Easter 03 - B

Encounters Along the Road

The first day Jesus appears to the disciples through the locked door. Hearts are opened and pain is overcome. Of course, the story does not end there, for the next couple of months Jesus appeared over and over, enabling his disciples to come to an understanding of their own faith and their mission. Meeting Jesus along the way…

That is what faith is all about when you stop and think about it.

Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Faith suggested that we meet Jesus in three ways; in scripture, in study, and in prayer. And although those are important, I think he forgot one. He forgot about the personal meeting that takes place between followers.

Now, having just finished a men’s breakfast, and knowing that we are about to have a bbq, and a pancake breakfast and a pot luck lunch I would like to suggest something that I believe strongly that probably won’t surprise any of you. Food and the resurrection are tied up together. In fact, food plays an important role in helping to create fellowship and faith.

The first time Jesus appears to the disciples he asks them for something to eat. In Emmaus Jesus breaks bread with two of the disciples. On the shores of the Sea of Galilee, he instructs the "Peter and John Fishing Company" to throw their nets over on the other side of their boat; they do and fill the boat to overflowing! There are so many fish, in fact, that Peter has to jump overboard and wade in to shore, where he finds Jesus, sitting by a charcoal fire, a few fish already on the grill, saying, "Come and have breakfast!"

Jesus says this to us, too: "Come and have breakfast!" We can relate to a God like this: on the beach, a warm fire, fresh fish, bread, and some good friends.

Think about how often food comes up in the Bible, When God comes to visit Abraham he has Sarah prepare a goat and some bread; when The Israelites are crossing the desert to freedom most of the miracles have to do with food, it just comes up over and over again.

Or what about the story of the 5,000 people who come to church with nothing for lunch. Jesus turns to Philip and says, "What is there to eat? What do we have to feed all these people?" and a little boy volunteers to share what he has.

These stories are related. It is through a meal that everything of significance happens. Everyone ate and was satisfied. Everyone's eyes were opened and they could see it was Jesus with them!

Everyone begins to understand as they eat with Jesus… to really understand for the first time. Everyone is to go and tell others to repent, to accept God's forgiveness, and to tell the story-beginning right here and now!

Eating and drinking together then, is the primary way of experiencing Jesus' resurrection in the Bible and the most universal way people affirm and experience relationship, community. We must eat together to be human and to become human. We must also, it appears, eat together to know God.

So I think Martin Luther was right about a lot of things, and we do encounter God in our study and prayer life… But we also encounter God, encounter Jesus along the way in the ordinary and life giving act of sharing fellowship and eating a meal. In the intimate connections we come to see God face to face.

The Church has long taught us that we come to know and recognize God in the literal act of breaking bread and giving thanks. Which is certainly true, but it also goes beyond the obvious. I believe that these stories tell us that we come to recognize Christ when we commune with God by gathering together. Whenever we meet with and share with another person our joy and our grief and offer prayer over the bread we break together or share a cup of coffee… then we have found God.

We need to enter into the experience in order to have our eyes truly opened. No amount of talking about it, or learning about it will ever replace the actual experience. The story is told of the explorer who some years ago had just returned from the Amazon.

The people at home were eager to learn all about the vast and mighty river and the country surrounding it. But he had a problem… Could he ever describe it to them – put into words the feelings that flooded into his heart when he saw the exotic flowers and heard the night sounds of the jungle? How could he communicate to them the smells that filled the air and the sense of danger? Or the excitement that would come whenever he and his fellow explorers encountered strange animals or paddled through treacherous rapids?

So the explorer did what all good explorers do – he told them they had to “go and find out for yourselves what it is like", and to help them he drew a map of the river pointing out the various features of its course and describing some of the dangers and some of the routes that could be used to avoid those dangers.

The people took the map and they framed and hung on the wall of the local science museum so that everyone could look at it. Some made copies of it. After a period of time many of those who made copies for themselves considered themselves experts on the river - and indeed they knew its every turn and bend, they knew how broad it was and how deep, where the rapids where and where the falls. They knew the river and they instructed others in what it was like whenever those people indicated an interest in it.

