“We are an Easter People”
Rev Dennis Ryle 18/04/2021
Readings
From the Hebrew Tradition - Psalm 16:5-11 (The Message)
From the Christian Tradition – Luke 24:36b-48
From the Wider Community
THE SHANAH
He came to me at night.
“What is a year?” asked the teacher.
“Three hundred sixty-five days,” I answered.
“But in the sacred tongue of Scripture it’s more than that. It’s called the shanah . . . and it contains a secret. The word shanah is linked to the number two.”
“I don’t get the connection.”
“Shanah can mean the second, the duplicate, or the repeat. In the natural realm, in the realm of astrophysics and nature, the year is a repetition
of what has already been . . . the revolving of the earth around the sun . . . the coming of winter, spring, summer, and fall . . . the blossoming of flowers and their withering away, the rebirth of nature and its dying, the same progression,
the same replaying of what already was. So a year is a shanah, the repetition of the past. And now you have a new year before you. So what kind of year will it be?”
“What do you mean?”
“The nature of nature is to repeat, just as we live, by nature, as creatures of habit. We gravitate toward doing that which we’ve done before, the same routines and courses, even when those routines and courses are harmful to us. So what will the shannah, this coming year, be for you?”
“Well if the year means the repeat, I guess I don’t have much of a choice. It will be mostly the same as the one before.”
“But you do have a choice,” he said. “You see, the Hebrew shanah has a double meaning. It not only means the repeat . . . it also means the change.”
“How can the same word mean the opposite?”
“The same way the year ahead of you can be the opposite. The way of the world is to repeat—but the way of the [Sacred] is the way of newness and change.
You can’t know the [Sacred] and not be changed. And [the Sacred} is that the year, the shanah ahead of you, be not a time of repetition, but of change, of new beginnings, of new steps, of breaking out of the old ways and the old nature. ….. Live on earth in the power of [the Sacred] . . . and you will walk in the newness of life . . . and the year ahead will be a shanah . . . of change.”
Adapted from The Shannah in the “Book of Mysteries” by Jonathan Cahn [adapted]
We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our Song
At Easter, Karen opened the way to contemplating the nature of the Easter resurrection stories through the gift of art. I’m interested in pursuing this as we explore a theme that has exercised me as the aforementioned “Shanah’ drew me into some fresh pondering of Easter.
Good Friday this year was a discombobulating experience. No longer responsible for planning and leading services of such a nature after 50 years, and spending more recent Easter seasons delving into the richness of more ancient modes of celebration, I found myself disoriented and dissatisfied with many of the available options for celebrating this day.
Summed up in the dichotomy suggested by the battle in the arena of the two aphorisms. I suspect my dilemma is shared even if misunderstood.
We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our Song
Vs
We are an Easter People in a Good Friday World!
I believe, for many of us, we spend a lot of time trapped on the wrong side of Easte
Later on Good Friday I was struck by TV Good Friday footage of the Maronite service attended by the Prime Minister and other luminaries. They would have heard the ancient Maronite shout of celebration at the part where the dying Jesus cries “It is finished’ and “breathes out his Spirit.” This is the high point in the Maronite Good Friday liturgy. “It is finished” = “Redemption is accomplished! All is reconciled!” “Jesus breathes out his Spirit carries the reality that his life is poured out all over the created universe – vanquishing chaos and death and nothingness. Creation is knitted back together.
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Some fresh approaches to the resurrection narratives.
The Icon Through Western Eyes by Russell Hart
United Methodist Church Minister who became absorbed in Eastern Christianity while exploring approaches to liturgical renewal in his own church.
Turned to iconography, particular the standardised set of icons depicting the gospel accounts of Christ that are always depicted without variation, as a renaissance or modern artist might. In fact, icons in the Christian tradition are never “painted,” they are written, because they are in fact prayer. The icon write spends days in fasting and prayer before beginning their work
Realism is avoided. They tend to be two dimensional, like a window through which we can view the Holy and the Holy can see us. To venerate an icon is to share this mutual window.
So what is the typical Eastern icon of Resurrection?
· No depiction of resurrected Jesus – beyond comprehension and inaccessible to the eye. Can only refer to “before” and “after.”
· Angelic figure dominates – centrality of numinous kairos event
· Women depict the common human agency in the event – incl Magdalene (from whom 7 demons had been cast, and “the other Mary.” Significance of the unknown and uncelebrated.
· The folded grave clothes retain the shape of the body that has passed through. Another hint at the corporality of the Resurrection that is beyond explanation
Contemplating such icons, allowing the Holy to see us through them brings us to that place of humility where we might re-examine the text with fresh minds and hearts to discover as John Dominic Crossan’s work suggests, the parable within.
For example, here are some suggestions offered by Kate Matthews, a retired United Church of Christ minister
Luke tells us that the disciples were frightened and confused and filled with questions. Maybe they weren’t burdened, as we are, by “post-Enlightenment” doubts, but they had to confront their own doubts and disbelief nevertheless. Their heads and their hearts both needed help.
Sharing our experience of the Resurrection
No one then and no one now really knows how to “explain” the Resurrection, so the disciples long ago–and we, in our own day–can only try to describe a personal experience of it. When we read the story of the two disciples whose eyes kept them from recognizing him on the road to Emmaus (even though their hearts were mysteriously burning as he spoke), followed by this picture of a growing little community of questioning, wondering believers, we’re reading about ourselves, too.
