of us in American culture remember that date for a different reason:  the date when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis.  

    I was listening to a talk radio show on Good Friday, as they discussed what to do with the Resurrection.  They acknowledged that most of right-wing theology is built on the Cross and on the Atonement - a hating and offended God killing a loving and innocent Jesus instead of us.  We believe in violence, including the “redemptive violence” attributed to the Cross.  The talk show acknowledged that the Resurrection, one of the most important events in human history, is given very little energy in theology, no matter the ideology or the seminary.  

    The radio hosts wondered why this had happened, and they seemed to be truly puzzled.  Being the humble guy that I am, I can actually answer the question.  We give such little energy to the Resurrection because we interpret it as pertaining to individuals only – it simply means that there is life after death.  In going down this road, we miss the radical nature of the Resurrection:  the stuff of recognition.  All four gospels indicate that the primary witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth have trouble recognizing the risen Jesus.  They have trouble recognizing him because his resurrection shatters the ideas of their lives and asks them to consider a totally new vision. The new vision is what Jesus sought to do in his earthly ministry, to bring us life in the midst of death, to help us to find a new way of living our lives.  Jesus came to set the oppressed free.  He lived his life not as a middle class white man but rather as an oppressed Black man.  What he came to teach his followers (including us) was a new way of seeing ourselves and seeing others.  He wanted them to find life.

    In this sense, the Resurrection is both a literal truth and a metaphorical truth.  It is a unique historical event designed to give us the stuff of recognition, to tell us that at the center of life is a voice and a power of love and justice.  In light of this event, we are called to live in a new vision of what it means to be a human being.  I have experienced this power again and again in my life, this stuff of recognition.  I have seen resurrection power as I came to understand my death-giving captivity to racism and white supremacy.  Like those first witnesses, it took me a long time to recognize the risen Jesus standing right in front of me.  I have seen this power in my coming to recognize my captivity to sexism, with its belief that men are superior and that women are property of men.  Of course, one of the great ironies is that the primary witnesses to the Resurrection are women.  Their testimony is preserved in the Bible because the stories are primal and true.  It is as if the risen Jesus is saying “In your face, sexism!  Here are the true witnesses, which you do not even recognize.”

     “Recognition” as the first of seven steps that I use in talking about how those of us classified as “white” can start coming to terms with our addiction to race.  The stuff of recognition is fundamental – we come to see life, to see ourselves, and to see the world in a whole new way.  That is the power of the Resurrection – it transformed the lives of the first disciples, and it can transform our lives.  Seen in this way, it is no wonder that the church seeks to diminish the idea of resurrection while giving energy to the violence of the Cross.  The Resurrection can change our lives, while the Cross reiterates our lives and our belief in redemptive violence.  To use Wendell Berry’s provocative term in his poetry, in this season, let us “practice resurrection.”