Resurrection

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

On Easter Sunday, I shared an insight from Marcus Borg that has always been powerful to me. Once upon a time, Borg was away from home on Easter, and found himself at an evangelical church worship service. As a progressive theologian who doesn’t take the Bible literally, he squirmed a bit as the pastor interpreted the Easter texts. 

But then, the pastor asked something like: “Where are we seeing signs of resurrection?”

Marcus Borg said the pastor began to describe the *effects* of resurrection in our lives; the specific places we experience it in life. And he was struck by how much he agreed with everything the pastor said:

— In relationships that heal.

— In addicts who recover from addiction.

— In serving those less fortunate, and offering hope.

— In offering forgiveness to ourselves and others.

It struck Borg powerfully. Christians —while we may disagree about interpreting the Bible literally or not— tend to agree on the *effect* of resurrection around us.

I hope you are looking for signs of New Life around you. And I hope you are seeing them. Because if we look through our spiritual eye-glasses, we can see it around us, even in the midst of a year of death and sadness.

Here are some of the things I shared with folks about where *I* am seeing resurrection in our world right now:

— Vaccines: The hope that medical science is giving us, that our world might return to some kind of “normal.”

— Family Gatherings: People hugging their loved ones, gathering in small groups, for the first time in a year.

— Trees and flowers: Nature speaks the truth of resurrection to us every year.

— Live Music! : I walked to dinner one night last week, and was overcome with emotion, as I heard a woman and her guitar, wafting out over the bars and restaurants of Lower Greenville, for the first time in a year.

And finally, our gathering for “Worship on the Lawn.” That is also a deeply hopeful sign and symbol of new and returning life. To hear folks read the responsive readings, and pray the Lord’s Prayer…it’s been beautiful and hopeful.

As you feel a sense of your own confidence, I hope you’ll join us on the lawn on a Sunday soon, as we move through the “Eastertide” season of “New Life.”

Holy Week 2021

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

“Media vita in morte sumus”

This is an ancient expression from 9th Century Christian spirituality. It speaks of a great mystery in all of life; a great mystery we cannot “solve,” but only experience. 

The English translation is: “In the midst of life, we are in death.”

Today, we find these ancient words in our United Methodist “Service of Committal.”

Maybe you’ve heard them before, then? I might bet that if you have, you may have not fully noticed. Because they come, in that service, at a very emotionally wrought time.

With earth upturned —the black soil dug six feet deep, with families deep in the grief— I almost always start a graveside service with these ancient words:

“In the midst of life, we are in death.
from whom can we seek help?
Our help is in the name of the Lord
who made heaven and earth.”

Such is the emotion of that particular moment that it’s always struck me *any* human words —even words that speak great and timeless truth— feel hollow and not up to the task of helping those deep in personal grief.

So, let me remind you of them again now, as we move through “Holy Week 2021.”

Friends, we have lived these words, in horrific ways, over the past year. We are still living them. Even as the hope of vaccines brings us great joy, the continuing loss of family and friends grieve us.

“In the midst of life, we are in death…”

Jesus’ death on a cross at the hands of the Roman “Powers That Be” is horrific precisely because it was so unnecessary. He did not have to die. That was not the “plan.” But we human beings can be deeply cruel and callous. We cause death, time and time again, through what we do, and through what we leave undone.

In our day, we cannot help but be deeply troubled by this same kind of “unnecessary death.”

Troubling to *me* this week is the news that potentially 100s of thousands of human beings died needlessly of the pandemic. That is a chilling and horrific statistic.

Add to this, testimony this week in the George Floyd trial, which seems to chillingly detail just how unnecessary his death was too. 

The full story of Holy Week is the story of “dying and rising.” It’s a story of how God rejects our rejection of God, through the resurrection of Jesus; and how through this act, God reminds us that resurrection is baked in to the fabric of the universe itself.

There is a *big* “however” that we must say here….We must not use this truth to excuse our inaction. Too many of we humans do this. Too many of us seem to revel in the callous phrase “Just kill them all, and let God sort them out.”

What a hopeless, despairing point of view.

That is not what God wants or desires of us.

God’s hope for humanity is always for a realm of love, compassion, and justice….where all God’s children are included and honored. That means, how we treat others matters *deeply* because, as Jesus said, how we treat others is actually how we treat God.

So, friends, on this Maundy Thursday, let us not rush off to Easter too soon.

I invite you to sit with the horror of what we human beings have wrought, through the unnecessary death of Jesus, and through all the horrifically unnecessary deaths of this past year too.

Every day of your life, it has been true that “in the midst of life, we are in death.” It’s felt existentially true this year. So….where is our hope, then?

Our hope is in that baked-in truth about “the reality of reality.” That New Life might be born in the ashes of all the death we cause, and that we might answer the call to be those who are God’s “hands and feet" as we seek to embody it in our world.

As it says in the liturgy, there is only one place to place our hope:

“Our help is in the name of the Lord
who made heaven and earth.”

Holy Week

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Our traditional Lenten themes feel deeply resonant with all of life right now. We are about to enter Holy Week, and the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and resurrection. And the primary metaphors of that story —suffering, death, and resurrection— feel like they are all around us today…

Suffering: We still bodily feel the suffering of a year-long pandemic, the separation and sadness it has caused; and also the added burden of February’s Winter Storm.

Death: We grieve more than half a million Americans who have died in the pandemic. Some of those deaths have been to our own family and friends. And, like Jesus’ death, many of them feel senseless.

Resurrection: We are beginning to allow ourselves to feel a new sense of hope and optimism. The rise in vaccinations, and the fall in “case numbers,” the ability to hug our loved ones for the first time in a year, and the resumption of in-person worship…all these things feel like hope and new life.

As I said to you at the start of Lent, I cannot recall a Lenten season where all these themes felt so close to the surface of our lives.

As we (hopefully) move toward more “normalcy” in coming weeks, I continue to tell folks, “Let’s not stumble on the 5 yard line.”

Let’s not “get over our skis,” and allow our desire for optimism to cause a late-pandemic stumble. We’ll gather, yes. But we’ll gather safely, understanding that even those who are vaccinated can still silently spread the virus, unbeknownst to them or others. This is why we’ll continue to insist that we all wear masks at our outdoor worship.

Lent will end a mere 10 days from now.

But this process of grieving our sufferings, our deaths, and embracing new life…that will continue for many months into the future.

It will be our calling as “The Church,” to invite our community together, to move through these stages…

Suffering…death…resurrection…

They are distinct. But they are also a repeating pattern, baked-in to the fabric of the universe. Jesus’ story reminds us that God has taken this journey too, and invites us to have the courage to join him.

So, how about it? Are you ready to gather again?

Are you ready to grieve *and* hope?

Process our losses *and* plan for the future?

Give back to God things that are “dying,” that we cannot control; while also praising and giving thanks for new things that are “rising” anew?

That’s our calling, friends.

Join us, as the next step in our journey as God’s people begins.

Eric Folkerth