Breathing (sermon on Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2010)

Jon Kabat-Zinn has essentially made a career

out of teaching people how to breathe.

He calls it mindfulness,

and describes it as

“actively tuning in to each moment in an effort to remain

awake and aware from one moment to the next.”

It’s a way of bringing our minds into the present moment—

since, as you may have noticed from time to time,

our minds have this habit of wandering.

Instead of noticing the feel of the sun on our faces

or the incredible scent of the newly-mown grass

we fixate on that conversation we had yesterday

with the person who never listens to us the way we want

or we worry about tomorrow

and how we will do what needs to be done by then.

Another way Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it is that

we become “lost” in our thoughts.

So he decided to see what would happen if you took people who were

chronically ill

or in constant pain

or under intense stress

and taught them to pay attention to their breathing

as a way of tuning in to the present moment.

He starts by asking people to just try a little experiment:

Close your eyes

Sit up straight

And become aware of your breathing.

Don’t try to control it

Just let it happen and be aware of it,

feeling how it feels

as it flows in and out.

Now, he knows as well as anyone that just sitting there

watching your breath is likely to make you feel foolish or bored.

If that’s the case, the next thing he suggests is this:

Take the thumb and forefinger of one hand,

pinch your nose shut and keep your mouth closed.

Then notice how long it takes before your breathing becomes

very interesting to you indeed! (1)

The point, of course, is that if we stop breathing

we will die.

And so noticing our breath actually becomes a way of

noticing our life.

Today is Pentecost.

This is the day the apostles—

those called by Jesus to witness to him throughout the earth—

received the Holy Spirit

and became the church.

The word “spirit” in both Hebrew and Greek,

the original languages of the Bible,

actually means “breath” or “wind.”

This wind, this breath, this Holy Spirit

is not just from God

it is God.

It is the third person of the Trinity,

the one who came for us soon after Jesus returned to God

the one who is still with us now.

And just as our breath is necessary for us to have life,

so the Holy Spirit is the very thing that gives life to the church.

If the church does not have the Holy Spirit, it will die.

But like anything else that is with us all the time,

that happens whether we notice it or not,

most of the time we can’t be bothered to notice the Holy Spirit

any more than we bother to notice our own breathing.

If you think about it, the same is also true with language.

Our native tongue, the language we first heard

whispered to us by our mothers and fathers

eventually came from our lips as naturally

(as they say)

as breathing.

Our ability to speak and understand what those around us are saying

is rarely something we notice until we discover

we can no longer summon words at will

or until we are surrounded by people

who do not speak our language.

Certainly the people who built the tower of Babel had no idea

how fortunate they were

that they all

spoke the same language.

After all, they had never known anything different.

“The whole earth had one language and the same words.”

How convenient that must have been.

How it must have simplified their communications and the interaction of one community with another.

And yet even though God had blessed them with this means of unity,

they were afraid of

“being scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

So they built for themselves a city to live in

and a tower that reached up to the heavens

so that they could remain together,

unified by their language and their customs and their God.

It was comfortable.

It was what they had always known.

It was a group of people united by what they had in common.

It was a group of people who had forgotten to notice what

—and WHO—gave them life.

When God saw the city and the tower,

God knew what had to be done.

The people’s worst fears needed to be realized.

And so God gave them many different languages

and “scattered them abroad...over the face of all the earth.”

It was the very thing they had been afraid of in the first place

and it happened because they took their unity,

their one language,

and they used it

to serve themselves instead of God.

You see, when God created human beings

and breathed the breath of life into us

and gave us the gift of language,

it wasn’t just so we could understand each other.

It was also so that we could spread the good news!

Language was the way God intended God’s people

to tell each other about God,

to share their faith stories

and to hear the stories of others,

to witness to God’s work in the world.

But if God’s people just stayed in one place and kept to themselves,

taking turns climbing the tower to heaven

then how would the good news spread abroad

“upon the whole face of the earth”?

In order for God’s people to be united,

they first had to be divided, scattered

spread abroad throughout the earth

so that the earth—the whole earth—could be populated

with people of God who could witness. (2)

And so God took the thing that the people had feared

—being scattered—

and made it something that served God’s purposes.

On that first Pentecost, we have the reversal

of what happened at the tower of Babel,

where everyone could speak but no one could understand.

With the arrival of the Holy Spirit,

as the church breathed its first breath,

what happened was that the apostles could suddenly

speak other languages,

and this was no punishment or party trick;

it meant that they could go out from their hiding place

and preach the gospel.

It meant they could go tell the story of what God had done

in Jesus Christ, and most importantly,

It meant that everyone outside could suddenly

hear the gospel in their own native language.

Suddenly, the truth of the gospel sounded as familiar to them

as the sound of their own breathing.

It was truly a remarkable moment in the history of the church.

The problem is, we tend to remember it as just that—HISTORY—

when in fact the appearance of the Holy Spirit

is no more something that happened only in the past

than your breathing is something that only happened the moment you were born and never since.

The problem is, most of us have

become so accustomed to the presence of the Holy Spirit

—which is God!—

among us that we have stopped noticing it.

But when we stop noticing the Holy Spirit among us,

we stop noticing the life of our church.

It’s like forgetting the fact that we can only

do the things we do each day

because we take air into and out of our lungs

nearly a thousand times an hour.

We breathe in...we breathe out.

We live.

So if we stop for a moment and take time to notice

the breathing of our church,

which is the Holy Spirit giving us life.

tell me: what do you notice?

The church breathes in:

in worship

in Bible study

in choir practice

in times of fellowship

in caring for one another

The church breathes out:

with free movies for our community

by offering food to needy families through our food pantry

through our relationship with Firestone Park Elementary with a global mission initiative to do what we can to eradicate slavery.

The church breathes in...the church breathes out...

The church lives.

When Jon Kabat-Zin teaches people

to pay attention to their breathing

it doesn’t take away their pain,

or their disease

or their stress...

but it changes their relationship to those things.

It changes the way they view and participate in

their lives.

When we notice the Holy Spirit among us

it’s not going to take away our worries

about growth

about money

about whether

“our children will have faith and

“our faith will have children.”

about how exactly we are supposed to witness.

But noticing the Holy Spirit can change

our relationship to those questions,

and the way we view and participate in

the life of our church.

It can literally inspire us

and divide us and scatter us abroad and give us language

to preach the gospel!

When was the last time you breathed? Did you notice it?

Amen.

Endnotes:

1. Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Bantam Dell, 2005, p. 22-23.

2. In this interpretation, I am indebted to Walter Brueggemann’s analysis of the text. Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. WJK Press, 1984.

Being Church (sermon, May 16, 2010)

Acts 1:1-11

A minister I know got on a plane recently. He began to talk to the person in the seat next to him and they soon exchanged names. Fishing for a conversation topic, the minister asked the man, “So, do you go to church?”

