I've Seen ( and experienced) Resurrection

Resurrection Narratives symbolize (for me) the possibility of renewal:

I’ve seen churches that were facing extinction experience a revival of passion and purpose and become thriving faith communities again.

I’ve seen people who were rejected by their families form new families of choice that were loving, functional, joyful, and life-giving.

I’ve seen people who were not the best parents get a second chance and prove themselves to be absolutely heroic grandparents.

I’ve seen old emotional wounds finally heal.

I’ve seen people who dropped out of school go back 50 years later and finish what they started.

I’ve seen people accomplish in wheelchairs more than they ever did when they had stronger bodies.

I’ve seen people face their addictions and live in freedom.

I’ve seen people outlive their prognoses by decades.

I’ve seen victims transform into survivors, and then into helpers who show others how to survive.

I’ve seen people come out and live in the powerful truth of their gender identity or their sexual orientation and realize that what they once thought of as a problem is in reality a great blessing.

I’ve seen people who had no self esteem come to believe that they are indeed God’s miracle and not God’s mistake!

#Resurrection #Renewal

An Easter Reflection

"Easter" is a derivative of "Eostre", the Anglo-Saxon spring goddess. Eggs (a sort of tomb from which chicks emerge) and hares (known for fertility) were not only pagan symbols for life but were also adopted by Christians as symbols of resurrection. Spring celebrations are joyous and filled with hope. As a Christian I am bothered by those who worship violence (crucifixion) and attribute such cruelty to God, but I very much celebrate  resurrection...the affirmation that cruelty and injustice cannot have the last word.

The cross was meant to silence Jesus; it failed. That's the glory and power of Easter. As Presbyterian theologian Delores Williams said, "there was nothing of God in the blood of the cross." But the cruel torture of the cross did not destroy the hope, courage, or love that Jesus embodied. It continues to live. That's the beauty of Easter. 

Death and violence and cruelty cannot ultimately win. Love and life are forever. So every Easter I joyfully proclaim, Alleluia! Christ is risen; Christ is risen indeed. It doesn't mean what worshippers of violence say it means; rather, it is the answer to violence and cruelty. Love wins! With that good news, we all are uplifted (risen). 

The Three Things I Believe About the Resurrection

Earlier this morning i posted this on a conversation thread on Facebook started by a Church Historian...many moderate to liberal Christians chimed in. Here was my contribution...

If resurrection is a "fact" then was the virginal conception and gravity defying ascension also facts? Were the resurrections of widows' children raised by Elijah, Elisha, & Jesus historical? Was Lazarus' resurrection literal? The body that came back to life when it touched Elisha's bones? Tabitha? Eutychus? These are rhetorical questions (my strong doubts are implied).

The three things I believe about the resurrection of Jesus are:

1. Jesus spent his life giving people their dignity back; when his was taken his friends and admirers returned the favor by inventing a decent burial and ultimate escape from the horror he endured

2. To say someone killed by Rome didn't stay dead was a subversive, and powerful act of resistance against the empire.

3. The miracle isn't that god broke the laws of nature for one (or a few if all biblical resurrection narratives are thought to be historical) but that fearful, broken people found hope, courage, "new life" and became as a movement the resurrected and returned body of Christ. 

The resurrection for me can be true only if we are free to see it as something other than factual. 

True-yes; factual-no.

Historical-yes; literal-no. 

Miraculous-yes; supernatural-no.

We Need a Little Easter Now (Ash Wed 2014 sermon)

We Need a Little Easter Now

Rev Dr Durrell Watkins

Ash Wednesday 2014

In the play and movie, Auntie Mame, Mame decides that Christmas needs to come early and so she and her nephew and staff celebrate Christmas when they need all that it offers, all that it represents, rather than waiting for when the calendar says it’s time.

I like that. The miracle of Christmas is available whenever we need it. When we need hope, joy, celebration, togetherness, seeing sparks of possibilities in the midst of despair, then it’s time to “haul out the holly” and “deck the halls.”

