"EARTH DAY"

 “EARTH DAY”

This year marks the 56th anniversary of the official beginning of Earth Day.  I remember when Earth Day was officially recognized in 1970.  It had been semi-officially started in 1969 by Iowa native and later Californian John McConnell.  Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin got it going nationally by calling for a country-wide teach-in on the environment on April, 22, 1970, using the model of the teach-ins against the Vietnam war.  It caught on, and I remember that Caroline and I started observing it in worship in our church in Norfolk in 1976.  As we all know now, we are at a crucial point in the earth’s life, and many think that it is already too late. 

And, of course, the Trumpsters are pushing hard to retract all the scientific truths about climate change and the destruction of life on earth as we know it.  The New York Times published an article last week entitled “Climate Change Denial Is Back in Washington.”  The article noted that a conference held in DC hit hard on the idea of climate change, and the article began in this way: “Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by ‘leftist politicians.’  Fossil fuels are the greenest energy sources.  More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be harmless.”  We all know that these are deliberate lies, just like the lies told by the tobacco industry in the days before smoking was not as regulated as it is now.  Indeed, in Atlanta we were projected to hit 90 degrees last week, the earliest that we have ever hit 90 since records began to be kept in the 1870’s.  The second earliest was in 1980, that horrible, heat-filled, drought dominated summer when our son David was born.

We are at a crucial time now in the life of the earth, and no matter what the Trumpsters tell us, the climate is warming, and our abuse of the earth is the cause of it.  So, on this Earth Day, we are asked to find ways to lessen our impact on the life of the earth, so that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have a chance.  There are many steps and many options, but perhaps the best place to begin is to change our attitude towards the earth and all its inhabitants.  No one better supplies that opportunity to make the change than did Mary Oliver in her poetry.  So, here is one of her many poems about the appreciation of the earth and all its creatures.  It was first published in 1979 in her book “Twelve Moons.” It is called “Sleeping in the Forest.”

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better

Mary Oliver

"THE POWER OF RESURRECTION"

 ‘THE POWER OF RESURRECTION!”

Yesterday’s lectionary Gospel reading was from John 20:19-31, in which the Risen Jesus appears to the disciples on the day of resurrection.  He has already appeared to the disciple Mary Magdalene, and she has shared the great news that Jesus is risen from the dead.  The other disciples do not believe her, and in the reading from John, they are huddled in fear in a locked room, terrified that the religious leaders may come for them, as they did for Jesus.  The risen Jesus appears among them in that room, and they are amazed and full of joy.

Thomas the disciple, however, was not among them for that appearance.  When they tell Thomas that they have seen the Risen Jesus, he does not believe them.  Indeed, he tells them strongly and bluntly that unless he can put his fingers into the wounds on Jesus’ body, he will not believe.  He doesn’t feel the power of resurrection – he feels the power of death.

About a week later, Thomas is with the disciples when the Risen Jesus appears among them again.  Jesus seems to be appearing specifically to confront “Doubting Thomas” and to bring him along, so that he too will know the power of the Resurrection.  Thomas is convinced and responds, “My Lord and my God.”  Jesus is glad to have brought Thomas around, but he also adds some primary words for the rest of us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and who yet believe.” 

I grew up wondering about “Doubting Thomas,” but as I reached adulthood, I began to think of him as “Thank you, Thomas,” rather than “Doubting Thomas.”  I shifted because doubts have often filled my heart and my mind.  If Jesus is risen from the dead, why will 30,000 children die today of hunger around the world?  If Jesus is risen from the dead, why are the bombs still falling from the sky?  How can a mean narcissist like Trump be president of the USA?  Where is God in this crazy and scary world?  So, yes, I understand the doubts of Thomas very well, and I am grateful to the writer of John’s Gospel for including this story – it speaks to the doubts that all of us have. 

