{"id":547,"date":"2013-03-31T13:52:42","date_gmt":"2013-03-31T17:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/?p=547"},"modified":"2014-12-25T14:11:46","modified_gmt":"2014-12-25T19:11:46","slug":"the-turning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"The Turning"},"content":{"rendered":"<body><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-547-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/The.Turning.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/The.Turning.mp3\">http:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/The.Turning.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/The.Turning.pdf\">The.Turning<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Texts on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013<br>\nIsaiah 65:17-25; Luke 24: 1-12<\/p>\n<p>If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?\u00a0 How we loved that question when we were young!\u00a0 Like countless difficulties, it\u2019s only puzzling if one assumes that the meaning of the terms of the question is clear.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not.\u00a0 Define \u201csound\u201d\u2014and the puzzle dissolves, for sound will be understood either as a fact of physics or as an experience.\u00a0 Choose your definition and your answer will flow like water from the faucet.<\/p>\n<p>If God\u2019s son were raised from the dead, and no one saw it, would the resurrection matter?\u00a0\u00a0 Would there be salvation?\u00a0 Say what you mean by \u201cwould it matter?\u201d\u2014say what you mean by \u201csalvation\u201d\u2014and you will have your answer, for like that sound in the forest, salvation will be understood either as forensic fact or as an experience.\u00a0 Now, Christianity has almost always had teachers working one side of that street or the other, but if we begin with the gospel stories, we are not going to be sent to the facts.\u00a0 Stories are about experiences.\u00a0 Perhaps someone has come out today hoping the preacher will say <em>See, it\u2019s a fact!<\/em> and somehow that\u2019s to be a help.\u00a0 But Resurrection is not an argument about facts.\u00a0 It is an invitation from the Lord of Light.<\/p>\n<p>The gospel stories line up on the side of seeing salvation as an experience.\u00a0 In order to matter, the Resurrection must make a difference to living women and men, then and now. As the apostle put it, \u201cThe saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.\u201d\u00a0 If no one experienced Jesus\u2019 resurrection, then it would not have mattered at all.\u00a0 It would have been a swing and a miss!\u00a0 But God doesn\u2019t miss.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, people had to see it, to connect.\u00a0 And two thousand years doesn\u2019t change that: people still have to see it.\u00a0 Yet Resurrection isn\u2019t there for the naked eye.\u00a0 An empty tomb?\u00a0 What does emptiness prove?\u00a0 Emptiness is literally nothing;\u00a0 the empty tomb proves nothing.\u00a0 It merely perplexes the women.\u00a0 Then men in dazzling apparel appear.\u00a0 The women are terrified at first.\u00a0 Then their visitors challenge them.\u00a0 \u201cWhy do you look for the living among the dead?\u201d\u00a0 You see?\u00a0 The story starts right out with a concern for where these first disciples are looking, how they\u2019re seeing.\u00a0 They\u2019re looking for Love in all the wrong places, say the angels.\u00a0 He is not here, he is risen.\u00a0 Neither is he \u201chere\u201d\u00a0 for viewing in the church on Easter Day.\u00a0 Nowhere does the Savior lie in state to be gazed upon or grasped.\u00a0 He is not here, he is risen!<\/p>\n<p>Christian teaching veers off the road when it implies that\u00a0 the Resurrection is a fact that could or can be seen without faith.\u00a0 Why, if just any eyes could have seen Resurrection from the right place at the right time, then the identity of the one raised wouldn\u2019t have mattered. Jesus\u2019 person would not matter.\u00a0 The Crucifixion would not matter.\u00a0 If faith had nothing to do with the experience of resurrection, then resurrection would be a show equally stupendous had it happened to, say, Mrs. Mary McGillicuddy in her mausoleum, and we had the tape and could show all eyes that now the dead walk.