An Anti-Fascist Easter Story for April 20, 2025
A Guest Post by “Collared Pastor": Insurrection/Resurrection
My church when I was growing up in Dogpatch.
“Collared Pastor” is a an author and a friend of mine, along with being a pastor. She’s brave enough to sign her name to this column, but she agreed with me that there might be repercussions from sharing this sermon, and she wants to protect her family. It will be given this morning in a small, rural, Iowa church.
Yes, here under the Trump administration, we all live in fear. That’s why we must use every tool we have, including this sermon, maybe especially this sermon, to fight back.
Regular readers know that I’m a lapsed Lutheran. I haven’t been to church in many years except for weddings and funerals, and I’m not otherwise inclined to ever go again for too many reasons to explain.
But when I was a kid I loved Sunday School because we got to read and were told interesting stories from long ago. I also liked being with my friends. But I especially loved Vacation Bible School because of the stories, but also because of the time we were allowed to run around and play outside, and for the Kool-Aid and cookies.
And the crafts. I loved doing the crafts.
I also loved the lessons I was taught about feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and welcoming the stranger. This is part of my identity.
The Trump administration and the radical fascist right are trying to to create a white “Christian” ethnostate, and which has nothing to do with the Sunday School lessons I learned.
In my writings about these fascists, I often fall back on my Sunday School lessons to refute their assertions that what they are doing is Christian, and I find this tactic valuable
I feel very lucky that I have many lefty friends and pastors who also learned the same lessons I did, or I would be going crazy as I watch the atrocities of the “Christian” right play out.
Lefty pastor friends try not to “preach politics from the pulpit,” to protect their tax-exempt status. Yet the right does it all the time, going all in for Donald Trump with hellfire and brimstone sermons. This is typical Democrats play by the rules and Republicans don’t. This is part of the basics asymmetries that my friend Jim Chrisinger writes about.
People legally here in the United States are being kidnapped and sent to terrible prisons in El Salvador without due process. Foreign students who have been invited here are also being deported without due process for practicing free speech. Minority groups are being further marginalized and demonized. Rights are being taken away, and our libraries, public schools, and other institutions are slowly being dismantled. Trump is openly grifting, ignoring the courts, the constitution, and the atrocities continue.
Trump and Musk are ending lives and livelihoods, not just here, but around the world, where the death count climbs as Donald Trump and Elon Musk work to make billionaires even richer. There is blood on their hands. Buckets of blood. Swimming pools of blood. Lakes of blood. And it’s on purpose.
I know that there are many Christian leaders, as well as leaders of several other faiths who read this column.
And I ask you, are you doing what you can to resist fascism while doing your best to keep you and your family safe? Please consider your safety first, but are you prepared to answer the following question when your grandchildren ask it in the future?
The question is, “What did you do when the fascists came for America, Grandpa/Grandma?”
Will you be proud of your answer?
So when my friend “Collared Pastor” told me that she was going to do a political sermon for our time on Easter, I asked her if she wanted to post it as a guest column, and I’m pleased to say she did. It’s the least I can do to honor my Sunday School lessons which have been so important to me.
With a warning that I probably messed up her formatting, here it is:
Insurrection/Resurrection Luke 24:1-12 Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025 by “Collared Pastor.”
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9.
A few hundred years before Jesus walked the earth, a son of David, a philosopher, pondered the meaning of life. He wrote his thoughts, his questions, his conclusions in a document we call the book of Ecclesiastes.
The bright spot in the book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, became the lyrics to a popular folk song, written by Pete Seeger in 1959 and made popular by The Byrds in 1965. The rest of the book is rather dismal and fatalistic. Chapter 1 might make a good cowboy song—"my horse is dead and nobody wants to buy my saddle," sort of lyrics.
About 50 years ago, I was at some Bible Camp and one of the sessions was led by a scary pastor, the kind who was probably born with a white collar around his neck. He quoted this verse about nothing new under the sun and asked us teenagers if there was anything new under the sun. The right answer was "Jesus Christ," of course. Every kid knows the answer to every pastor-ish question is Jesus.
Is there anything new under the sun on this Holy Day of Easter, 2025, since Easter Sunday, 2024?
Yes.
We've seen rights taken away from citizens. The value of our financial investments has changed. Schools are no longer allowed to teach 50% of American history. Women are losing control of their bodies and their voting rights.
