The Resurrection and the Struggle

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

-          Gen. 32:22-32

Resurrection happens when you least expect it, where you’re least likely to look, to the person you’re most likely to ignore.

Like when everybody’s gone away, and the sun is setting on the banks of the River Jabbok, to that exile, that wanderer, that trickster, that heel of a person we know as Jacob. Really—that’s what his means.

Jacob isn’t somebody I want to like. He was never the once and future quarterback of the championship football team; that’s his brother Esau. Jacob gets what he wants through trickery, through withholding food to the hungry, through dressing up as someone else and fooling an old, blind man. And then when his sins catch up with him, he runs away.

Jacob’s trickster nature follows him in exile. He manages to seduce Rachel, Laban’s daughter, but then somehow ends up marrying both of Laban’s daughters. And then he has sex with not only both of them, but also several of his maids. That’s not even why Laban eventually evicts Jacob. That happens because Jacob has been tampering with his father-in-law’s herds of cattle. And then Jacob runs away again.

That’s when Jacob gets word that his estranged brother, whose last words directed to Jacob were “I’m gonna kill him first chance I get!”, is looking for him. With 400 other guys whom Jacob assumes want nothing more than to take turns hitting something.

And what does Jacob do? He sends all of his family to the other side of the River Jabbok where Esau and his bloodthirsty band of brass knuckles are waiting for him. Like I said—I don’t want to like Jacob.

Maybe I don’t want to like Jacob because his story reminds me of my own character defects. Jacob’s story reminds me of all the times that I have struggled—struggled with my own identity and purpose, struggled with my relationships with other people, and struggled with God.

So where is the resurrection in this story? Well, let’s have a look at Jacob when the sun comes up. Jacob is visibly limping. He answers to a new name. And he confronts the demons of his past with the confidence of someone who has experienced true, life-altering blessing.

Jacob had experienced resurrection, resurrection through struggling with God.

Funerals are another place where we don’t expect resurrection.  Loved ones gather to share in their grief and their loss, to give their last good-byes to a corpse that is as empty as a deflated balloon.

And yet we often call funerals services of death and resurrection. We often refer to John chapter 11 where Jesus declares that he is the resurrection and the life. And then we pray “Requiem aerternum dona eis Domine”—“Grant them eternal rest, Lord our God.”

But rest isn’t the intention of resurrection. The purpose of resurrection is life, yes, even life abundant! And what is life but struggle—struggle with the world, struggle with all the wicked and wonderful people that inhabit it, struggle with God, great God Almighty, Dominus Deus Sabaoth!

God is the resurrection and the life. God is the resurrection and the struggle.

The struggle! Yes, sisters and brothers, God is the struggle, or as our Spanish-speaking sisters and brothers call it, la lucha. I’ve heard my Spanish-speaking sisters and brother talk a lot about la lucha since I decided to join them in solidarity with la lucha. “¡Viva la lucha!” they shout at rallies, and I’ve gotta tell you, sisters and brothers, Anglos like me should listen to them. White folks like me should listen to our sisters and brother from the global South because they know an awful lot about la lucha and resurrection.

My Metodistas de BsAs

I learned about la lucha and resurrection when I had the blessing to study in Argentina while I was an undergrad. I’m tempted to say that it was another one of those unlikely times and places where resurrection occurred. Some young people in the little Methodist church in downtown Buenos Aires graciously accepted me into their clique, and then began educating me in the ways of the la lucha. My friends invited me to march with them in the Veinti-cuatro de Marzo parade, that is the twenty-fourth of March, which marks the anniversary of the last coup-d’état in that country. See, during the military dictatorship that began on March 24, 1976, some 50,000 political dissidents were “disappeared”, many of them young people who were learning to struggle, to be in la lucha, against injustice.

