A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas. The lectionary readings for the Third Sunday of Easter are here.
Many years ago, when my son was 11, we went to the Grand Canyon. As we walked the rim, around every curve a new view opened up to us and I just kept saying, “WOW” over and over again. At one point, my son looked at me and said, “Mom, you need a new word.” This past fall, a quarter of a century later, Jim and I went to the Grand Canyon. Around every curve and new view, I said, “WOW”. I just can’t come up with any other way to vocalize my amazement at the beauty of the Canyon. And, I can’t imagine ever letting the awesomeness become commonplace, even if I lived there. I want to say “WOW” every time I see the Canyon, or the beauty of a sunrise, or an eclipse, or wildflowers along the roadside. But sometimes we get distracted from the amazing by the ordinary routines of our days.
Imagine how awed the disciples must have been when Jesus appears among them, the man they had watched get arrested and crucified, the man they had seen put in a guarded tomb. I think for most of us this is an impossible imagining, I mean we celebrate it at Easter and we shout Alleluia as loudly as decorum allows, but do we stop to imagine even this one impossible thing before breakfast each day?
This one thing is the heart of all that we say we believe. Christmas and Easter are the bookends of the Good News that God IS with, in, and among us all. All creation is good because it all comes from God. Humanity is what tips Creation from good to very good – ‘a vessel well suited’* for God to become one of us and to do astonishing things not just in the physical body of Jesus but in and through each of us, even in the ordinary routines of our days.
Jesus’ resurrection gives us all the imposs-ability to be resurrected through changed hearts and minds. And we live into this impossibility each day as we follow Jesus on earth as in heaven.
Jesus’ Resurrection doesn’t “cheat” death; Jesus isn’t a ghost. He physically presents himself to the disciples to show that the power of God’s love is greater that any death dealing force in this world. And yet, God created our physical bodies to experience physical death and God gives us the hope and possibility of everlasting life. What life after our physical life is is a mystery; we aren’t given this knowledge. But we are given the wisdom to live as God’s beloved children and to know that everlasting life begins with following Jesus to become more and more like him in this life.
To become more and more like Jesus is to live as Resurrection People every day. It is a steady, continuous, lifelong journey that we walk with each other. There is no goal, no endpoint, only a Way of Life. There is no individualism in The Way. There is no fast lane in The Way.
One of my favorite modern Theologians, Eugene Peterson, wrote a book called Practicing Resurrection: a Conversation on Growing Up in Christ. Each year as I prepare to preach on these post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, I’m tempted to just read y’all the book, but that would keep us here way too long, so I’ll just share a few quotes and perhaps we’ll all read it together as a study soon.
In talking about this continuous, lifelong journey of Following Jesus, Peterson says, “There are no shortcuts in growing up. Maturity cannot be hurried, programmed, or tinkered with. There are no steroids available for growing up in Christ more quickly. Impatient shortcuts land us in the dead ends of immaturity. The path to maturity is long and arduous. Hurry is no virtue. There is no secret formula squirreled away that will make it easier or quicker. But stories help.”
“But Stories help.” Stories aren’t just what we read in a book somewhere, they are what we create as we do life together as God’s beloved children. When we gather together and talk of the events of our lives, we create Story.
When Jesus appears to his disciples after the Resurrection, he is with them and eats with them and gives permission for them to touch him – all things that are impossible without a physical body. And, yet, we are told, that even in their joy, they were disbelieving and still wondering. They were in awe. I imagine them staring and saying “WOW” over and over until one of them said, “we need a new word” and someone said, “alleluia!”
And Jesus speaks into their wonder and disbelief with the ordinary. He asks, “do you have anything to eat?” Don’t you love that question?! It makes me laugh with joy. If we look at the stories told in our scriptures merely through an intellectual lens, this seems such an odd thing to ask. Why does the resurrected God need food? And we get distracted from the purpose of Story. Story is about life, real life, lived life, experienced life. Story is about why God created us and all things. This amazing book we call the Bible is a library of stories that tell of who and Whose these people are, identity stories of God’s people. And the library may not be receiving any new books, but that doesn’t mean God’s story is complete.
We are participants in the ongoing Story, creating Story as we gather together to eat and talk and share our own stories with each other. Our times of fellowship, the conversations that happen before and after our worship time, the events outside of St. Francis we attend together, seeing each other at the grocery store, our FEASTs and potlucks and Bunco and craft times, these are all just as holy as any of our structured worship that takes place in this building.
Being a disciple isn’t about passing some theology exam with a settled set of doctrine. Jesus didn’t sit his disciples down in a classroom each day and lecture them. Yes, he taught them, but he did so by doing life with them, showing them God’s amazing presence with them in all that they did in the ordinary tasks of their lives. Now, don’t get me wrong, the studies we do are important – they help us learn the stories of our faith ancestors and to discern the wisdom of asking ‘how do we do life as God’s beloved in our day and our time?’ We are still walking in God’s Story every day. God chooses to love and care for all of Creation through us and all that we do. And we should never stop being amazed at the enormity of God’s love and mercy and grace. And we should never stop learning and discovering who and Whose we are. And we should never stop saying, WOW or Alleluia with great enthusiasm.
Being a disciple is a human endeavor in which we live in the blend of joy and wonder and, yes, even times of disbelief. If all that God did were ‘believable’ God wouldn’t be an astonishing God. Miracles are supposed to initiate astonishment, to make us ponder what is and isn’t possible, to open our hearts and minds to all that God can do in and through us and God’s Creation. The same “wow” we exclaim at the beauty of God’s creation should escape our lips every time we catch a glimpse of God’s image and God’s amazing love in each other.
Start each day wanting to be “wowed” by God and in your awe and amazement, feed each other and those who are hungry for God’s amazing love, literally and figuratively. We are Resurrection People. Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
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