Year B
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Mark 16:1-8<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There’s a 2013 movie called Elysium\u2026 which takes place 130 years in the future\u2026 when humanity is sharply divided between two classes of people\u2026 those who live a hardscrabble existence in Earth’s ruined cities\u2026 where resources that were once abundant\u2026 are now in short supply\u2026 and the ultra-rich\u2026 who live on a luxurious wheel-shaped habitat in earth’s orbit\u2026 it’s more than thirty-seven miles in diameter\u2026 and a mile wide\u2026 and is capable of supporting half a million residents\u2026 and it has rivers\u2026 and forests\u2026 and secluded palatial homes\u2026 and one of the center-pieces of each home\u2026 are healing machines called Med-Bays\u2026 which can not only can cure all sorts of diseases and cancers… but which can even bestow immortality on Elysium’s citizens\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And knowing this\u2026 some people go to extremes trying to get there\u2026 but they must first get past Elysium’s extensive arsenals\u2026 which shoot at the shuttles\u2026 or forcibly deport their passengers if they happen to make it through\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But back on Earth\u2026 after being exposed to an accidental yet lethal dose of radiation in the factory where he works\u2026 a man named Max agrees to undertake a dangerous mission\u2026 first\u2026 to board one of those shuttles and get past Elysium’s defenses\u2026 and after adding Earth’s entire population as legal residents of Elysium\u2026 he would reboot the system-wide database\u2026 and then he could use one of these machines to heal himself\u2026 but Max finds himself pursued by a maniacal vigilante\u2026 and then he is cornered by Elysium’s security forces and ruling elite\u2026 and he is forced to make a choice\u2026 because even if he manages to reboot the database\u2026 healing himself is no longer an option\u2026 but he could choose to reboot it anyway\u2026 ultimately bringing salvation to humanity\u2026 and that is what he does\u2026 clearly\u2026 Max becomes a Christ figure\u2026 sacrificing himself to ensure perfect health and immortality for others\u2026 and in doing so\u2026 he has seriously upset the status quo<\/em>\u2026 the same kind of thing Jesus did when he overturned the money changers’ tables and drove everyone out\u2026 it did not destroy the Temple\u2026 but it was an attack on how it operated\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n And in adapting something that Fr. Richard Rohr wrote\u2026 we can say that much of human nature\u2026 wants either to play the victim\u2026 or to create victims of others\u2026 in fact\u2026 the second follows from the first\u2026 because once we start feeling sorry for ourselves\u2026 we begin to look for someone else to blame\u2026 accuse\u2026 or attack\u2026 ] doing so settles the dust more quickly\u2026 and takes away any immediate shame\u2026 guilt\u2026 or anxiety we might feel\u2026 in other words\u2026 it works\u2026 at least for a while\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And all we need to do is look around to realize that this pattern hasn\u2019t changed much throughout history\u2026 ] hating\u2026 fearing\u2026 or diminishing someone else\u2026 holds us together for some reason\u2026 scapegoating<\/em> is in our hard wiring\u2026 and the sequence\u2026 goes something like this\u2026 we compare\u2026 compete\u2026 and create conflict\u2026 we conspire\u2026 condemn\u2026 and then we crucify\u2026 ] and if we don\u2019t recognize some variation of this pattern within ourselves and nip it in the bud early on\u2026 it almost inevitably takes root\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s hard for us religious people to hear this\u2026 but the most persistent violence in human history has been violence that we’ve treated as sacred\u2026 but which was\u2026 in fact\u2026 not\u2026 ] we imagine that we are fearing or hating on behalf of something holy and noble\u2026 like God\u2026 religion\u2026 truth\u2026 morality\u2026 our children\u2026 or love of country\u2026 because it takes away all of our guilt\u2026 and we may even think of ourselves as taking the moral high ground\u2026 but it rarely occurs to most of us that we are becoming what we fear\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Jesus walked willingly into a human world defined by violence\u2026 and a dependence on scapegoats\u2026 he was murdered\u2026 because as humans\u2026 when the stakes are high\u2026 we determine who’s in and who’s out through violence and death\u2026 as did the leadership on Elysium\u2026 but Jesus broke the system\u2026 because what was supposed to happen\u2026 didn\u2019t\u2026 the scapegoat didn\u2019t stay dead\u2026 and the victors\u2026 in this case\u2026 didn\u2019t get to write the only version of the story\u2026 the scapegoat came back to life and told a different story\u2026 a truer story\u2026 a story about life and love\u2026 and through Jesus’ story\u2026 we discovered that our ideas about God had been wrong\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our Lenten bible