The day ended with a concert by León Gieco, the Bob Dylan figure of Argentina, at the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada—the Naval Mechanics School—which had served as a center for detention, torture, and execution during the dictatorship. Shortly before the concert began, a branch of the Peronista party, which had been viciously persecuted during the dictatorship, began a rally to remember their fallen comrades. I can still see the flags, banners, and posters lifted high into the air. I can still feel the exuberant bodies of the crowd around me. I can still hear their chants of liberation. The leader would read a name of a disappeared person, and the crowd would shout back, “¡Presente!” As León Gieco sang his most famous song, Solo le Pido a Dios—I Only Ask God—and everyone sang with him, I could feel resurrection around me. And la lucha—the struggle—continued.

A classmate of mine at seminary, Tito, had some thoughts about resurrection during our first semester of classes together. While we were struggling with the concepts of early Christian theology, Tito shared that resurrection was very important for him and his comrades in Latin America, particularly in El Salvador where he had served the victims of the civil war there. He said that resurrection was important because no right-wing death squad, even when armed with best weapons the American government could sell them, could stop a revolution based on resurrection. Such resurrection-minded revolutionaries could cry out like St. Paul, “O death, Where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” La lucha—the struggle—continues and you, O Death, can’t stop it. You, O Death, can’t beat it. You, O Death, are overcome by the power of the resurrection and the struggle!

Dear friends, witness the power of the God of resurrection! Let the power of resurrection blow apart all of your expectations! Let the power of resurrection touch you and change you forever! Let us say yes to the God of the resurrection! Let us say yes to the God of life! Let us say yes to the God of the struggle! ¡Que viva la lucha! ¡Amén!

[Sermon was preached at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple on April 23, 2014.]

Coming to dinner--scars and all

This sermon was given at First Trinity Lutheran Church on April 21, 2013. Really. I preach this way.

Let’s get one thing straight right now: I’m not going to talk about sheep today. Yeah, I know we sang Psalm 23 and the lectionary Gospel reading is about sheep and there is even a picture of a sheep on the cover of the bulletin, but really, I won’t talk about sheep today. Unless it’s about lamb chops or mutton stew because what I really talk about is food.

This resurrection appearance story in Luke spoke to me in a way that the sheep passages didn’t. Maybe it’s because I sang the “I Just Wanna Be Sheep Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba” just one time too many. Maybe it’s because I spent just a little too much time next to livestock as I was growing up in central PA, and I just don’t want to be like those dumb animals that I kept prodding with a wooden stick.

But food…that’s something else. Maybe a story about food speaks more clearly to me because I spent a weekend in Washington, D.C. talking about food justice. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so many Sunday evenings in the last six months making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for homeless folks. Maybe I’m just hungry right now.

Whatever the reason why this passage in Luke speaks to me right now, it does seem like the resurrected Jesus likes to eat. Verse 36 of this passage begins with the remaining disciples talking with each other about—you guessed it—a meal. That meal was with two other guys who were walking towards some town called Emmaus, and the resurrected Jesus snuck his way into dinner with them by explaining all of the Hebrew scriptures concerning himself. I think a lot of my Jewish friends would think that that conversation would be rather short, but it was enough to get these two walkin’ dudes to invite Jesus to dinner. Apparently dying and coming back to life doesn’t help Jesus’ table manners because he disappears just as the three of them are about to eat. I guess it’s better than dining and dashing.

So then these two walkin’ dudes rush over to the disciples and tell their story, and just as they’re arguing about whether Jesus had picked up the matzo or the foccaccia loaf, Jesus appears again. At this point I would think that the walkin’ dudes are pretty sure that phantom Jesus has decided to haunt them for the rest of their miserable existence, perpetually correcting their understanding of the prophet Isaiah and then preventing them from chowing down. But luckily Jesus puts them totally at ease by saying “Peace be with you”. That works every time, right?

Jesus convinces everybody in the room that it’s really him and not just the most annoyingly know-it-all phantom ever (so those walkin’ dudes can breathe easy). And then he eats some fish. Resurrection Jesus sure does know how to crash a dinner party, but that’s okay because he explains the Hebrew scriptures again. Sorry, walkin’ dudes, you’ve seen this part before.