“Funny you should ask,” replied the man. “My family and I just recently made a decision about church.” He went on to explain that the previous year, he and his family had let themselves get totally over-extended. Between work, social commitments, and the activities of their two children – one in elementary school, one in middle school – they were exhausted by Christmas. They were determined that this year would be different.

So one Sunday, having gone to church that morning, they held a family meeting to review all of their commitments in light of how each helped them be the kind of individuals and family they wanted to be. After an hour and a half of conversation, they made their decisions. And they decided to stop “doing” church. Girl Scouts remained, but church was out. “It's just not that meaningful," the man explained. "We go each week and finally realized we're not getting anything out of it. It doesn't connect with the rest of our lives, let alone help us lead those lives. So we're done. We’re not doing church any more.” (1)

When I read texts like today’s passage, frankly, I’m not surprised that so many people today feel that church and the Bible simply don’t connect with their lives. I mean, are we really supposed to believe that the disciples actually stood there and watched Jesus float away on a cloud and disappear from sight? Frankly, that is more than a little absurd. Before Galileo, people may have believed that heaven really was “up there” and earth was “down here,” but now we know way better than that. So what could this text possibly have to say, not just to those of us who thought it was worth our time to show up to church this morning, but for people like that man on the airplane and his family, who have decided that what church offers them is not enough to justify the sacrifice of time and energy it requires? What does this text offer people like that?

Well, although it’s easy to get caught up in this strange and improbable description of Jesus rising up to heaven, we should remember that the first century author of Acts would have believed that the earth was smack in the middle of heaven “up there” and hell “down there.” So in having Jesus rise up to heaven on a cloud, that author isn’t making a statement about the location of heaven. In this description of Jesus’ ascension, the author is making the point that from this moment on, Jesus is no longer present on earth with the disciples. Forty days after the resurrection he returns to God, not dead, exactly, but no longer a living, breathing, eating, teaching, guiding presence on earth. The point of the ascension is that Jesus, God revealed in human flesh, is no longer here. Jesus is no longer here to eat with prostitutes and tax collectors; no longer here to cure diseases; no longer here to tell us just exactly what, by the way, would he do?; no longer here.

But in another, very tangible way, Jesus is here: “You will be my witnesses,” he tells his faithful disciples. “You will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The day Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire at Columbine High School was a long, grueling day for the parents of every child who attended the school. Many of the parents waited at a nearby elementary school, where students arrived as they escaped the building and signed in. Parents checked and rechecked the sign-in sheets, looking for the familiar handwriting of their children. Although the shooting was over shortly after noon, students kept arriving at the elementary school for hours. Every twenty or thirty minutes a new busload of kids would arrive and there would be another round of tearful reunions. But at 4p.m., the buses stopped coming. Authorities promised that there would be one more bus, but it didn’t come. The remaining parents looked around, knowing that some of them would receive the worst news a parent can imagine.

Four more hours passed and still the bus didn’t come. Finally, the county coroner handed out forms asking the parents for descriptions of their children’s clothing and other physical details and to retrieve their children’s dental records. At that point, for many of them, the truth began to sink in. Their children were dead.

The press had been cleared from the area before the parents had been addressed by the coroner, but Lynn Duff, a Red Cross volunteer, was there assisting the families. Lynn noticed that the Evangelical Christian parents responded differently from the other parents. This is how she described what she observed:

“The way that [the Evangelicals] reacted was markedly different...It was like a hundred and eighty degrees from where everybody else was. They were singing; they were praying; they were comforting the other parents...They were thinking a lot about the other parents, the other families, and responding a lot to other people’s needs. They were definitely in pain, and you could see the pain in their eyes, but they were very confident of where there kids were. They were at peace with it. It was like they were a living example of their faith.” (2)

“You will be my witnesses,” Jesus tells the disciples just before he leaves them. Their task -- our task -- is to witness to Jesus by carrying out his work in the world, the work of healing, comforting, serving, loving all people. That is what it means to “do church” and that is what Jesus calls us to do. “Doing church” certainly doesn’t just mean showing up on Sunday morning and checking off “worship” as one of many activities in your life. “Doing church” isn’t a Sunday activity at all -- it’s a daily activity, it is the primary task of our lives as children of God and witnesses to God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

But what, then, do we do when -- for us or for others -- “doing church” has become just another activity among the many activities that take up our time and drain our energy? Well, thankfully, buried in this description of Jesus’ ascension, there is an answer to that very question. Because before he leaves, Jesus doesn’t just tell the disciples what to do, he also gives them what they need to be his witnesses: “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now,” he promises. And “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” Jesus doesn’t expect the disciples -- or any of us -- to “do church” by our own power or ability -- if that were the case, then sooner or later, we would all burn out on church. Jesus promises that witnessing to the gospel is something we will do by the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us. And that means before we can “do church” at all, we have to ‘be’ the church, we have to be baptized by the Holy Spirit, we have to open ourselves to the living God that is at work among us here and now. Before we can “do church” we have to “be church.”

I recently learned about a beautiful Muslim custom. As soon as a Muslim baby is born, the adhan, the call to prayer, is whispered into the baby’s ear. The first two words are “Allahu Akbar” which means “Allah is great” or “God is great.” So the first thing a baby hears is the word “God” whispered into her ear. This same call to prayer echoes through the streets five times a day in Muslim countries. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, the call to prayer reaches your ears, reminding you of what was first whispered in your ear when you were born, reminding you that God -- who created you and sustains you and loves you -- deserves your undying devotion and praise. (3)

Although we Christians don’t have a similar custom that I’m aware of for blessing a newborn baby with the name of God at the moment of birth, we do have a ritual through which we assure children and adults that they are loved and claimed by God. That ritual is the sacrament of baptism, and although we baptize with water, just as John the Baptist did, in that act we believe that the person being baptized receives the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit Jesus promises his disciples, the very Spirit that will come like wind and fire at Pentecost, the Spirit that is even now in this place, that moves in you and me and enables us to witness to the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ.

On a recent Dixie Chicks album the musicians and mothers who make up the band included a beautiful lullaby dedicated to their children. Here are the words to the chorus: “How long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough? Is forever enough? How long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough, ‘cause I’m never, ever giving you up.” (4)

The promise we receive in baptism is this: we are God’s beloved. God is never giving us up, nor is God ever giving up on us. The good news of this text is that witnessing is not dependent on our abilities. And although many of us like to think of ourselves as capable people with important responsibilities and duties, the truth is, in God’s eyes we are as helpless and dependent as newborn babies. So in order to act as the church -- to “do church” -- we first have to “be church” by receiving the gift of the Spirit, God’s gift of love to us.

Sometimes those of us who are longtime church members and leaders don’t always make clear to everyone who walks through the doors that “doing church” is much less about doing and more about being. God gives us the gift of the Spirit so that we can spread the word: “how long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough? Is forever enough?” Because you can give up on church, you can give up on God, but God is never giving you up. Amen.

