Sinner, repent!” the preacher exclaimed in desperation, but the figure shuffled forward arms extended. “You do not belong here!” continued the preacher. “You have no place here among us! We are the living and you are not one of the living!”
And with that the creature halted, a puzzled expression upon its horrifying face.
“But all I want to do is make friends” replied the stumbling creature. “Zombies are people, too, you know.”
It doesn’t make much of a horror film. But lately I wonder what it would look like in a movie; the foreboding skies heavy overhead, the music in the background and some ancient New Englander with his preaching tabs and beaded brow protecting his flock as they gathered trembling behind him. The zombie approaches but this time it stops its shuffling gait and begins a conversation.
“Hello.”
Maybe you saw the e-mail that went out this week. Or you have seen one of the posters. Jordan Krumbine is the author of an online comic strip entitled “Zaphod the Zombie.” Zaphod has taken a little time out of his very busy schedule as an advocate for zombie rights to congratulate the Community Church for our open mindedness and our willingness to join the conversation. “Stumble on, true believers!” he exclaims. Every month is Zombie Awareness Month.
Please support your local Zombie Cohort.
Zombies are everywhere these days. And I don’t mean just because they were trick-or-treating around Wilmette and the other villages last night on All Hallows Eve. Take a walk through the bookstores. The Zombie Survival Guide is on the shelves in many of them. If you want to know how to handle this potential crisis, this is the book for you. Or perhaps you are more literary in your tastes. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a top seller. Or, finally, maybe you like a little poetry…Zombie hiaku?
Falling down the stairs
Wasn’t too bad or painful
Took a lot less time
I am not making this up. Zombie literature is everywhere. Some of it is terrifying. Some of it is humorous. So, my interest is peaked. I want to know what this is all about.
I know that on some basic level this is all about entertainment. We find this kind of thing entertaining. Zombies. Vampires. It’s Halloween. Ghouls are all the rage. But I wonder if there is something else at work in all of this hype about the undead. I’m curious.
If I am honest, the truth is that I have found something salvific in the humor and the horror of zombies. The nihilist truth that they proclaim (Who among us is not the walking dead?) moves me. It saddens me and yet it inspires me. The creativity of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or The Book of Zombie Haiku is somehow a compelling exploration of our mortality.
What if we, as human beings, are finding and making meaning through the mythology of the undead? If Ebeneezr Scrooge and Charles Dickens can show us salvation in a ghost story…Then maybe the zombie also has something to teach us.
We turn everything into a commodity including one another. Increased computerization has people wondering where machines end and humanity begins. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this philosophical question belongs only to Isaac Azimov, William Gibson, and other sci-fi gurus.
Did any of you listen to the interview on the radio about the political ramifications of using fighter drones in warfare. The Pentagon wonders if you can actually fight a war of ideas and win it when you use robots. As effective as they are in achieving military goals with little collateral damage (two dehumanizing terms), apparently they serve only to increase the perception that the United Stated is cold and does not care about real people. Military tacticians and politicians are stunned and who can blame them? It’s astonishing…and is forcing us to reassess our assumptions.
We have to rediscover what it means to be human. The technological landscape is shifting so quickly that we are losing a hold on what it means to be human. No wonder the shambling, decomposing zombie is making a comeback in our public mythos. And this time they are crying out with Zaphod “We are you!”
Jordan Krumbine is laughing at me right now. I just know it. I can hear him exclaim, “Tripp, it’s a comic strip!”
I know. I know. But this is where my imagination takes me. This is where I make the connections between how we entertain ourselves and the bigger questions about our humanity.
I am compelled to add a Christian spin to this. I believe that no religion worth it’s salt ignores questions about the nature of humanity…the meaning of living and dying. That’s what we’re here for.
So this is my question: What if we are actually discovering the truth about ourselves that is proclaimed in scripture through this exploration of our own mortality…What if we are discovering that we are alive in God? That's what I think is happening. What if we are finding, rediscovering this truth in the stories about the undead?
This is the outline of Christian testimony: I was dead...dead and unable to love, to love God, my neighbor, the stranger, or myself. I was a shambling mess of a man. My life was falling apart. Literally. Then God came. God came in the form of those who would show compassion and laugh at the madness with me. God came in the form of those whose lives were and still are falling apart. God came as Jesus.
You see, there is virtually nothing in this world that we can control. We only have one real choice we can make. We can live as the dead (or undead) or we can live as if there is salvation. It is no less effective today than it was at any other time. It is offered freely. It is in our DNA, you know. Grace is genetic. It is the natural antibody that staves off a dehumanizing virus that would make us the un-dead. We are the Resurrected. We are Lazarus. We are Christ.
We can always resort to saying that all we have is one another. It is an option. But it is not what Jesus asks of us. Jesus wants us to see beyond the finitude of our relationships, our bodies, and into the Kingdom of God. He wants us to see beyond the mortal frame to understand what is truly at work.
Resurrection is at work. In John’s Gospel, Jesus asks Lazarus to step out of the tomb. The people have gathered and all they seem to understand is death. They see nothing beyond death. Jesus is too late to help. But Jesus shows how death, though real, is not the final answer. It’s not the end of things. It’s not worth our fear and apprehension. Death no longer has the last word. God’s Love is the last word. We can allow things to die because death is not the end of the story.
A friend of mine describes it this way: Jesus did not pull his car into the garage only to back it out again. That would be a zombie. Un-death. No. Jesus drives right through the garage overcoming death. Jesus is victorious over death.
Resurrection is the joke that God plays upon the Devil, anything that feeds off despair or death, shame and oppression, violence and fear.
So, for this reason we can change the way we live.
Shuffling along only half alive and waiting for the next shoe to drop (so to speak)
is not what Christ asks of us,
wants for us,
or has shown us in his ministry on earth.
Jesus asks for compassion,
faith,
love,
healing,
justice,
mercy,
and the gathering of the faithful so that we might be servants to the world.
Jesus cries, “Lazarus, come out!” Step out of the tomb.
We are not the undead. We are God’s resurrected people. All of us. All humanity. Even as we stumble along. Amen.
Preached at the Community Church of Wilmette, Wilmette, IL on the Feast of All Saints in 2009