But I’m going to try to release this image of Jesus as a know-it-all seminarian in search of free food, though that’s admittedly not easy for me. I am really struck at how resurrection Jesus keeps eating with people. I remember in my Bible studies as a teenager that we used to try to figure out the significance of that eating, that it has serious Christological implications about the dual nature of Jesus Christ. Or that’s what teenage me would have said if I had taken systematic theology instead of joyriding through the Pennsylvania mountains. But forget dual nature-whatever for now because even more than a free meal Resurrection Jesus is still really concerned that the disciples learn some really important things about, yes, his own identity—that’s the Christological part—and how to act with each other. Especially when eating.

Easter brunch at First Trinity Lutheran Church. No jacket
required.

Recently I’ve learned that there are rules for dinner behavior, assuming you’re not eating pizza over the sink or something. Part of that comes from watching a lot of Downton Abbey, which is this BBC television series about English high society in the early 20^th century and their many varieties of spoons, but even more comes from eating with my girlfriend Kacie. See, Kacie was super active in 4-H in Tennessee, and much to my surprise, she didn’t only raise sheep for the county fair (sheep!). No, Kacie also learned to dine finely—that is, with more class than I ever learned in my years in the Boy Scouts. We’re talking which fork goes in which hand, what to do with the napkin when it’s blocking the eating area of your plate, and how not to send a Tweet from your smart phone while someone important is speaking.

Yeah, there are rules for eating with other people, and while I can respect a lot of those as they show respect for the folks around you, I don’t see Jesus following a lot of those rules in this passage. In fact, I really only see Jesus following one rule here—be authentic when you’re sharing a meal. Jesus doesn’t dress up to impress here. On the other hand he has one of the classic guy conversations in all guy-dom: check out my scars. Now maybe that’s cool porch talk, but I think conversation about scars usually doesn’t occur at the dinner table. Yes, Jesus is soothing the disciples, especially those poor walkin’ dudes, but I have to think that he is teaching by example. Jesus recognizes that everybody in that room is traumatized at that moment, especially himself, and he draws that out as soon as he appears.

Then Jesus eats a meal and, as always happens after a communal meal, he shares a story: “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to proclaimed to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Sounds vaguely like the Great Commission in the closing words of the Gospel of Matthew, huh? It’s not quite an explanation of the trauma that just occurred, but it does orient how Jesus’ listeners will respond to their trauma. Bad stuff happens in the world, but good stuff also happens, and now we need to tell everybody to change to world based on those experiences.

See, this week has been awfully traumatic for a lot of people. Bookended by a terrorist bombing and a violent manhunt for the perpetrators, with a giant factory explosion and local flooding here in Chicago, folks have seen some trauma this week. Maybe we feel scared and want to withdraw from a scary world. Or maybe we want to go out and fight the bad guys. Maybe we do actually feel a little like, well, sheep in need of a shepherd. Whatever your reaction has been to this week’s events, let’s recognize that we have experienced trauma, and let’s recognize that trauma before we take a bite at the dinner table.

Something I love about this church is that First Trinity has a weekly dinner table that is really open to everyone. And I am continually impressed at how people are willing to be authentic as they approach that table. However, this week let’s especially recognize that we are a mixed body, as Luther said, and we are a traumatized body. If you would like to work through some of that trauma, please come to the table. The church is also blessed with some wonderful deacons who truly care about caring for people who serve the church as deacons. These folks are committed to helping people in this mixed, traumatized body work through our trauma. Please seek them out if you’d like some space to continue to work through that trauma.

            

Now finally in closing, let’s remember that we still have to go out after the meal. We have a lot of repentance and forgiveness and world-changing to do when we get up from the table. The punch-line is that we will never be as holy and ready to go out as maybe we feel we need to be to this work. We need to do it anyway. Whether you feel like a lost sheep(!), a haunted walkin’ dude, or just somebody in need of some food, this is a good starting place. So please come, be filled, and then go, still your scars, because that’s what Jesus did, too.