But just as Christmas is about the hope of liberation being born in the midst of empire, marginalized shepherds hearing angel voices and far away strangers finding holiness after a long journey, Easter, too, is a symbol of hope that breaks forth in spite of seeming hopelessness.

Easter is life that death can’t keep from expressing.

Easter is freedom from entombment and stones of limitation being removed.

Easter is knowing that tragedy strikes but shouting Hallelujah anyway because life is a never-ending story and so the hope for healing and restoration is always real.

I don’t think it serves us to make Lent a forced time of gloom, sacrifice, or feigned sadness. Bad things happen often enough without our needing to pretend a moment is less joyful than it could be (e.g., hangings in Iran, anti-gay legislation in Nigeria and Uganda, attempts to halt progress on LBGT rights in the US, etc).

Let’s make Lent a time of celebrating Easter early, a time of affirming life, a time of expecting the best, a time of choosing to be more generous, more joyful, more optimistic, more committed to justice, more excited about the possibilities of life right now and always.

Tonight, of course, is Ash Wednesday.

Whenever I hear Ash Wednesday I remember a sunken area outside on the campus of the seminary where I earned my doctorate. The school was smoke free indoors, and so the smokers would gather at that sunken area outside to smoke and visit. Since it was the smoking area, and since it was a sunken sort of pit, they affectionately called it the Ash Hole.

Ash Wednesday begins the Season of Lent. Lent is a time of preparation leading to Easter. During Lent we are encouraged to be especially faithful to spiritual disciplines such as meditation, study, prayer, worship, and sharing. It is, therefore, a time of spiritual renewal.

Renewal, isn’t that what Easter is about?

Lent isn’t holding off on joy; Lent can be about rehearsing for unending joy. Let’s not wait. Let’s get the party started now and call it Lent!

Traditionally Ash Wednesday calls us to consider our mortality and redeem our fear of it, but it can also challenge us to heal many of our attitudes and commit to living in the power of hope.

Sister Joan Chittister  says this about Lent:

“Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now.

Lent is a summons to live anew.

Lent is the time to let life in again…”

Live anew? Let life in again? Sounds like Easter! Maybe Lent isn’t Easter delayed but Easter come early!

In our reading tonight, the Apostle Paul said, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”

NOW is the time. Why wait?

Easter isn't something that happened once long ago, nor is it something that may happen in 7 weeks; Easter is a reality we can acknowledge, embrace, and live into at any time.

Easter, actually named for the Saxon spring goddess Eostre, represents life that cannot end.

Winter can cover our lives with snow and ice and darkness but the cold must give way once again to the life that Spring calls forth. Life doesn't go away; it is actually being nurtured in the darkness of winter so that it can flourish in the Spring and be forever strong and bountiful.

So, we aren't making Spring happen and we aren't hoping that it will happen, we are choosing to know that it is a reality that cannot be kept from us, so even when winter seems dark and gloomy, it is really just providing the rest needed for never-ending renewal. Life will prevail. Winter is part of life. Lent, then, can be part of Easter. We are always Spring people, people alive with divine Life, Easter people, Resurrection people. Why pretend otherwise simply because tradition says its Lent?

Tonight we aren't just contemplating mortality; we are redeeming it. Life must live and isn’t limited by physical conditions. Life isn’t physical, it is energy, spirit, and while we experience it in our bodies, it is in no way limited to our bodies. We are choosing to remember that Life is indomitable, omnipresent, eternal; and to remember that is to experience Easter. We can have a little Easter right now. And not only do we trust that life is eternal, we also trust that we can make the most of it by being intentional, deliberate, faithful on our life-journeys.

We make mistakes, but we also learn from them.

We experience suffering, but we also overcome it.

We face uncertainty, but we have the power to hope even when certainty evades us. Easter blessings are always at hand.

I have friends who are giving their last Facebook post between now and Easter (but reminding the world they are nevertheless available via email and Twitter). Really? Why bother?

