Easter Sunday, 2023
Previous Years: 2022 (C) || 2021 (B) || 2020 (A) || 2019 (C) || 2018 (B)
Preached at the Church of the Assumption in Bellingham, WA
Recording
https://moorejesus.podbean.com/e/two-narratives/
Transcript
Thank you to R.M. for editing this transcript.
Each of us has a narrative, a story that we tell ourselves to explain who we are, why we are, what we are. We have individual narratives. We have societal narratives. If you want to understand what a narrative looks like, ask yourself, what are the things that are unassailable? What are the things that if you bring up they’re sort of laughed off? So, for example, in the United States, if you were to suggest to somebody that we really ought to go back to having a king, you wouldn’t even be taken seriously, because the democratic approach to life is so deeply ingrained in our national narrative. The story we tell ourselves about who we are, and why we are, and what we are. The same is true for individuals. And we see today two master narratives, two ways in which people think about the world.
The first is a narrative that talks about and focuses on the here and now, the touchable, the tangible, and the materialistic. All of us seek happiness. That’s part of all of our narratives. So, if somebody says what exists is simply this world, then they begin to look for happiness in this world. They look for happiness in things like wealth, and power, and pleasure, and fame. How many people, how many kids, when you ask them what they want to be, they talk about being famous or being rich? It’s a narrative that says, “in order for me to be happy, I have to take what I can in this world, because this world is the only world that I have. It’s the only world that exists. At the end of this there is death. And so I’d better be raucous and be happy so that I can fill it all up until I die.”
This approach to life doesn’t leave a lot of room for hope because, deeply, in each of us, we know that we are broken and flawed and corrupted, that we are sinful. And so, even those who find in their lives a desire for justice, a desire for something greater, something better, if their narrative is that this world is the only world, then they begin to think in utopian terms: “Well, if this world is the only world, then the justice and perfection that I desire has to be found in this world.”
And so, we see them trying to work toward a world that honestly, we believe, is never going to come about. But they don’t know that. They don’t realize that. And so you see people make, for example, politics their religion and their political party their denomination. Because if justice and happiness can only be found in this world, then the only way I can bring about justice and happiness is through worldly means, through politics. That becomes my dominant narrative. But if human beings are sinful and flawed and broken, if it’s truly utopian thinking, if we’re trying to work toward a world that’s never going to come about because we keep messing it up, but that’s the only hope that a person has, what would we expect?
We would expect them to start with an optimism, a joy. “We can do this. We can make this happen.” And then a hopelessness because they keep getting frustrated. “I keep trying and I keep working, and there’s nothing I can do, and it keeps failing.” And then they become desperate and then they become bitter, and then they become angry.
If you don’t believe that this is a major, dominant narrative in our world today, ask yourself, do you think that we have become more desperate, and more bitter, and more angry recently? Could it be it’s because we have lost hope in this world, and that many of us do not have a narrative to suggest that there is anything other than this world? And so, all we are left with is hopelessness and bitterness and anger.
This worldview, because it’s so based in the here and the now, is also based on the idea that we are the only ones who can act, that we are the ones who bring it about. Which is why we become so hopeless. Because we work, we try, and yet our sinfulness, our brokenness, our corruption interrupts. It gets in the way. And so, if I’m the one I have to rely on and I keep failing, or if you are the one I have to rely on and you keep failing, things are not going to go well. To rely on flawed and broken humanity is not going to end well for any of us. And I want to be clear, even though the focus of this narrative is very much on the material world, people can still have this narrative even if they report to believe in God. They might say, “sure, I believe in God. That’s great. Sometimes I might even pray.” But this narrative is based on the idea that God does not act first. We act first. Maybe this is a deistic god. Maybe this is a God who created the universe, who’s a generic spiritual force. Maybe it’s a God who simply just makes us feel good or gives us what we want. We are still in control with this God. We are the one who act and salvation depends on us.
But like I said, there are two narratives. And that second narrative, the second way, story, we might tell ourselves to understand who we are, what we are, why we are, is that there is something greater going on. There’s something more than simply the material or observable world. That this God that we talked about, maybe he’s more than just a watchmaker who spins us up and lets us go. Maybe he’s more than just a generic, impersonal, spiritual force. Maybe instead the God that we talk about is personal. Maybe he has his own will, his own approach, his own desires, and his own actions. Maybe, in fact, the other things that are going on in this world are bigger and more important than the world that is observable, that is the here and now that we can touch. Maybe, in fact, there is a narrative greater than our own narrative.