study\u2026 we fed our theological imaginations by reading from different translations of the Gospels\u2026 and looked for truths which lay behind the words themselves\u2026 truths which remain true regardless of the context\u2026 and as I thought about it\u2026 this film raised an important question which must be asked\u2026 a question on which both our individual and our collective hopes hang\u2026 does art imitate life\u2026 or does life imitate art\u2026 ] or to put it another way\u2026 do we discover a timeless thread of truth about resurrection that’s woven into a modern story\u2026 or does a modern story about immortality simply claim to be true when it’s really not\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this case at least\u2026 I’m confident that the timeless truth of resurrection and eternal life are woven into the fabric of creation\u2026 are woven into our consciousness\u2026 and find countless expressions in the patterns of death and rebirth in the world about us\u2026 and are hinted at in stories such as this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And one of these stories\u2026 is today\u2019s passage from Isaiah\u2026 it’s one of my favorites\u2026 because it was written about 800 years before Jesus was born\u2026 and what it tells us\u2026 is that the end of death is not only a Christian idea\u2026 it affirms that God will\u2026 and has\u2026 swallowed up death forever\u2026 in fact\u2026 after Lazarus died\u2026 Mary and Martha both said to Jesus\u2026 If only you had been here, my brother would not have died\u2026 though I know that he will rise again\u2026 in the resurrection\u2026 on the last day<\/em>\u2026 these were Jewish women\u2026 who trusted these words from Isaiah\u2026 that in God’s time\u2026 God would draw all of us close in for healing and new life\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our baptisms\u2026 we were united with Christ in a death like his\u2026 so we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his\u2026 what we seem to want is to never die\u2026 but what God has prepared for us is eternal life\u2026 beyond space and time\u2026 and when we die to death we are united with God more fully\u2026 and more joyously than we can imagine\u2026 what we seem to want are the McMansions of Elysium\u2026 but Jesus has gone ahead to prepare a better place for us\u2026 and I don’t know how much\u2026 if at all\u2026 it will be anything like Elysium\u2026 but I’m confident that we’ll want for nothing\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n The three women in this morning’s Gospel question each other\u2026 Who will roll away the stone for us<\/em>\u2026 they’d seen it rolled into place\u2026 and knew that they weren’t capable of moving it\u2026 ] yet\u2026 in order to anoint Jesus\u2026 they needed help\u2026 ] but on a deeper level\u2026 using our theological imaginations\u2026 we might understand their question in this way\u2026 Who will teach us how to enter into the death and resurrection of Jesus\u2026 who will teach us how to be buried with Christ in order to rise with him<\/em>\u2026 it’s a question we’re still asking ourselves these days\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The women are instructed to go and tell the disciples\u2026 and Peter\u2026 that Jesus has gone ahead of them to Galilee\u2026 just where he said he would be\u2026 because Galilee is the place where it all began\u2026 the place of the original preaching\u2026 teaching\u2026 and healing\u2026 ] following Jesus is not over\u2026 it begins again\u2026 and not just for the disciples then\u2026 but for us now\u2026 but this time it’s with a greater understanding that Jesus’ death and burial was not a disruption of his messianic mission\u2026 it was one of its essential dynamics\u2026 new life is all around us\u2026 it turns out to be unavoidable\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Happy Easter !!!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year B Isaiah 25:6-9 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Mark 16:1-8 May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026 There’s a 2013 movie called Elysium\u2026 which takes place 130 years in the future\u2026 when humanity is sharply divided between two classes of people\u2026 those who live a hardscrabble existence in Earth’s ruined cities\u2026 where resources that were once abundant\u2026 are now in short supply\u2026 and the ultra-rich\u2026 who live on a luxurious wheel-shaped habitat in earth’s orbit\u2026 it’s more than thirty-seven miles in diameter\u2026 and a mile wide\u2026 and is capable of supporting half a million residents\u2026 and it has rivers\u2026 and forests\u2026 and secluded palatial homes\u2026 and one of the center-pieces of each home\u2026 are healing machines called Med-Bays\u2026 which can not only can cure all sorts of diseases and cancers… but which can even bestow immortality on Elysium’s citizens\u2026 And knowing this\u2026 some people go to extremes trying to get there\u2026 but they must first get past Elysium’s extensive arsenals\u2026 which shoot at the shuttles\u2026 or forcibly deport their passengers if they happen to make it through\u2026 But back on Earth\u2026 after being