"Cold Sassy Tree", April 17, 2022

Cold Sassy Tree

By Rev Jamie Green Klopotoski
Based on Luke 24:1-12
April 17, 2022
First Baptist Church, Gloucester, MA

Watch here: https://www.facebook.com/100000138252260/videos/529614618511958/

Cold Sassy Tree is a coming of age novel written by Olive Ann Burns in 1984. Set in Georgia in 1906, it follows the life of a 14-year-old boy named Will Tweedy, and explores themes such as religion, love, death, and social taboos. I’d like to read to you a scene that I think is appropriate for this Easter Sunday. Will is talking to his grandpa, Rucker Blakeslee, about church. Grandpa speaks first: 

“We held church up at the house this morning.”   

“Sir?” 

“I was the preacher, Miss Love was the pi-ana player, and the both of us made up the congregation. Hit was a real nice service.” He enjoyed seeing I was confused. “Wish you’d a-been there, son. We sang us some hymns, after which I talked to the Lord a while, tellin’ Him bout the week, and I then preached a sermon. Tell you the truth, I think it upset Miss Love.” 

“Sir?” 

“I didn’t have no words thought out, you know, so I jest commenced sayin’ thangs I been a-thinkin’ on lately—about the Virgin Birth and Resurrection and all like thet. I said don’t any a-them thangs matter. Well, Miss Love like to had a fit. Said she warn’t raised to think like thet. I said I warn’t neither, but thet didn’t keep me from thinkin’, and I ast her do Methodists interrupt and argue with the preacher or do they sit and listen to what he’s got to say.” 

“Gosh, Grandpa. You mean you don’t think Jesus rose from the dead?” 

“I’m a-sayin’ thet did He or didn’t He ain’t important, son. What’s important is thet when the spirit a-Jesus Christ come down on them disciples later, they quit sittin’ round a-moanin’ and a-tremblin’, and got to work. They warn’t scairt no more, and the words they spoke had fire in’m. Compared to a miracle like thet, Jesus rollin’ back a dang rock and flyin’ off to Heaven ain’t nothin’.” 

“What did Miss Love say to that, Grandpa?” I was real excited. 

“Nothin’. I didn’t let her interrupt me agin. I said thet same miracle is still a-happenin’, right here in Cold Sassy, in July of nineteen aught-six. A crippled person or an invalid, or the meanest thief or the most despairin’ misfit, why, if’n he can ketch aholt of the spirit of Jesus Christ, he can quit bein’ scairt and be like risin’ up from the dead. Once his soul gits cured, no matter what his body’s like, why, he can start a new life. Well, and then I talked to Miss Love bout Eternal Life. As you know, son, jest believin’ we go’n live forever in the next world don’t make it so—or not so.” 

I felt awful. “Grandpa, you don’t think Granny’s gone to Heaven? She ain’t Up There waitin’ on us to come?” 

“I like to think so, son. If’n they is a Heaven, she’s Up There, I know thet,” he said softly. Then he laughed. “Ain’t but one way to find out if she is or ain’t, though. And I’m not thet curious.” He sighed, spat, and said, “Havin’ faith means it’s all right either way, son. ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ means I trust Him. Whatever happens in this life or the next, and even if they ain't a life after this’n, God planned it. So why wouldn’t it be all right?” He looked dead serious, then all of a sudden laughed again. “You know, if’n I was a real preacher, Will Tweedy, wouldn’t nobody come to my church.” 

“I would, Grandpa.” (pp. 187-9)

Today is Easter Sunday, the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, arguably the most mysterious, debated, and controversial topics in all of Christianity. Admittedly, the resurrection story we read on Easter really does seem more like a Stephen King novel or Sci-Fi movie than a real life experience. It is an outlandish tale of angels, grave clothes in an empty tomb, zombies, ghosts, and mysterious encounters with a man reanimated from the dead.  

A lot of people believe a lot of different things about the Resurrection. Some believe that Jesus’ physical body literally came back to life and then literally ascended to heaven. Some believe the resurrection was more of a spiritual or metaphorical or symbolic experience. And I want to affirm that that is okay. There’s no way to really know what actually happened that day in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. So it’s okay to live in the mystery and have different beliefs and understandings. Because being a Christian is not about getting our beliefs right, it’s about following Jesus, being a disciple of Jesus. If we were supposed to believe a certain thing about God or Jesus to receive God’s radical grace, it would become conditional grace, and thus no longer grace at all because grace, by definition, is a free gift, an undeserved gift, an unconditional gift. We do not need to have the exact correct belief about what happened during the Resurrection to be a Christian, to be a child of God, to receive God’s extravagent grace. 

But there is one thing we can know for sure about the resurrection story. Even the most critical biblical scholars agree that the followers of Jesus did experience something after his crucifixion that convinced them that death had not finished him for good. Otherwise it is hard to imagine why they would have reassembled and continued to do the dangerous work that Jesus started. Jesus’ followers risked arrest and death because they claimed to have experienced Jesus, in some sense, as alive in their midst. So, obviously something happened that day. Whatever that something was reinspired and regathered the shattered band of disciples and pushed them out into the world to carry on the work of Jesus.

In our limited human language it is difficult, if not impossible, to describe the actual experience that the disciples had that morning. They themselves described it at least four different ways in each of the gospels. But they were convinced that Jesus himself was somehow living in their midst, even after his death. In all four of the resurrection encounters, one thing is clear: Jesus wants his followers to keep on doing what he was doing.  Although he was no longer with them in the way he once was, he was nevertheless still with them. It was not the end of Jesus, it was not the end of Jesus’ teachings and actions; it was just the beginning.

Jesus’ story didn’t end with execution. I don’t know how it happened, but somebody started telling stories, tales of darkness turning into light, despair turning into hope, death turning into life- tales of Resurrection. The tales of Resurrection were told by people who were sick and tired of being sick and tired. The disciples found their voices, they were no longer scared to stand up for themselves and others, they moved on from death and pain and suffering and found hope and light and faith. The unfortunates organized. These stories were their way of saying, "We aren't going away. There is a new kingdom coming and it is already breaking through." 

Ultimately, I agree with Grandpa Rucker in Cold Sassy Tree. It does not matter what exactly we believe literally happened that first Easter. It matters that we get to work.

In the gospel of Matthew, the angel tells the women at the tomb that “Jesus is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.” Even though Jesus died, the women would still be able to see him in Galilee, just like we can still see him in this world, not necessarily as a dead body come back to life, but as something more, something deeper, as the presence of peace and love, through actions to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth, through the work that began with Jesus and is continued with us. 

We can see Jesus in our loving actions, we can see Jesus when we sit at a table with refugees or drug addicts or the homeless just like the disciples sat with lepers and prostitutes and tax collectors.

We can see Jesus all around us, in this church, in the community, in the world. 

We can see Jesus through those:

Who care for people

Who speak truth to power

Who make music, art, or dance

Who refuse to lose hope

Who let grudges go

Who forgive

Who make others feel that they belong and are loved without condition

Easter is the joyful celebration that the God of Jesus is alive in all of us. Easter is an invitation to awaken to God's kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven. The story of Easter can be true- truth-ful and truth-filled- independent of what we believe literally happened. We can be Easter People, continuing on the work of Jesus and his disciples, sharing and spreading the message of love and peace and hope. In fact, we MUST be Easter People, because our world needs us, our world needs Easter people who care for the poor, for peace, for the planet, for all. So let’s quit sittin’ round a-moanin’ and a-tremblin’, and get to work. Let’s not be scairt no more, let’s speak words with fire in’m. Christ is Risen. Alleluia. Amen.