Tombstones and Wildflowers
The grave.
This, I can identify with. The cold. The dark. The hard edges. The stone too heavy to move on your own.
The guards outside who refuse to help you escape.
That which wraps around you, tightens and reminds you that new life is not found here, new life is not expected here.
Spaces where control and conformity are required for entrance.
Spaces where certainty is applauded and questions are cause for concern.
Spaces where innovation is suspect; unfamiliar voices and ways of seeing are silenced.
Spaces where death looms large, despite all of the ways we insist that its raucous and tenuous last breaths are sounds of vibrancy and flourishing.
You see, in the right light, with the perfect shadows, frame of reference, choice Bible verses, charisma, and ideology - the grave - can appear to be a space where freedom reigns and where life resides, where the only “true” option is available.
Can you hear it?
The powers announce with realtor flare: “Look over here at the cool-to-touch stone bench, the muslin cloth we have to wrap you in, and your very own natural stone door! We made it just for you!”
Somehow, even they seem to have forgotten what life outside of whitewashed tombs looks like.
It is in these spaces with stones rolled tight and guards celebrated for their stalwart defence that imagination dwindles. Perspectives narrow. Ideas dissipate. Shadows are embraced. Life and death get so easily confused.
And so we wonder... is this:
The cold
The dark
The narrowing of tables
The cementing of ideas
The certitude of belief
The silencing of questions
The ignorance of history and the bent to repeat it
Is this what the church was created for?
Was this the divine’s great plan or was the church created for more?
Even I, once insisted that this is all there is, and to be fair I sometimes still long to insist, that this is the best the Spirit has to offer, the most that God can do.
A look back at the Genesis account of creation offers us a glimpse into a bigger imagination.
A world where flowers grow with abandon,
birds cry out with glee,
the sun, moon and stars a celestial wonder, and
trees flourishing with blossoms and fruit for all.
If we wonder what God dreamed when the church went from the upper room down into the streets, the Garden of Eden offers a lush view of all things new.
With a perfect garden as the mirror to view the renewal of all things, it is with confidence that we declare: The Spirit that lives within us and around us never intended that the church,
from the people,
to our programs,
to our ethics
would resemble a series of tombs.
Instead, it is the garden that gives a vision of the church led by the fire and wind of the Spirit, itself.
Spaces where lions and lambs walk together,
Places where weapons of harm are reimagined and refashioned into tools of dynamic hope, system
shattering shalom and radical belonging,Communities where hearts are enlivened as they move from stone to flesh,
Nations and cultures celebrating all that makes them the same; all that makes them beautifully diverse.
Garden plots where genders work side by side, no ill intent, no harm evoked, no breaking of hearts.
A vision of gardeners working alongside the creator to participate in the making of a more just and beautiful world. A world brought to life as something akin to love, joy, peace, faithfulness, gentleness, kindness and self-control.
The church: a lavish garden that grows, expands, flourishes and thrives as it somehow takes over the grey, the dank, and the cold spaces.
The church: a revolution of beauty.
The garden motif, however, for all its beauty and imagination is also one that is frightening with its
capacity for overgrowth,
the pollination happening without oversight,
new seedlings popping up in unexpected spaces,
the wind carrying life along in ways and spaces we have never known before.
New things growing, unidentified, and sprawling out of control.
To some, the garden becomes a chaotic suggestion, a reminder that God is not among the wild things that grow apart from the familiar, the sameness, the walls of the grave.
To others, it is in the untamedness of fruit, flowers and grasses that it is confirmed that the Spirit has gone before us, that the Spirit always goes before us.
But there is something about the surety of the grave, the certainty of grey walls, the familiarity of muslin strips, stalwart guards, and stones too heavy to move that make what was; what is;
what we have already seen and known to be - all that we see and know.
Yet,
Even Jesus insisted that large stones could be moved with nothing more than that which is the size of a mustard seed.
That is what Paul knows to be true when he writes about the power of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 as he says, “I am not worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted the church.”
Yet,
Paul is an apostle.
The one who was both a guard of the tomb and a resident of the tomb - is now known for rolling back stones, for opening graves, for introducing life to those mesmerized by that which hinders life, and for speaking of the power of the resurrection.
To know Paul is to know Saul.
A man convinced that God had spoken their final word and the final word could not include the stories weaved by Jesus, God incarnate, the Word made flesh.
Saul was certain that those who spoke of the Spirit doing a new thing were threats, as their words were foreign to his religiosity. His certainty led to the denial of their humanity.
Their lives violently ended.
Their message silenced as they were forced to flee the wrath of those who longed to keep tombs closed.
It is along the way to the destruction and death of those who dared to imagine that gardens are the God breathed Word - That Saul is changed to Paul.
Violence shifts to Shalom.
Control is replaced with Conversation.
Conformity is replaced with a message for all.
And with nothing more than a seed... the stone rolls away, or as Acts puts it, the scales fall from his eyes.
For the remainder of his life, Paul preaches the message that there is more than graves.
Tombs can be opened,
Death is not the victor,
Death’s sting does not get the final say.
Gardens do.
This picture of Shalom, all things made new, all things made as intended at creation - a vision for a church come alive.
Where the poor are cared for and poverty is being eliminated.
Where the marginalized are centered, and equity is being established.
Where the weary are offered rest and burdens are lifted.
Where the excluded are given a space at the table and that which gatekeeps is removed.
Where those afflicted by violence are tended to, and the roots of violence are uprooted.
Where the questioner is beloved, the doubter is celebrated, the wanderer is made safe and there is room, even, for those once known as the graves guards.
Where love flows. Where Jesus guides. Where heaven is made reality here on earth.
Where resurrection is an every day, every moment expectation and reality.
The grave. I know it well. It beckons to me, calls my name, and sends the message of fear that death always wins.
But,
On this resurrection Sunday when some may feel the grave is winning, death is succeeding and stones cannot be rolled away, there is another story.
On this resurrection Sunday when some are lamenting all that is required to exit the tomb, all that must be left behind to participate in new versions of life, there is another path.
On this resurrection Sunday when some wonder if the spaces they loved, the family they knew, the versions of God that were once the place they called home can ever be set free from the cold, the gray, the walls, and the immovable stone, there is another way.
Listen, over the sound of stone, the shouts of guards, the rustling of muslin that wraps itself so tight...
Can you hear it?
The whisper in the wind, the one that finds itself in the impossible spaces, the one that finds itself among those things destined for death, the drought-filled landscapes.
Can you hear it?
The gush of wind that allows the wildflowers to take over the garden, the blossoms to scatter, and the fruit to be made ready for harvest.
Can you hear it?
The rush of wind that sees trees mature and invites pollinators to bring forth life.
Can you hear it?
The sound of seeds landing in tiny cracks, the push of roots moving hard ground, the splitting of once daunting rocks.
Graves turning into gardens. Grass growing in unexpected spaces. Fruit overflowing where death once lived.
Oh, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead
finds its way into tombs and rolls stones away.
The same Spirit that calls dead things to life.
is in us, around us and among us.
Can you hear it?
The sound of the resurrection made manifest among us.
The grave does not have the final say.
Gardens do.
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