You Are Witnesses: A Homily for Easter III

Homily for Easter 3, Year B, 2009
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 24:36b-48

“You are witnesses of these things.”
-- Luke 24:48

He called them witnesses -- a group of frightened, doubting former followers. These are the ones he sent into the world to share the Good News of God. If we think that it is difficult for us to witness to our Christian faith in this world, in this age, then consider how difficult it would have been for them. The world and the powers to which they were called to witness were the same world and same powers that crucified their master; a difficult, if not dangerous audience indeed. More to the point, beyond the improbability of the audience to whom they were to witness was the improbability of the witnesses, themselves. They were a broken community possessed by fear, gripped by betrayal, and riddled with doubt. It was an improbable call, to an improbable people, to witness to an improbable audience. And yet, the call was made, it was answered, and a group of improbable witnesses told the story against all odds. The call goes out still.

It can be intimidating for Anglicans to think about witnessing because we may inadvertently compare ourselves (and find ourselves wanting) with those of our brothers and sisters of other Christian communities who witness with astonishing polemical certainty. We may wonder when we hear the preaching, evangelizing, and witnessing of certain Christian groups how we, in the face of such outward shows of devotion and zeal, how we, with our heritage of Victorian reservation, can even consider ourselves disciples of the Risen Lord, much less his witnesses. When we examine ourselves, we find ourselves (especially in contrast to so many others who bear the name Christian) to be improbable witnesses. Improbable though we are, we are witnesses indeed.

Do you not know that all you who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death? Death is not something embraced with certainty. Even those amongst us with the deepest, most certain faith will, in our silent, lonely moments find death a frightening mystery. Each of us will have our doubts and fears about our ultimate fate. Yet, when that moment comes, whether it be swift and unannounced or with much preparation, it is the ultimate moment of vulnerability and authenticity, when all else is eclipsed by the reality of who we are and have been in the eyes of God. In that moment of complete vulnerability it matters not how successful I have been nor how broken I am, for I am completely in the hands of God. And our brokenness is no obstacle to a loving, gracious God.

If, therefore, our brokenness is no obstacle to God in death, can it be an obstacle for him in life? Thus, our honesty and authenticity about our brokenness may indeed be a tool used by God as he calls us, his improbable witnesses, to the task of sharing the Good News. Jesus himself was an improbable saviour. We know of course, from the hosannas of a gathered crowd, hosannas that were followed by shouts of derision and denial, that the people of his day expected something else, another kind of messiah. Yet, the saviour given to this world was one that was broken and covered in wounds, who facing his death offered up his own doubts and fears, and ultimately bore his vulnerability before the eyes of the whole world. Yet, God transformed his brokenness, vindicated his fear, and defeated his doubt in a triumphant victory over the grave. Jesus is the man of ultimate authenticity. Even the resurrection body of Jesus still displays the wounds of his passion. His wounds are part of who he is. But the good news is that his wounds have been transformed gloriously for the healing of the nations.

Thus, we should never forget that our wounds are part of who we are. However, we are not our wounds. What is more, as God has transformed the wounds of Jesus for the healing of the nations, so too does the Risen Jesus transform our wounds that we might join him in his work of bringing healing and reconciliation to a broken world, that its wounds, too, might be healed. The wounds of Jesus are no longer crippling wounds but a glorious sign of his victory over all that would enslave us, even death. Each of us carries wounds that would cripple us were it not for the power of the Risen Christ.

There may be those who seem to be perfect, and yes, many of them may fly the Christian flag as a sign of their perfection. Perfect health, abundant wealth, ideal relationships, and a morally exemplary life will be the hallmarks of such a person. Perhaps, too, they share their faith with undying zeal. Yet, which of us finds comfort in the friendship of such a one? When we experience pain, or loss, or poverty, or the unexpected compromising of our own moral code, can we turn to such a one in comfort? Will their witness be of any assistance to us? It is likely that in the presence of such a one we will only feel inadequacy, alienation, an even condemnation. Is this the witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ? The truth is that a person such as these bears wounds, too, but they are afraid to share them.