<\/p>\n<p>But you see! The Resurrection of Jesus is not a show of power. It is not about\u00a0 overcoming your disbelief in a dubious miracle, the identity of whose subject is irrelevant.\u00a0 Resurrection is about Jesus and his Love.\u00a0 That means that apart from Jesus\u2019 Crucifixion, you cannot see Resurrection.\u00a0 And that apart from the Resurrection, you cannot see what Crucifixion means.\u00a0 Crucifixion\/Resurrection is a single event.\u00a0 It is not an argument.\u00a0 It is an invitation to trust God, acting decisively for you, and for all, through Jesus.\u00a0 It\u2019s about Love.\u00a0 It\u2019s an invitation to go looking for Love in the right places.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, the experience of Resurrection has no interest in the tale of the tape.\u00a0 In fact, as long as the camera is rolling, there will be no Resurrection for the viewers, for by definition, viewers are hanging back, trying to know what is so before they commit themselves, or permit themselves to be drawn in.\u00a0 Viewers are worried that someone will take advantage of them\u2014and God knows, the Church is guilty of having taken advantage of countless souls. Still, would-be viewers of the tape feel they have to have control of the remote.\u00a0 But Resurrection is waiting for those ready to let go of the control.\u00a0 The fact is, Resurrection doesn\u2019t record.\u00a0 It only comes on live.<\/p>\n<p>Now, all the gospels say that those who came to the tomb on Easter morning were women.\u00a0 We could treat that element of the story as a mere fact, a reporter\u2019s note, but among the gospel writers, Luke does not fly right by this at all.\u00a0 He pauses to say that when the women came to the men with the good news dawning in their hearts, the men think it all an idle tale and they do not believe them.\u00a0 In other words, Luke is saying, the salvation of humankind is at risk.\u00a0 Unless something happens here, the tree is going to fall in the forest and no one will hear.\u00a0 I don\u2019t for an instant mean that the women who are starting to see Resurrection are \u201cno one\u201d; exactly the opposite.\u00a0 Like the stories of Mary the Mother, these say that women bear God\u2019s truth first.\u00a0 But let\u2019s take in what Luke is saying.\u00a0 If only women see Resurrection and men don\u2019t learn from them and join them, because men know better than women, then God\u2019s salvation will go off half-cocked. Salvation is about to be a dud because the dudes don\u2019t trust the way the women know things.\u00a0 But the Christian hope only makes sense for humanity all together.\u00a0 \u201cGod created humanity in God\u2019s image; male and female God created them.\u201d\u00a0 (Gen. 1:27)\u00a0 Is salvation going to sink because people who are so sure they know what\u2019s so say Resurrection is an idle tale?<br>\nOf course this Resurrection story is not just a feminist manifesto\u2014but almost!\u00a0 The reason it\u2019s not is that we know plenty of women who think they know exactly what\u2019s up and how things work and who\u2019s on base and who\u2019s off base.\u00a0 Acting like a castle of knowledge perfectly defended against all comers is a human error, not just a man\u2019s.\u00a0 But such self-assertion is part of the shadows of the masculine principle.\u00a0 The masculine principle is drawn to power, and knowing stuff is the path to that power.\u00a0 But left to itself, all knowledge and all power, be it great or small, will just die with us and the rest of our toys.\u00a0 It cannot save us.\u00a0 Someone has to break from this disastrous pattern of self-assertion.\u00a0 Someone has to turn and listen to the anima, to the soul, to the feminine within.\u00a0 In this story, some man has to let the word be made one, male and female, created in the image of God.<\/p>\n<p>Luke\u2019s story says that it is Peter who turns and listens to the women and gets up and runs to the tomb.\u00a0 Peter!\u00a0 Of course.\u00a0 The one who always knew what was so.\u00a0 He knew he was too great a sinner to be called from his boats into Jesus\u2019 company.\u00a0 He knew that Jesus\u00a0 was the Christ,\u00a0 the Son of the living God\u2014but, in the same instant, he knew that Jesus was wrong about having to suffer and die.