Endnotes:

1. David Lose, “Dear Working Preacher,” May 9, 2010.

2. Dave Cullen, Columbine. Twelve, New York, 2009, p. 94.

3. Martin B. Copenhaver, “Whispered in Your Ear,” Journal for Preachers, Vol. 23, No. 3, p. 38.

4. Listen to the song here.

Open (sermon, May 9, 2010)

Acts 16:9-16

On a scale of one to ten, how open are you to the gospel? Let’s say one is closed up tight. Yes, you’re in church, but that’s just because it’s what you’ve always done on Sunday mornings or it’s what you are supposed to do. But really, your expectations are lower than low. You’ve already heard the gospel and are pretty sure it’s got nothing new to say to you. On the other end of the spectrum, let’s say ten is wide open and eager, you are ready for God to come to you, ready for the Spirit to work in you, you are hoping and praying that today is the day you will meet God face to face and live to tell us all about it. You are ready for something different, a change from the routine that has you bored to tears, ready for God to shake things up.

On a scale of one to ten, how open are you to the gospel?

In today’s text, we meet characters who would undoubtedly rate themselves pretty high on the openness scale. First, we have Paul and the other apostles who are traveling around, spreading the gospel, wide open to the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit to tell them where to go and what to do. And sure enough, Paul has a vision in which he sees a man from Macedonia calling for help. They agree that this means they should head in that direction and so off they go. They spend a few days in the city, apparently without ever encountering that man from Paul’s vision. On the Sabbath they go outside the city gates thinking that there just might be a place by the river where people are open to the gospel.

That’s where they find Lydia. This self-sufficient woman, who makes a living selling expensive cloth, is clearly open to the gospel; the text tells us she is already a worshipper of God, which means she wasn’t Jewish but she had heard of the God of Israel and she was intrigued. She listens to what Paul has to say and right there on the spot decides that she and her whole family will be baptized.

It’s a story full of people open to God, and look at how all that openness pays off: because Paul is open to the vision leading him to Macedonia, because Lydia is open to the good news Paul shares, the gospel continues to spread throughout the land.

How open are you to the gospel, to receiving it for yourself and to joining in the effort to spread the gospel throughout the land?

Well, I don’t know about you, but these days, I can’t say I feel all that open. Maybe it’s because there are simply too many things in the world today that cloud our minds with worry and anxiety -- car bombs in Times Square, an oil spill that just keeps getting worse, chemicals that cause cancer, a stock market that swings wildly, two wars that won’t end. And when there’s all this to worry about, getting ourselves into an open and receptive state takes time. And who has that kind of time when there are family members and friends who depend on us, bills to be paid, meals to prepare, houses and gardens and, for that matter, church buildings and grounds that demand our attention?

In Anna Quindlen’s novel Every Last One, the main character, Mary Beth Latham, is the mother of three teenagers and the wife of a kind and stable doctor. She has several close friends, some new, some old. She runs a successful landscaping business. And yet at times she finds herself crying for no discernible reason: “I have no excuse for my own tears,” she says. “In the way of women my age, I increasingly count my blessings aloud, as though if other people acknowledge them they’ll be enough: three wonderful children, a long and happy marriage, good home, pleasurable work. And if below the surface I sense that one child is poised to flee and another is miserable, that my husband and I trade public pleasantries and private minutiae, that my work depends on the labor of men who think I’m cheating them—none of that is to be dwelled on. Besides, none of that has anything to do with my tears. If I were pressed, I would have to say that they are the symptom of some great loneliness, as free-floating and untethered to everyday life as a tornado is to the usual weather. It whirls through, ripping and tearing, and then I’m in the parking lot of the supermarket, wiping my eyes, replacing my sunglasses, buying fish and greens for that night’s dinner. If anyone asks how things are, I say what we all say: fine, good, great, terrific, wonderful.” (1)

Openness sounds like a good idea, but if we allow ourselves to be open and receptive, whether to God or the gospel aren’t we taking a big risk that other things might also find their way in as well, like those thoughts and feelings that lurk just below the surface of our daily lives,? Aren’t we afraid that opening our hearts to God might also mean letting in our deep loneliness, our fear of failure, the debilitating guilt over things we’ve done or haven’t done?

Would you be surprised to learn that after the terrorist attacks of September 11, the business for security consulting firms skyrocketed? It turns out that in the face of the fear and insecurity generated by the attacks, people wanted to reinforce the locks on the doors of their houses. It’s not like having a stronger lock on your front door is going to protect you from terrorists, but still, when people were feeling afraid, they closed up, they locked themselves away. It happened ideologically, too. Yes, there was that time just after 9-11 when Americans were more closely united than ever before, but then we began to drift apart again, closing ourselves off into ideological camps, refusing to be open to the ideas and opinions of those whom we are already certain are wrong.

The writer Anne Lamott grew up in the Bay area of California, the daughter of atheist intellectuals. She went to college on a tennis scholarship but spent too much time partying and after two years, she dropped out. She worked as a writer and even had some success -- articles in magazines and two novels. But still, she struggled and continued drinking and doing drugs.

Then, one night she was at home, drunk again, feeling awful, and that’s when it happened. She writes, "I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner. ... The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there — of course, there wasn't.

“But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this. And I was appalled--I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, 'I would rather die.' " (2)

Instead, she started attending a tiny church and began to think about turning her life around. She kept drinking, though, especially when her third novel got bad reviews. The low point came when she was to speak at a benefit in front of 150 people who had paid to hear her. She drank so much that she passed out...right in the middle of her speech. After that, she decided to get sober, and slowly, slowly, she did and has been ever since. She found strength and support in that tiny church, especially when she became pregnant and the baby’s father left her. She began to write nonfiction books about motherhood, her conversion to Christianity, and her stumbling, irreverent, and persistent faith. These books got rave reviews and opened up many people who might not have been able to hear the good news of the gospel any other way.

Of course, Anne Lamott is just one of many people who were completely closed off to God. That includes Saul, whose conversion to Paul we heard about two weeks ago -- he was headed to Damascus to persecute Christians when he met the risen Christ and discovered that he was going in the wrong direction. Then there are the disciples, the very ones who saw, heard, and touched Jesus in person and yet still struggled to be open to his teachings. When he told them that he would have to suffer and die and rise again, they refused to believe him. And when he did die on a cross, the first thing they did was lock themselves away in a house, as scared and insecure as those who got new locks for their doors after 9-11.

The point of this sermon is not to get you to go home today and fling open all the doors in your life -- the doors to your house, the doors to your heart. Don’t get me wrong: we could all benefit from spending time daily in the kind of prayer that doesn’t just tell God what we want but in which we truly open ourselves to God and attend to the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us. But when I look at this text, this story of how the gospel continued to spread across Asia and into Europe, the good news I hear is this: “The Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” You could argue that as a God-worshipper who had gathered for prayer that morning, Lydia had done everything she could to open herself up to God, but at the end of the day she could have been Anne Lamott, drunk and miserable; or Mary Beth Latham, desperately lonely beneath the veneer of a blessed life; or the disciples, locked away in their grief and confusion over Jesus’ death...Lydia could have been any of us and still -- STILL -- God would have opened her heart to listen eagerly to the good news Paul shared.

