24 April 2011

“Love wins”
The Resurrection of our Lord
Matthew 28:1-10, 16-20
24 April 2011


Every year around Easter, it’s the same thing.
The mainstream media discover God.
Usually, it’s the annual onslaught of programs on the History Channel, or Discovery, that have something to do with “God” … “The Search for Noah’s Ark” … or “Archaeological Secrets of the Old Testament.” And there’s the annual cover story on US News or Time or Newsweek packing some kind of “shock value” – “Did Jesus have a wife?” “Was Mary Magdalene Prince Andrew’s ancestor?”
But this year – wonder of wonders – the “hot story” actually has some theological substance to it.
Rob Bell is a Gen-X (read, 40 something) pastor, an author, and a lecturer from “the other side of the aisle” – he’s an Evangelical, which in our modern context most usually equals Conservative Fundamentalist Christian – even though Bell’s been pushing that envelope for years. I heard him speak to a crowd of 20,000 ELCA youth in the Georgia Dome 8 years ago, and he was amazing … he broke through all the stereotypes we Lutherans might have had of our brothers and sisters on that side of the aisle … he had that crowd of mostly Midwestern Lutheran youth in rapt attention … it was so quiet in that huge facility the only thing you could hear was Bell’s voice, just telling us stories about Jesus.
So if you’ve picked up a copy of Time magazine this week, or turned on CNN, or gone to Third Place Books, or even looked on Amazon.com to see what’s new for your Kindle … you’ve seen wall-to-wall Rob Bell. He’s written a new book … to add to his list of titles which include “Velvet Elvis” and “Jesus wants to save Christians” … this one’s simply titled “Love Wins.”
And it’s got conservative Christianity’s collective undies in a bunch.

Of course, the media’s having a field day with all this … “conservative pastor does away with hell,” you may have heard that line on TV. But that’s not what he’s saying, or writing … as usual, when the mainstream media gets hold of something like this, they blow it all out of proportion and distort it and sensationalize it.
The truth of what he says, would they have reported that, is earthshattering enough.
Basically, what Bell’s saying, is that we’ve got to stop defining the Christian faith in judgmental terms … saying “you’re in and you’re out” …being so sure that everyone who reads the Scriptures or walks into a building that has a cross on it, to worship, is “saved” while everyone else, everyone else, who doesn’t accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior is “going to hell.”
The example Bell cites in beginning his book sets the tone for everything that follows.

Several years ago we had an art show at our church. I had been giving a series of teachings on peacemaking, and we invited artists to display their paintings, poems, and sculptures that reflected their understanding of what it means to be a peacemaker. One woman included in her work a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, which a number of people found quite compelling.
But not everyone.
Someone attached a piece of paper to it.
On the piece of paper was written: “Reality check: He’s in hell.”
Really? Gandhi’s in hell?
Somebody knows this?
And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know?

Why is it that, whenever people claim that one group is in, saved, accepted by God, forgiven, enlightened, redeemed – and everyone else isn’t – why is it that those who make this claim are almost always part of the group that’s “in”?

It’s no wonder one of Gandhi’s most famous quotes, when speaking of Christians, goes like this: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Or, as I heard it recently, put more bluntly: “I like Jesus, just not his posse.”

Those of us who don’t count ourselves as part of that judgmental posse … and Lutherans of our particular flavor … what we call the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America … we would officially be part of that mix … we would NOT utter condemning words such as these … “I’m saved, but you’re going to hell” … perhaps this whole controversy about Rob Bell leaves us scratching our heads.
If it doesn’t, it should.
For the heritage we Lutherans walk and talk and worship and pray within, it’s always been about grace … forgiveness … God’s radical welcome and kindness, love and peace for us in Jesus Christ. We don’t get that judgmental condemning talk because, well, we just can’t find it in the Bible, used this way.
Now, that’s not to say it’s not there. It’s there in spades, when Jesus is talking to the religious leaders of his day, who are more in love with money and power and prestige and political influence than they are with God. When Jesus condemns these religious leaders for their hypocrisy in saying one thing but doing another … saying they love God, all the while they’re stealing from the least of God’s children … the poor, the powerless, the downtrodden, the widow, the orphan, the stranger in their midst.
Hmn.
Things haven’t changed much in 2000 years, have they?

