“The Richness of the Unknown” based on Isaiah 65:17-25…

I am so thankful it is
Easter Sunday.  I’m ready to celebrate the goodness of God, the power
of life, the unstoppable force of love in the world.  I’m thankful
for music that resonates in my SOUL, and functions as a ritual to let
my body know this is a time to let go, to be, to savor.

It has been a long, hard
trudge to get to Easter.  If I’m really honest, we’re still in a
long, hard trudge, but Easter feels like a great excuse to step away
from the trudge and just be joyous for a bit.

It does seem worth
discussion what sort of joy we’re talking about though.  By my count,
there are 10 Easter stories in the Gospels (Mark has 4, Luke 3, John
2, and Matthew for some reason only 1), 10 different stories trying
to make sense of …. something.  The simple fact that there are so
many stories suggests to me that what happened on Easter (and
throughout the 50 days after it), is hard to put into words and thus
a variety of metaphors was the best way people could explain it.  

The stories all point to
the idea that the death Jesus suffered on the cross didn’t have the
final word.  But they struggle to make sense of it.  They did not
understand.  In the two Easter stories we heard from John this
morning the phrase (did) “not know” came up three times.  There
was unknowing in Easter itself and it its early stories!  That
makes it OK for us when we come to Easter with some “unknowing”
of our own.

Somehow, Jesus’ disciples
and followers continued to experience his wisdom, his teaching,
and the power of his vitality even after he died.

And whatever it was that
constituted their experience, it was POWERFUL in their lives.  It
changed them.  The students became the teachers.  Those frightened
and hidden away came out of hiding and took risks for the sake of
sharing Jesus’s good news.  The women kept on keeping on.

The ways we explain
Easter today continue in the grand tradition of trying to make sense
of it all.  Our metaphors abound.  Some stick with the early metaphor
of “Easter is the day Jesus was raised from the dead.”  Others
will say, “Easter is about the unstoppable power of life,
especially life with God.”  Charles Wesley says, “Death in vain
forbids him rise,” and asks, “Where’s thy victory, boasting
grave?”  Marcus Borg gives us the language that Easter is God’s YES
to the world’s NO.

There are a lot of
wonderful and powerful meanings to be made from Easter, and I
encourage you to savor the ones that bring YOU to life.

In the midst of all I’ve
already offered, for me the greatest power of Easter is in its
“always present” quality.  One way or another, when Jesus died,
the goal of the Empire was to kill him, to stop his life and his
ministry.  It worked, as the story says, Mary was weeping
when she showed up that Easter morning.  The power of death worked
UNTIL his disciples experienced SOMETHING on Easter, and after that
they took up his ministry and in doing so claimed his life energy,
and kept it going.  Before Easter, Jesus was the Body of Christ, but
on Easter the disciples became the Body of Christ – and this is
what really matters to me – and the power of his life-energy, and
the importance of his ministry, and the sharing of his God-vision is
STILL the work of the Body of Christ.  In important and meaningful
ways, when I say, “Christ is alive,” I know that is true because
I’m looking at you, the church, doing Christ’s work.

In the Gospel of John,
the words are in Mary Magdalene’s mouth, “I have seen
the Lord.”  In the Body of Christ, I too have seen
God at work.

And I think that’s PLENTY
miraculous.

So, then, if this is our
work, we want to be as clear as possible about what it means to
continued the life, ministry, and God-vision of Jesus.  Because,
well, not everyone agrees about this.  #Shock.

This is where I think the
Isaiah passage is an incredible EASTER gift to us, even if it was
written for a people of a different time who used different metaphors
for God’s power over life and death.

The most striking thing
about the Isaiah passage for me, initially, was its humility.  Isaiah
65 seeks to answer the question, “What SHOULD life look like?”
and it starts like I think we’d expect.  It says life should be LONG
and ABUNDANT.  There SHOULD NOT BE young tragic deaths.  

Amen.

