Sermon: Embodying the Good News

By Joanna Lawrence Shenk

Luke 24:36-43

I’m wondering if anyone here is a fan of zombie movies or shows? It seems like maybe “The Last of Us” was the most recent big hit? Or have there been others? 

I bring this up because I think it helps us understand the scripture passage today in a more visceral way. What would it feel like in your body if someone you saw executed showed up in your locked room with their wounds still visible? Would you be terrified? I think I would probably freak out. 

So good on Jesus for realizing this and beginning the interaction by saying “Peace be with you.” 

But they were still pretty freaked out, so he invited them to touch him, to see that his body was solid. He was not a ghost and he was not a zombie. “Touch me and see,” he said. And I wonder if the touch was as much for Rabbi Yeshua as it was for his disciples. They had all been through traumatic experiences in those recent days. I imagine he hadn’t embraced them since he washed their feet. 

Even after touching him, they were still unsettled. At first they were afraid and then they were in awe. They were incredulous. Could it really be him? I like how the Mennonite theologian Ched Myers describes this juxtaposition:

“It suggests that the disciples are caught between two types of fear,” he writes. “On the one hand, they cower before the handiwork of imperial terrorism, imprinted on the body of Jesus. On the other hand, they reel before the prospect that somehow Rome has not had the last word, that the divine conspiracy for life has burst the straightjacket of imperial death-dealing. Jesus, the executed rebel, is back and ready to continue organizing the movement.”

And there can be no movement without bodies and bodies need food. “Guys, I’m hungry,” Jesus says. It has been a rough few days. And then maybe they snap out of their shock and are like, “right! Food. We have some – here eat this fish.” And he does. 

No matter how we make sense of the resurrection, this passage communicates to us that bodies matter. The resurrected body of Rabbi Yeshua still bore the marks of state-sponsored terror AND that violence did not have the last word. He was alive and he was hungry and his movement of liberation was not over.

This is the good news of Easter – that we can rise to new life as participants in this movement. Just as Jesus rose to new life, he was calling on his disciples to rise with him and carry on the movement. As Sheri reflected on Easter Sunday, this is our calling as a covenant community, to accompany each other through the dying and rising, both personally and collectively.

I imagine that in our own bodies we carry wounds and traumas inflicted by systems of domination. These systems have excluded, silenced and violated us. These systems have perpetuated lies that we are better than everyone else or that we are worse than everyone else. Or some combination of both those things. 

These systems of domination also reign down terror on vulnerable people and on the land and creatures – the bombs falling on families in Gaza, the destructive extraction on Indigenous lands, the coral reefs dying in warming oceans. 

These are wounds and traumas on the body of God who suffers with us. And this violence does not get the final word. Just as Jesus overcame the power of state-sponsored terror, we too carry healing and new life in our very bodies. This is the good news! And we share this good news by demanding a ceasefire, by organizing for dignified housing in San Francisco, by supporting the San Carlos Apache in their efforts to protect Oak Flat, and as we experience healing in our bodies. 

In my mid 20s I went through an experience of debilitating depression that lasted nearly a year. I was in seminary at the time. I had experienced a difficult break up while also differentiating from my parents for the first time. My theology, identity and reason for living all came crashing down. As I look back now, I know that I was beginning to the surface the wounding of my childhood inflicted by rigid Christian theologies that demanded perfection. 

I was tired all the time but I couldn’t sleep due to my anxiety. I was intimidated by my seminary classmates and I was convinced they all thought I was an idiot. The only place I felt safe was at the MVS house in Elkhart where I was living at the time. I had caring housemates including one who had dealt with depression and offered support along those lines. I started seeing a therapist and got on anti-depressant medication for a number of months. 

I remember as the depression was finally lifting, I was going through some of my belongings at my parents house. I found a collection of poetry quotes I put together in a high school English class. I had picked out quotes from some of my favorite poems and then cut out images from magazines to go with them. 

As I read through the booklet, tears came to my eyes. One quote and image especially moved me – it was of a woman who appeared to be vibrating with energy – arms extended, exclaiming. The quote I had put with that image read “I who have died am alive again today.” I took that page out of the booklet and put it up on my wall at the MVS house. Some of you may be familiar with that poem by E.E. Cummings… it reads: 

I thank You God for most this amazing day
For the leaping greenly spirits of trees
And a blue true dream of sky
And for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes
I who have died am alive again today
And this is the sun’s birthday
This is the birth day of life and of love and wings
And of the gay great happening illimitably earth
How should tasting, touching, hearing, seeing, breathing any
Lifted from the no of all nothing
Human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
Now the ears of my ears awake
And now the eyes of my eyes are opened

e.e. Cummings

It was through my own experience of dying and rising to new life, that I began to understand the possibilities of working with others for liberation on bigger scales. As I became more free within my own body and spirit, I wanted to be part of communities that were embodying freedom in the world. As I began to understand how systems of patriarchy and racism and heteronormativity had been put in place, I also began to see the ways that people were dismantling them and I could be a part of that. It was such good news!

As FMCSF I experience us embodying this good news. We are following in the liberating way of Rabbi Yeshua, who overcame the systems of domination. Although they continue their onslaught, we know that they do not get the final word. As a community, we are caring for each other as embodied creatures – sharing food, touch, grief and joy. As a community we are extending that care to our world as we participate in movements for liberation. 

In the beauty and the complexity and the mystery of our own bodies, we carry the good news of healing. Like the risen Christ, our bodies bear wounds that can be touched by caring community. Like the risen Christ, our bodies carry hunger that can be satisfied as we eat together – and demand that all are fed. Like the risen Christ, we are alive again today, joining with the prophets and organizers to embody the kindom of God in this time and in this place. May it be so. Amen.