Now let’s be honest. This is the danger of our faith. Our history, our Bible, our traditions can become like those maps; they point the way, but at some level, we have forgotten the real experience.

It is good to remember that on the eve of our anniversary weekend. All of the good times we remember, all of the glories of that past, are events that merely point the way to what we hope to encounter in the future.

After Jesus’ death, without Jesus standing with them, the original followers had lost their way. They were locked away thinking about the past, but then Jesus stood among them, broke bread with them, and offered them a future.

When you keep reading to the end of the Bible, the ultimate sign of God's peace and the ultimate sign of the completion of God's plan for the universe is a great banquet. We should not forget that. We are called to make our own lives, our homes, our churches signs of that great feast which is yet to come. We are to provide, for all people, a welcome into our communities. We are, as members of the church, to be the body of Christ broken for the world, feeding all the hungers of the human race.

St. Augustine, a fourth century bishop in North Africa, put it this way in an Easter sermon: "You are the body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken; you are to be blessed, broken, and distributed; that you may be the means of grace and the vehicles of the eternal charity." So may it be.

EASTER 2 - B

Being Sure

Don’t you wish you could be sure? Sure of something, sure of anything?

What would it take for you to be sure?

Most of us live with a fair amount of doubts which range from the most trivial of things, doubting whether or not it’s going to be sunny tomorrow, right up to those huge nagging doubts, whether or not he loves you, whether or not your job is safe, whether or not global warming will wipe us all out.

So what would it take for you to be sure?

Just to give you a context for my question, the character we usually call “Doubting Thomas” is never referred to in that way in the original Greek of the Bible. What it says is that Thomas is “a pistos” which means, not sure... Thomas was not sure this could be Jesus.

Okay, we can relate to that much better, can’t we? If I consider myself “Doubting Brett” it seems rather negative to me – but if I say I am not sure of something – well, I am not sure about a lot of things, so that is okay.

And I can totally see not being sure that someone has come back from the dead just because my friends tell me it is true. That is not something I think I would just trust them about.

I guess I am trying to say I have never understood why we give Thomas such a hard time. Jesus didn’t, he never chastised Thomas because he was not sure. In fact, Jesus helped Thomas to find a way to live with his uncertainty.

I received an emailed story this week that illustrates this:

An Atheist Professor of Philosophy was speaking to his Class on the Problem Science has with God. He asked one of his New Christian Students to stand and asked him: “Are you a Christian, son?” and the exchange went like this:

Yes, sir.

So, you believe in God? Absolutely, sir.

“Is God Good?” Sure. “Is God all powerful?” Yes.

Then the professor said, “My Brother died of Cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then?”

The Student was silent so the professor went on, “You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, Is God Good?” Yes. “Is Satan good?” No. “Where does Satan come from?” From . . . God. . . “That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?” Yes. “Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?” Yes. “So who created evil?” (Student did not answer) “Is there Sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?” Yes, sir. “So, who created them?” (Student had no answer)

“Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son . . . Have you ever seen God?” No, sir. “Tell us if you have ever heard your God?” No, sir. “Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God , smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?” No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't. “Yet you still believe in Him?” Yes.

“According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?” Nothing. I only have my faith. “Yes, faith. And that is the problem science has.”

So, then the student thought for a moment and asked his own question: “Professor, is there such a thing as heat?” Yes. “And is there such a thing as cold?” Yes. To which the student replied, “No, sir. There isn't...”

(The Lecture Theatre became very quiet with this turn of events)

“Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega Heat, white Heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.”

(There was pin-drop silence in the Lecture Theatre)

“What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?” Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?

“You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it is called darkness, isn't it? In reality, darkness isn't. If it is, were you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?”

Now the professor asked: “So what is the point you are making, Young Man?”

“Sir, my point is your Philosophical premise is flawed.” Flawed? Can you explain how?

“Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a Good God and a Bad God You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?”

“If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.”

“Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?” The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going. “Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavour, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?”

(The class was in uproar)

“Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?”

(The class broke out into laughter)

“Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? . . .

“No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?”

(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable)

“I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.”

The point was taken and the professor conceded.

That student was Albert Einstein.

You see, that experience of knowing – really knowing – for sure... is not a part of our faith. In fact, it is not really a part of our experience. There is so much we have to take on faith; there is so much we have to hope is true.

