I want to start by telling you about a trip I took following my sophomore year of college. I voyaged with several other students and a mentor who was supervising and facilitating to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where we visited a place called The Simple Way. Planted in the heart of the inner city, the organization was founded by a tall and lanky looking man who loved to juggle, among other things. His name was Shane Claiborne, and he is the author of several books, most notably The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. It was at the Simple Way—surrounded by so many abandoned factories as a consequence to what we have cheaply termed Globalization—that I first heard the phrase “practicing resurrection.”
What does it mean to practice resurrection? Yes, the Christian faith is based on the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ. But more broadly speaking to practice resurrection is to look honestly and fully at death and to still live as if new life will come out of that death. Obviously to practice resurrection is not possible without relying on God. For Claiborne and his Simple Way, practicing resurrection had all sorts of ordinary and revolutionary implications for how they ought to live. It meant living long-term in a low-income neighborhood, trying to breathe some of their own life into it. It meant distributing pizzas to the homeless and picking up trash from the sidewalks that were likely to be littered all over the next day. It meant eating dinner together around a table with guests from the neighborhood every night. It meant rescuing perfectly good strawberries from the dumpsters of grocery stores. It meant growing plants on the roof out of an out-of-use toilet. And it meant crying out for justice on behalf of what Jesus called “the least of these” in the book of Matthew. One can see that the act of practicing resurrection is both ordinary and revolutionary at the same time, but perhaps we should not be surprised at yet one more paradox that comes out of the Gospel.
Claiborne borrowed the phrase “practicing resurrection” from a man named Wendell Berry. Berry is a hero of mine whose practicing resurrection looks much different—though still plenty ordinary and revolutionary—from Claiborne’s. Berry has written forty books in the last forty years, all handwritten and then transcribed onto a typewriter. He has refused taking on a computer because of its dependence upon oil, a resource he knows is running out. While writing on a typewriter, Berry also left a cushy and prestigious academic job in New York to return to his “home,” Kentucky, where he has farmed small enough to feed his family and perhaps some of his surrounding community. This approach despite the “get big or get out” mentality of the last fifty years of farming. Berry has also practiced resurrection by loving his wife well for more than fifty years in a world that has so deconstructed and devalued committed, monogamous marriage. Berry has practiced resurrection in dozens of other ways that I admire, not the least of which are really knowing and loving his land, and advocating for good stewardship of this world that God made. Yes, the ways Claiborne and Berry practice resurrection are so very different, and yet, so similar.
I come from a community in Anderson called The Mercy House. We are not very old; we have lived only seven years together as a church. We are still living into our vision there, but if there has been a theme so far it is the hope to resurrect a neighborhood that has experienced the death of crime, economic disparity, unemployment, fatherlessness, poor education, and so many other ills. Some of the ways in which our body has tried to practice resurrection are by initiating a men’s transitional house for guys who struggle with addiction or who are coming out of prison, hosting an after school program for mostly African American students, opening a boxing gym for a demographic haunted by obesity, and starting a bicycle collective to encourage cheaper and more environmentally responsible transport in our struggling city.
I’d be lying if I did not express that those efforts have not brought us much stress, frustration, and disappointment. A lifestyle of practicing resurrection will always include that struggle, and if you want more evidence of that, read though Paul’s New Testament letters, some of which were written from prison. Again and again, he warns us that we will suffer. He also says that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Indeed the forces of sin and death are so very real, as we are told in Romans. Surely to follow Jesus will also require some rejection as we embrace a lifestyle that runs counter to the cultural norm. Community activist and prolific author John Perkins has said that if you really want to see positive change in a neighborhood, put about ten or fifteen years of hard work into it, and then you may begin to live and experience more life in that community. We have known that struggle at the Mercy House in Anderson. But amidst those frustrations, we have also seen enough moments—glimpses of hope, reconciliation, and life regained—to keep us pressing forward. In a word: we have seen resurrection, albeit not in its fullness or completion. But nonetheless, where there was death before, we have found new life. You may think this is all well and good, but where, besides Paul’s letter, is this idea rooted in Scripture?
I would like to suggest that this idea and lifestyle of resurrection is everywhere, starting in the Garden of Eden where God made the earth, the animals, and people out of nothingness. Of course, the central resurrection was a literal one, that of Jesus defeating death in order to give us life. But it would be easy to overlook here one of my favorite Old Testament stories, which I think is quite relevant for us this morning. I will be reading out of the New Revised Standard Version. To provide some context, our best guess is that the reader and narrator of this passage is a priest in exile with the same name as the book itself and perhaps a few editors that followed after him.
I would love for the meaning of this and all biblical text to be self-evident, but I must admit that it is my understanding that “the people of Israel” is to be understood as literal in the sense that ancient Israelis and modern Jews are certainly included within God’s promise for resurrection, but also symbolic in that they are not the only ones included.
If we’re honest this story seems mythical, a fairy tale maybe. But a basic fundamental assumption from which to base your life? Sounds scary. What if we’re wrong? What if we’re crazy? What if we really should just take what we can get, follow in line with whatever the cultural finger-to-the wind is today?
Death brings a lot of things, but one of them is pain. With Kingdom living, we will have to face death in order to conquer it. With all the years that are represented in this room, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you too much about death. You have almost undoubtedly lost lives around you that were important, lives you even depended upon. You probably felt let down after those deaths. You probably felt unspeakable pain and loss. We are going to see in a moment, and perhaps it should not surprise us, that some of Jesus’ followers felt the same way after His death. When we are truly confronted by death, it can understandably become difficult to believe again in new life. It is painful, even, to believe in that new life, because we know to practice resurrection is to risk more death.
To practice resurrection is to live against the cultural stream, to clash with empirical Enlightenment thinking. Especially in light of this story in Ezekiel we may be tempted as self-righteous Modern and Postmodern people to think that the people back in Jesus’ day and before were simply too primitive to understand that people (and other forms of life) don’t rise from the dead, that death is final. But New Testament Scholar N.T. Wright makes it clear that this isn’t the case. People back in Jesus' day knew the idea of resurrection was counter to the laws of nature, which is why its possibility is so revolutionary. Make no mistake: practicing resurrection will be difficult to maintain, and it surely was back then, too. We pick up here after Jesus’ resurrection, but before all the disciples have seen it. Like so many of us probably would have been, Thomas is less than convinced that someone who has been dead could actually come to life again.
We must do better than Enlightenment methods. Better for Anderson and better for Frankton. Better for my family and yours. Better for war-torn refugees and better for the homeless. Better for this neighborhood. Because if we wait for quantifiable evidence of resurrection, we will probably miss most of the people we were supposed to love along the way.
But let’s not leave here without fully making the connections. What has it, what does it, and what will it look like to practice resurrection, here at East Side Christian Church in Frankfurt, Indiana? The last time I was here, you were without a pastor, in a season of desert and discernment. If my understanding is correct, a pastor has been hired and is on his way. That is fresh and exciting; surely there is some hope for stability with more consistent leadership so you don’t have to bring amateurs like myself over to speak.
But as you live into new leadership, do not close your eyes to the sin and death that is around you. What relationships have been broken? What patterns are unhealthy? What behaviors are harmful? What territories are yet to be explored? Where are hearts that are less than fully alive? What bones need breathed into?
Because it is in those places that you have chances to practice resurrection with boldness and hope. It is certainly my prayer for all of you that those places will be identified and resurrected through the life that God gives in this church.
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