Sunday
January 23
Insurrection or Resurrection?
By Marsh Chapel
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Hear the gospel. Our gift and task as people of faith is to live out the resurrection in this hour of insurrection. Resurrection amid insurrection.
Resurrection
Our gospel this year is that of St. Luke, about more which other Sundays. Today Jesus meets us, for once, in the pulpit. He has chosen his text from Isaiah. He has read and spoken.
Jesus reads and interprets, in the stylized memory of Luke 4. He meets us in the garb of interpretation. Interpretation is a very delicate art. Communication is a delicate art. Interpretation is communication squared.
A vote tally is communication. Interpretation begins when the question is raised about what the tally meant. The announcement of the new evening programming is communication. Interpretation begins when the question is raised about what the change says, portends, about, say, generational communication. The body count is communication. Interpretation begins when the question is raised about what we are to make of horrendous loss.
Jesus reads from the beauty of later Isaiah. Then he interprets the meaning, meaning, now, the reading is fulfilled.
No other gospel records this reading from Isaiah, nor the remarkable interpretation which follows.. Mark does not record it in his writing from 70ce, nor Matthew from 85ce, nor John from 90ce. Only Luke includes Isaiah 61, only Luke has Jesus in the synagogue pulpit, only Luke devises the account of the scroll and its attendant, only Luke announces fulfillment in a dramatic conclusion. That is communication. Interpretation begins when we ask, ‘why’?
By so doing, Luke announces Jesus as bearer of the word, a resurrection word. There is a word, a passage and its meaning.
Luke has expanded and redesigned an account of Jesus’ hometown preaching, also recorded in Matthew 13 and Mark 6. You will find those two passages largely unlike what we heard a moment ago. Luke places Jesus, as apocalyptic preacher, announcing the advent of the kingdom, right in the beginning of the gospel. Moreover, this preachment is about the jubilee year, a prophetic hope that once in a lifetime, once every fifty years, all debts would be forgiven, all indentured servants freed, and all land returned to its ancient owners. ‘Once in a lifetime the entire economy would be given a fresh start’ (Ringe, 69). We have no historical evidence that the Jubilee ever occurred, but we have Isaiah 61 to show the presence of such an imaginative hope.
Edward Schillebeex, a Roman Catholic Vatican II theologian from Holland, died about ten years ago. His ninety years were spent in interpretation. He was criticized for focusing the meaning of resurrection on what it means in people’s lives. He came from that school of thought that emphasized the preaching of the gospel as the experience of resurrection. Hearing in faith of the resurrection, and believing in obedient living, is the resurrection of the faith of Christ. Well, he and his form of Roman Catholic theological interpretation, are no longer the norm, in our sister church, if they ever were. But his insight lives on, raised, if you will, from the dead.
‘Truth happens’, as William James taught. Truth is spoken and heard. When in the course of human events, when in the ordinary run of one’s few earthly days, one hears and heeds a renewing truth, a good word, there is resurrection. Such a moment is not less than Easter morning, and is not a substitute for Easter morning, and is not apart from Easter morning. It is saving truth, grounded and rooted in the cross of Christ, heard and lived. May we discover faith in God and faith in ourselves
A religious community that will honor, as Jesus is remembered here to have honored, the word, will live.
A traveling elder, in the tradition of our second hymn, is sent to preach. She is sent to preach the gospel of the resurrection. Renewal by word. We have many pulpits and an older pattern, which we may want to dust off, of sending the traveling preachers pulpit to pulpit. By the fourth time you preach a sermon, it can be pretty good. We are better off with one good sermon preached four times, than with four not so good, once each. Traditional liturgy is renewal in thought. Traveling elders are renewal in word.
Would that all God’s people were preachers and prophets! Or, as we did sing, ‘O for a thousand tongues…’
Word brings renewal to culture, religion, denomination, ministry and life. Word brings resurrection. That, there, here, now is good news, a resurrection word, resurrection amid insurrection.
Insurrection
But there are particular weeks and months when we most need to hear and re-hear the gospel. There are some weeks and months when good news seems hard to come by. November 1963. August 1968. December 1988. September 2001. April 2013. November 2016. January 2021. Yet these serial reminders of dark days, weeks and months past are meant, as you rightly surmise, to recall that we did make it through them, and we will get through this, too. We did make it through them, and we will get through this, too. Not unscathed, and hopefully not unchanged, but together, we will make it through. Some weeks, like that of January 6, one year ago.
At some preconscious level, somewhere down in the declivities of the country’s psyche, we had a sense that this was coming. We did not want to admit it. We hoped against hope to be wrong in that premonition. We hoped to whistle past the graveyard for another few days. Yet we remembered, dimly, our upbringing, ‘don’t play with fire if you don’t want to get burned’.
I pray for my own people, my own congregation, our University, our listenership, you and your loved ones, near or far or very far away. It must be admitted, that there are some weeks when good news seems pretty hard to come by. This is one. A week in a month that includes the affrontery, the remembered predatory mendacity of a year and fortnight ago, January 6, 2021.
Today, following Jesus’ example in Luke 4, we announce the gospel in interpretation of and accord with the Scriptures. Scripture gives us the chance for the long view. Scripture gives us a deep grounding, with heaven a little higher and earth a little wider. Thank goodness we have the Holy Scripture to which to turn, from which to learn, with which to listen, pray and prepare.