Our God is undeterred by whatever obstacles to openness we put up. Again and again, God shows up in the most unlikely places to the most unlikely people and pries open hearts that had been closed up tight.

After Lydia hears and believes the gospel she opens her house to her fellow believers, insisting that Paul and the apostles come and stay at her home. God opens her heart and she, in turn, opens her home to strangers. Anne Lamott does the same thing through her writing: by sharing her experience of God’s grace and her ongoing attempts to be faithful, she extends gospel hospitality to all who have read her work. Openness breeds more openness...and the gospel continues to spread throughout the land.

On a scale of one to ten, how open are you to the gospel? Well, the good news is, it doesn’t matter whether you are a one or a ten, whether you are wide open or closed up tight: our God can open any heart, even yours and yours and yours and yours, even mine. (3) Thanks be to God. Amen.

Endnotes:

1. Anna Quindlen, Every Last One. Random House, 2010.

2. The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, April 10, 2010, read it here.

3. I am indebted in this sermon to the homiletical work done by the Rev. Mark Ramsey in his sermon “Locked” preached at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Asheville, NC on April 11, 2010. Listen to or read Mark’s sermon here.

The Game-Changer (sermon, April 25, 2010)

Acts 9:1-20

In the last days before the final vote in the Senate on the health care bill, I heard yet another story on the radio about people who had gathered in Washington, D.C. to express their support for or their opposition to the bill. The reporter said that the demonstrators had pretty much kept to themselves; supporters of the bill on one side of the street, protestors on the other. But at one point, for some unknown reason, someone crossed the street, and that’s when things got ugly. The reporter caught some of the exchange on tape.

“What’s the matter with you?” one angry voice shouted.

“You must be a total idiot!” countered the other.

These two people weren’t just a little upset; they were apoplectic. Their voices were hoarse and filled with fury. It was extremely unpleasant to listen to, even over the radio. Had I been there to witness it, I would have been sure that violence was going to break out. Clearly, these people had no business talking to each other because there is no way either of them is going to change the other’s mind. Their views are set in stone. Immovable. Unchangeable.

Our two main characters in today’s story from Acts represented two sides of a debate as polarized as our current political climate. On one side of the street there was Saul, the number one persecutor of the earliest followers of Jesus. When Jesus was crucified the high priest and the temple leadership hoped that would take care of his radical ideas once and for all. But even with Jesus gone, his pesky followers were still showing up all over the place, speaking in tongues, preaching in public, saying that Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. It was the worst kind of blasphemy and Saul, a brilliant, ambitious, and faithful young Jew, had made it his personal mission to shut up these followers of Jesus. In his mind they were completely misinformed and downright heretical.

Today’s story from Acts isn’t the first time we hear about Saul. He shows up at the stoning of Stephen, and though it’s not clear if he actually participates in this murder, the text clearly states that he approves of it. Then we hear that Saul “was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.” (Acts 8:3)

In today’s story, Saul is on his way up to Damascus with warrants in his hand, breathing threats and murder -- yes, murder! -- against Jesus’ followers. He is a man with a mission, as driven and determined as any one of the impassioned tea partiers making headlines today.

So, on one side of the street we have Saul of Tarsus. On the other side of the street we have Ananias, about whom we know little. All we’re told is that he lived in Damascus and was a disciple of the Lord Jesus. We can be reasonably sure, though, that Ananias was absolutely convinced of two things: one, that Jesus is Lord and two, that Saul of Tarsus is his worst enemy.

Saul’s views about the followers of Jesus and Ananias’ views about Saul were set in stone. Immovable. Unchangeable. Clearly these were two people who should be kept as far apart as possible. Put them together on the same side of the street and you could almost guarantee violence would break out.

So, picture Saul, simmering with rage, crossing the street, going as fast as he can to Damascus, ready to take down those Jesus lovers once and for all. But instead of a clash between two immovable, unchangeable opponents, there is a flash of blinding light and a voice from heaven: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

“Why do I persecute you?” Saul might have said if he wasn’t rendered speechless and sightless. “Because I serve the Lord God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and you and your followers are ruining my people’s understanding of who God is! I’m not just going to sit idly by while that happens!”

Now picture Ananias, faithful and confident, going about his business, not looking for confrontation with anyone, when suddenly Jesus appears, saying, “Get up and go find Saul of Tarsus and lay hands on him so that he can see again, because he is the one who will preach the gospel to the Gentiles.”

“I must have misheard you, Lord,” we can imagine Ananias saying politely. “Because it kind of sounded like you said Saul of Tarsus, who would probably kill me if I tried to touch him and who couldn’t possibly preach the gospel to anyon. He doesn’t even believe you are the Lord! How could he preach anything except bigotry and hatred?”

I can just see Jesus smiling gently at the sightless Saul, now groping in the dark, and at Ananias, completely incredulous...smiling at them and marveling at how hard it is for human beings to believe that God’s love and grace really does extend even to our worst enemies. Then Jesus says to both of them, “Trust me, and do as I say.” And with that, the immovable, unchangeable is changed...by God. Ananias goes to Saul, lays hands on him, heals him, baptizes him. Saul’s murderous rage against Jesus’ followers transforms into a passionate zeal as he preaches the gospel far and wide to people he once believed were on the wrong side of God’s story.

*****

They just might have played the oddest game in Texas high school football history last year down in Grapevine, Texas. The game was between Grapevine Faith and Gainesville State School, and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through. You heard right. The other team’s fans. They even made a banner for players to crash through that read "Go Tornadoes!" Which is also weird, since Grapevine Faith’s mascot is a Lion. There were even 200 Grapevine fans who sat on the Gainesville side, cheering for the Gainesville players—by name.

"I never in my life thought I'd hear people cheering for us to tackle their kids," recalls Gainesville's quarterback, Isaiah. "But they wanted us to!"

And even though Faith won 33-14, the Gainesville kids were so happy that after the game they gave head coach a squirt-bottle shower like he'd just won state.

But then you saw the police officers escorting the 14 Gainesville players off the field. They lined the players up in groups of five—handcuffs ready in their back pockets—and marched them to the team bus. You see, Gainesville State is a maximum-security correctional facility.

The strangeness that night in Texas all started when Faith's head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something nice for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score. After all, Faith was 7-2 going into the game, while Gainesville was 0-8 with 2 touch downs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets. Many of these kids families had disowned them, some long before they ended up in prison.

So Coach Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans—for one night only—cheered for the other team? In an email the Coach asked half of the the Faith parents to do just that. "Here's the message I want you to send:" Hogan wrote. "You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth."