But then it takes what
initially seemed to me to be a sort of weak turn.  In this utopic
dream of a “new heaven and a new  earth” that God is creating
full of justice and wholeness and goodness, what are the defining
factors other than longevity?  “They shall build houses and inhabit
them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit” (65:21) and
also they will be aware of the presence of God.

I get it.  This would
sound miraculous to a people who have build houses but not lived in
them, planted vineyards and not gotten to eat the fruit, that it is
fitting for them that this ends with, “The wolf and the lamb shall
feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the
serpent–its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on
all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”

But all of that together
suggests that … universal vegetarianism and an end to all violence
seems CONSISTENT with … not having your labor stolen or your home
displaced.

Which suggests that not
having your home stolen or the fruit of your labor appropriated is a
REALLY BIG DEAL.  But, is it?  I mean, why stop with just having
people not displaced and able to glean the value of their work.  Why
not have everyone live at Disneyland, or apparition, or … I don’t
know, world peace.

But the longer I thought
about it, the more I realize this dream is EVERYTHING.  It actually
IS world peace – because world peace looks EXACTLY like people
being safe to build homes and live in them without being displaced,
and having the consistency to be able to labor and glean the fruits
of one’s labor without anyone else coming in with violence to take
it.

AND this is a dream of an
end to world hunger too – because people have access to enough land
and resources and the capacity to GLEAN THE FRUIT OF THEIR LABOR.

And the more I think
about people being able to glean the fruit of their labor, the more I
realize that covers A WHOLE LOT of injustices.  If people can glean
the fruit of their labor – then the rich aren’t getting wealthier
off of the labor of the poor.  So, it is like universal basic income
and a living minimum wage rolled into one.  It is also an end to
predatory lending.  This is a dream of equity and equality and
fairness and justice all at once – with the “simple” means of
stable safe housing and people being able to keep the fruits of their
labors.

When we hear of
atrocities in the world, most of them equate to violations of this
dream.  People are killed too young, or displaced from their homes
and communities, or the fruits of their labor is stolen from them.
Please note that the Bible and I agree that part of being a
community with fair labor practices is sharing so that those unable
to labor are still cared for.  There have always been those unable to
work, and a functional society finds ways to care for them as BELOVED
and VALUED members of that society.

It is a good life,
indeed, with stable safe housing and the capacity to glean the fruits
of our labor, and to have enough at the end of it to share with
others.  It
may sound simple, but it is AMAZING when it happens.  Far too few
people have lived this dream, and the dream is for EVERYONE.

The more I think about
this vision, the more I see its power, and the more I see how much it
isn’t one that is yet here.

How many people are dying
too young?  And how many of those deaths would be preventable?

How many members of our
city lack stable and safe housing?  How many New Yorkers?  How many
US citizens?  And then how many people are migrants and refugees in
the world right now?  

Then, how many people see
the just fruits of their labor??  In the interest of some brevity,
I’ll leave that as a thought question for you to ponder.

Isaiah 65 was a vision
for newly returned Exiles and the people who had been left behind
during the Exile.  It was a reminder of God’s wishes for a stable,
compassionate, equalitarian society.  It was a dream to aim for, a
reminder of how God wants the world ordered, a clarity on what
communal holy living looks like.

When we talk about the
beloved community, the kindom of God, the Jesus teaching of a
God-vision, I don’t believe Jesus was breaking with his own Jewish
tradition.  This vision of what God wanted for people is another
version of what Jesus taught.  This vision of what God wanted for
people is a way of talking about what it means to be the Body of
Christ building the kindom of God, or what it means to be an Easter
people.

Long, good, lives.
Stable safe housing.  People able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
People having enough to share.  

Such a simple vision.  

Such a world away from
our reality right now.

May God help us to build
that future.  Because as Easter people, we believe that love wins in
the end and God isn’t finished with us yet.  This vision is a vision
for us, and for everyone, and God is willing to work with us on it.  
Thanks be to God!  Amen