\u00a0 No, I\u2019ve got great plans for us, Jesus.\u00a0 Hang with me! For that error, Jesus severely rebuked Peter:\u00a0 Get behind me, Satan!\u00a0 At the last supper, Peter was certain that he had the moral stuff to stand with Jesus through trial and tribulation.\u00a0 He knew, he always knew!\u00a0 He was a man.\u00a0 Whether you\u2019re a man or a woman, don\u2019t you know someone like that?\u00a0 (Watch out for that beam in your eye\u2014it might not be made of sun.)<\/p>\n<p>According to Luke, the last time we saw Peter was Friday morning, early.\u00a0 \u201cMan, I do not know what you\u2019re talking about!\u201d he was saying to someone accusing him of being in Jesus\u2019 gang.\u00a0 \u201cAt that moment, the cock crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, \u2018Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.\u2019\u00a0 And Peter went out and wept bitterly.\u201d\u00a0 That was the last we saw of Peter, before he now turns and listens to the women and runs to the tomb and comes to amazement for all that has happened.<\/p>\n<p>Feel what this can mean.\u00a0 Peter\u2019s bitter weeping is the anima bursting forth in one who always knew what was so, but now sees that he has never known himself aright, but sees now that he has been known fully.\u00a0 Now he begins to let go of the controls, for love is letting go.\u00a0 This is how the future comes.\u00a0 On Maundy Thursday evening, when Jesus had warned Peter that he was not strong, as he thought, but would deny his master three times in the night\u2014on that evening, Jesus also said to Peter, \u201cWhen you turn again, strengthen your brothers.\u201d\u00a0 Well, this is that!\u00a0 This is the turning.\u00a0 Indeed, it\u00a0 is the brothers, you see, who need strengthening to learn the turn when fear and self-protection pass into mercy.\u00a0 When, \u201cBehold! A woman protects a man\u201d\u2014in the words of Jeremiah 31:22.\u00a0 When animus gives way to anima. When\u00a0 knowing falls away into a cloud of unknowing.\u00a0 When facts give way to faith.\u00a0 When the remote control is dropped all the arguments for holding back, and you receive the invitation to the feast, and you go, and Christ enters your tomb and you rise, forgiven, free\u2014knowing nothing, just as the apostle Paul put it.\u00a0 Knowing nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified.<\/p>\n<p>The mystery of the Resurrection is not alone that Christ lives, but that we see it, and not once, as if on an old tape, but morning by morning, new mercies I see.\u00a0 The miracle of the Resurrection is that our eyes are open to a future not condemned to be like our past; that we are able to see, by an amazing grace.\u00a0\u00a0 Indeed, there is no salvation except it is seen.\u00a0 The miracle is that so many have been made ready in the power of God to see what they could not see.\u00a0 This is Resurrection.\u00a0 The poet Goethe put it this way:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Were the eye not of the sun<br>\nHow could we behold the light?<br>\nIf God\u2019s eye and ours were not as one,<br>\nHow could God\u2019s work enchant our sight?<br>\n<em>\u00a0Theory of Color<\/em> (1818)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hear it too from some able theologians of our time: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can know that isn\u2019t known, nothing you can see that isn\u2019t shown, nowhere you can be that isn\u2019t where you\u2019re meant to be.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy.\u00a0 All you need is love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s stop looking for Love in the wrong places.\u00a0 He isn\u2019t here.\u00a0 He is risen.<\/p>\n<p>Rev. Stephen H. Phelps<br>\nThe Riverside Church in the City of New York<br>\n\u00a9 2013 Stephen H. Phelps<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If God\u2019s son were raised from the dead, and no one saw it, would the resurrection matter?   Would there be salvation?  Say what you mean by \u201cwould it matter?\u201d\u2014say what you mean by \u201csalvation\u201d\u2014and you will have your answer . . . <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}