From a sermon read on Easter Sunday 2015
We tell the stories
Because they are our stories.
We tell the stories
To find ourselves,
To remind ourselves
Who we are
And whose we are.
We tell the stories
To remember where we came from
And to get where we are going.
We tell the stories
To be reminded
That there is a Love
That no hatred can extinguish,
A Light
That no darkness can put out.
We once were strangers
In the land of Egypt,
The stories tell us,
And we once welcomed the stranger as well.
We were once slaves in Egypt,
The stories remind us.
We lived in bondage
And our mighty God set us free.
Truth be told,
We were once slavemasters as well
And our mighty God
Took pity upon us,
Showed us mercy
And set us free.
We were once the enemy
Breathing fire and murderous threats
And curses on those who crossed us.
We also once reached out to the enemy
And transformed the enemy with love.
Once Jesus knelt down to wash our feet
And we recoiled
That he would do the demeaning work of a slave.
Once we knelt down
To lavish perfume on his feet
And his followers recoiled
That we would display
such excessive love for Jesus.
We were once the outcast,
The leper,
The prostitute,
The tax collector,
Paralyzed with little desire to be healed,
Filled with such demons
That no one could bear
To see our face or hear our voice,
No once could bear to touch us,
Not even a mother could love us.
We once were humiliated and ridiculed,
Belittled and belied,
We also once taunted and teased the outcast among us.
We once lived both in the dire straits of poverty
And in the poverty of riches.
We were once so afraid
That we hoarded what little we had
And turned a deaf ear
To the pleas of those who had less.
We were once the widow,
the orphan,
The ones with nothing to eat
And nowhere to lay our head.
We once turned our backs
On those who needed us,
And we watched as everyone we loved
Turn their backs on us.
We have been both the betrayed
And the betrayer.
We have been abandoned
And we have left someone else behind.
We have been hounded and hunted down
By those who wished to destroy us
And we have been merciless toward those
Who we feared might cause our destruction.
We have unjustly condemned
And we have been unjustly condemned.
The stories tell us
That we have been all of these people
And we have been in all of these places.
We are they
And we are there,
Some of us
Even now.
The stories tell us
That Jesus also once was there.
He went there before us
And even now
He walks through the valley
of the shadow of death
with us
and for us.
There is no place you have been,
No place you will go,
Where Jesus has not been there before you.
There is no place you have been,
No place you will go,
where Jesus will not walk there with you.
There is no hell or high water
That Jesus will not go through
With you
And for you.
When all hope is gone,
When we sit silent in the darkness,
When we surrender to the emptiness,
When we wish death would just come,
When all is lost,
When we have given it all we’ve got
And finally given up,
Then
And sometimes only then,
there comes a light in the darkness.
There comes a presence in our aloneness.
There comes a dollar when we most need it.
There comes a rain in the dead of drought.
There comes a star in the sky,
A word from a friend,
An opening of the heart.
There comes a story
That reminds us
That God is with us
And God is life!
And when God is with us
We can live!
We can live again!
With wounds, yes;
With scars,
With shame and history,
But we can live!
Despite ourselves
And despite all the pain and loss and struggle
that we have and will go through,
There is a Love that
No hatred can extinguish,
A Light that no darkness can put out.
That, my Beloveds,
Is the promise
Of the Resurrection.
It’s a promise
That can be trusted.
Amen.