The Gospel of Mark ends with no one actually witnessing the resurrection; and yet we know that somehow they came to believe.

Perhaps this is what Jesus was getting at when he said “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet can still find a way to believe.”

It is less about being sure than it is about living as if.

It is not that Thomas needs to prove this is the physical body of Jesus – it is simply that Thomas needs to believe that his hopes and dreams have not been lost. He needs his faith restored.

There are times when we all do.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Faith is being sure, deep down in your heart, that God is real, that God loves us, and that there is some way in which this whole world makes sense. How can you be sure? How can you encounter the Risen Christ in your life? How do you know for sure that God really matters? For each of us the answer to that question might be different. But it is available to us nonetheless – If we are open to it, we will encounter God as a very real presence in our own lives. We will be able to unlock the door on our own fear and wade out into that world with a new purpose and vision – we will be able to declare, like Thomas, “My Lord and My God!”

Jesus died passing the torch.

It is when we become sure that we really do enter into faith and become what we are called to be: Disciples. It is when we can finally see this world as being filled with love despite the appearances to the contrary that we are going to be able to ‘be’ the hands and feet.

So no – there are some things we will never know for sure. But there are also things that are so true that they change everything. Let this be one of those things: God’s love for you is absolute, believe it, and see what happens.

Easter - B

Two Sermons this week... The first I wrote but did not preach, the second I did...

On To Galilee

This Easter I would like to begin with a question. Where do you live most of your life? Not physically, but more metaphorically… because we certainly don’t live most of the time like this. Not here… not in Easter, with its fanfare, and chocolate, and family, and feasting… this is not the real world – this is the exception.

I want to offer an image for this: Easter is the world of Jerusalem. The real world is out there in Galilee. Jerusalem is a world of drama, and dreams. It is a world of pain and wonder… it is the mountaintop experience. But Galilee, the little towns by the lakeshore, that is where the real living gets worked out.

It was in Galilee that Jesus grew up, that he first called the disciples by the seashore, that he began his ministry… His parents and friends were all Galileans and this was the place he knew and loved. It was were he first met Mary and Martha, where the crowds first followed him – this was where he lived his everyday life.

But the last few days of Jesus’ life were not so peaceful an calm – the journey to Jerusalem had catapulted out of control and caught everyone off guard. Just think all that had happened in a few brief hours – the arrest, trial, desertion, and crucifixion. Just think of what the Disciples must feel like after this weekend. I know you have all had experiences like this… a few days that seem completely out of control? A time when someone you loved has died? A time when all of a sudden everything has gone wrong and you have no idea what to do next.

This is how the women felt when they made their way to the tomb on Easter Morning. The went on auto pilot They carried the things they would need and left in the early morning out of love and devotion… but they walked in a haze of emotions – they were uncertain what it all meant and what would happen next. So it was with terror and amazement that they stood before the empty tomb. And this… this is where the Gospel of Mark ends… dumbstruck before the empty tomb… with this one closing bit of instruction:

“…Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee: there you will see him…”

Now – and this is important – the woman, the disciples, the lost and frightened; they do not find resurrection at the tomb in Jerusalem. They find resurrection on their way back to Galilee.

It is back in the real world that they come to understand that something new has happened. We hear the stories each year after Easter, of the disciples walking home along the road to Emmaus and encountering a stranger – of the disciples fishing back on the sea of Galilee and not having any luck until that stranger tells them to throw their nets on the other side – of frightened followers locked away for fear of their lives and the risen lord being there with them. These are stories of resurrection in the real world.

These are stories that bring home what our faith is all about. What do you have to face next week? Where are you going to find yourself in the ordinary moments of your life? Most of us will find that it is the same old same old – day in, day out struggle to make ends meet, to find the time to do the things we wish we could – to face an uncertain future for whatever reason… And what if… what if what you found in the midst of this instead was a renewed sense of wonder? What if you encountered love that changed the way you felt? What if something changed and brought new life and energy to you as you faced the world… That is what Resurrection is all about.