Some people were naturally confused. One Faith player walked into Hogan's office and asked, "Coach, why are we doing this?"

"Imagine if you didn't have a home life,” the coach said. “Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you."

And the next thing you know, the Gainesville Tornadoes were turning around on their bench to see something they’d never seen before. Hundreds of fans.

"I thought maybe they were confused," said Alex, a Gainesville lineman. "They started yelling 'DEE-fense!' when their team had the ball. I said, 'What? Why they cheerin' for us?'"

It was a strange experience for teenagers who had grown used to people crossing the street to avoid them. "We can tell people are a little afraid of us when we come to the games," says Gerald, a lineman who will spend three years at Gainesville State. "You can see it in their eyes. They're lookin' at us like we're criminals. But these people, they were yellin' for us! By our names!"

After the game, both teams gathered in the middle of the field to pray and that's when Isaiah, one of the kids going back to prison, surprised everybody by asking to lead the prayer. “We had no idea what the kid was going to say," remembers Coach Hogan. But Isaiah said this: "Lord, I don't know how this happened, so I don't know how to say thank You, but I never would've known there was so many people in the world that cared about us."

As they made they way to the bus, the Gainesville coach saw Hogan, grabbed him hard by the shoulders and said, "You'll never know what your people did for these kids tonight. You'll never, ever know."

As the Gainesville kids got on the bus, they received gift bags with food, a Bible, and letter from a player on the opposing team. As the bus pulled away, all the Gainesville players crammed to one side and pressed their hands to the window, staring at these people they'd never met before, who for one night made the feel as valuable as every other person on the planet. (1)

We live in a divided world. It is so tempting to believe that the world is composed of us and them, to think that there is right and wrong and that these categories are set in stone. But we are the beloved children of the living God, whose Son moved the stone away from his own tomb and walked out of it. We are followers of the risen Lord, who commands us to see the world all people in it differently. There is no us and them, there is only us. And when the scales fall from our eyes by God’s grace, we are called to share the good news that every person on this planet is equally loved and valued by God, no matter what side we’ve been on in the past, no matter what mistakes we’ve made.

Unchangeable? Immovable? Set in stone? Not with God. With God, all things are possible. Amen.

Endnotes:

1. Read the original story by Rick Reilly here.

The End of Endings (sermon, April 18, 2010)

John 20:19-31

John 21:1-19

Don’t you just get a wonderfully satisfied feeling when a story ends well? When the author (or storyteller) neatly ties up all the loose ends? When you can lay down a book or walk out of a dark theater into the bright light of day with a sense of closure -- the characters whose lives you became so invested in, the plot lines that seized your attention, everything nicely resolved, all tied up in a neat little package?

In the twentieth chapter of the gospel of John, the author provides just that kind of satisfying ending. The risen Lord Jesus stands among his disciples and gives them peace and the Holy Spirit. Jesus even appears a second time, this time when Thomas is there, so that Thomas, who really needed to see Jesus to believe he is risen, can truly believe. And then there are couple of wrap-up sentences clearly designed to bring John’s whole gospel to a tidy conclusion so that all of us can breathe a satisfied sigh and head on home as the screen fades to black and the lights come up.

But then -- what’s this? -- the lights are going back down, the screen is flickering back to life, the ushers are motioning us to keep our seats, and the story starts up again, in John 21:1-19.

John 21:1-19

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” ... After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

*****

The musical “Into the Woods” retells four classic fairy tales with a twist: it tells the stories of what happens to all these well-known characters after they lived “happily ever after.” And, as you might have guessed, the ever after they lived is actually not so happy after all. The musical is entertaining, but it does ruin that nice, satisfied feeling you get after seeing a story end well and hearing those magic words, “and they all lived happily ever after.”

John chapter 21 is certainly entertaining, but it ruins the “happily ever after” we felt at the end of chapter 20. As the curtain rises again, we find a group of the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias trying to figure out what to do now that all the emotion and excitement of Jesus’ trial, death, and resurrection has died down. The story they have been a part of for three years has finally come to a close and they are trying to get on with their lives. When we encounter them, they’re sitting around on the beach like a group of cranky teenagers convinced that there’s nothing to do in their boring hometown. Suddenly, Peter can’t take it any more. He jumps up. “I’m going fishing,” he announces, and inevitably, the rest follow along. If there’s nothing better to do, they figure, we might as well work. Hopefully they’d at least catch enough for a meal.

Sadly, though, their return to the job is more frustrating than satisfying. A whole night out on the water and not one fish to show for it. Then, as the sun begins to rise, they see a man on the beach who calls out to them, “No fish, huh?” The disciples exchange puzzled glances: who is this guy and why does he care whether we caught anything? “No,” they say. Then he speaks again. “Cast your net on the right side of the boat. That’s where the fish are!”

Again, puzzled glances. “Gee,” says Thomas, always the cynic, “why didn’t we think of that?” “Come on,” says Peter, “It’s worth a try.” They throw the empty net over the right side of the boat, and in an instant, it’s teeming with fish. They can’t even pull it up, it’s so full, but remarkably, the net does not break. The sheer abundance of the catch is overwhelming...and oddly familiar...and that’s when one of them realizes what’s just happened. He looks back at that man on the beach, “It’s the Lord!” he shouts.

And Peter -- impetuous, impulsive Peter -- leaps into the water and starts swims shore, desperate to once again meet the risen Lord face to face. When all the disciples arrive on the beach, hauling that straining net of fish behind them they discover that Jesus, always ready with nourishment of one kind or another, has once again prepared a meal for them. They hadn’t realized it before, but after their long night, they are famished, and here, in the place where they once saw Jesus feed five thousand people with just five loaves and two fishes, they haul in their boatload of fish and the seven of them gather around a charcoal fire and eat their fill. It is the most satisfying breakfast they have ever had.

Writing about the death of his mother after a long illness, Tom Long recalls how every day in hospice care, she would beckon one of the loved ones who kept vigil at her bedside and whisper the words, “I’m hungry.” She had a feeding tube and she was getting as much broth and pureed foods as her dying body could handle, but still she kept telling them, day after day: “I’m hungry.” The hospice staff assured the family that her body could not feel hunger pains, but it still upset them. One day, Tom entered the room and found her restless in her bed.

“What’s wrong,” he asked. “Are you hungry?”

“Very,” she whispered. Tom felt helpless. He didn’t know what to do. He tried to give her some soft food, but after a couple of bites, she shook her head. No more.

