April 20, 2025 Sermon - Easter Sunday
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Who is your tribe? Who are your people? What is your community? I think these are questions that we often confront, even if we're not thinking about them in a kind of explicit way. Sometimes they're that kind of unconscious reflection that we think about. But I think that these are questions that in the context of our world today seem ever more pressing, seem ever more important. I recently saw a meme that's been floating around the internet that gave me a good chuckle. It reflected that for centuries we have identified ourselves with our names, our surnames, or our given names speak to a lineage, an occupational connection for some. But now, in these days, our lineage is spoken through our cell phone area code. Who are your people? Where do you come from? And this way in which so much of this plays into what we encounter today. Demographers over the last 20 years have lamented the collapse of our communal spaces, the very fabric of our lived community, and the way in which that is at the heart of what we are struggling with as a society.
And yet, community is at the heart of Easter, of the empty tomb, of the resurrection and resurrection appearances. In point of fact, all of the resurrection appearances prior to the assumption, or sorry, prior to the ascension, when Jesus ascends to heaven, all of those resurrection appearances save one are in a communal setting. There's this kind of ambiguous appearance of Jesus to Mary at the end, Mary Magdalene, at the end of Mark's gospel. But that's part of a kind of contested addendum that most scholars see as a later addition to Mark's gospel. And so if we actually look at what we see as sort of the core of the resurrection appearances, every single one of them is an appearance within the midst of a community, kind of prefiguring the reality that Christ teaches, that once he ascends into heaven, his body, the body of Christ, becomes us, the church, the gathered community.
And communities are funny things, right? Because they sometimes don't necessarily make sense. They might seem awkward from the outside. I remember as a high schooler becoming enamored with my kind of southern family and southern culture. I remember belting out off -key versions of pop country songs to my parents' consternation in high school. I remember going off to college. My mother very graciously and lovingly had bought this wonderful wardrobe of new clothes for me, only for me to return at the first break wearing discount pearl snaps from Walmart. And yet, we have our sense of community, who we are drawn to, how we are nourished by those identities.
And there's a day in which that is a key thing for us to think about and remember in this day and time. How are we nourished by our communities? How do we find meaning and value and support with each other? One of the things that we have been wrestling with as a congregation And as a discernment of who we are in the world around us is what does it mean for us to be a part of Damascus? What does it mean for us to be a ministry of community to the world around us? Part of this collapse that the demographers have identified is that we've lost senses of third spaces, those places beyond your work or your home that you gather in, that you find companionship, relationship, friendship. And this is a new phase of life for us, exploring how we might become that third space in this place. How might we become more fulsomely the community that we are meant to be in the world around us? Now, I'll be honest.
That being a church sometimes comes with its own layered complexity. Because so many of us have encountered at times in our lives experiences of church that may not be entirely welcoming, may not be entirely connecting, may not be that community, that place of nourishment that we want it to be. I remember years ago now, making a friend on one of my journeys to China. His name was Fox. He had chosen that English name because he was completely addicted to the X -Files, and he loved Fox Moeller. And so he embraced that identity, and he loved everything about U .S. culture. He was completely enamored with it. And he, immediately after I got to know him, was planning to come to the United States to study in Orlando. His university in China had an exchange program with Disney World, where you would go and you would learn english you would have an opportunity to practice day in and day out and you would have a kind of work study component to this semester abroad in which you would do some kind of work within the park system at disney world and as fox was describing this to me and my friends from arkansas who were all studying in shanghai together He said, yes, I'm going to be taking care of children. That's the job they gave me. And we all kind of looked at him a little askance, and we said, are you sure about that? That doesn't really seem to make sense. And he said, yes, yes. I looked up the word that they said I'll be doing, and it means that you're going to be taking care of children or in charge of children. I said, what did they say you're going to be doing? And he said, well, I looked it up. They said I'm going to be a custodian. And we said, we hate to break this to you, Fox. But you're going to be sweeping up trash and emptying trash bins. Somehow, though, I kept up with Fox for many years. was not too terribly traumatizing for him that semester at Disney World. And of all places, he ended up in Davenport, Iowa, and seems to continue to be flourishing and thriving in that place. His first initial encounter of community here in the United States may not have been what he expected it to be, but he still found some place of meaning, some place of value, some place of connection that continued to draw him here. To this country. To this culture. To this place. And I want to invite us today. Embrace the empty tomb as we celebrate our resurrected Lord. To remember that that resurrection. That empty tomb. The reality.
The reality of life over death. Is also the great reality of community. Of love. Within community. Of new life. Within community. Of transformation. Within community. And may we find that here. May we cultivate that here. May we be communicators. And gifters of community. To the world around us. You're going to hear during the announcements a number of different activities and points of connection that we are developing as a congregation. Not only offerings and opportunities together like we are in this very moment to worship, but also times to dance, times to eat, times to be together to develop that sense of relationship, that sense of love, that sense of support because if anything these days that is what we need a deeper richer more complete sense of community a place that will stretch us and grow us and bring us into encounters with each other that help to transform us individually transform us as a community And ultimately to transform the world around us. That we may evermore reflect the risen and new life that Christ offers in this resurrection experience. So may we be community. May you find community here. And may in all of that we experience the love and light of new life in Christ. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.