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Friday, 8 May 2020

not pass away


A videoed version of this sermon-reflection is available on YouTube.

SERMON PREACHED IN AN UPPER ROOM
TO A COMPUTER AND TO AN INTERNET
FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (May 10th) 2020


READINGS

Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
1 Pet 2:2-10
John 14: 1-14


There is a form of devotional writing known as “hagiography,” from the Greek adjective “holy” and verb “to write.” Not unique to the Christian tradition, but certainly a major strand of it, it has inspired countless Christians through centuries, and continues to be a strand of Christian writing. I recall at least one biography in which the subject benignly faces his death, calmly arranging for continuation of the spiritual affairs under his aegis. It was to meet the author’s needs that the book was written in this way, and no doubt the needs of most of the readership were indeed massaged. To face death quietly and calmly speaks volumes of the tenacity and holiness of the dying person. 
In theory. Sometimes the family will, in private, tell a different story.
There have been times I have disparaged this kind of writing. Perhaps those times have never ceased: I tend to the brutally realist in my taste. I have seen enough struggles with dying and death to know it is no culture of calmness – or at least not unless the wonderful tonics of palliative care medicines take over, and not always then. I have, as I will often note, seen peaceful deaths died by atheists, and struggled, angry deaths died by Christians. It is only natural to tell of brave struggles and peaceful ends – though this may sometimes be an oxymoron – to aid the grief of those left behind.
Because that is a real need I am less disparaging now, though like my erstwhile colleague and “peri-thanatos” theologian Alister Hendery (whose father, as it happens, buried mine) I feel it is critical that we acknowledge the brute finality of death, even as we in the Christian community, hold to a doctrine of resurrection. As I have said elsewhere, I intend to die, not pass away, cross over, or enter some other room. Again: despite Jesus’ use of the metaphor. Jesus’ own life and teachings make it clear he does not sidestep harsh realities of pain and separation, but absorbs them, then generates the resurrection hope that burst through them.
Ours is a faith with death (not passing or travelling to the other side) at its centre. Jesus is a good moral teacher, one of countless. From what we can tell his life was exemplary as he lived out a radical, somewhat revolutionary, somewhat reformatory Judaism. Ignoring the conspiracy theorists who, for anti-Semitic reasons, want to maintain that Jesus was not a Jew, Jesus was one of many reformers who emerged in unsettled first century Palestine. They sought to reform a faith that had become complacent and complicit. In the chapter before todays's Acts reading we find Gamaliel reminding the Sanhedrin that the Jesus movement would be ephemeral if it were without substance and divine blessing. Its longevity – which will survive the current reforms forced on us by Covid-19 just as it has overcome myriad trials before – its longevity suggests Gamaliel was onto something (as Luke well knew).
Jesus, while he focuses on issues of social justice, will address constantly that greatest injustice of all: death. Death, bereavement, grief. Death is at the heart of his teaching (e.g. John 10:11) and at the heart of his life (John 12:24-25).  Judgement, intimately entwined with death, is rarely far out of focus in his teaching, too. But judgment, to Jesus, is seen as encouragement rather than discouraging ramification of his life, death and resurrection. The judgement of God is good news, not tyrannical doom (John 5:22-24).
Baptism, central embodiment of Jesus’ teaching (Matt. 28:19) is an enactment. a prefigurement of death, and of something following death. So, in conversation with his inner sanctum of disciples, he addresses death and dying yet again. He offers no sidestep, but offers comfort in the face of death: comfort in the face of his own coming death and his listeners’ and our inevitable subsequent deaths. To find the fullness of that comfort these verses must be placed in the context of this whole discourse, delivered as he turns to face Jerusalem and all that implied for him. The prolonged teaching is inspired by the departure of Judas, off to initiate his betrayal of the Teacher. In that dark context (John 13:30) Jesus speaks of his own death and resurrection – that intangible, incomprehensible something that he will not separate from death. Jesus steps into the darkest places of betrayal, agony, shame, and only thereafter breaks out in light and life beyond comprehension. But break out he does.
In the context of all these dimensions Jesus speaks of being Way, Truth, Life, and invites us to follow. It is, the context demands, no cushy invitation, though so far for most of us it has been far easier than for many Christ-followers around the world today and in the past.
If the Cross stands at the heart of this way, how do we ensure adherence? Jesus will speak over and again of the coming Spirit that he calls “Paraclete.”  The hagiographies with which I began indicate that a life spent in adoration and service of Jesus should end in blessed Spirit-filled peace; Stephen’s execution reinforces that belief. Yet there are no guarantees. Great hymns speak of meditating upon Jesus, implying it seems that if we do enough of it our journey will be rosy, “who dies thus dies well.” Covid-19 is just one reminder that that is and was never a universal truth. There’s no doubt that many do find great peace in their own dying. Some will not, and that’s not the point.
The truth John is conveying as he tells the story is deeper than that. The truth he bears is that even in our fears and failures, doubts and desertions and betrayals of our faith, even there, resurrection light will shine like nuclear fission. Our task is, as Brother Lawrence put it, to practice the presence of resurrection love, light, hope, and not least to be recalling that there are judgement dimensions attached to it. 
My own naïve images of this scene revolve around some “oops - sorry moments,” reconciliation in the deepest and most eternal sense of this fiercely biblical theme. Then – time is such an intrusion in these images – we find ourselves before and within that overpowering light, where “the Lamb is the light of the city of God, as another John put it (and Kathleen Armstrong Thomerson captured with beautiful simplicity in her hymn[1]). The Way to which Jesus is not easy, despite being warm with his footprints, and despite the over-flowing presence of the Spirit-Advocate. But oh what enrichment that presence is as we stumble through life and death the Lamb-lit Unseen City.


[1] Kathleen Armstrong Thomerson (b. 1934), “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light.” See, e.g. https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-i-want-to-walk-as-a-child-of-the-light.

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