Grace Cathedral

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“He breathed on them and said… Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20).

At the age of eighteen, when I first lived on my own at U.C. Berkeley, I had all my classes in the same vast lecture hall and the room across the corridor from it. I have vivid memories of sitting in sunshine on the benches by Strawberry Creek among the sycamore trees, outside Dwinelle Plaza, listening to a folk singer dressed all in white.[1]

His name was Julian. He had long flowing hair and was only a little older than me. He often sang a song by Neil Young called “Sugar Mountain.” “Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain / With the barkers and the colored balloons, / You can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain / Though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon, / You’re leaving there too soon.”^[2]

“It’s so noisy at the fair / But all your friends are there / And the candy floss you had / And your mother and your dad. // Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain…”

At those moments, with such exquisite intensity, I missed my mom, my dad and my brother, and all those county fair moments of my other life. Something inside me resisted growing up and yet I knew I had to. How many of you as parents experienced the birth of your own child as a kind of miracle? That is the kind of growing up I am talking about. Jesus promises that we can embrace change with equanimity, with a kind of deep, centered peace. Today I am asking, how do we mature in our understanding of resurrection. Let me share two pictures of resurrection that you might find helpful.[3]

1. Many people have been talking about the legacy of Pope Francis who died on Monday. I had very little to do with him, but his death did bring to mind a monk who taught me a great deal. Years ago Heidi and I were hurrying through Harvard Square at dusk in the freezing rain. From a distance of about twenty yards a figure called out, “Malcolm… Heidi.” We had no idea who it was and when we walked over it turned out to be Tom Shaw. He was an Episcopal monk, the former superior of the Society of St. John the Evangelist and the bishop of the second largest diocese in America.

At the time we did not know him well. We couldn’t help but ask. “How did you recognize us?” In his own self-effacing way Tom said, “Some bishops will be remembered as great biblical scholars, others as accomplished administrators, others as dynamic preachers, others as fundraisers, others as great theologians or leaders. I don’t know why, but I am simply the one who remembers people’s names.” Maybe for someone in his office that was the greatest gift of all.

As part of the process that ultimately elected him bishop they held meetings across the diocese.[4] During the question and answer period one earnest and intense young man asked Tom the same question he had posed to the other previous candidates. In a mildly confrontational way he said, “Sir, do you believe in the physical resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead?” Tom thought for a moment and then said, “Do you want the short answer or the long answer? The man said, “The short answer.” Tom replied, “Yes! Next question?”

Hands went up all around the room – everyone wanted to know the long answer. So Tom began by addressing this young man. “The long answer begins with some questions for you to answer. First by physical resurrection do you mean that Jesus could suddenly appear even when the doors were locked as in the story of Thomas?” The questioner, hemmed and hawed.

Tom Shaw went on, “My second question for you is this. Do you remember one of the earliest written accounts of the resurrection in Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 15:1-11)]? Paul says that Christ appeared first to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to more than five hundred others, then to James, then to all the apostles and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

So by physical resurrection do you mean that Paul too experience the physical resurrection of Christ on the road to Damascus as it is described in the Book of Acts (Acts 9, etc.)? A bright light from heaven knocked Paul down and blinded him. A loud voice spoke to him. Some of his fellow travelers heard the voice but no one else saw what he did. Was this physical resurrection? The young man had no response but seemed to be really thinking about this.

Tom said, “My last question refers to the time Jesus appeared unrecognized to the disciples as they walked along the road to Emmaus. When they arrived at their destination they invited him to share supper. When he took, broke and blessed the bread Luke writes, “Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight” (Lk. 24:30-1). So Jesus did not get up and walk out the door, he vanished. Is that an example of physical resurrection?” Again, the questioner did not have much to say.

Tom was a very gentle man and he went on, “My point is that the appearances of Christ were quite different. And what makes them seem true is that they sound like the truth.” You could have heard a pin drop in that room as everyone thought about what this meant for them. And that I think is the point, that Christ appears to each of us in a different ways according to our disposition, our circumstances, maybe even according to what we can handle or assimilate at the time.[5]

Henry David Thoreau writes, “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”[6] What is most real about reality is also what is most individual.

2. So for me, for millions of people over history, for two billion other Christians today there is something that seems real and compelling about these various accounts of the resurrection. In crucial ways they match my own experience of the resurrected Christ. They are subjective truths that refer to the greatest truth about the meaning of our life.[7]

Let me tell you more about my perspective on the resurrection. One of the biggest mistakes ordinary people make in interpreting the Bible is to try to make stories written by different authors at different times all fit into a single narrative. We do this often but particularly in Christmas Pageants when we put details from Matthew’s story of the Birth of Jesus (about an evil king, wisemen and an escape to Egypt) together with Luke’s (about ordinary shepherds rushing to a stable). These are totally different stories but we force them to fit together.