“Slowly it dawned on me,” he writes. “‘I’m hungry’ was her way of describing the totality of her circumstance. She was not asking for food; she was saying that everything was slipping away, her personal history was closing down, coming to an end. Her days of breath and food and light and family and the touch of love were ebbing, and she was hungry, hungry for more, hungry for the life being taken away from her...very hungry.” (1)

Peter was very hungry too...and for more than just breakfast. He was longing for a resolution to the one story John didn’t tie up tight in chapter 20, the story of another charcoal fire, this one in Jerusalem, the story of a time when rather than leaping in the water and running toward Jesus with abandon, Peter had slithered away from him, denying not once, not twice, but three times that he even knew him. Since then, when he saw the risen Lord, Peter had not been able to look him in the eye. Though his heart leapt to see Jesus again, it was weighed down heavily with guilt and sorrow.

Just as Jesus could see all the way from the shore that the disciples were having a bad night of fishing, Jesus sees right through Peter. He sees Peter’s guilt, sees his hunger for resolution, and so he offers him nourishment of another kind. He looks him in the eye and asks him not once, not twice, but three times, “Do you love me?” And each time, Peter holds his head high, meets Jesus’ gaze, and replies, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” And even with this abundance of grace, the net of Peter’s heart does not break. In these three questions and answers Peter is restored to relationship with Jesus, and to his place in the community of Jesus’ followers. It’s almost the perfect ending.

Almost. You see, Jesus doesn’t just offer Peter forgiveness and by doing so, restore him to the community of the disciples: Jesus also gives Peter work to do, not just any work, but the work of the Good Shepherd, the one who loves his sheep, who knows them by name, who lays down his life for them.

Maybe you’ve read one of the many articles lately detailing the “happiness research” that seems to be all the rage right now as we struggle to figure out exactly what it is that makes human beings happy. The research tends to overlap at one surprisingly simple point: whatever else contributes to happiness -- health, wealth, etc. -- the two absolutely essential components to happiness are these: a sense of belonging to a community and and the belief that what you do matters. These are the key elements of happiness: belonging and purpose. (2)

“Peter, do you love me?...Feed my lambs. Peter, do you love me?...Tend my sheep. Peter, do you love me?...Feed my sheep.” With these commands to Peter, Jesus not only offers him the keys to a life of happiness and fulfillment, he reveals that this story is not your usual story. This is not a great novel or a well-crafted play. It’s not even a great television series that enjoys critical acclaim for nine or ten seasons. This is God’s story, this is creation’s story, this is your story and my story and Peter’s story, and here’s what is truly amazing about it: it doesn’t end.

The Nuremberg Chronicle is an illustrated world history that was published in 1493, one of the earliest printed books and one of the first to combine text and illustrations. In spite of these remarkable achievements, the book describes a civilization with little vision or hope for the future. So sure were the publishers that the world was rapidly coming to an end that they left several pages blank at the end of the book, encouraging readers to record “the rest of the events until the end of the world.” (3)

With this second ending that actually isn’t an ending at all, the gospel of John encourages us to fill in the blanks of this story. Where does the risen Christ show us abundance when our best efforts have come up empty? When does Jesus offer us nourishment, satisfying the hunger we didn’t know we had? How does the risen Lord extend us forgiveness and then what satisfying work does Jesus give us to do? The answers we give are the stories we are called to tell, the ones that make this remarkable story go on.

Oh, I should tell you that the verses I read before weren’t actually the end of the book of John. That gospel ends with verse 25: “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” No, I suppose it couldn’t...not then, not now. Amen.

Endnotes:

1. Thomas G. Long, “Easter -- The Extra Scenes?” Journal for Preachers, Vol. 23, No. 3, Easter 2010, p. 36.

2. David Lose, “Peter and the Pursuit of Happiness” at WorkingPreacher.org.

3. Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve. Church Publishing Inc., 1999, 2007, p. 29.

Can I Get a Witness (sermon, April 11, 2010)

Acts 5:27-32

Revelation 1:1-8

Theologically speaking, Easter is not just a day, it’s a season, and a long season at that -- longer than Advent and Christmas combined, longer even than Lent. But most of us celebrate Easter in one day or perhaps for a weekend -- with Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, meals with family, and hopefully, at least one visit to a church to worship. But after the day or the weekend is over, life goes on. As joyous as we might feel on Easter morning, as much as we cling to our firm belief that day that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ God has defeated death and sin once and for all, when the music fades and the fancy new clothes are back in the closet, we find ourselves face to face once again with the things in our lives that seem much more tangible than the promises of Easter: the job that demands too much, the bills piling up, the loneliness, the illness, the broken relationship, the hole in our lives from the person who is gone. In the face of all this, what does it mean for us to proclaim for six more weeks: Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!? What does it look like for us to be Easter people?

Well, the first followers of Jesus offer us a great answer to those questions. After the resurrected Jesus appeared to them and then eventually returned to God, the apostles got busy with the work of witnessing to the amazing love of God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They couldn’t help but tell the story all over Jerusalem, even though it repeatedly got them in trouble.

Charles Colson was a convicted Watergate conspirator who became convinced of the truth in the New Testament and, specifically, its witness to the resurrection. What convinced him of this truth was his own experience of being directly involved in a major cover-up. On his path to prison, Colson discovered that few people are willing to suffer for long in defense of a lie. Very few people are willing to let their family members suffer in defense of a lie. And very, very few people are willing to die for a lie.

After he learned this lesson firsthand watching his fellow Watergate conspirators crack one by one and tell the truth about their crimes, Colson decided that Jesus’ disciples never would have kept telling the story of Jesus’ resurrection if they had simply made it up to keep their new religion going.

The disciples showed an incredible determination and resolve to witness to what they had seen: Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection -- even when that witness meant they risked imprisonment and even death. For the disciples, it was worth the risk to declare the truth of God’s revelation of Jesus Christ. And when we read their stories, like the one today from the book of Acts, we see what it looks like to be Easter people.

The only problem is, as inspiring as the apostles’ actions are, we find them hard to imitate...because we weren’t there when our Lord was crucified, we weren’t there when they laid him in a tomb, we weren’t there when he rose from the dead. Unlike the apostles, our faith does not come from having witnessed firsthand Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

The good news is that there is a book of the Bible that speaks even more directly to our experience as modern-day Christians and to what it might look like for us to truly live as Easter people. Believe it or not, that book is the Book of Revelation. Today’s reading is from the opening of the book, chapter 1, verses 1-8.

Revelation 1:1-8

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood,and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Look! He is coming with the clouds;

every eye will see him,

even those who pierced him;

and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.

So it is to be. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

At the session meeting last week, I asked the elders what first came to mind when they thought of the book of Revelation. Immediately someone said, “Scary stuff.” There’s a good reason “scary stuff” is what comes to mind for most of us when we think of Revelation. Not only is there is a lot of scary stuff in it, that “stuff” becomes even scarier when we discover that much of the violence and judgment in the book comes from God. Plus, over the centuries, a variety of groups have deliberately used the imagery in Revelation to scare people into believing or behaving in a certain way. As a result, many of us tend to avoid this book.

But if we look more carefully at what it says and at the context in which it was written, we might just discover that no other book in the Bible has as much to offer the church today as Revelation.

