a recognition of multiple religions as worthy of respect, and an openness to all people using their gifts in leadership. Somehow in my nonreligious childhood I picked up the impression that the vast majority of Christians were narrow-minded bigots who rejected science, believed the Bible fell from the sky as the literal word of God, adhered to it slavishly at the cost of their capacity for critical thinking, promoted the supremacy of white men as the only legitimate leaders, and condemned most of the world to hell.
My parents didn’t teach me to think about Christianity this way; these were simply vague impressions I formed as a young person in the 1980s. Because I wasn’t raised in any religion, my view of Christianity was from the outside looking in. I could only hear the loudest Christian voices, which were often voices of condemnation. Quieter, more moderate Christian voices existed; they just didn’t reach my less than fully attentive ears.
It took going to seminary—a seeker who discovered the Unitarian Universalist Association and was called to ordained ministry—to teach me that there was more than one way to be a Christian. When I entered Harvard Divinity School, I believed in God, but I didn’t know what I believed about God. By the time I left, I was a baptized Christian. It would take me another decade to become an Episcopalian, in part because I first encountered the Episcopal Church reading books, not talking to people. Reading Madeleine L’Engle got me through high school, but it took another decade before I met any actual people belonging to her faith tradition who talked with me about their religion, much less invited me to church.
My whole conversion story is outside the scope of this book, but one portion is essential. In seminary I was assigned to read The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity by Jon D. Levenson (Yale University Press, 1995). Because a distinguished professor who practiced Orthodox Judaism wrote it, I couldn’t dismiss it as the work of one of those science-rejecting Christians. I picked it up because I had to finish it for class. By the time I put it down, I was forever changed.
The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son is a dense academic tome. I was biblically illiterate in those days. But even with my limited knowledge, it convinced me that the story of death and resurrection is not only the essence of the Christian faith, but is also echoed throughout the Bible. Ishmael, Abraham’s first son, and Isaac, his second, both come close to death and are miraculously raised to new life (Gen. 21 and 22). Joseph is cast into the pit and almost killed, then raised for a new and different life in Egypt (Gen. 37). God both requires (Exod. 22:29) and rejects (Deut. 18:9–13) the gift of every first-born son of Israel. There’s more besides. Reading Levenson’s book I realized for the first time that the death and resurrection of Christ might both fit a pattern and also be that pattern’s fulfillment.
That was an entirely new idea. It took time and practice for me to trust it. But as I spent time around people who took the resurrection seriously, I began to believe. My scientific skepticism gave way to literary conviction. Finally I came to realize that the renewal of the church and all Creation begins exactly here: with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is the core story of the Christian faith; we exist to proclaim it. It is indeed good news: if the powers of death could not defeat Christ, then they cannot defeat the Christ’s body the church. They cannot defeat all Creation, which exists in and through Jesus Christ ( John 1).
Resurrection and Renewal
Today, Christ’s body—the church—is in need of renewal. In and through Christ that renewal is already provided. As the church, we need to remember both that resurrection is our core story, and that resurrection—when it happens—is always astonishingly unexpected.
When Mary went to the tomb the Sunday after the crucifixion, she thought she was going to mourn the death of her friend and teacher. She never expected to see him alive, to hear he had been raised, to be sent out to tell a story of life and renewal. All of that was an enormous surprise. After all, every single earthly authority had been arrayed against him. The leaders of Israel and of Rome had conspired to kill him. But they were as nothing against the power of God.
If the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead teaches nothing else, it teaches this: God can do what we consider impossible. It’s been two thousand years since “He is risen!” was first proclaimed. Over the decades and centuries, the church has lost sight of just how extraordinary those words really are. Sometimes it seems like we take the resurrection for granted: a weekly ritual of remembrance, an annual set of holidays to observe. Maybe because I didn’t believe in it for the first half of my life, I still find the resurrection astonishing. Nobody saw Christ exit the tomb. But once the disciples saw and heard that God had acted, Christ was alive, and they had work to do, they counted their lives as worthless compared to the incomparably valuable work of God.
This is the invitation of faith: to trust in the invisible God, whose presence can never be fully seen or comprehended. Not just to trust in the existence of a being that cannot be seen, but more—to trust in the agency of a being that cannot be seen. And harder still—not just to trust in the agency of a being that cannot be seen—but to give over your own life to be used as an agent of that invisible being, that the impossible might be achieved by God, through you.
This is faith. Nobody said it would be easy. But if the Holy Spirit is calling the church to reimagine itself, that means God seeks to work in and through us all.
Since the day I finished reading The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, I’ve gone from dismissing the resurrection to making it the core of my life story. As I’ve done so, I’ve come to see that it only makes sense day-by-day. Marge Piercy once wrote, “There is no justice we don’t make daily, like bread and love.”6 As a disciple of Jesus, I am called daily to die to self and live for God. That means every day is a kind of crucifixion and resurrection, a chance to begin again. Every day we are called to die to self and live to God, whose nature is Love (1 John 4). As God’s people baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, we are first drowned, then reborn as God’s holy people.7 It turns out that this is just the beginning of the life of faith. As Wendell Berry wrote, we are to “practice resurrection.”8
This doesn’t come easily if you are anything like me. It is hard work. It takes practice. The amazing thing is that God really does provide growth and new life when we turn and seek to put God first. The invisible God, through us, bears visible fruit—even against all odds. As we give our lives to practicing resurrection, we discover the truth that is proclaimed in the ancient prayers of the church: “Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.”9
I trust in the resurrection. I also remember I cannot fully comprehend it. I am human like Mary, lamenting the loss of the ones I love. My church is in decline. All Creation is in trouble. But if resurrection is the cornerstone of my faith, I am called to give my life for the new life God seeks to create through me. If you seek to follow Jesus, that is your calling too.
The church is not an end in itself; the church is a means to an end. The church’s mission is to proclaim the gospel and to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.10 As Norman Wirzba writes, “The clear implication of Christ’s cosmic lordship was that the church, the continuing representative of Christ on earth, was to serve as the medium and manifestation of Christ’s creative and reconciling work to the whole creation.”11
Our life of prayer and worship reminds us of the purpose of our lives: as members of God’s Creation, to belong fully to our Creator—loving God first and best. As Jesus taught, we are to love God with “all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27). Worship reminds us who we are, and Whose we are. It knits us back into the fabric of Creation, bringing us into alignment with God as we praise God together. Worship proclaims that every square inch of this