As I have written before, Caroline has helped me to understand the power of resurrection in this context of doubt and death.  When I was preparing for ordination exams in 1975, I asked her what she thought about the resurrection of Jesus.  She replied that she was not sure what happened to Jesus of Nazareth in the Resurrection, but that she understood the Resurrection as a doctrine that speaks to us not about what happens to us when we die, but rather what happens to us when we are living.  The power of Resurrection is that it calls to us to help us to find new life now, not in the afterlife.

In hearing this, I felt like the scales had fallen from my eyes, to borrow Paul’s description of his own coming to believe in the power of Resurrection.  I began to see that the power of Resurrection is not so much in our dying, as in our living.  I could begin to experience a new life in the midst of my captivity to racism, and I could begin to find some liberation in which I could see others not as enemies, but as sisters and brothers.  I could begin to experience a new life in relationship to the power of gender identity – women were daughters of God, not property of men.  The power of Resurrection is that the Risen Jesus is always appearing to us, asking us to have eyes to see and ears to hear about a new life, a new life based not in racism or sexism or materialism or militarism, but rather a life based in justice and mercy and equity.

In these Trumpian days, when we are being dragged back into the domination of the Army of the Patriarchy, we are asked to be on the lookout for the Risen Jesus appearing in our midst.  We are asked to open our hearts to the power of the Resurrection.  The Army of the Patriarchy does not define us – the Risen Jesus does.  The power to seek new life, to stand in resistance to the strong wave of white supremacy, the power of speaking up and acting out in solidarity with those on the margins  - these come from the Power of the Resurrection.  May we see it and believe and act on it in these perilous days.

"RESURRECTION AND RESISTANCE"

 “RESURRECTION AND RESISTANCE!”

We are in the season of Resurrection. Easter was yesterday, and whether or not you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead after he was given the death penalty by Rome, the power of Resurrection still speaks to all of us.  The power of the Resurrection is not so much what happens to us when we die.  The power of the Resurrection is that we are offered the opportunity to experience new life now, to see life and ourselves and others in a new way. 

In this sense, Resurrection is always contemporary, because we are always in captivity.  Those of us seeking liberation can use the power of Resurrection as a metaphor for helping us to find new life and new vision.  In this time when Trump would be king, it is sometimes hard to feel and to experience the power of Resurrection.  There is a hopeless malaise hanging over us, like an early morning fog that robs us of our ability to see clearly.  Indeed, that is what Trump wants – for us to give up and give in to his move for imperial power. 

In this kind of time, let us recall those first followers of Jesus, who felt the power and vision of Resurrection.  They lived under the oppressive power of imperial Rome, and they were so unimportant that no Roman historian recorded their names or their actions or their histories.  They could have been crushed at any time by Rome – they had very little agency in regard to political power.  When the word first began to spread about the Resurrection, Rome did not tremble or even notice – another little sect with some weird theory.  

The Empire began to notice these People of the Way when they began to resist the claim of Empire to ultimate authority.  The People of the Way began to deny that their hearts belonged to Rome – they belonged to the God they met in the Risen Jesus.  This worried Rome, and the executions began.  These executions only called forth more resistance.

The Resurrection is a form of resistance, resistance to the power of death.  Jesus proclaimed that death is not the final word in life – rather the final word is the power of love and justice and equity in the name of God.  In these times when The Army of the Patriarchy is on the march in American culture, we are called to join in resistance against that movement.  We are asked to hear God’s call to resistance - a resistance rooted in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  Such resistance takes many forms.  John Brown heard about the resistance of Jesus and picked up a sword in Kansas and a rifle in New York.  Ida B. Wells heard about the resistance and picked up a pen.  Barbara Johns heard about the resistance and picked up her shoe and rapped it on the high school podium, as she led a student boycott until Black education was dramatically improved.  MLK heard about the resistance and picked up the mantle of nonviolence.  

    Our resistance can take many forms, but whatever form we choose, it is time to resist.  The Trumpster may yet implode, but we cannot count on that.  We must be witnesses to a new and different order, a different way of living our lives as People of the Way.  Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, it is time now to pick up your implement of resistance.  This season of the Resurrection demands it – let us be finding our way on the path of Resurrection and Resistance.