Give up chocolate for 40 days? Why? If it’s bad, give it up forever. If it’s good, why give it up for even a day?

Oh, there are things I would encourage us to give up, but not because it’s Lent, but because useless baggage that weighs us down should be jettisoned whenever we have the opportunity to get rid of it!

Give up the idea that you were born a sinner. Of course you make mistakes, but you can also learn from them and heal from them and wind up better than before. But making mistakes doesn’t make us a mistake. We are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake!

Give up self-loathing.

Give up false guilt and needless shame.

Give up fear of the unknown.

Give up regret over what can’t be changed.

Give up anxiety about what hasn’t happened yet and may never happen at all.

There are many things to give up that could make a big difference. Sodas and chocolate and Facebook, however, do not make it very high on that list.

This is as good a time as any to challenge ourselves to be more generous, more hopeful, more reflective, more open to possibilities, but this is not a time give up anything other than whatever is stealing our joy.  

I have a friend from seminary, a heterosexual, married with children, Baptist minister in Los Angeles. He’s in trouble right now because he married a lesbian couple in a state where same-sex marriage is legal. He opened his church to interfaith groups for dialogue and he welcomed humanists, agnostics, and atheists to the discussions. Most recently, and apparently this was the final straw, he published a letter in a local paper advocating for lesbian and gay rights.

My friend has given up a lot as Lent approaches. Not movies or texting or sodas after sundown. He’s given up security for the sake of those who never had it. He’s given up privilege for those who had been hurt by it. He’s given up knowing if he will have job tomorrow because he’d rather stand on the side of justice that profit from oppressive theologies left unchallenged.

I’m not opposed to giving up things for Lent, but does the giving up make a difference? How easy it is to pat ourselves on the back for not chewing gum for a few weeks! But wouldn’t a more meaningful sacrifice be to speak out on behalf of undocumented workers, to show kindness to someone suffering from depression, to affirm the validity and sanctity of transgender people and the families they create, to oppose war, and to work to end poverty rather than punish people for being poor?  

When I hear of people congratulating themselves for abstaining from scratch off lottery tickets or pasta for a few weeks, I think of the prophet of Isaiah who imagined God saying, “What do I care about the number of your sacrifices?...Instead, make justice your aim, redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.”

That’s what my friend in Los Angeles has done. Instead of sacrificing things that won’t matter if he enjoys them or not, he has taken up the cause of justice to help those he could have chosen to ignore. But with the heart of a pastor and the soul of a prophet, he chose to believe in the sacred value of all people and give up anything that might hinder that life-giving good news.

Traditionally, the ashes on Ash Wednesday represent finality, but remember, it’s from the ashes that the Phoenix will rise. No matter what has happened, believe in your goodness and choose to have hope for the future.

If you think you watch too much television then watch less, but don’t call it a religious discipline. If you want to eat healthier, see a nutritionist or a trainer or join Weight Watchers…it will work better and last longer than trying to give up carbs for Lent. But if you want to experience more joy in life then give up beliefs that make you feel badly about yourself, and once you believe in yourself, you will be better able to be an agent of positive change and healing in the world.

NOW is the time of God's favor; now is the day of salvation (wholeness, liberation, true happiness). We need a little Easter now. Let’s start the Easter celebration tonight and build on it throughout Lent so that on Easter Sunday the joy and the energy and the hope will be so strong it will be like an atomic blast of grace and goodness, and Sunshine Cathedral will be ground zero. THIS is the good news. Amen.

A Review of a Progressive Christian Easter Service

BUNNIES, BONNETS AND BOUNTY ON AN EASTER MORNING
by Elayne Clift
{written for the Keene (NH) Sentinel}


As a Jew, I'm not accustomed to attending church. (A secular Jew, I don't even go to synagogue very often.) Most of my experience with churches has occurred in relation to weddings, funerals, and Christmas Eve caroling. But a recent experience bears sharing not only because it was unique and wonderful, but because it just might give us all something to think about in a time of growing polemics, political extremism and murky church-state relations.

