Fear, Hope and Easter

On the back of the Fantasy novel I am reading it says, "When hope dies, there's still survival."  This has caused me to think a lot about humanity, organizations, faith and religion.  When hope dies, there is still survival.  Our culture, the American narrative is littered with stories of survival, stories that say to us, even when you lose hope, if you just try hard enough, if you just survive, you will make it, whatever making it might mean.  It seems, as we live in this difficult economic culture with regular glimpses of a turn around, often followed by some new controversy or scandal, or economic blow, all we can do is simply survive, hope has been lost it seems, and we are lost as well.

This of course makes me think we have a pretty cheap idea of hope, a cheap idea of grace, a cheap idea even of the value of our own lives.  Have you seen that cartoon with the bird trying to swallow a frog but the frog has its hands tightly grasped around the bird's neck?  The caption of the cartoon which I have seen most, and I have seen many, says, "Never give up." One of these two parties is going to die.  Either the bird will succeed and swallow the frog, or the frog will succeed by strangling the bird and escape.  There is no room to imagine that the two would go out for martinis and dine instead on a nice fish or some other edible plant that they could both enjoy together.  When survival replaces hope, hope is indeed dead.

But maybe it is not that we have cheap ideas of hope, grace and our own lives, maybe it is more because we have isolated ourselves from one another in ways that prevent us from experiencing the glory that is God and the personal sacrament of presence that was so strongly present in the person of Jesus.  The extent of our communal experience often is simply our nuclear families, and today, even that experience is varied beyond recognition.  We are in a confusing transition period as we try to discern and understand how technological advances will change our lives, our future, our church and our religion.  Did you see that Trinity Wall Street twittered the passion this past week?  And how many of you on Facebook saw the Passion of Jesus according to Facebook this week as well?  Some will say we are becoming more disconnected, but I say we are becoming more fearful of claiming value for our future lives and the future of the life of the communities we belong to.

I wonder if hope has been replaced by survival, have we finally gotten to the point where it is not so much our hope for things unknown and unseen that drives us as it is a game of survival of the fittest?  Hope seems to be lost, or at the least, reduced to cliché slogans that we do not really believe but continue to say, for the sake of our children.  Vision has failed us, personally and corporately.  The light that has shone from the heart of the Glory of God, human beings fully alive, has been replaced by darkness, or at the very least, a dark cloud, a veil of mist impenetrable to our sight, feeling and touch.  Fear has gripped our world, fear has gripped our Church and it clings to us, desiring not our downfall, not our death, not our destruction, but rather our apathy, our indifference and our familiarity. 

Yes, I said that, death is not the ultimate goal of fear as we are pushed into survival mode, or into the darkness, survival is the ultimate goal of fear.  Our energy and attention focused entirely upon our survival is what fear seeks to accomplish, the disciples succumbed to it in their denials of Jesus, the crowd in the cries of "Crucify him" were coerced or moved towards survival by their own fear.  Anytime that which is familiar in a way that is warm and gentle and historical comes under some threatening experience, fear moves us to survival, fear seeks to squash hope and make it disappear.

Brian McLaren, a contemporary theologian and author was asked at a recent presentation he gave, "Is there any hope for mainline denominations?"  His response is one that is genuinely insightful.  He said that there is great hope, because while yes, it is difficult to turn the Titanic around, you have to ask yourself, what is harder, turning the Titanic around or turning 15,000 individual boats around.  Of course it is the Titanic that is much easier to turn than the 15,000 boats driven by individuals.  He was referencing our structures and our polity, mainline denominations having a structure that lends itself to having a few highly placed leaders able to make certain decisions to turn things around, where as his tradition, the Evangelical tradition, is one that is quite varied and resists the type of authority that is represented in most mainline denominations.

But he continued, lest you get comfortable in the false hope that you can turn the ship around think of this bridge in South America.  A beautiful bridge that was built to perfection, spanning a beautiful river that one year flooded, and the erosion from the flood redirected the river around the bridge, so that the bridge was no longer functioning and had no purpose.  Put in tension, those are two examples of our future that are poignant to consider.  Both require change, transformation, new thinking in how we live and move and have our being together.  But it is hard to change, isn't it, we often wish we could change, or simply choose not to change because we have no hope in the transformation that change would bring.

Tom Peters, in his book the "Pursuit of WOW!" asks, "How long does it take you to achieve change or spiritual transformation?  A nanosecond, but it takes a lifetime of passionate pursuit to maintain that transformation."  I like this, we can change in a blink of the eye, it is the lifetime pursuit of that change that is the difficult part, it is the challenges and obstacles that we and others put in our ways that keep us from accomplishing our Goals.

Look at Mary Magdalene in today's Gospel.  She changed in the blink of an eye; she changed at the simple saying of her name.  The Gardner who stood before her turned into Jesus like that (snap).  If we listen, I believe we will hear Jesus calling our names on a regular basis, every day Jesus calls to us, I am alive, Jesus says, I have been resurrected, death no longer holds sway, I am alive.  We hear it, we know it, but we too often leave it in the far reaches of our minds, never allowing that voice to filter into our very being, into our broken hearts that long for healing, human touch and relationship. 

In the naming of her name Mary is changed and transformed.  Just as today Emelia and D'Angelo will be transformed by the saying of their names.  You can feel it as we baptize these children, you can feel it when you read the Gospel, Mary's exclamation is full of joy, full of excitement, full of newness, full of possibility it is rich and wonderful and she has changed, but she falters immediately, because this man whom she loves, who she walked with is alive, and she desires nothing else but to hold him, to cling to him, to be with him, but what does Jesus say?  Seeing her need, seeing her desire, he says to her, do not cling to me.  Do not hold on to me, for I am going to a place that is more mysterious, more mystical and more dangerous than anything you have imagined.  Go Jesus says, do not hold on to me, but go and tell others about me.  And today we start with Emelia and with D'Angelo, tell them your story, share with them your relationship with God, don't hold on to a sentimental nice and comfortable Jesus, speak to the truth, the passion, the fire the excitement of the God we all love so that Emelia and D'Angelo will be able to grow in the fire that is the love of God. 

In the letting go we find not despair, but hope, in the letting go we find not death, but life, in the letting go we find not nothingness, but abundance greater than we have ever imagined.  When we give up our fight for survival we might just feel once again, in the very beat of our heart, the power of hope in our lives.