Remember that Jesus commissioned a broken body to be his disciples. It was a broken body because those who were once twelve were now eleven because one of his own betrayed him. It was a broken body because Judas betrayed him and Peter denied him. It was a broken body because the women at the tomb ran away in fear. It was a broken body because the disciples believed the witness of these women to be “idle talk.” It was a broken body because even as he appeared to them, happy though they were, they still doubted. It was a body, a community, with gaping wounds. And yet he said to them, “You are my witnesses.” He did not go searching for others. He returned, with his own wounds openly and authentically displayed to the same ones who were so wounded, themselves, and called them his witnesses. But in offering them his transformed wounds, in opening the Scriptures to them they learned how God was transforming the world through his wounds, and yes, through theirs. In returning to them, a broken, wounded people, he transformed their wounds and entrusted them with his gospel.

Each new Christian who passes through the font, young or old, will bear many wounds through the course of their lives. Each of us will experience wound of doubt. Each of us will experience the wound of fear. Each of us will experience wounded bodies, and be they great wounds or small, each of us will know pain. We may be tempted to hide the wounds that make us human beings, but then we would also be hiding the truth of the Gospel, that even as each of us walks with pain, we walk also with a God who transforms our pain into healing, our fear into hope, and our doubt into faith. What makes us witnesses is not that we are perfect, without fear, without doubt, but that we, too, experience these things. The difference is that we do not experience these things alone, but in the company of the one whose body was also broken, who also bore the wounds of pain, and fear, and doubt. But the good tidings of great joy for all people is the truth to which we also witnesses that as his wounds are transformed for the healing of the nations, so too are ours. When we witness, or walk with someone who has journeyed through pain and has come through it transformed, our wounds are transformed as well. We recognize that their wounds, while they do not disappear, are not the story of their destruction, nor are ours the story of our destruction, but rather they are for the healing of the nations.

Our wounds are not left gaping but made to be a sign of hope that as we journey together in our brokenness we journey together in our healing. For our story does not end with one who hung wounded on a cross, but begins with one who stood before them with his wounds transformed. Our story does not end with a broken community of disciples dispersed, doubting and afraid, but begins with the wounds of that community healed in common purpose to witness to his healing wounds. Our story does not end with our wounds, but begins with a witness of authenticity in which our healing wounds are not a sign of shame but a beacon of hope, that even in our shared pain God can and will transform our wounds. Even we, with all our wounds, are his witnesses.

c. 2009 by the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Why Do You Standing Looking Toward Heaven? A Homily for Ascensiontide

Sermon for Easter 7, Year A
(Sunday in Ascentiontide)
Sunday, May 4th, 2008
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Acts 1:6-14

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
-Acts 1:11

Sometimes we feel that we have been left alone, abandoned, forgotten. As individuals and as a people we often feel abandoned. The death of a loved one, the moving away of a friend, or perhaps the coming of age of a child – each of these leaves a hole our hearts and perhaps, a deadening of our spirit. During this past month as we remembered the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., forty years ago, we are called to remember all manner of people and societal groups that have been forgotten or abused by the powers that be, and consider what it is like to be part of a people who are forgotten, left alone or abandoned by the powerful classes of the world. And whether it is abandonment as individuals or abandonment as a group of people; whether it is abandonment by those close to us or abandonment by the institutions and systems that are meant to help us, abandonment can leave us feeling stranded, helpless, immobilized. In the powerlessness of abandonment we meet the demons of hopelessness and loneliness. To be left alone without aid or succour is, perhaps, our deepest human fear. There are times in our lives when each of us have felt abandoned, left alone, forgotten and we have a taste of the pain that is felt by so many in this broken world on a daily basis.

On the Mount of Olives, as the Risen Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God to his disciples, he suddenly disappeared. St. Luke tells us that he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. Whatever we might think about the mechanics of the Ascension, whether or not he was taken up into the sky, or simply vanished from their sight, or walked away into the distance, the disciples experienced his departure as a shock. The picture painted by St. Luke is one in which they are staring up into the clouds, looking for one that they could see no longer. In their abandonment they were immobilized, frozen. It was like they could not move.