My friends, the message of Christianity is exactly that. God is personal. God knows you individually. God acts of His own agency and of His own accord. God carries out His will. And this God, who is the Creator of the Universe, the All Powerful and All Knowing, this God, if He has a will, and He does, and if He acts out that will in your lives and in this world, suddenly His will becomes dominant. Suddenly what we want, what we think, our own efforts, they pale in comparison to what this God is doing and has done. Suddenly, when we realize that the Almighty Creator might actually be acting, and working, and speaking to us, the center of our lives is no longer our efforts, but His actions. It’s no longer our opinions, but His Word. We suddenly crave to know, what is the Creator doing? What has He done? What has He taught us? How can I learn? We have a craving for the scriptures. We have a craving to know the story of Jesus, because suddenly we realize that the weight of the world isn’t on our shoulders, that God is acting and has acted.
I say that God is personal. I say that He knows you intimately, that He loves you intimately. And you might say, “oh, father, you talk about these two narratives. But the second one, this idea that there’s more going on, this is this is wish fulfillment. You just tell yourself that story because you want to feel good. In fact, life is gritty and hopeless and it’s all on our shoulders, and we have to make our own meaning. And no matter what story you make up, it’s still the truth. You’re just running from the truth and running from your responsibilities.”
This is the existentialist position and it has taken over the world. But I’m telling you, we have historical proof that this is true. Even though this narrative, that says that there’s more going on, says that there’s more than this world that we can observe, God is not apart from this world. He is greater than this world, His actions are more than the here and the now, but He is not apart. He is not aloof. He knows you and loves you so much and so intimately that He Himself decided to enter the here and now in the Person of Jesus Christ. That’s a real man who lived in Palestine, a real flesh and blood human being who is also God entered into history. And not only does He love you enough to enter into your experience, to partake in the here and now, even though He is greater than the here and the now; He also chose to save you from all of those flaws and all of that corruption we’ve been talking about, all the source of our hopelessness. The Lord entered into history to make sure that that hopelessness, that corruption, had no power over you.
Jesus Christ, flesh and blood human being, lived in an actual time and an actual place. He died on the cross, an actual torture device of the actual Roman Empire.
And then, He was seen, having been dead and laid in a tomb, He was seen by eyewitnesses to be resurrected from the dead. They knew He was dead. They held His body, as they put it, in the tomb. The Romans were exceedingly effective at killing their criminals. They knew He was dead, and then they saw Him resurrected. An actual historical event that actually happened. There is no gap in the historical record. The scriptures that we have are either eyewitnesses account like our Gospel today, this is written by the Apostle John. The details that he provides about these burial cloths being rolled up, about who saw Jesus and when, these are not the marks of a myth or a narrative to make us feel good. This is somebody who saw it in his gospel. He mentions “I was an eyewitness.” He mentions it in reference to the cross. “I saw the blood and water come from His side.”
This gospel was written by John, who walked with Jesus. It was received by eyewitnesses to the Resurrection and by those who could easily have proved him wrong if it was a forgery. If they could have produced a body, they would have. But there is no body, because the tomb is empty. Jesus is risen from the dead. We have eyewitnesses accounts and there is no gap in the historical record. Every generation of Christians is accounted for. There’s no place where somebody could have made up a story. Jesus did rise from the dead. This is proof that God loves you. It’s proof that God knows you and that God is the one who is acting.
My friends, I don’t know why someone would choose to believe that this world is all that there is when we have proof otherwise. I don’t know why somebody would want to take upon themselves their own salvation, knowing that they are a flawed and broken human being. I don’t know why they would further want to take on the salvation of the entire world, which is clearly working for its own destruction, always, when God has taken our place. When God has enacted the salvation, when Jesus has saved us from sin, when He has won the victory over death and sin and everything that keeps us bound. If Jesus has won the victory, why are we still fighting? We join ourselves to Him. We join ourselves to His victory, and then He will do the work. He will win the victory in us. If you are hopeless, if you are desperate, if you are bitter, if you are angry, give yourself over to Jesus Christ and allow Him to show you what true hope looks like. Understand that you are not acting alone. That God personally, intimately is acting always in your lives and in this world. There is something greater going on here. To ignore it is to limit yourselves. To ignore it is to live in hopelessness when hope is freely offered. My friends, Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Alleluia!
Fr. Moore 