This week’s passage speaks of an offer of peace, a request for food, a blessing and a commissioning; in both stories, Charles Cousar writes, the disciples experienced Jesus’ presence as “mysterious but real. It eludes human perception, and yet is no human fabrication.” Both of these stories describe the very earliest Christians hearing and doing the very same things that 21st-century Christians do: journeying, questioning, fearing, but also feeding and being fed, listening for and receiving God’s call, and, of course, like any good church community, doing Bible study.
In need of transformation
Encountering the risen Jesus is a powerful experience, and yet, once he’s done the very human, earthy thing of eating the fish, he does the same thing he did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus: a Bible study. The familiar signs of breaking bread and eating fish … combine with the Word of God to help the disciples (and us) to make some sense of “all of this.”
Bernard Brandon Scott’s explains that what Jesus was doing in that Bible study, was not “proof-texting” to convince them he is the Messiah, but drawing their attention back to Moses and the prophets, who faithfully “proclaim God’s word” in the face of rejection and suffering and are still affirmed by God. “That,” Scott writes, “is the pattern of divine necessity.”
The combination of seeing Jesus, of being with him, and the sharing of the Word together, opened the disciples’ hearts and minds, the Gospel tell us. Whenever we shine the light of the gospel on our lives, our hearts and minds are similarly opened.
Opening hearts and minds
Kate Matthews asks: What did they open their hearts and minds to? There are several things we might discern here. First, why the emphasis on Jesus’ bodily presence (however “not the same” it may be) and not simply as a ghostly apparition? Stephen Cooper agrees with the many scholars who say that the resurrection of Jesus’ body affirms the goodness of the human body. For many reasons in the early years of the church and just as much today, people of faith tend to separate the body and the spirit, with the spirit more important than the body.
On the other hand, our culture hardly recognizes that the spirit exists and must be fed. And yet we know that we are saved in our whole being, body and soul, and that somehow that salvation gets worked out here, on earth, in our bodies just as much as our souls. As Cooper puts it, “To insist on the reality of the resurrected body is to demand that we accept our present reality as the place where transformations of ultimate significance take place.” This makes us embodied creatures, Cooper says, a people of hope.
And Cynthia Lano Lindner eloquently describes the resurrection as “God’s affirmation that creation matters, that love and justice matter, that humanity, in all its ambiguity and complexity, is still fearfully and wonderfully God-made.”
Making sense of it all, together
Trying to make sense of it all seems to be easier, or at least more fruitful, in a community that shares our experience, our questions, and, in the end, our call. And it is not insignificant that Jesus brings table fellowship right back into the narrative, because it’s still at the core of our story and at the center of who we are.
The experience of the early disciples who touched Jesus, put their hands in his wounds and heard his voice, fed his hunger and received his blessing, is the same experience of Christians today who feed the hungry, break bread together, hunger for God’s blessing, and respond to the call to turn our lives toward God once again. R. Alan Culpepper describes this experience of God by the community of faith as one of joy, “the natural by-product of blessing.”
Witnessing transformation
Kate Matthews offers us the haunting memory of a revelation in the world of entertainment. When we think about transformation, about eyes and hearts opened to understanding things that formerly we were closed to, we remember the powerful experience of watching the YouTube video of a Scottish woman, humble but hopeful, on a talent show several years ago. Susan Boyle stunned a disbelieving crowd that had already judged her undeserving of their affirmation because of worldly standards that determine how a “star” should look and speak. Three notes into her song, however, there was a mass transformation of the crowd, their hearts moved by her exceptional voice, completely unexpected from an unknown woman from a small village.
Our “categories” didn’t work anymore, the labels and the predictable reactions–judgments, really–that sometimes fuel audiences on such shows. On a penny, in the time it takes to say the word “but,” the crowd pivoted from cynicism and disbelief to wholehearted support, embracing this woman and her dreams. Millions around the world joined them, not able to explain what happens in their hearts and minds as they watch this unfold, over and over again.
How do we encounter one another?
The risen Jesus enters our lives and turns us around when we’re jaded and critical and judgmental and closed-off in heart and mind. On a dime, as quickly as you can say the word “but,” everything is different. It is enough to move one to tears, every time. The power of experiencing of the risen Jesus enabled the early Christians to endure persecution and trials, and it enables us to step out in faith, in every new occasion, in response to the Still speaking God who continues to save, send, and bless us today. We are an Easter people and our song is Alleluia.
Prayers of the People adapted from Laurence Freeman WCCM
May this community be a true spiritual home for the seeker, a friend for the lonely, a guide for the confused. May those who gather here be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to serve all who come, and to receive them as Christ Himself. In the silence of this room may all the suffering, violence, and confusion of the world encounter the Power that will console, renew and uplift the human spirit.
May this time together serve to be a power to open the hearts of men and women to the vision of God, and so to each other, in love and peace, justice and human dignity. May the beauty of the divine life, fill this community and the hearts of all who pray here, with joyful hope. May all who come here weighed down by the problems of humanity leave giving thanks for the wonder of human life. We make this prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Blessing
And may God change our anguish into a joyful dance;
May Christ Jesus lead us from betrayal to mission;
And may the Holy Spirit fill us
........with light and love and purpose.
We are an Easter People,
........and our song is Alleluia.
Amen