We've had some shocks, some surprises since Easter Sunday, 2024. That being said, shocks and surprises are a part of Easter.
When they found the stone rolled away from the entrance, they went in. But they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus, and they did not know what to think.
Surprise!
Suddenly, two men in shining white clothes stood beside them.
Surprise!
But the men said, “Why are you looking in the place of the dead for someone who is alive? Jesus isn't here! He has been raised from death. Remember that while he was still in Galilee, he told you, ‘The Son of Man will be handed over to sinners who will nail him to a cross. But three days later he will rise to life.’
Surprise!
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some other women were the ones who had gone to the tomb. When they returned, they told the eleven apostles and the others what had happened.
The apostles thought it was all nonsense, and they would not believe.
Surprise!
But Peter ran to the tomb. And when he stooped down and looked in, he saw only the burial clothes.
Surprise!
Easter surprises are now relegated to Easter baskets. Nothing surprises us about Easter. Some of us have celebrated Easter every year for seventy or eighty years. No surprises. The same flowers: Easter lilies. The same traditions: Colored eggs and stuffed bunnies. The same hymns: Jesus Christ has Risen Today! Alleluia! Same empty tomb. Same brave women. Same clueless men. Same Roman Empire blowing it off.
Should we be surprised?
“But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”
The angels thought the women should remember: But the men said, “Why are you looking in the place of the dead for someone who is alive? Jesus isn't here! He has been raised from death. Remember that while he was still in Galilee, he told you, ‘The Son of Man will be handed over to sinners who will nail him to a cross. But three days later he will rise to life.’ ”
Why are you women surprised?
He told you.
It's ironic that I've had a few friends say those same words to me in the last weeks.
Why are you surprised?
He told you.
My friends weren't talking about Jesus.
Strangely, the same dynamics are present in both the surprise of the resurrection and the surprise of the coming insurrection.
They heard, but they didn't believe it.
We heard, but we didn't believe it.
Eternal life? Hard to believe. The end of democracy? Hard to believe. The irony, the contrast: endless versus ending.
Versus is an interesting word. It divides. It could be the word of the decade. Red versus Blue. Family versus family. Country versus country. Justice versus vindication. Revelation versus denial.
Some theologians have streamlined Martin Luther's theory about Christian citizenship with a clever sentence: "We are in the world, but not of the world." Of course, we're in the world. God created the earth, then created us to live here. It's a good fit. Air, dirt, heat, cold, water. Light and dark. Food, shelter, entertainment. Resources for every need and every desire.
The world, on the other hand, is more than the earth. The world is what God's humans have decided to do with the earth. Let me insert an abused word, politics, in here. My favorite definition of politics is "people making decisions together."The world has evolved as people, in groups, have made decisions, perceiving, evaluating, creating, changing the world, always for someone's benefit and concurrently, taking away from someone else's welfare. No matter the political system, not matter the economic system in place, every human plan produces winners and losers.
So, we scramble and rearrange and plot to create a system which fits us and our friends and family. We call this government. When we become aware of the losers, we create beautiful bandaids—SNAP, Head Start, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and a variety of subsidies, grants and scholarships.
Because these systems are human interventions and inventions, they can become targets, wobbling and weaving according to human events and desires. Since Easter of 2024, we've learned that even foundations and pillars can become targets.
What's a Christian to do?
The writer of Ecclesiastes claimed there was nothing new under the sun. The scary pastor claimed that Jesus was the only new thing under the sun.
If Jesus is the only thing new under the sun since the Big Bang, since the beginning of creation, is that significant?
We know every human, regardless of spiritual engagement, understands that as humans evolved, sin, evil, pain, betrayal, denial became part of the human experience. Christians call it our "sinful nature." Regardless of what you call it, "human nature," "boys will be boys," "the dark side," we deal with it every day. Some faith systems, and most humans, say we can make humane and benevolent choices. We even try to ban wrongdoing by making laws. Don't kill. Get an education. Don't walk around drunk in the grocery store. Bury your dead. Shirts and shoes required.
We elect people to write laws. We hire people to enforce laws. We educate people to defend laws.
We are bound by the law. Or we were. And then something new under the sun happened. Jesus Christ. The one thing new under the sun. The law of sin, the laws trying to contain, restrict, ignore sin lost their power.
