“Gambling on God”, A Sermon preached by The Rev. C. Denise Yarbrough on Easter Day, April 24, 2011 at Church of the Ascension, Rochester, New York
Alleluia, the Lord is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Do not be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus…he is going ahead of you to Galilee. …. Then Jesus said to them Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. (Matt. 28:5,10)
Life is for the gambler. The coward dies. (Anthony DeMello, Wellsprings)
The first quotation I read you is from the resurrection story according to Matthew and the second are two lines from a book of meditations by Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit priest who wrote extensively incorporating Eastern mysticism into Christian mystical practice. One meditation in that collection (entitled “Wellsprings”) contains those two simple lines and they were lines that transformed my life in profound ways when I first meditated with them well over fifteen years ago. DeMello isn’t, of course, referring to people with an addiction, shoving money into slot machines in casinos. The gambler of which he speaks is the risk-taker, the one who is willing to go out on a limb, to try new things, to go where others fear to tread. The coward is one who tries to be safe, to avoid risk, to shield herself from the vagaries of life’s fortunes. Resurrection is the theme of our Easter celebration and if we pay attention to Matthew’s account of the resurrection we see that fear and courage, death and life are prominent themes. Life is for the gambler. The coward dies.
Matthew’s account is pretty dramatic and certainly has its share of vivid images. In the passion story that we heard last week, at the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross we are told that “the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened and many of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.” Now that little detail about all these corpses marching out of their tombs and making appearances around Jerusalem is not much discussed when this story is told, but it certainly is a vivid image. Then we get all the theatrics surrounding the women’s arrival at the tomb early on Easter morning. A great earthquake, an angel descending from heaven who was dazzling white like lightning, the stone rolled back and Jesus nowhere to be found in the place of the dead.. Both the angel and Jesus say the same thing to these women – “do not be afraid” and “go and tell.” How on earth anyone could not be afraid in the face of all that drama is the question of the day, but Jesus and the angel are pretty consistent in their message.
On this day of resurrection, we too need to hear those words, “Do not be afraid.” We live in a fear filled world. A world in which terrorism is rampant, wars rage in various parts of the Middle East, violence mars the landscape of many neighborhoods in our own city. We do live in scary world. Everyone in this room comes to church today harboring some fears - fears about our own personal lives, our professional lives, fears about our faith and how we are living into it or not, fears about relationships, fears about our church, fears about the world. I suspect many of you at Ascension are harboring some fears about what the imminent transition to new leadership is going to mean for your life as a faith community. “Do not be afraid” are the words from Jesus on this most glorious day of resurrection. Fear and resurrection seem to be connected but most of us, I wager, have more familiarity with what fear feels like than what resurrection feels like.
Fear is a funny thing. It protects us from harm and yet it can also impede our growth and keep us from the ministries to which we are called. It keeps us from walking onto thin ice, or jumping off a bridge, or walking too close to the edge of a cliff, or driving too fast. But it also keeps us from trying new things, or going new places, or talking to someone we don’t know well, or starting a difficult but necessary conversation, leaving a dead-end job, or moving to a new place. Fear of the unknown can keep us confined and contained in a safe life in which our growth may be stunted. Fear of failure can make us small-minded and stale, and keep us from dreaming and thinking outside the box. Fear can keep us trapped in habits, rituals, ways of being and doing that are destructive or stultifying, even if they are comfortable.
Sometimes fear is a healthy reaction to a situation that is scary, even if it is happy much like the two Marys experienced when they arrived at the empty tomb. What bride and bridegroom have not felt fear as the strains of the processional music begin on their wedding day? Who has not felt fear walking into a new job, or a new neighborhood, or a new school? Who has not felt fear when leaving a child at college or on that first day of kindergarten? Who has not felt fear on the eve of surgery, even when the operation is “routine” and “safe”? In the face of these healthy fears and in the face of the unhealthy ones, remember Jesus’ words to the two Marys - “Do not be afraid.”
Life is for the gambler, the coward dies. Do not be afraid. The coward isn’t one who has fear, it is one who lets the fear win the day. Courage is the ability to go forward in spite of fear, not in the absence of it. Where there is courage, there is life, abundant and new resurrection life.
Do not be afraid. That is Jesus’ recipe for soul-making. Do not be afraid. Walk through your fears and all the way to your cross – because we all have one – and when you are trapped in your tomb know that God will lead you out of it, scars and all. Whatever it is you fear most, God’s love can conquer it just as God’s love raised Jesus from the dead. Resurrection life has something to do with facing down fear and moving ahead in spite of it. The women were terrified, but they ran and told the others what they had seen. They took a huge risk in a culture in which women were presumptively non credible as witnesses. They did what they were called to do even when some would say they had no business doing it.
And then, of course, there are those for whom it is God they truly fear! This God who changes lives, who molds souls - who sends people to the cross when they accept God’s call to become who God created them to be. This God of empty tombs and thunderbolts and angels in dazzling white is a no comfortable God and life with this God is unpredictable at best! Life with this God is fearless and bold and abundant. Everyone in this church today has taken a big risk just coming here this morning. You have opened yourself to the possibility that the holy mysteries celebrated here will capture your soul and draw you in. Given the story we tell today, some might think they’d be better off staying home than meeting that God face to face!
Jesus’ resurrection was God’s way of assuring us that there is truly nothing on earth or in heaven of which we must be afraid. Even bodily death cannot keep us from being in relationship with God, so what else can we fear? For Easter people, resurrection is what waits on the other side of fear. We do not have to be afraid to face even the worst that life can dish out, because we are witnesses, with the women at the empty tomb to the reality that is resurrection. Marcus Borg said it well – “You won’t find Jesus in the land of the dead.” We who are modern day disciples of Jesus are followers of the Risen Christ, the one who left the place of death and decay and went out to continue his ministry in new ways. He was not resuscitated, he was resurrected. The scars of his ordeal remained and his body was different – able to walk through walls and disappear like a ghost but able to eat fish with the disciples on the beach. Resurrection life isn’t about reviving old dead things, it is about making something new and wonderful out of the trials and sorrows of the old. It is about having the courage to embrace life, with all its challenges and changes.
As followers of the Risen Christ, we are Easter people, people of the resurrection. As resurrection people you will welcome a new priest in charge to your community in the next few weeks, embracing the changes that will come with that transition, gambling on her as she is gambling on you, moving into an exciting future that you will create together. We are gamblers all – we gamble on God, which is not much of a gamble when you think about it. We believe, in the words of the mystic Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” In the face of God’s resurrection madness, no fear can stunt our growth. So rejoice and sing and glory in the good news of Easter. Do not be afraid! Life is for the gambler. The coward dies.
Alleluia, the Lord is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!
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