exposed to an accidental yet lethal dose of radiation in the factory where he works\u2026 a man named Max agrees to undertake a dangerous mission\u2026 first\u2026 to board one of those shuttles and get past Elysium’s defenses\u2026 and after adding Earth’s entire population as legal residents of Elysium\u2026 he would reboot the system-wide database\u2026 and then he could use one of these machines to heal himself\u2026 but Max finds himself pursued by a maniacal vigilante\u2026 and then he is cornered by Elysium’s security forces and ruling elite\u2026 and he is forced to make a choice\u2026 because even if he manages to reboot the database\u2026 healing himself is no longer an option\u2026 but he could choose to reboot it anyway\u2026 ultimately bringing salvation to humanity\u2026 and that is what he does\u2026 clearly\u2026 Max becomes a Christ figure\u2026 sacrificing himself to ensure perfect health and immortality for others\u2026 and in doing so\u2026 he has seriously upset the status quo\u2026 the same kind of thing Jesus did when he overturned the money changers’ tables and drove everyone out\u2026 it did not destroy the Temple\u2026 but it was an attack on how it operated\u2026 And in adapting something that Fr. Richard Rohr wrote\u2026 we can say that much of human nature\u2026 wants either to play the victim\u2026 or to create victims of others\u2026 in fact\u2026 the second follows from the first\u2026 because once we start feeling sorry for ourselves\u2026 we begin to look for someone else to blame\u2026 accuse\u2026 or attack\u2026 ] doing so settles the dust more quickly\u2026 and takes away any immediate shame\u2026 guilt\u2026 or anxiety we might feel\u2026 in other words\u2026 it works\u2026 at least for a while\u2026 And all we need to do is look around to realize that this pattern hasn\u2019t changed much throughout history\u2026 ] hating\u2026 fearing\u2026 or diminishing someone else\u2026 holds us together for some reason\u2026 scapegoating is in our hard wiring\u2026 and the sequence\u2026 goes something like this\u2026 we compare\u2026 compete\u2026 and create conflict\u2026 we conspire\u2026 condemn\u2026 and then we crucify\u2026 ] and if we don\u2019t recognize some variation of this pattern within ourselves and nip it in the bud early on\u2026 it almost inevitably takes root\u2026 And it\u2019s hard for us religious people to hear this\u2026 but the most persistent violence in human history has been violence that we’ve treated as sacred\u2026 but which was\u2026 in fact\u2026 not\u2026 ] we imagine that we are fearing or hating on behalf of something holy and noble\u2026 like God\u2026 religion\u2026 truth\u2026 morality\u2026 our children\u2026 or love of country\u2026 because it takes away all of our guilt\u2026 and we may even think of ourselves as taking the moral high ground\u2026 but it rarely occurs to most of us that we are becoming what we fear\u2026 But Jesus walked willingly into a human world defined by violence\u2026 and a dependence on scapegoats\u2026 he was murdered\u2026 because as humans\u2026 when the stakes are high\u2026 we determine who’s in and who’s out through violence and death\u2026 as did the leadership on Elysium\u2026 but Jesus broke the system\u2026 because what was supposed to happen\u2026 didn\u2019t\u2026 the scapegoat didn\u2019t stay dead\u2026 and the victors\u2026 in this case\u2026 didn\u2019t get to write the only version of the story\u2026 the scapegoat came back to life and told a different story\u2026 a truer story\u2026 a story about life and love\u2026 and through Jesus’ story\u2026 we discovered that our ideas about God had been wrong\u2026 In our Lenten bible study\u2026 we fed our theological imaginations by reading from different translations of the Gospels\u2026 and looked for truths which lay behind the words themselves\u2026 truths which remain true regardless of the context\u2026 and as I thought about it\u2026 this film raised an important question which must be asked\u2026 a question on which both our individual and our collective hopes hang\u2026 does art imitate life\u2026 or does life imitate art\u2026 ] or to put it another way\u2026 do we discover a timeless thread of truth about resurrection that’s woven into a modern story\u2026 or does a modern story about immortality simply claim to be true when it’s really not\u2026 In this case at least\u2026 I’m confident that the timeless truth of resurrection and eternal life are woven into the fabric of creation\u2026 are woven into our consciousness\u2026 and find countless expressions in the patterns of death and rebirth in the world about us\u2026 and are hinted at in stories such as this\u2026 And one of these stories\u2026 is today\u2019s passage from Isaiah\u2026 it’s one of my favorites\u2026 because it was written about 800 years before Jesus was born\u2026 and what it tells us\u2026 is that the end of death is not only a Christian idea\u2026 it affirms that God will\u2026 and has\u2026 swallowed up death forever\u2026 in fact\u2026 after Lazarus died\u2026 Mary and Martha both said to Jesus\u2026 If only you had been here, my brother would not have died\u2026 though I know that he 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