In Florida over Easter, my (Christian) husband and I attended services with our son who goes to the "Sunshine Cathedral" in Fort Lauderdale. My husband, who had attended services there before, told me it was a special place of worship but I had to experience it to really see what he was talking about. I got it the minute the service began. My first clue was that the second service of the day was packed with people who were all smiling and greeting each other. They ranged from aging bikers of the Harley-Davidson variety to a Caribbean family with two little girls decked out in white dresses and Mary Jane shoes; from gay and lesbian couples in shorts and T-shirts to proverbial "little old ladies" in flowered dresses.

My second clue was that the two lead ministers, both men, approached the front of the sanctuary wearing ab-fab Easter bonnets while the ushers sported bunny ears. The choirmaster, a woman, wore a long white backless gown such as you might see at a prom. Clearly, this church had a sense of humor and loved a good party!

And yet the service, the music, the homily were so moving and so meaningful that I could barely get through it without sobbing.

Sunshine Cathedral is a Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). Part of an international movement now active in nearly two dozen countries, it was founded in California in 1968 by Troy Perry, a Pentecostal minister who was defrocked because he was gay. Its core values are inclusion, community, spiritual transformation, and social action. Each of those values was clear and present in the Easter service, not only in how the minister interpreted the Easter story but in how he asked his congregants to "apply what you believe to your own personal resurrection." It was clear in his message to "go forward rather than dwelling in the past," and in his reminder that Sunshine Cathedral focuses on the "progressive, the positive, and the practical." It was present in his emphasis on the universality of "hope, acceptance, joy, and possibility."

With music ranging from jazz and gospel to Beethoven's "Hallelujah," inspirational quotations from sources as varied as the Bengali poet Tagore to Winston Churchill, spiritual heroes that include Catherine of Sienna and Oskar Schindler, large-screen visuals of seascapes or clips from Walt Disney's animated film "Cinderella", and the closing admonition, "[Our worship has] ended; Let our service begin," this is a church like no other, it seems to me. Irreverently reverent, humorously relevant, wonderfully welcoming, it manages to be magically meaningful in very mixed up and troubling times.

In a way, it explains why many Jews have chosen to identify with Universalist Unitarians ("UUs") because of their emphasis on social activism, their genuine inclusivity, and their message of hope and humanity. Others are working toward "Jewish Renewal", an attempt to make Judaism more meaningful and socially conscious in a 21st century world.

Whatever one's religious affiliation, what was clear to me on an Easter morning in the Sunshine Cathedral, where the word "sin" was never uttered, is that despite our various diversities, the universe is full of people striving to find their place in the world - on common ground -- without judgment, and free of simplistic polemics, meaningless rituals, and "thou shalt nots."

To that end, I am glad to have stood among bunnies and bonnets, listening to Beethoven, hoping for, and believing in, a better, more generous and genuine world.

# # #

Elayne Clift writes about politics, social issues, and contemporary life from Saxtons River, Vt. (www.elayneclift.com)

Earth Easter

It's interesting that Earth Day falls on Good Friday this year.
With our greed (Judas/30 pieces of silver) and our state of denial that our lifestyles are harming Gaia (Peter denying Christ) we are contributing to the crucifixion of the planet; but the Power of Life is still able to express and Resurrection/Restoration is possible.
Let's endeavor to have an Earth Easter and contribute to quality living for the generations still to come!

Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins
Good Friday/Earth Day 2011

Easter Blessing

The sun will rise.
When we fall, we will get back up.
The memory of a departed loved one surfaces again bringing the gift of love remembered.
Winter must give way to spring.
Life continues; it must. It will.

And so the Phoenix rises.
And so the bud bursts forth as a new flower.
And so the tomb of despair is found empty as hope rises again.

Alleluia, Christ is risen; Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

May Resurrection Power bless us all this Easter. Amen.