So let’s cover the basics. Revelation is actually a letter, written by a man named John (not the same John as the writer of the Gospel of John) to seven churches in what he called Asia, which actually refers to modern-day Turkey. The letter is believed to have been written about twenty-five years after the resurrection, at a time when Christianity was still in the early stages of becoming a world-wide religion. In other words, this letter was written right at the time when those who believed that Jesus was the Christ but had not witnessed the resurrection firsthand were trying to figure out how to live as Easter people...not so different from us.

What was significantly different for the first Christians over two thousand years ago was that there was absolutely no attempt to separate religion and politics. At that time, Rome occupied all the cities in what John calls Asia, and citizens were expected, if not required, to show their devotion to the Roman emperor through what were essentially religious ceremonies and rituals. The brilliance of the Roman occupation was that along with military might and economic stability, it gave people a role to play in a grand story. The story was this: the emperor is a god and if you worship him and the you will have peace and prosperity. (1)

In Revelation, John offers his readers a different story: the story of the revelation. Although this book is often mistakenly referred to as “RevelationS”, the proper title is “RevelatioN,” as in THE one revelation, and the revelation about which John writes, the story he offers is this: Jesus is Lord.

Perhaps now it’s becoming clear why the Book of Revelation contains so much violent imagery: because the story of Rome and the story of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ are totally and completely incompatible.

As so often happens when two stories are incompatible but undeniably co-existing, many Christians at that time lived a double life. In public they appeared loyal to their Roman occupiers. They attended all the ceremonies, said the right prayers, ate the meat of animals that had been sacrificed to Roman gods. In their hearts, they didn’t believe any of it -- they knew that the real author of their lives was God, not the emperor and the real story was that Jesus is Lord, not that the emperor was divine. But they kept their true beliefs quiet, knowing this was the only way to live in peace.

In Revelation, John is calling such Christians out. He was infuriated at the evidence he saw of Christians who chose to blend in rather than declare their true loyalty to Jesus Christ. At the time, there was essentially a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy where religion was concerned. As long as you took part in the ceremonies affirming the authority of Rome and the divinity of the emperor, no one cared what you actually believed.

There were certainly good reasons for these early Christians to keep their true beliefs quiet. Taking part in ceremonies and rituals that promoted the emperor as a god was important for their social and economic mobility. It was how people “climbed the ladder” in their careers, which, then, as now, was how people provided a good and stable life for themselves and their families. Accommodation, assimilation, blending in -- these are the things that John is upset about. He wants Christians to abandon the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and come out of the Christian closet, even though doing so is sure to lead to persecution and perhaps even death.

Last weekend, watching the Final Four of the NCAA men’s basketball championship, I was struck by the differences in the coaching. There was Brad Stevens, the coach for Butler, who remained incredibly calm during the games, rarely showing emotion toward the refs or his players. Then there was Mike Krzyzewski, the Duke coach, who watched every game with a scowl on his face, spoke to his players with a quiet intensity, and argued animatedly with the refs when he didn’t like a call. But most emotive was the coach of West Virginia University, Bob Huggins. Throughout the semi-final game against Duke, he screamed and yelled at his players from the sidelines, and furiously lit into the referees when he thought a call was unfair. Personally, I couldn’t see the benefit of this strategy, since I don’t respond well to being yelled at, but clearly, the West Virginia players adored their coach and played their hearts out in the game, even after their best player got injured, even when they fell so far behind it was clear to everyone they were in a losing battle.

If John, the writer of Revelation, was a coach, he’d be a lot more like Bob Huggins than Brad Stevens. In order to inspire the Christians in Asia to declare that Jesus is their authority, that the true story is the revelation that Jesus is Lord, John uses strong language and powerful imagery. But he does so in an attempt to inspire Christians to witness to the truth of the revelation and to share that story so that all might know the wondrous love of God.

I have a friend who is a die-hard Michigan fan. He is such a die-hard fan that he tends to have issues with his temper when he watches a game. Finally, his wife delivered an ultimatum: get your temper under control or you can’t watch games at home. Well, he came up with a good solution: he records the games and then, after he finds out whether Michigan won, he watches the game. When he knows the ending, the game is a whole different experience. It matters, but not quite in the same way. Knowing the ending, he’s able to maintain some perspective.

Maybe that’s why John opens this strange and, at times, frightening letter with a glimpse of the ending in store for all of us. “Look -- he is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him... ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Right at the beginning, John tells us the ending of this story. And it turns out the ending is essentially the same as the beginning, for this world, and the lives of everyone in it, will end as it began, in the hands of God.

In the end, the answer to the question of how we live as Easter people is the same answer in Revelation as it is in Acts. We are called to witness to the story that God has revealed to us...simply because it is true. Right at the beginning, John reminds his readers that Jesus was the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of earth. We can’t be the firstborn of the dead or the ruler of the kings of earth, but we can be faithful witnesses to the revelation that Jesus is Lord, that God--not any human authority--is the author of our lives from beginning to end.

It’s still Easter, and even though our sorrows and anxieties and frustration with this life are as real as ever, we are called to be faithful witnesses. We witness every time we show in word or deed that this life, this world is not the end of God’s story. We witness when we proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord and that one day Christ will come again and everyone will see him clearly. We witness when we refuse to give in to despair because we know despair is not the end of the story. This story--the story of the revelation--will end as it began: with the glory of God. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Amen.

Endnotes:

1. In this discussion of the historical context of the Book of Revelation, I am indebted to a wonderful commentary by Dr. Brian Blount: Revelation: A Commentary (New Testament Library). WJK, 2009.

Proof (Easter Sunday sermon, April 4, 2010)

Luke 24:1-12

From the day it arrived in their otherwise tastefully decorated home, Jill and Frank relegated the rocking chair to an obscure corner of the living room. They preferred a more modern look; straight lines, neutral colors. The chair featured ornately carved wood where it wasn’t covered with fraying upholstery in an old-fashioned floral print. It wasn’t much to look at it, and it was terribly uncomfortable to sit in. They only allowed it in their living room because, first of all, it was a wedding gift from Frank’s mother, and second, it had a history. It had been in the family for generations now, and, as the story goes, five generations of Frank’s family had rocked their babies to sleep in that chair. When she presented it to them, Frank’s mother joyfully exclaimed that this was where their children -- her grandchildren! -- would be rocked to sleep night after night. Jill was considerate enough say nothing but “thank you,” but she knew that when they had children -- if they had children -- they would buy one of those comfortable gliding chairs. There was just no way she’d rock her children to sleep in that old, uncomfortable chair.

After a while, they stopped noticing it, like we all do with most things we see every day. It became simply another piece of furniture that their brains barely registered when they walked through the living room. Until, of course, someone asked about it. It was so out of place in the room, people always asked. And it was a good story, so they told it. People liked the story, but inevitably, the conversation quickly turned to more relevant topics: work, politics, the economy, the Oscars, the weather, all the trivial and significant details of life.