Earlier I quoted Paul who writes that Jesus first appeared to Peter (1 Cor. 15:5). In the Book of John Jesus clearly appears first to Mary Magdalene (Jn. 20:13). These stories contradict each other. So what unites these various stories of Jesus? Rowan Williams writes that Jesus coming back is not in itself good news.[8] The disciples who abandoned Jesus could very well have regarded him coming back for punishment and revenge. But instead every resurrection account, like the story of Jesus’ whole life, is about forgiveness and love.

When Jesus appears to his friends in the locked room in the Book of John, Jesus breathes his spirit on them. This is the spirit of knowing God intimately, as our father. It is his spirit which leads us to experience our life as a gift that we share through love and forgiveness. It is his spirit that gives us confidence that even death cannot separate us from our Creator’s love.

After hearing from his friends about their encounter with Jesus, the apostle Thomas was so upset. He announced that unless he touched Jesus’s wounds he would not believe. He thought that he had missed out on this spirit. But he didn’t and neither have we.[9]

At the age of eighteen sitting outside my classroom I understood that we all have to grow up, in our life and in our faith. But we do not decide what to believe on our own. God offers us help. Jesus cannot be prevented by any locked door from giving us a deep centered peace that passes all understanding. In the face of the inhumanity we see everywhere, Jesus breathes his spirit upon us. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe. All will be made alive in Christ. May the peace of the Lord be always with you.

Production:

Dwinelle Plaza or Sather Gate at UC Berkeley on a sunny day
Neil Young

Bishop Tom Shaw

Henry David Thoreau

[1] 2 Easter (4-15-12) B [S12], 2 Easter (4-12-15) B [V12], 2 Easter (4-19-20) A [2A17].

[2] “Now you say you’re leaving home / ‘Cause you want to be alone. / Ain’t it funny how you feel / When you’re finding out it’s real.” “Sugar Mountain,” Track 6, Side 2, Decade, Warner Bros., 28 October 1977, Neil Young. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/neilyoung/sugarmountain.html

[3] Many forms of Christianity emphasize a dramatic conversion experience above all else. In some churches you might even feel pressured to think that someone can’t be a Christian without a singular, defining mystical experience, without being “born again.” The idea that a particularly moment might change everything certainly has its place.

But our form of faith generally focuses more on slow, steady progress over long periods of time. Coming to church, singing hymns, praying, trying to change how we treat people around us every day, working for a more just society – these actions ultimately shape our inner landscape so that we begin to respond to the world in a new way. Faith is this process of growing up. Luke describes it as, “knowing the ways of life” (Acts 2). John calls it having life in Jesus’ name (Jn. 20). Paul writes that, “all will be made alive in Christ” (1Cor. 15:22).

[4] I’m borrowing this story from my friend Owen Thomas who died in 2015. He told it to me before and used it in a sermon he wrote for Easter 2012.

[5] When Heidi was in law school the professors taught about how differently every witness, juror, lawyer and judge experiences a crime, or any event for that matter. Each person sees the situation from a unique point of view according to their past experiences, their interests, and even their hope for the future. If all the witnesses gave an identical report, that in itself would raise suspicions that they were colluding to hide the truth.

[6] Henry David Thoreau, The Illustrated Walden (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), 10. Each year more and more people are involved at Grace Cathedral so there are more different perspectives on what is true there. Because I was here for ten years and because I go to so many meetings every week, I may be tempted to believe that my view is clearer than others, but it is certainly not the only perspective. Think about the conflicts that you experience in your family or at work.

[7] Some years ago Israeli archaeologists made an extraordinary discovery. They found an untouched burial cave of a family who survived the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Among the pottery and household objects, they found two amulets, little silver scrolls that had been unopened for 2600 years. With great gentleness they unrolled them and found the oldest parchment of any sacred scripture now in existence. On the scrolls was written, “May God bless you and keep you. May God cause His countenance to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May God turn his countenance to you and grant you peace.” David J. Wolpe, Why Faith Matters (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2008) 194.

[8] Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2002).

[9] When Thomas’ friends tell him that they have seen Jesus, bitter disappointment overwhelms him. Thomas says, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand,” unless I touch his very wounds “I will not believe” (Jn. 20). A week later when he is with them, Jesus comes and insists that Thomas touch his wounds. It probably is no accident that for Thomas it was Jesus’ wounds that made him recognizable. Jesus says, “Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas in probably the most ecstatic moment of his life exclaims, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus replies, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”