New Testament Reading-John 20: 1-18
This past week I had a mini-crisis of faith. Nothing serious, nothing that would warrant kicking me out of the ministry, but, perhaps, I should explain. It all began shortly after our Bible Study this past Tuesday morning. In the class, I had tried to shine some light on our scripture. I shared the views of scholars and preachers on the resurrection. I talked about how Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan say that the real issue at the stake in the resurrection isn’t what’s factual and what’s not. The real is issue is what it means. It means that Jesus lives, that there was no final act in his life, that his spirit continues on. It also means that God’s “yes” overruled the Roman Empire’s “no,” Jesus is vindicated. I then talked about how Peter Gomes at Harvard once declared that the proof of the resurrection is in our lives. The proof is in whether or not Jesus continues to live in us.
I was all pumped up and excited about this, but then it hit me: if the proof the resurrection is in our lives, then where exactly am I seeing the resurrected Jesus in my own life and in the world around me? Like Mary Magdalene, I began to ask, “Where’s Jesus?” (A pew of women in front row echo by saying, “Where’s Jesus?”) I then got nervous because I needed to hurry up and find some evidence before I stood up here and preached. Frantically, I rushed around looking Jesus. I knew he had to be somewhere, but I couldn’t seem to find him. I knew I had to do some research.
My first idea was to turn to literature. Surely, some of our great writers could point me in the right direction. Surely, they could show me where I might find Jesus today. The first work to which I turned was Arthur Miller’s final play “Resurrection Blues.” I had heard great things about the play. I also remembered that in high school I had been awed not only by the social commentary of “The Crucible,” but also the fact that Miller had married Marilyn Monroe. That was like the nerd dating the prom queen.
I plunged into his play with enthusiasm and hope. Now, “Resurrection Blues” takes place in an unnamed Latin American country ruled by a certain General Felix. Among the peasants living in the hills is a young man named Ralph who just glows with love and has become “a kind of spiritual phenomenon.” In the houses of peasants, one finds “candles lit before his photograph” as if he were saint. While Ralph himself has never personally committed any acts of violence, the general nevertheless regards him as a threat, so he throws him into prison to be executed. Actually, the plan is to crucify him. The general explains, “Shooting doesn’t work! People are shot on television every ten minutes: bang-bang, and they go down like dolls, it’s meaningless. But nail up a couple of these [you-know whats], and believe me this will be the quietest country on the continent and ready for development!”
In addition to such sound rationale, the general also has a more specific financial interest in the crucifixion. A large advertising firm on Madison Avenue has offered the general seventy-five million dollars for the exclusive worldwide rights to televise the crucifixion. The general’s cousin Henri is an atheist, but even he questions the wisdom of killing someone the people believe to be the son of God. To which, the general responds, “The son of god is a man named Ralph?” The play goes on and on and is very amusing in a horrific kind of way. At one point, various villages in the country enter into a nasty competition to see which one of them will be picked to host the crucifixion. As one character explains, it’s not just the honor of being chosen, it’s their property values. Once the entire world sees the crucifixion, their village will be jammed with tourists wanting to see Ralph’s bloody drawers or buy a souvenir fingernail.
Well, as much as I enjoyed reading the script, I was quiet disappointed by the time I got to the end. Not only is there no crucifixion, but there is no resurrection. You would think a play entitled “Resurrection Blues” would have at least one resurrection even if it’s a bluesy one. While the play certainly gave me an idea of how we would treat the pre-Easter Jesus if he were alive today, it didn’t give me a clear sense of where I might find the resurrected Jesus, so I continued to ask myself the question, “Where’s Jesus?” (The women in the front row echo: “Where’s Jesus?”)
Next, I figured I would have better luck looking in a book simply entitled “Resurrection.” Surely, this book by the great Leo Tolstoy would point me in the right direction. Like any good college graduate, I skimmed through book. I surmised that it tells the story of a young aristocratic man who finds new life after becoming awakened not only to his own lecherous wrong doings but ultimately to the vicious wrong doings of society, especially in its oppressive and barbaric prison system. In meeting and talking with prisoners in Siberia, the young man steps beyond the comforts and privileges of his sheltered world. The novel ends with him realizing for the first time that his new mission and life’s work is to confront the entrenched and seemingly unassailable system of evil standing before him.