I want to let you in on a little secret – the Gospel of Mark ends with a lie. When someone first sat down and wrote out a life of Jesus – and Mark was the first to do it… he ended Easter in this way: “ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them: and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

But it didn’t end like that, did it? If that was true – none of us would have heard the story! And this is the gospel – this is the Good News! Terror and Amazement may come with the night, as the Psalmist once wrote, but Joy comes in the morning! It doesn’t’ end with the fear and pain – it ends with the realization of new life, of Joy, of resurrection.

I don’t’ know if it took hours, days, weeks or even months… Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome did finally tell, not just someone, but the world, that God is alive – alive in the real world where we live… he has gone on to Galilee…

We stand here this morning before the empty tomb – and part of us realizes that it is not here this morning that things are going to change. This is not where new life begins - this is where the story starts. Now we have the choice, now we go back to our own Galilee… and what do you think you will find there? I invite you to be open to the possibility that what you find is new beginnings, new faith, and new life.

This is where we encounter Jesus. This is where resurrection becomes reality. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Following Along the Way

I will have to admit that our gospel reading this morning, Mark 16:1-8, is an awkward Easter ending. "They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid". It is hardly a shout of victory over death. There is no appearance of the risen Christ to the women or anyone else.

Following a death, there is nothing to do, and there is much to do. There is nothing to do: nobody goes to work, nobody goes to school, nobody is hungry, nobody has anything to say. Helpers are helpless, and in the way. There is much to do: legal matters need attention, the body must be prepared for burial, a tomb must be located. Fortunately for the family and friends of Jesus, a nearby tomb has been provided by one Joseph of Arimathea who himself placed the corpse in the tomb and rolled a stone against the door. Mark does not indicate that the body was prepared with spices since the burial was in haste, the Sabbath day being very near. However, two Galilean women, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, saw what Joseph did, and after the Sabbath came, along with Salome, to anoint the body.

What happened at the tomb is told in five verses. The stone has been rolled away, a young man in white (an angel?) is seated inside on the right, and as would be expected when experiencing a divine revelation, the women are alarmed. The Easter message they receive is brief: do not be afraid; Jesus was crucified; he was placed here; he is not here now because he has been raised. Then they receive an Easter commission: go, tell his disciples and Peter that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee; in Galilee they will see him. This is the message Jesus had told them earlier. The response of the women is to run in terror, amazement, fear and silence.

Is this any way to run a resurrection? Is this enough to persuade, to stir new life in the followers of Jesus? First, let it be said that none of the Gospels provides an unambiguous, totally convincing account. Matthew says the disciples worshiped
Jesus but some doubted; Luke says that in their joy they were disbelieving; and John says one of the Twelve refused to believe until he touched and felt. Faith is not coerced, even on Easter. In the New Testament, faith – saying you pledge your life to Christ Jesus - is a response to a divine revelation, and Mark provides that from the mouth of the young man in the tomb.

Still Mark's brief Easter account is full of Good News. To disciples who had abandoned him and to Peter who denied him, Jesus' word was, "I will meet you in Galilee. There we began together; there we will begin anew." The story does not end at the tomb; using a literary tool the words propel us, the reader on into the future, on to Galilee, on to new beginnings and new life and ministry, away from the place of death, back to the beginning of their journey with Jesus.

And finally, of the women, afraid and silent: what can be said? As readers of this text, this version of the Easter story, we have heard Jesus tell the disciples that he will return that they will not be abandoned in sharing the good news. WE know that after the transfiguration Jesus told the disciples to wait to tell what they had seen and heard until after the resurrection. But we don’t get to hear any of that in Mark’s version. Why would that be?? Why leave a story ending in silence and fear?

I believe it is because, Mark sees us, the reader as a part of the story. The gospel has not just been written for us to sit back and observe but rather, we are constantly being invited into the story of Jesus life and death. The author of Mark has made it so that we are a part of Easter morning with the women. We are some of the characters in the story and therefore if some are afraid to tell then it is up to us. WE have a part to play in the narrative; we must share the good news of Christ’s resurrection.

We know the women found their voices and shared to good news – became powerful witnesses! But this Easter, hearing Mark’s version, the challenge is for us to find our voices. Find our voices in 2009 and be bold enough to share the good news of Christ’s resurrection and new life in the midst of our world today.

