"Looking for Jesus"
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007
Text: John 20:1-18
Singer/song-writer Tom Atwood has a somewhat irreverent folk song entitled, "Keep Looking for Jesus." The second verse goes like this:
I mean no disrespect
Singing this song
I know I might be right
Then again I might be wrong
I'm just looking for Jesus
Don't you want to come along?
Well, why not, Tom? After all, it's Easter Sunday. It's a great day to go looking for Jesus!
Of course, Mary Magdalene has gotten a head start. She is up early on the first day of the week, "while it was still dark." Mary Magdalene is offered to us in John's gospel as our role model in faith. We will be wise to follow her. And that will not be hard because we know where she's going-to the cemetery. Wanna' find Jesus, you gotta' look where there is hurt and pain and grief. After all, the Church believes that "the work of God in Christ is not over." "We do not yet see the end of cruelty and suffering in the world, the church, or own own lives." (DF. X.1,2) That's why we're looking for Jesus. That's why we are willing to follow Sister Mary to the lonely cemetery.
Up ahead of us Mary stops. She stands outside of a tomb, a tomb with the door standing wide open! Then, in an instant, she's gone. Vanished. Out-of-sight. Bewildered, dumbfounded, we stand in the half-light and wait. Soon, she's back, now accompanied by Simon Peter and the other disciple. The two men look inside inside the tomb, and then without uttering a word, they're off again! But Mary stands firm. She's looking for Jesus and, despite her obvious grief, she's determined to find him. So we stick with her. Daring to step closer we hear her talking. John says she's talking with angels. I don't know about you, but I haven't talked to any angels lately. Fact of the matter is, the only ones I've ever seen were at at the annual Christmas pageant!
So, I have a hard time picturing Mary in conversation with angels. But this verbal exchange is brief. Soon, Mary turns to leave and bumps into a stranger. Mary takes one quick look at him and she assumes he's the gardener.
Now this, I can imagine. I see a lot of gardeners around town these days. I see them on the grounds of city parks, apartment complexes, and office buildings. I see them working on school campuses, in residential neighborhoods, and, yes, at the cemetery. In our time, landscaping has become a burgeoning industry. They call it the "green industry"- You see industry-specific trucks and trailers all over town, filled with high-powered equipment and high-energy workers.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was once a part of this industry. In my early adolescence I pushed a lawnmower from yard to yard in my neighborhood, trying to earn a few extra bucks. But today, when you see a gardener, it is not likely to be some skinny, pimply-faced teenager. Were you or I to bump into a gardener today here in Alabama, we'd would most likely find ourselves face-to-face with an Hispanic immigrant- a stranger in a stranger land!
So, there's Mary, our role model in faith, like us, looking for Jesus, and she's talking to a stranger. This we can picture: Mary in polite conversation with a stranger. perhaps because she remembers what Jesus has taught us, "I was a stranger, and you welcomed me." But we protest, ‘When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you?' And Jesus answers us: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these. . . , you did it to me.' (See Matthew 25: 30-40)
Looking for Jesus, looking for the Risen Jesus, who "touches all of human life with the presence of God"(DF IV.5), we would do well to look to the strangers. For the Bible teaches us, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it "( Hebrew 13.2).
The biblical mandate regarding the treatment of strangers is perfectly clear: "The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; (and) you shall love the alien as yourself . . ."(Leviticus 19:34). You can look it up-Leviticus 19-and elsewhere in the Bible, too.
Unfortunately, we in Alabama, in particular, have found this a difficult commandment to keep, and we're not getting any better at it. In the early part of the 20th Century, the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Catholic immigrants imported to work in the mines and heavy industry of our state. Many of you have heard the story of Father James Coyle, priest at St. Paul's Catholic Church, downtown. In 1921, he was murdered in broad daylight on the front porch of the rectory, right next door to the church. His assailant was an itinerant Methodist preacher and Klansman. He was defended by Klan lawyer Hugo Black, and acquitted by a Klan-dominated jury. To discredit prosecution witnesses, lawyer Black's first question to them was, "You're a Catholic, aren't you?"
Thank goodness the Klan is dead, a bad memory. But opposition to people who are different from us is alive and well. State government here in Alabama- already home to a notorious record in civil rights-is now determined to take the lead in driving out what we call "illegal aliens."
Gotta' be careful who you run out of town. Could be somebody like Jose Gutierrez. Orphaned at the age of eight, he grew up as a street child in Guatemala. He first entered the US-illegally-in l997. Jose dreamed of becoming an architect. Instead, he became a proud US Marine. Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez was the first U.S. serviceman to die in combat in Iraq four years ago (www.fallenheroesmemorial.com).
But Mr. Preacher, don't you know there are 30 to 50,000 unauthorized migrant workers in AL (Pew Hispanic Center)? Don't you know they're crowding our classrooms, jamming up the checkout lines at Wal-Mart, driving around without licenses and insurance, cramming too many people into small apartments, and refusing to speak our native tongue?
I hear you. These problems are real, no doubt about it. This is what happens when we, as a nation, refuse to welcome the stranger; when we throw up insurmountable barriers to legal immigration; and, when we make it virtually impossible for immigrants to comply with reasonable laws and regulations.
But it's Easter, Mr. Preacher, we didn't come to hear about all of this. Tell us about the Empty Tomb. Tell us about God's glorious triumph over death. Let the drums roll; let the trumpets blow!
Yes, let's go back to story, back to where Mary is "looking for Jesus." Back to the story where Mary is showing us where and how to look for Jesus. She's standing there in the cemetery, weeping. Peter and his buddy left her there, all alone, save for this stranger. I guess she could have brushed him aside, dismissed him. I suspect she could have even reported this stranger to the authorities.
Instead, Mary, our role model in faith, speaks to the stranger-not just a perfunctory, "Hi, how are you." She freely shares her anguish and her grief: "They have taken away my Lord . . . ." And then he calls her by name, Mary, and she recognizes him! "Teacher, my beloved teacher!," she exclaims.
Mary's reward for engaging the stranger, treating him like a real person, not some threat-to-life-as-she-knows-it . . . . Mary's reward for welcoming the stranger is an encounter with the Risen Lord. While the rest of the disciples . . . . While the rest of us are still looking, Mary is the first to proclaim for all the world to hear, and all the ages to know: "I have seen the Lord."
Dear friends, we can resolve this Easter Sunday to welcome the strangers in our community. The newcomers, the immigrants. We can commit ourselves to giving them a warm welcome, instead of a cold shoulder. What's more, we can commit to speak for them in the halls of government, where they have no voice. Speak, my friends, to the lowly gardener or maid or waiter or cook. Speak to their children and for their children, and we may find ourselves speaking to the Holy One of God. Then, it may well be our turn to go and tell the others that we have seen the Risen Lord in the "least of these, our sisters and brothers."
To the God of all grace,
who calls you to share
God's eternal glory in union with Christ,
be the power forever! Amen. 1 Peter 5:10,11