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A meditation on John 10:14-18
This is the resurrection season.  | | It can be gruesome business, this stubborn refusal to acquiese to the bitter finality of death. But for those of us in WACC, it is a story we have seen played out many times in many places. Shirley, Ed, Bill – as Christians and as Communicators – you are seasoned witnesses to resurrection.
Jesus sets the tone in our text this morning: “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. . .”
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In Latin America we have just conmemorated 30 years since the murder of Oscar Arnulfo Romero – already canonized by the people as St. Romero of the Americas. This bespectacled, conservative cleric in service to the elites embraced the grace of a risky conversion provoked by the murder of several of his fellow priests – a conversion to the poor, a conversion to justice, a conversion to life – a conversion that led to his death and resurrection. You've heard these words:
“I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I will rise again in the people of El Salvador.”
"The poor have shown the church the true way to go. A church that does not speak out from the side of the poor is not the true church of Jesus.
"The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword; ... it is the violence of love.
"Let my blood be a seed of freedom.
Such words, of course, are metaphor. Except, of course, that they aren't metaphor at all. They are as concrete as a name and a face and a memory of a life lifted up in offering for the common good. We re-member that life, that vision, saying: Oscar Romero, presente.
The problem with all this resurrection talk is that our whole mindset can become death-centered. But death is not the point. Life well-lived is the point. The stories we remember, the stories that give us strength and hope, are stories of real people, ordinary people, who struggle for human dignity
In the words of Guatemalan poet Julia Esquivel, our task is to proclaim the death of death.
Back to today's text, there's that bit where Jesus says: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.” I don't think Jesus is saying that faithful Muslims and Jews are really secret Christians. I do think he is saying that God's Realm embraces all, even those who are different from us and with whom we might not agree.
We have learned as a global association is that a life well-lived is a life that celebrates diversity, a life that recognizes the presence of God in the other person, a life that affirms that God is not bound by our rules.
But here, too, death casts its shadow. Belonging to a Christian minority in a community controlled by Hindu nationalists can be just as complicated as being a faithful Muslim in the US Bible Belt.
Again, we are witnesses. We bear stories of the faithfulness of women and men who have been willing to take risks and embrace those who are different.
This is the context in which WACC has come to understand that communication must build community, must encourage participation, must be a force for liberation, must speak truth to power, must celebrate and defend the rich diversity of human culture. This we have learned by listening to stories – the stories of how common folk respond to great adversity with dignity, creativity and grace.
Shirley, Ed, Bill - over the years you have given us the gift of your stories. You have helped create safe spaces where such stories can be shared. We are the richer for it. We honor you and we give you our thanks.
- Dennis Smith
070410
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