SERMONS

---

Sean Gilbert – Easter Sunday, 22/4/11
Christ Church

O Virgin Israel!
Again you shall take your tambourines
And go forth in the dance of merry-makers…..

"Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria
The Masters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit ….." Jeremiah 31:4-5

For a people exiled from their homeland, dislocated by distance and culture, and cut off from known life and loves, the words “Again you shall..” must have sounded sweet indeed, intoxicating even: Consolation in the midst of hopelessness; stirrings of renewed joy in the presence of much angst and despair.

“He is not here; for he has been raised,” as he said. “Come, see the place where he lay”.

Strange, seemingly irrational words that nonetheless penetrate the broken heart, that plant a goodly seed of irrational hope in a crest fallen breast.

In some respects, I think, we make too much of this day of resurrection, as if somehow, maybe religiously / psychologically, it’s distinct or separate from the other 364 days of the year. For it occurs to me that the promise of renewed life; through words, circumstance, gesture, remarkable happenings and consolations, are woven indelibly into the fabric of any given reality, irrespective of having a religious eye for it or not.

No doubt there is a needed focus here today – a celebration, if you will – but ultimately it highlights what is always in us and amongst us; this unquenchable energy, this ineffable explosion of love, this force of life that moves the sun and other stars, that blows seeds on the wind to fertile soil, that empower the sub-atomic world beyond our knowing and/or vision.

If I have learned anything from this type of faith, it is that magic or supernaturalism has no real place within it. Continually we are invited to open our eyes, ears and hearts to what is already miraculously present, not to crave after that which takes no effort or energy on our part, perhaps delivered on a silver platter.

"And I have felt ..." - writes William Wordsworth –
"A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of mind:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things".

Easter Resurrection Sunday, then, a day to perhaps more consciously enjoin our energies to the energies that infuse and grace all things around us – “rolls through all things”.

As such resurrection is a participation in something bigger and dare I say, something far more important than we ourselves are as individuals; the unifying forces of love and life that simply refuse to lay down in the face of fear, intimidation or evil. More positively, they stir up in us gifts of daring, creativity and compassion.

Usually – symbolically - something akin to the image we are featuring today, Seed Sun by Richard Solomon : An implosion/explosion of fertility/fecundity/generativity; whatever name or description we may give to it. The critical thing being that resurrection in the Christian scriptural sense always comes with a further invitation to life in its fullness, and most times that means a pushing and prodding, a stretching and a shaking at the core of our being. So no wonder some folk like to argue the facts about whether Jesus rose physically from the dead or not as the argument always serves as a good distraction from the key question of where do we/I need to change and grow in and through this love.

Resurrection is as much a choice as it is a given grace. This I now know to be very true, and is something deeply embedded in our Communion Service this day. For, to receive Jesus, (the) bread of life, to receive the fruit of the vine, is far more than a memorial to a distant life, now past. It is the essence and strength for a life of vocational/relational love, lived squarely in the now.

It is our participation in the mystery of God, which invariably takes us out well beyond the breakwaters of our fear; blown by the spirit of life, no less, into a world of need and desire for genuine expressions of healing warmth, love and concern.

To conclude and by way of invitation to the table, a sublime, short poem of Denise Levertov, aptly entitled,
O Taste and See :
The world is not with us enough
"O Taste and See"
the subway bible poster said
meaning the "Lord",
meaning if anything all that lives
to the imagination, tongue,
grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
break them, bite,
savour, chew, swallow,
transform into flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being hungry, and plucking the fruit .....

On this day of days, eat and be satisfied
Drink and be delighted.................