It was, after all, talk like that, that got Jesus killed. When he crossed the line, when he stood with those who needed God most – and more, when he said these poor, who-the-world-says-are-the-most-God-forsaken-people, they … they… are most especially who God is for the most… well, he went right to the top of the Roman terrorist watch list.
Talk like that goes against nice polite society. Talk like that makes the powers that be – uncomfortable … talk like that has to be silenced.
And so it was. Jesus was killed for it. Really killed. Really dead, not breathing, not anything. Dead. And really buried in the ground.
And so on that morning when the few friends who had stood by him through the end went to go see the tomb … just checking, to help them believe that their teacher and rabbi and friend was gone …
… and we know that feeling, after a sudden, terrible loss … we still can’t believe it, but we must …
… so on that morning, when they found that their dead friend was not there … they were told, “do not be afraid.” And when they saw him, as they ran from the tomb, when they saw him, really alive, right there before them, the first words he said to them were also “do not be afraid.”
There’s a reason for that.
Because death’s biggest helper is fear.
Fear motivates. Fear sells.
And our culture, our country, it’s free-flowin’ on fear, right now, more than ever before.
Certainly the fear that’s behind statements like what Rob Bell is writing against … the fear that is behind the loudest Christian religious voices in the public square … “believe in Jesus, believe in Jesus MY WAY, my morals, my laws, my rules … or go to hell.”
But there’s more fear out there.

There’s fear about the future of our country … 70% of Americans now say that “we’re going in the wrong direction.”
Fear that life is only going to get worse, harder, bleaker for Americans into the future.
Fear that we’re going to get cancer from that Japanese nuclear plant.
Fear that a huge mega-earthquake is going to strike the Northwest and level everything.
Fear that we’re all gonna die.

Turn to Jesus … or burn in hell for all eternity!

Precisely.

What kind of living is that?
It’s not living, it’s dying. It’s all about death.
And what is the loudest Christian voice in the midst of this fear?
Hey, it’s sure a good thing I have Jesus. Too bad YOU don’t.

Nothing but … more death. More rotten, stinking, three days in the ground putrid death.

See, the problem is … we’ve who have been given the Word of Life, to live and to share with a world so desperately in need of hearing it, we have abdicated the public stage to the sayers and players of death.
It’s the voice of death that people are hearing. The voice of death that’s stirring up fear among us.
The voice of death which causes people to not like Christians, to not want to “run with Jesus’ posse.”

Friends … the word of life is right before us … it always has been … and especially, most especially, on this Easter day, it rings true and clear and sweet:
“He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said.”
Love, not death, wins. Jesus, really dead, is now really alive. Our God keeps all those promises, for us.
So do not be afraid. Do not be a tool of fear and death any more.
For death itself is dead, and what we have been given is life … full, rich, abundant, overflowing life.
And more … this is life with PURPOSE.
We have this Word … rather, this Word has us … and it, he – Jesus, God’s Word in person, he comes with a Way as well:
“Go quickly and tell … ‘he has been raised from the dead.’”
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations …
Discipling … a simple four part process, shown to us by Jesus, how to share love:
I do, you watch.
I do, you help.
You do, I help.
You do, I watch.
“… go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …
… teaching them …
… and remember, I am with you always.”

Disciple. Baptize. Teach. Remember.
Words, not of death, for death is dead.
Words of life, to and for the sake of the world.
Words of life, to hear, to eat and drink at the Meal of New Life … Word to give, and share, without apology, without meekness or timidity, without gimmicks or tricks … just honestly, authentically … from who we are … to who they are … with love.
Words of life, which Jesus tells, commands us who follow him to share. To boldly share into a world which needs more than just a feeble “they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
These are Words, this is Life, which breaks through Death itself, and proclaims the New … in Christ … for the sake of the whole world.

Christ has died!
Christ is risen!
Christ will come again!

Love Wins. Thanks be to God! Amen.