Mysteries, Yes

           

              Truly we live with mysteries too marvelous   
                          to be understood
               How grass can be nourishing in the
                          mouths of lambs.      
               How rivers and stones are forever
                          in allegiance with gravity                               
                          while we ourselves dream of rising.           
                How two hands touch and the bonds will                        
                          never be broken,            
                How people come, from delight or the                        
                          scars of damage,            
                          to the comfort of a poem      
                Let me keep my distance, always, from those                         
                          who think they have the answers.            
                Let me keep company always with those who say                       
                          “Look!” and laugh in astonishment                       
                          and bow their heads.

The poem above, entitled "Mysteries, Yes," is one of my favorites from the late Mary Oliver. It is published in a collection of hers called Evidence. 

Poetry has always been important to my life and in my approach to theology, but that has become even more true during the time of this pandemic. I think that preaching and teaching (and even blogging) need to emulate poetry by embracing questions more than answers, by focusing on adaptive challenges more than technical ones, by opening our eyes and ears to the "evidence" of God's presence in our lives and in our world. And by keeping company with those who are trying, at least, to live their "wild and precious lives" by seeking and serving God in the world as they look, laugh, and bow their heads. 

On Easter morning, we heard Mark's testimony that the women who came to the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body for burial found it empty. The angel told them to go and tell the disciples that he had been raised from the dead, but they “said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” 

In the Gospel reading from Luke that is appointed for the third Sunday of Easter, that fear is also present. The Risen Christ appears in their midst and they are "startled and terrified" because they think that they are seeing a ghost. Eventually, though, Jesus convinces them that he is not a ghost, and their fear yields to joy.

That does not mean that they don’t still have questions. “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…Jesus asks them for something to eat.” What is it about broiled fish and resurrection anyway? The theological point here is to insist that everybody knows that ghosts don’t eat, and therefore since Jesus eats the fish he is not a ghost. He is not a disembodied spirit, but a risen, resurrected body.

Yet even as fear gives way to joy, there remain lingering doubts and new questions. Believing in the resurrection (even when Jesus is right there with you and eating broiled fish) is still difficult. I think it’s helpful to notice that the New Testament is filled with questions and struggles around resurrection. We, therefore, should not try to make it easier or more dogmatic (or even prosaic) than the gospels themselves do. But we do well to notice that the insistence that Jesus eats some broiled fish here (and in John’s gospel) and the wounds in Jesus’ hands and feet that Thomas touched last weekend are there to counter the notion that the risen Christ is a disembodied spirit.

I don’t know what experience you have with ghosts, friendly or otherwise. But whether you believe in them or not or have had a direct encounter with a ghost or not, most of us can at least fathom this idea that there is something left of a person after their body dies. We say that there is more to us than our bodies and we call that “more” a soul, or our spirit; that part of us that we hope lives on after our hearts stop beating and our bodies stop working. That part of a person we love and sometimes glimpse when we gaze into their eyes. Perhaps some of us have even had some experience of feeling the presence of someone we loved after they die: a light or a sensation or warmth that makes us aware that in death, life is changed, not ended.

But here is the thing: all four gospels insist that resurrection is not about those kinds of spiritual experiences. In fact, they are adamant about this, as was the early church. In all of the post-Easter encounters the disciples have with Jesus, he has a body. He walks and talks and eats broiled fish. In the second century, Ignatius warned Christians to flee any who denied the reality of Christ’s resurrected Body in favor of a purely spiritual Christ. In the third century the Alexandrian theologian, Origen, quotes from the apocryphal teaching of Peter where the risen Christ says, “I am not an incorporeal spirit.” Ultimately the earliest creed of the Church would codify this claim of historic Christian faith in the Apostles’ Creed: “we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

I don’t know what to make of that other than to tell you this: Easter faith does lead me from fear to joy and it also leaves me with many unanswered questions. I don’t think resurrection can be explained in fifty days or even over fifty years. But it can be experienced, and from time to time I get a glimpse of it. It’s a mystery, not a doctrine to be dissected. But there is evidence to go on. 

Now I realize that saying "it's a mystery" can sometimes be a copout that clergy (and sometimes parents) can too easily resort to. Why is the sky blue or the grass green? It’s a mystery, shut up and eat your peas! But this is where we need the poets and in this case, Mary Oliver, who reminds us of the much deeper meaning of embracing mystery. Yes!

The temptation for preachers to try to explain the resurrection is high in a culture that wants proof, not evidence and that wants answers, not mysteries. All I can tell you is why this broiled fish matters to the faith we share as Christians. It matters because matter matters to us as Christians. We believe with Jews that in the work of creation God took some clay from the earth and breathed life into that earth-creature and called them good. Adam from adamah—human from humus. When we Christians celebrate Earth Day we should have no problem with a bumper sticker that shows the earth and says “Love your Mother.” The second chapter of Genesis makes that very same claim: that we are made of dust and to dust we shall return. But that dust is holy and good and we are stewards of those elements from whence we have come.

Yet our bodies—no matter how much we care for them and exercise them—will not last forever. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care for these clay temples that are homes for the Holy Spirit. But they do break down, something we realize more and more the older we get. We are mortal; not immortal. Jesus, the Church insists, really did live and really did die as one of us. The Incarnation isn’t a Halloween trick or disguise: the Word did truly become flesh. Jesus’ body sweated and bled and ultimately he did take his last breath. And then God raised him from the dead...

On the third Sunday of the fifty-day season of Easter we keep pondering this mystery, even in the midst of our disbelief and wondering and even perhaps in the midst of our continued feeling of terror. Easter isn’t a formula or a mathematical proof that rids us of the questions. Rather, it invites us into a community of companions (literally, those we break bread with) who notice with us the evidence that is all around us of new life and to ponder this great mystery.

The Church proclaims (and we try to believe, with God's help) that Jesus was raised on the third day; that his body was resurrected. Not just his spirit. And if Jesus’ body is raised, then our mortal bodies will be raised as well. When we gather to re-member Christ’s body, we bring our whole selves ("our souls and bodies") and offer them as living members of a living Body, to be agents of reconciliation and healing for the sake of the world. We leave worship not only with prayers for the homeless, but a desire to build actual homes for real people. And not just with prayers for the hungry, but with instructions to feed the hungry. We leave worship not just with prayers for peace in our hearts, but as people called to become instruments of that peace, on earth as in heaven, at our dinner tables and among the nations.

So I think that there is a lot going on as Jesus eats that broiled fish because it points us to a world in need and to the work that Easter compels us to participate in. Easter leads us from fear to joy. I suspect as long as we are alive we’ll have questions and doubts and we’ll wonder what it all means. But the work of Easter compels us to a set of practices that draw us more deeply into this broken and beautiful world with purpose and gratitude.