Day: March 31, 2024

First Congregational Church UCC in Auburn, MA, March 31, 2024, Easter Sunday

Acts 10:34-43

³⁴ Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism ³⁵ but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. ³⁶ You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. ³⁷ You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached—³⁸ how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. 

³⁹ “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, ⁴⁰ but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. ⁴¹ He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴² He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³ All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Mark 16:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. ² Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb ³ and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” 

⁴ But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. ⁵ As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 

⁶ “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. ⁷ But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ” 

⁸ Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

There are two important things to remember today.  First, the resurrection scared everyone to death – this was so not what they’d expected.   And second, it freed Jesus’ followers to take up an even more frightening truth – the essential equality of all of humanity.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was a profoundly disturbing event.  Even then, with whatever science they knew, they knew that dead men do not rise from the grave.  And if that was true of ordinary people, it was even more true for those who’d been crucified.  Death by crucifixion was torture.  And it was a death that tainted everyone who knew and loved the person who was killed.  Only the worst of people were crucified, their families were ruined by it as well.  Painful, shameful, dreadful.  And the crucified stayed dead.

But not this time.  

The women who brought spices to the tomb, spices to anoint Jesus’ body, were rightfully terrified.  When they were able, they told their frightening story to the rest of the disciples, and they were terrified as well.  Scared, hiding behind locked doors, fleeing from Jerusalem.  That’s our disciples in the moments and days after the resurrection.

You know, we think of resurrection as something which happened all at once, and so it did – for Jesus – but for everyone else, it was something they had to grow into.  It took days, maybe weeks, and surely lots of conversations.  When we read all the stories – not just what’s in the Gospels, but also the beginning stories of Acts, we can see it growing in their hearts.  We can see the resurrection becoming a reality for them.  And we can see them changing, changing from frightened people hiding away, into people filled with purpose, with a story to tell.

And that’s where our first reading comes in.

Now, this reading doesn’t happen on the first Easter Day.  But we can be pretty sure that it happened in the early days of the emergence of Jesus’ followers as an organization, in the time when they were working out just what it meant to follow Christ. 

The reading starts abruptly, in the middle of a story that begins like this:  a Roman centurion, a man named Cornelius, has become a God-follower;  he had not formally converted to Judaism, but he lived the essentials, and was well-respected.  One day, he had a vision of an angel, who told him to invite Peter to come and talk with him.  Cornelius sent off his slaves and a soldier to find Peter and bring him to Caesarea, where Cornelius lived.

Remember, this is a time when Jews and non-Jews rarely had contact with one another.  They didn’t share meals, and Jews were strictly limited in what they could eat.  So it’s especially significant that on the day the slaves found Peter, he’d just had a dream where God told him to eat from a collection of ritually impure animals, reptiles and birds.  God was insistent, saying Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.

And it is with that on his mind that Peter goes with the others off to Caesarea… and in the meeting with Cornelius, he says:

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him.

Think about those two lines and what they mean for us:  God said “do not call anything impure that God has made clean”, and Peter preached, “God shows no partiality; anyone who fears him/honors him, and practices right living is acceptable.”

That is the foundation of the Good News of the Resurrection.  Not just that Jesus lives, but that Jesus’ living is the proof positive of the power of God to tear down the walls that divide us one from another.

This is the what for which Jesus has saved us.  
The words Peter spoke turned the world upside down.
No one expected to ever see Jesus again.  He was dead.  He was buried.
And so we think the really radical thing Jesus did was rise from the dead.
But it’s not.

Peter shares the most radical thing about this Resurrection, when he says in every people – that’s everyone, throughout the world, anyone who respects God, and practices righteousness is acceptable.

Before Peter talks, he listens to Cornelius’ experience, his life, his encounters with God.  That’s the first step to destroying those walls…. Listening to those we’ve always thought were outsiders.

In this story, Cornelius is the outsider.  In the world of Judea, he was the stranger, the invader, the occupier, the unwanted, the unaccepted.  Who would Peter be visiting today?  

Think of all the ways we can “not belong”.  Some might seem innocuous… you put sprinkles on your ice cream, instead of jimmies.  Not that important, maybe, but it’s a sure sign you don’t belong here.  A grown-up might not care about the brand of their shoes, but for a kid, having the right shoes, or right clothes can be all consuming.  In some parts of our country, if you go to church you’re not going to belong, while in other parts you won’t belong unless you go to church (and there’s probably a right church, too).  And let’s not touch not belonging because you’re an immigrant, or the wrong race, or gay or lesbian or… well, we really do all know the many ways we cannot belong.

It doesn’t matter which wrong thing you are.  It doesn’t matter which wrong thing is standing outside the family.  What matters is that God has torn down all the dividing walls of hostility.  God says that everyone is welcome.  God has saved us to be the people who do the inviting in, who make this our community one loving space.

There’s a world outside our doors that wants us to live as if some of us are better than others, as if some of us deserve more…. And that some of us don’t even deserve food to eat and a safe place to live.  There’s a world out there that’s built on hatred.  But we live in a world built on love.

We know that other world is wrong.  We know that it’s not right clothes, not lots of money that makes us acceptable.  It is God’s unending love.   We know it’s not power that makes us loved by God, that God loves us at our worst.

And we know that living into that kind of extravagant welcome frightens us just as much as those first visitors to the tomb were scared on Easter Morning.  They didn’t know, didn’t understand, and almost certainly didn’t easily believe what had happened.  But they persisted, as we have persisted over the decades, and like them, we have come to reach out in love, to welcome the stranger, the person who doesn’t dress like us, act like us…… 

God’s love is born in us today as we celebrate the resurrection of God’s Son.  Go forth, and share that love with all the world.

Amen.