Resurrection Amid Insurrection
Listen. The Gospel of Luke was written for listening. It emerged over long time, with the earliest Christians reciting and recalling their Lord, his love, and their shared shaping by that love, in faith, beginning in baptism. They listened, morning and evening, Sunday by Sunday, and over time, in direct response to weeks both empty and full, they began to write down for future generations what they had heard. Today we have such a lesson, the hearing of a voice. Today we start again into an unknown future. For all our failure, for all manner of sin and death and meaninglessness, for all that is wrong, and there is much, especially just now, there is a voice, ringing out and calling to us. Especially in weeks when good news is scarce. And in our time, into dimensions of common ground that may cause us work and make us uncertain, we will want to learn to listen, and listen again. Voices from this past week reverberate. On MKL Sunday, after worship, and following our memorial service for Ed Mann, echoes of voices from this weekend in years past came along to encourage. Dale Andrews, Walter Fluker, Peter Paris, Gil Caldwell, Liz Douglass, Lawrence Carter, Jennifer Quigley, Karen Coleman, Christopher Edwards, Cornell William Brooks, Deval Patrick. Particularly in these years on MLK Sunday, a resurrection word has been spoken and heard, here, for which we are grateful, lastingly so. Then, through this week, the reverberations resounded. Tuesday, Cornell William Brooks engaged an 11 day hunger strike this last week, he who spoke here on April 4, 2018. Resurrection voice. Wednesday, Governor Deval Patrick implored us, we need an unrest of the heart, not unrest in the streets, but in the heart, unrest of the heart, he who spoke here on April 8, 2018. Resurrection voice. Senator Rafael Warnock, student of Lawrence Carter who also preached here in 2018, spoke bluntly: Some people don’t want some people to vote. Resurrection voice. Listen. Listen. Listen.
Pray. What a tremendous spiritual gift is our Psalter. Remember Samuel Terrien teaching us: : Here are 700 years of psalms, 1000-400bce. For the psalmists, Yahweh’s presence was not only made manifest in Zion. It reached men and women over the entire earth. The sense of Yahweh’s presence survived the annihilation of the temple and the fall of the state 587bc. Elusive but real, it feared no geographical uprooting and no historical disruption. Having faced the void in history and in their personal lives, they knew the absence of God even within the temple. The inwardness of their spirituality, bred by the temple, rendered the temple superfluous. (279) In other words, they knew how to live through and out through godless weeks. Our psalm today, Psalm 19, ancient and redolent with glory, recalls for us how to pray. From your youth you have known. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. The ACTS forms of prayer. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Pray. Pray. Pray.
Prepare. The whole of Scripture begins with the divine preparation, in creation, and in speech. ‘Let there be…’ And what might that be, let there be? Light. Watch for the rays of light in the dark. Watch for the rays of light in the darkWeeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning, he was reminded. Yes, but that’s the thing about the morning, he responded, it begins in the full dark, it begins at dawn, before daybreak. Light. Watch for the coming rays of light. Nor does light shine only in the heart, but also, even moreso, in the heart of the community. Individuals need to prepare, but so do communities. That’s the thing about the morning. It begins in the dark, in preparation, awaiting the word… LET THERE BE LIGHT. So, friend, you have the task and gift to face the time we are in. To choose a way to support leadership you affirm, check by check. To influence the health of culture, meeting by meeting. To live your franchise, vote by vote. Give, go, vote. Prepare. Prepare. Prepare.
Now is the time. In the halcyon, bucolic spring of high school senior year, a few years ago, Mrs. Bartels confronted your preacher. Mr. Hill, you are failing my typing class. You will get an F. (But, why an F, I asked?) Because she said it is the lowest grade I have on offer. If I had a lower one I would give you that. You do not want an F on your final grade sheet. I see you talking to that talented pianist who accompanies the choir. She got a typing A three years ago. Maybe she could help you.
In fact, that talented pianist and typist did, and I came through with a C-, a gentleman’s C-. But this sermonic spoonful of sugar is told to help the fateful medicine go down. For Mrs. Bartels began each class, if memory serves, having us type the following sentence: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Now is the time for all good folk to come to the aid of their country. Now. Not later, now. Without a functioning democracy we will never be able to address climate change, face race, outrun pandemic, keep peace on the globe, work for a just, participatory and sustainable culture, or live with hope. So now is the time. Send a check, attend a meeting, go and vote, especially younger folks, hear that last: vote, vote, vote. It’s later than you think.
People of God. Listen! Pray! Prepare! And hear again the gospel, that of resurrection not of insurrection.
We conclude with a poem from the Lone Star State, and our theopoetical radio congregant, Milton Jordan.
Coda: Creating Community
after Howard Thurman *
When the song of the marchers is silent
and annual memory of the Dream reshelved,
When Senators turn back to obstruction
and justice hard won is reversed,
When despair seems to cloud every vision
then the work of the people begins.
To call forth our shared hopes
and reclaim shattered trust
To bind up the broken
let the prisoner be free
To leave no neighbor hungry
nor any people at war,
To recreate community
and join all creation in song.
- Following Thurman’s poem
“When the Song of the Angels Is Stilled. ”
This Week is a now and then poem from Milton Jordan on an item in the news.
Hear the gospel. Our gift and task as people of faith is to live out the resurrection in this hour of insurrection. Resurrection amid insurrection.
-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