How will you do that?? What will it mean for you to talk about Christ resurrection and what it means for your life?? How would you define it? For me it means that Jesus is Lord and the powers of this world are not. Jesus Christ is alive in our midst and enables us to live our lives free from all that can bind us, if we accept that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the way, the path to new life. Today I invite you to live your life renewed in your commitment to follow Jesus and accept his way of life in our world.

Palm Sunday - B

Walking the Walk

(This sermon takes off from the opening paragraphs of a chapter entitled “Solidarity” in Ched Myers Who Will Roll Away the Stone.)

The air is warm and thick with tension inside the Capernaum synagogue. Jesus slowly walks to the front, turns and faces the antagonistic audience, fixing his gaze on them. The city fathers clear their throats, smile thinly, their jaws set, waiting for him to go too far. Weighing the silence, Jesus nods for a disabled man to come up and join him. Taking his shrivelled hand, Jesus’ eyes sweep the gallery, narrowing. Then he begins his sermon, “What are we Sabbath people all about? You tell me. Is it about doing good, or doing evil? Is it about saving life, or destroying it?” (Mark 3:4).

“I have put before today life and prosperity, death and adversity.” (Deuteronomy 30:15) time suddenly collapses and we are no longer in Capernaum but gathered with exodus Israel on a mountain above the Jordan. This ultimatum does not come from the mouth of Jesus, but from Moses. His point is that to get to the Promised Land we have to remember where we have been. The story is a long one, all the way from slavery through pain and joy, and a lot of hard lessons.

In each of these key moments in the followers of The Way we are making an archetypal choice between life and death.

“So I say to you my friends that even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.” This is our equivalent. Can you imagine standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, August 28th 1963, among a hundred thousand supporters of the cause of civil rights? Martin Luther King was calling weary marchers to persevere in their quest for freedom.

There are other moments that seem to transcend reality, that seem to bring together the realms of the spirit, and the world around us. But these three carefully staged and yet mysteriously powerful moments come to the core of our faith, challenging the dream of empire with the promise of freedom and human solidarity.

Having faith is not between you and God. Love God, your neighbour, and yourself means that being faithful is about action. Despite the fact that we are told not to talk about religion and politics, religion is politics. It is about fighting for the way God would do it.

One of the best Christians ever was actually Hindu. Mohatmas Ghandi lived the life that Jesus would have understood. He loved everyone and always acted with compassion, yet he fought tooth and nail, in a non-violent but confrontational way, to make the world better.

We tend to think of him as the exception to modern society, and perhaps he was, but he was the exception that illustrated the norm. Like it or not, Ghandi is exactly who Jesus would have us be.

Isn’t that what the whole last week of Jesus’ life is all about? Ghandi walked across the countryside to the seashore in order to make salt, protesting the British government. Jesus walked across the countryside heading to the temple in order to offer sacrifices, protesting the Roman government.

Both of them knew the consequences. Both accepted that their life was on the line. Both thought it was necessary to act, to show concretely to those who looked to them as examples what it meant to be faithful to the ideals of God.

By forcing the Romans to lay their hand, and by doing it in as non-violent a way as possible, Jesus helped us to see the negative values of Empire up close and personal. Those same values still apply today, and so does the need to confront them.
His main message to those who chose to follow him was “take up the cross and follow me.”

Or how about the rich young man who comes and says he has done everything religion requires of him; and what should he do now? And Jesus says, “Go sell everything you have, and follow me.”

Social change through activism – that is the message.

I invite you to try and see Easter this way this year. There are other things to focus on, but this is the major part, and somehow the part we focus the least attention on. Jesus is not fulfilling prophecy, he is not sacrificing himself for no reason, and he is not trying to save individual souls. Jesus is trying to change the world – and he invites us to follow.

“God’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I‘ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land,” vouched Dr. King the night before he was assassinated. King, like Moses never did get to the Promised land, like Jesus he walked the way of the cross.

Ironically – he chose life, and in it sacrificed himself. Without that moment, would Barack Obama have become President? You see, faith is not abstract, it is political. This is the week we enter into Jerusalem. This is the week we have to make our own choices. It is time to walk the walk.