*****

Most of our lives the resurrection is like an old-fashioned, out of place chair in the living room of our faith. Most of the time we barely notice it. Compared to the rest of the furniture it looks more than a little odd, but we tolerate it, since after all, it was a gift. If someone notices it and asks about it, we’ll tell the story as best we can, but most of the time -- let’s be honest -- we either fail to even see it or, if we do, we move quickly past, trying to forget how strange and out of place it seems, how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

But today is the day, the one day each year, when we willingly come into church looking for some assurance, some proof, that this strange promise of the resurrection is actually true.

And what do we get? Well, today, from Luke, we get an empty tomb and two messengers in dazzling clothes asking a confusing question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Then, when the women tell the other disciples what they’ve seen and heard, what is the disciples’ response? Our translation says they thought the story was nothing more than an “idle tale.” Actually, the Greek is a whole lot stronger than that. The disciples, overcome with grief and confusion after the death of their dear friend and teacher, think the story these women are telling is, well, to put it nicely, nonsense, garbage, the lunatic ravings of delirious women. And even if these women really did see an empty tomb, well, what does that prove? Nothing. As the preacher Fred Craddock puts it, “An empty tomb in and of itself does not present a persuasive argument for the resurrection; an empty tomb means the body is not there.” (1) Nothing more, nothing less.

So this is what we get, here in church on Easter morning. An empty tomb and a story that, if we’re really honest about it, sounds as much like sheer nonsense to us today as it did to those disciples two thousand years ago. We certainly don’t get any proof, nothing more than an empty tomb that we can’t even see for ourselves. So without proof, how are we supposed to believe?

If it’s proof we’re looking for, we’ve got plenty of it all around us. Unfortunately, it’s not proof that Jesus actually came back from the dead, breathed air into his lungs and felt the beating of his heart. It’s not proof that God loves this world enough to send Jesus to show us that love in flesh and blood, word and deed, death and resurrection. The proof we see all around us is that death has the last word. Sorrow and suffering rae everywhere. Everyone we love dies. Money makes the world go ‘round. Power corrupts. God is dead. Religion is a crutch. These are the things we can count on. These are things for which we have proof.

The women who came to the tomb had all the proof in the world that Jesus was dead. They saw him nailed to a cross! They watched him die! They saw his corpse, lifeless as a lump of clay, laid in the tomb! And now that the Sabbath is over, they are hoping that they might tend to that dead body, that corpse, and show it the respect it deserves. When they see the empty tomb, it doesn’t change anything. In fact, it just proves to them the indecency of those who hate Jesus so much that they take away his body so his friends cannot not anoint it with spices and prepare it for a proper burial. The empty tomb proves nothing. Not then, not now.

The empty tomb proves nothing, but what happens when it sparks a memory? “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” ask the messengers in dazzling white. “Remember what he told you...”

Do you remember? Do you remember what Jesus said to his followers not so long before his death? The Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and after three days rise again. It sounded like so much nonsense to the disciples because it didn’t make any sense! It was another of Jesus’ strange comments that the disciples forgot the moment they heard it because what could it possibly mean? They didn’t want him to die and certainly not by the agony of crucifixion. And people who have died simply don’t rise again, whatever that means, not even Jesus, as wonderful as he was. Why would they remember such crazy talk, such utter nonsense?

But, having seen the empty tomb and at the urging of those messengers, the women did remember. And once they remembered Jesus’ words, something stirred deep within them. After all, they had just spent three years of their lives traveling with Jesus, following wherever he went, listening to him, watching him perform miracles. And in all that time they spent with him it seemed that even the most improbable promise he had spoken had lodged deep in their hearts and now, standing in front of an empty tomb they felt the first stirrings of hope: that Jesus did rise from the dead, that somewhere not far away he was walking and breathing and feeling the beat of his heart; that love had conquered evil; that life, not death, had the last word, not just today, but for every day to come! Because these women had followed Jesus and heard the promise, they did not need proof to recognize when that promise was fulfilled. They simply needed to remember what they already knew.

When this country was first settled by our English and Scottish ancestors, there was a region in the Smokey Mountains where the Native Americans were still so dominant that they completely destroyed a military settlement. They killed all the white male soldiers and took the rest of the settlers prisoner. They soon released all the women and children, but they kidnapped all the boys and young men and adopted them into their tribe.

One woman saw her husband murdered and her two sons, ages two and four, hauled away by the Native Americans. For years, this woman roamed all over Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, hoping against hope that she would find her sons alive. She traveled from reservation to reservation looking for them, but her search was in vain. After fourteen years had passed, she knew that the boys would now be sixteen and eighteen years old and were unlikely to remember the mother they had not seen in so many years. Still, she showed up at yet another reservation and the sergeant with her lined up all the boys in the correct age range...of course, these were no boys, they were young men with war paint on their faces. But in spite of the war paint, the mother saw two of the young men and instinctively recognized her sons. She called out their English names, but they did not respond. She called out their father’s name but they showed no sign of recognition. She began to recite events from the family’s history, but still they remained impassive. Finally, the sergeant said it was time to go.

“No,” said the mother emphatically. “Let me try one more thing.” The mother went over to those two grown up young men. She closed her eyes and pictured them as babies in her arms. She recalled rocking them to sleep in an ornately carved, uncomfortable chair. She remembered the old Scottish lullaby she had sung to them hundreds of times, and she began to sing. As she sang, tears began streaming down the war-painted faces of those two young men. As she sang, those warriors remembered the promises implicit in their mother’s arms as she rocked them to sleep: that she would take care of them, that she would always love them, that if they strayed from her she would go after them and search high and low until she found them. They remembered those promises that they had not understood when they first received them, and in that moment of remembrance, they recognized the promises fulfilled, and everything changed, because they knew with certainty who they were and whose they were. (2)

It really doesn’t matter why you are here today. It doesn’t matter if you believe what we celebrate -- that in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, God has conquered death once and for all -- or if you think it is, at best, an idle tale, and at worst, a cruel hoax. What matters is that today you have heard again the promise of God: that death and evil and sorrow will not have the last word but will lead the way to new life where love reigns; the promise that in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has claimed you with a love that will not let you go. You have heard the promise in scripture and prayer and song, and whether you believe it or not, when you are lost in the dark tombs of despair and God searches high and low to find you -- and God will search, relentlessly, tirelessly, to find YOU -- when you are lost and God finds you and offers you resurrection, new life, where you thought there was only certain death, then you will remember. You will remember and recognize that the promise you heard today has been true all along. An empty tomb may not be proof, but it changes everything. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen.

Endnotes:

1. Fred Craddock, Luke: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. WJK, 1991.

2. From the sermon “Remember Your Baptism,” by the Rev. Mark Phillips, First Presbyterian Church of Mineral Ridge. Used with permission.