Well, this is interesting I thought. The book suggests that the living Jesus of today would still be challenging bullies and monsters like the pre-Easter Jesus. Nevertheless, I felt like I needed more clues as to what this living Jesus would actually be like today. Tolstoy’s novel stops right at the point of the man’s final conversion. We never get to see what his life was like once he had experienced his spiritual resurrection. So it was that I still felt lost in my search for the resurrected Jesus. Again, I asked myself, “Where’s Jesus?” (The women in the front row echo, “Where’s Jesus?”) By this point, I had become a fan of Tolstoy, and it occurred to me that Tolstoy’s own life might have some clues about where to find the resurrected Jesus. As it turns out, he actually saw his own younger self in the lecherous young aristocrat of his novel. It therefore occurred to me that Tolstoy’s own life might demonstrate what happens after the resurrection. I thus went in search of a profound turning point in his life. I needed to find out what happens to someone after a resurrection.
I found what I was looking for in the midst of the Russian famine of 1891. At the time, thousands of peasants were slowly dying of starvation due to a famine whose existence the government denied. At first, Tolstoy himself wanted nothing to do with attempts to draw him into this cause. He viewed it as simply another form of charity and charity he was convinced actually furthered the separation between the rich and poor rather than reducing it. In typical biting fashion, he declared that the real solution to such misery was for the rich to get off the backs of the poor, rather than to merely give them part of their surplus. Still, a friend of Tolstoy’s compelled him to visit the areas of the country suffering from famine. There, he saw the ravished bodies of children amid abominable squalor.[i] Like the character in his novel, he stepped beyond the walls of his own privilege and became transformed. He now had to do something. He had a new mission and life’s work.
At the age of sixty-three, Tolstoy left the comforts of his aristocratic estate to live in a humble one room dwelling with his wife as he threw himself into doing whatever he could. In the span of three months, he helped set up hundreds of soup kitchens that were able to feed ten thousand people. During the day, he supervised volunteers and delivered supplies on horseback. At night, he wrote passionate articles appealing for aid. Eventually, his call for help was heeded. Money and volunteers “poured in from all over the world,” including a half a million dollars from the United States.[ii] Soon, they were able to feed sixteen thousand daily.
The famine lasted two years until the rains finally returned. During this time, Tolstoy was censured and harassed by the government. On one occasion, when government officials came to inspect his house, peasants surrounded it to protect him.[iii] Tolstoy had a rare privilege in being able to do as much as he did. The Czar of Russia had asked that Tolstoy not be touched because he had “no intention of making a martyr of him, and bringing universal indignation upon” himself.[iv] At the end of the famine when Tolstoy left, “crowds followed him down the road.”[v] If Tolstoy was loved by the peasants similar to how Ralph was loved, the czar was evidently much wiser than General Felix.
All of this was again very interesting, but I still wondered how I would ever find the clues that I needed. I asked myself, “Where’s Jesus?” (The women in the front row echo, “Where’s Jesus?”) Then, like a vision from above, I began to see how the spirit of Jesus was alive in the life of Tolstoy. I saw it in his self-giving. I saw it in his life of service to others. Undergirding all of this was a profound depth of faithful dedication. It’s this that serves as the divine spark that brings the resurrected Jesus to life in our own lives. One doesn’t create 370 soup kitchens or leave a life of luxury or burn the midnight oil night after night without an inner storehouse of faithful dedication.
It then occurred to me that if faithful dedication is the signpost of the living, resurrected Jesus, then there are signposts all around me. I see signposts all over the place whenever we volunteer at WHO. I see signposts whenever our crusading deacons visit a sick or grieving member. I see signposts whenever lambs are cooked and pancakes are flipped. I see signposts whenever members show up for a committee meeting and miss Dancing with the Stars. Now, it seems like I am bumping into signposts wherever I go in this church. It’s like an obstacle course in here. For all of these many signposts, I can think of only one fitting word: Alleluia (women in front row: alleluia), alleluia (women in front row: alleluia), alleluia (entire church: alleluia). Amen.
[i] Charles E. Moore, “Introduction” in Leo Tolstoy: Spiritual Writings, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), 30-32.
[ii] Moore, 31; A. N. Wilson, Tolstoy: A Biography, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988), 417.
[iii] Wilson, 402.
[iv] Aylmer Maude, The Life of Tolstoy: Later Years, (London: Constable, 1910), 447.
[v] Wilson, 418.
