Easter (A) + New life, new relationship + 4.16.2017

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Acts 10:34-43; Ps. 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18)

There is a scene in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass in which Alice is running with the Queen, and never seems to get anywhere:

Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying “Faster! Faster” but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had no breath left to say so.

The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. “I wonder if all the things move along with us?” thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, “Faster! Don’t try to talk!”

Not that Alice had any idea of doing that. She felt as if she would never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of breath: and still the Queen cried “Faster! Faster!” and dragged her along. “Are we nearly there?” Alice managed to pant out at last.

“Nearly there!” the Queen repeated. “Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster!” And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling in Alice’s ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied. …

Alice looked around her in great surprise. “Why, I do believe we been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!”
“Of course it is,” said the Queen. “What would you have it?”

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else-if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”[1]

Sometimes in life, we must run twice as fast in order not to be running in place but to actually go somewhere.

One might relate this to our foreign relations this past week, and the bomb dropped on Afghanistan. Some might say that to use such a powerful weapon that, if reports are to be believed, did not kill any civilians but just rebel fighters, constituted running twice as fast as the Islamic State. But I wonder if, using that amount of brute force wasn’t simply another way of running just as fast as we have always run. Will reinforcing the idea that the US is an oppressive state really get us anywhere?

A completely different area where we might consider this concept is in our relationship with God. Have you ever had a prayer pattern or other way of relating to God that worked, until it didn’t? Perhaps it is because it was time to run twice as fast in terms of trying to connect to God. I can think of a time when I was a young adult when the books of Iyanla Vanzant really spoke to me and helped me move through a very challenging time. And then I moved on to other prayer practices, and a couple of years ago when I wanted to recommend Vanzant’s books to a parishioner, I looked them up again and I simply didn’t connect with them. This is not to say they might not help others in their spiritual journey, but they simply didn’t connect for me now. I had run on past those books as a way to relate to God and to figure out meaning and purpose in my life. We all need to keep engaging God in different ways or we will stagnate, and find ourselves completely disconnected with our purpose.

In the same way, our focus and relationships at church can change and shift over time. For example, when I first came to Oxnard, our focus as a church was on completing the transition tasks and now our focus has more to do with different ways to look outward and engage our local community and do God’s work here in Oxnard.

It’s all about relationships.

Because today’s gospel is in part about being recognized in relationship – just like the Samaritan woman we encountered during Lent, Jesus connects with Mary and helps her to see his true identity by building on relationship – but now he is not speaking about her personal relationships with other men, but a personal relationship with him.

Jesus says “Mary,” and Mary sees who he is. Her beloved Rabbi. She cannot believe it. Here is the beloved Jesus. In a resurrected body.

Mary is so overjoyed- can you imagine – she went to the tomb to grieve, and here her hope is renewed. But as soon as she reaches out to Jesus, she is reminded also that she cannot hold on to him. He has things to do – they cannot be in relationship in the same way they had been in before. Jesus has changed and so has Mary, and along with that, so has their relationship, just as each of our relationships with Jesus has to change and adjust over time.

Through Lent, we walked alongside Jesus; and Jesus alongside us. Jesus shared in our suffering and in our temptations. We saw a savior who loved us enough to feel what we feel.

In Jesus’ Passion and Death, this relationship shifts as we observe and lament almost from afar, sometimes kneeling at the foot of our friends and in the garden and at the cross, and we feel thankful for all Jesus has done for us.

And then today the resurrection brings us face to face with a completely new way of seeing Jesus. How do we relate to a body and a Christ who is like us and yet wholly unlike us, who lives into what we will be and are not yet?

How do we move forward into new relationship, a relationship which will continue to grow and change as Christ ascends and sends the Spirit, the Advocate.

So today’s challenge is not only to believe the impossible- that Jesus was raised from the dead, that flesh and blood can be renewed to our sphere, but also to look for ways in which your relationship with God needs to be resurrected.

Because if we are running in place, we are busy dying. But we Christians instead say with the psalmist: “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord (118:17).” Let us live anew with Jesus this year.

To what is God calling you anew? How has the body of your relationship changed and needs to be re-engaged? Because the resurrection is not just a historical fact, but is something we can live afresh every day.

This is important because it is only in discovering anew our relationship with Christ that we truly re-discover who we are in each new chapter of our lives. As it says in Colossians (3:4): “When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

Today, look to the resurrected Christ. So that you can hear Jesus calling your name and you can answer,

“Rabbouni, I am following you.”

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[1] Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Norton Critical Edition, (NY: WW Norton & Co, 1971), 126-127.