I am aware that I can sometimes rush to judgement. I know that this is not an admirable trait and I think that I am a bit better at keeping an open mind than was the case when I was younger, but still there are times when I wrestle with judgements I have made. I know that my judgments might not be accurate. At least they are not the full story and yet sometimes when I get a notion - usually about another person - I have trouble looking past that notion.

This Eastertide, I am struggling with my sense of the direction our leaders are taking worship at our church. Here is the judgement that is probably keeping me from fully participating in worship with our congregation: I think that our pastors are having trouble with resurrection. Perhaps their personal beliefs simply do not include specific ideas about what happens after death. Perhaps they have decided that some of the historic teachings of religious leaders about heaven are misleading and not culturally appropriate in modern times. I don’t really know, but it is almost as if the topic of resurrection is being avoided in our church this Eastertide.

On Easter Sunday, the liturgy and sermon focused on the short ending of the Gospel of Mark. Many scholars agree that the most ancient versions of the Gospel end with 16:8, in which the women, when they discover the empty tomb early at first sunrise on the first day of the week, are instructed to Go and tell the disciples, but instead, “they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” This is one of the possible Gospel texts for Easter Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary. The alternate Gospel for Easter is the full resurrection story from the Gospel of John. When I prepared Easter worship in this cycle of the lectionary, I usually opted for the text from the Gospel of John, but I have also preached on the short ending of Mark. When I have done so, I have spoken of the scholar’s agreement that this is likely the most ancient version of how the gospel ended. But I also raised the question of why our traditions have given us both the intermediate and the long ending of the Gospel. If it were true that the women told no one, somehow their silence did not keep the story from being told. In the first place, the empty tomb is part of the most ancient versions of the Gospel. Furthermore, subsequent generations of faithful people felt the need to include post resurrection appearances of Jesus in the endings that we now find as part of the text. I think it is a mistake to discount portions of the text as we have received it simply because there is evidence that they are later additions. We still have to wrestle with the question of why the additions have become a part of our scriptures.

I left the church on Easter morning feeling that the service simply avoided the topic of resurrection. I felt the same the following Sunday. And this morning I’m a bit uncertain of what to expect. The lectionary for today includes Acts 3:12-19 which is Peter’s sermon to the Jews of Jerusalem in which he directly asserts that Jesus is the Messiah and that he was raised from the dead. The Gospel for the morning is Luke 24: 36-48, one of the reports of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples in which he eats in their presence and reminds them that they are witnesses of his resurrection. However, this week, as was the case last week, there is no Gospel reading in our congregation’s liturgy. And the reading from Acts is “selected verses from chapter 4.” I’m always wary of “selected verses.” It can be an indication that the pastor is choosing the text to reach a conclusion previously drawn instead of being led by the text to proclaim the Gospel.

I know, I’m being judgmental. I know I’m drawing conclusions before even attending worship. I will be in church and I will try to approach worship with an open mind.

I know that resurrection is a difficult concept to understand. It is a difficult concept to preach. I wrestled with resurrection every year of my career and in preparation for every funeral at which I officiated. But I also know that some of my deepest experiences of resurrection have come from spending time with grieving people mourning the loss of a loved one. Their stories and memories have brought their loved one to life in my experience. It is clear to me that death is not the end of the worth, the meaning, and the value of human life. It is not the end of love.

I know from my experience of membership in this congregation that our lead pastor is not a reader. She does, however, listen to a lot of audio books. And research has shown that people who listen to audio books retain more information than those who read digital books on electronic devices. While I still prefer reading paper books and do about 75% of my reading from paper books, I do read a fair amount from a digital reader. I love its convenience for traveling and generally have several books loaded on my reader and will travel with it as my only reading device. So perhaps our pastor is retaining as much information from audio books as I do from my combination of reading.

Nonetheless, I think that avoiding direct talk about resurrection during Eastertide is a disservice to a congregation. It is not just my age that forces me to face mortality and to think about death and resurrection. I’ve thought about these issues for all of my life. I know I’m not alone in squirming when I hear a minister say something like, “heaven or wherever we go when we die” at the funeral of a loved one.

Our pastor is very modern and keeps ups with the latest trends in preaching. And I know that there is much I can learn from following one whose direction is different from my own. So, for the most part, I will keep my discomfort to myself. Still, I may check out another perspective through another congregation’s online worship in addition to our church’s worship. I’m longing for some resurrection preaching this Eastertide.