They had not expected their leader to be taken away again. After all, they had not first expected their king to be crucified, and yet, he was, to their shock and surprise. Yet, their sense of fear and abandonment at his death, their loneliness and despair gave way to rejoicing at his surprising and glorious resurrection. And so they ask the Risen Christ, having witnessed the power of God, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?” The disciples had expected a show of power and force from the earthly Jesus during his ministry. They had been disappointed, but surely this resurrected Jesus would topple the powers and oppressors, surely he would lead them triumphantly, surely this was the time appointed for victory. But he answers them with a cryptic response that it is not for them to know the times or seasons set by the Father. He goes on though to tell them that they have a special job to do, as his witnesses, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, suddenly, he is taken from them. Thus, we can imagine their shock. They expected a show of force. Their expectations were thwarted. They expected Jesus to lead. He disappeared. They expected to follow him. He told them that they would lead the way. Would not you or I be shocked and immobilized? For a second time, their expectations were left unmet. For a second time, he had left them.

But had he left them? For suddenly, two angels appear to them offering an explanation. Two messengers who seek to remind the disciples of their call. What they say, in essence, is this: “Why are you looking up to heaven? Why are you still standing around? You have other things to do! You asked about the kingdom … what are you waiting for? Now is the time. Will you waste your time waiting around until Jesus comes back? He will return just as suddenly as he left, and will you lot still be standing around here with your jaws on the floor?” Perhaps at this moment one of them, a certain man named Cleopas might have recalled another moment, perhaps days earlier in which their Lord, at a certain supper at Emmaus, had disappeared; a moment in which Cleopas and his companion realized that Jesus had not really left them but remained with them, in their fellowship, in the community, in the breaking of the bread, even though they saw him no longer. Perhaps, just perhaps, they caught a glimpse of the abiding presence of Jesus and the true meaning of their acclamation that “the Lord is risen, indeed!” At that moment, they realized that they were not left alone, even though he had vanished. At that moment they recalled what he taught them, what he gave them, what he called them to be. They picked up their jaws, they left their sense of abandonment behind, they turned from their places and headed back to town, not dispersed as at the crucifixion, but together as one family. They journeyed together, unemployed fishermen, dishonorable tax collectors, frustrated revolutionaries, folk of all sorts and conditions, and a widowed mother who had lost her son. They journeyed together. And he was with them. In an upper room they met, and prayed, and broke bread, not immobilized by abandonment and loneliness as a people without hope, but as a community and a family with a mission to the world – messengers of hope.

So we and many around us stand in our age, in our moments of loss and abandonment, in our fear and our hopelessness, in our immobility and frozenness, in a daze, gazing into the heavens, waiting for the kingdom of God, waiting for someone to make things right. But as the angels proclaimed to those disciples “people of Galilee, why are you staring into the heavens,” so those same disciples, who are to us angels of the gospel (for what is an angel but simply a messenger) proclaim to us through the pages of Holy Scripture across the ages, “People of your age, why are you gazing into the heavens? Why are you sorrowing as a people without hope? Why are you feeling lost and forsaken? The one who was crucified and was raised from the dead has not left you, but is glorified in your midst! He is with you to the ends of the age to the ends of the earth and is calling you to be his people and his messengers of the gospel!” Hearing these words, shall we forget the story of our faith? Even in our moments of isolation and abandonment, shall we forget the one that has journeyed with us through the crosses we have had to bear and has raised us up in from our moments of sadness and despair? Shall we forget the one who has carried us when we were weak? Shall we forget the one who forgets us not? Shall we forget the one who is with us always? We do not forget, because even in our brokenness we do not approach this story of the ascension as a paralyzed people but as a people who live in the power and light of the Risen Christ. We are a people who live in the power and breath of the Holy Spirit of God. We ourselves have become messengers, witnesses, like the angels and the apostles, who bear a message to a broken and hurting world. We come here like the apostles to discern our call, to wait on the call of the Spirit of God, to meet Christ in the breaking of the bread, and to return to the world proclaiming “He is risen, indeed!” To a world that only knows abandonment we proclaim he will not abandon or forsake the world or a single one of his children. In our experience of being beloved of God, in our knowledge that he will not forsake us, he gives us a mission: He sends us forth as messengers to proclaim to a hurting world that he is with us always, that we are not alone, that the kingdom of God is at hand.

Text copyright 2008, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves. This homily may not be reproduced or redistributed, either in whole or part, by any means, without the express, written permission of the author.