Long story short: God gave us laws. We broke them. So, according to plan, God gave us Jesus. He freed us from the law by giving us, through His death and resurrection, mercy and grace, forgiveness, even freedom! Freedom to claim Jesus not only as Savior, but as teacher, leader, example, as the one person who understands how to "get it right." We do not make the human condition through thousands of laws: it is through forgiveness and reconciliation that the human condition sheds the burden of inevitable and unavoidable sin and, significantly, the punishment of death. (Insert your own Theology of the Cross here.)
This is the difference between resurrection and insurrection. Today we celebrate the life-changing, life-saving, life-giving resurrection of Jesus Christ, who, according to the Scripture, will resurrect us from an earthly death into a life of no sin, no evil, no pain, no betrayal, no denial, into a perfect life designed for us.
Many of us were raised to fear an economic system designed to give everyone equal access to food, shelter, education, security. Communism. Karl Marx gets credit for being the father of Communism. Perhaps his most famous aphorism is "Religion is the opiate of the people."3
In other words, our faithfulness to Jesus is simply a way to distract us from the evil of the world, a way to help us hide from reality. He was talking primarily about Christianity, the primary religious practice in his time and place.
So. Are we drugged? Are we druggies in a religion-induced fog, ignoring reality? Are we sitting on our hands, hiding in our sanctuaries, waiting for the worst to happen?
Hell, No! Jesus Christ lived as a human being, not as a sacrificial symbol. The gospels reveal to us that he didn't go straight from the manger to the cross. He didn't go straight form the Jordan river to the cross. For three years, walking among us like a regular person, he showed us how to live. He didn't show us how to die. He showed us how to live—with love. Love God.
If Marx were writing today, he would say sports is the opiate of the people. Juvenal said centuries before "Give them 3 circuses and beer." What goes around comes around. Me.
Love your neighbor. Those two commandments are inseparable. And what is love? As some of my friends tell me, "Do your own research." But here it is:
Love is patient—with everyone; love is kind—to everyone; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude—to anyone. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs;—no matter how awful it does not rejoice in wrongdoing—no schadenfreude! but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.—not alone but in community!
Surprise!
11 Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’ Deuteronomy 15:115
Surprise!
Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
Surprise!
We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves
Surprise!
We are in the world but not of the world. That being said, we are not floating in the world, hanging out on the edges, waiting for the sweet release of death, denying reality. How often have you prayed "thy kingdom come?" How does the kingdom come? I just told you above. Open your hands, encourage one another, put up with with the failings of others.
Every time we are patient with an idiot, each time we return cruelty with kindness, every time we forgive, we establish the kingdom on earth.
Easter is about Resurrection. There were those among Jesus's followers who were hoping for insurrection: insurrection to overthrow the Roman rulers, insurrection to reclaim Israel's autonomy. It didn't work. Fifty years later, the temple was completely destroyed, the women and children had fled to the hills, as Jesus had predicted.
There have been rumors of insurrection in our time, perhaps in the resurrection of the Insurrection Act of 1807.
Same ol', same ol. Oppression, cruelty, destruction, death. Resurrection: CE to infinity.Always new and renewing.
Resurrection: Freedom, mercy, grace, eternal life.
I won't say don't worry. I won't say everything will be fine next week or next year. Still,
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-398
Surprise!
Amen.
This week I want to highlight a column my friend and fellow Iowa Writers’s Collaborative member Kali White VanBaale offered on the role mental illness played in the arson at the house of Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, and how our system failed the alleged arsonist, Governor Shapiro and his family, and more.
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Wow. This is powerful. A lot to think about here. Thank you for sharing- your pastor friend has connected a lot of dots with this sermon.
Meanwhile a guy drove a John Deere rider mower through a group of protesters in the public right of way along the sidewalk, parking and curb on a main drag in Cedar Falls Saturday. I guess he was trying to mow the lawn so it looked nice for Easter services at the Bible chapel there.
He ground up one protester's dropped sign and shot the debris into the street.
That'll show them dang hippies nothing runs like a Deere.
Geez, I just feel bad grinding up candy wrappers the neighbor kids drop on the lawn. Guess that's the difference between a guilty unkempt Catholic and a fastidious fundamentalist who knows he's saved.