Seventh Sunday after Easter - Year C

Seventh Sunday after Easter – Year C (RCL) 2010
Acts 16: 16 – 34; Psalm 97’ Revelation 22: 12 – 14, 16 – 17, 20 – 21; John 17: 20 – 26
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland, OR
Sunday, May 16, 2010

BIG CHANGES COMING

Let us pray: Our hearts are strangely stirred within us as we greet your resurrected presence among us. We are coming to the end of our season of Easter and the joy and reality of that holy time will give way to the gifts of your Holy Spirit made manifest in the fiery tongues of Pentecost. Help us to stay always present to the reality of the Easter moment and our call to be the people of new life and Resurrection. Grant us the gift of unity in you as you are united with Creator and the Spirit, so that where you go to prepare a place for us; we might be with you in glorious eternity. So also, loving savior prepare a place for us where you enter human suffering and pain – where you are the victim of this world’s cruel injustices, when you stand beside us in our hours of deepest need; that where you are we might be also showing your face of Easter hope. Stir our hearts and hopes to be always where you are. Amen.

(SUNG) AND WE PRAY THAT ALL UNITY MAY ONE DAY BE RESTORED,
AND THEY’LL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR LOVE, BY
OUR LOVE – YES THEY’LL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR
LOVE..

I wanted to take some time this morning to share with you some of my experience from the time spent in the Diocese of Newark. As most of you are aware, I was attending a meeting in that Diocese of the Jubilee Ministry of the Episcopal Church. There were about 150 of us who represented the ministries of Jubilee, the Episcopal Community Services in America and the National Episcopal Health Ministries. The Conference was entitled “Called to Serve: The Episcopal Church Responds to Domestic Poverty”. Led by the keynote address of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the participants who hailed from across the United States, prayed, studied and conversed with one another about the ways in which our church might begin to explore the issues and effects of domestic poverty in this nation. A model of Community Based Organizing and resource sharing among the participating groups led us to heartfelt and difficult discussions around who are the domestically poor and how are we called as a church to serve them. One of the major discoveries for me was that I am among the domestically poor. Now I don’t mean to imply that my economic situation places me in that percentile of the population that falls at or well below the “poverty level” as defined by the government (though I’m not far above it); what we were encouraged to reflect on is that all of us find ourselves numbered among the poor; some of us economically, some of us due to the conditions of our physical and/or mental health and still others of us who find ourselves morally or spiritually poor. That reality ought to make us truly humbled and genuinely involved when we address issues of domestic poverty. Somehow the “them” becomes the “us”. Demographics and statistics provided by Federal, State and Local governmental organizations can help us to identify ways in which we might be called to serve the economically disadvantaged among us – and we also need in our Church and in our communities to address those areas and issues of domestic poverty that we individually might find ourselves identifying as areas in which we number among the poor. I believe that Jesus had something to say about those of us who might blessed to be among the poor in spirit. Gathered as the Church – specifically as The Episcopal Church – the participants in this conference are among those for whom Jesus prays in our text this morning taken from the account as told by the author of John’s Gospel. This reading is part of what scriptural scholars refer to as the High Priestly Prayer, which the author places into the midst of the farewell discourse just prior to Jesus’ crucifixion. The author of this fourth Gospel account shares a unique literary and theological message with the faith community of the early first Century, and carefully crafts the Gospel telling of the uniqueness of Jesus’ relationship to the Father and the Spirit. The Church looks to summarize this relationship at the end of our recognition of the Easter season while hanging at the precipice of the coming of the Holy Spirit, which we will celebrate next Sunday. Big things are afoot for the newly forming Church and its ministers in Jerusalem, exciting times and possibilities lay at their feet; and Jesus looks to fill them and bless them with his priestly prayer which will guide their priesthoods in the service of the Risen one.

For the community gathered in the name of the Episcopal Church and charged with the enormous task of responding to domestic poverty – the fact that we all were doing the work of the Gospel, each of us in our own particular circumstances living out the command of Jesus to feed the hungry, or care for the widow and orphan, or visit the imprisoned – was shared work with each other in our particular organization and with each and every one of you as members of the Body of Christ. It was this shared call to serve that gave us the strength in our few numbers to dare and address huge issues that effect the lives of all of us – and filled our hearts with hope that with God’s grace and assistance our work would, in fact, lead us to the unity of God that Jesus prays for in the passage we heard from the Gospel text this morning…”also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” When we gathered in fellowship and fun, the laughter was raucous and real. When we gathered in worship and work the connections were genuine and grace filled. In the silence and solitude we lifted each other intensely and intentionally to the God who is the source of all of our ministries and listened for that still small voice to unite us as one. Theological and ideological positions were abandoned for a time to allow the work of the Holy Spirit to renew our hearts and refresh our souls. None of us separated ourselves from each other by identifying the role that we hold in the ministry of the Church. Clerical collars were absent so that we didn’t need to identify who was a bishop, or deacon or lay minister – only that each of us shared in the Priesthood of All Believers and in that role serve each other in God’s name. The earliest biblical description that we have for Christian leadership in the earliest communities was “deacon” which means literally “butler” or “waiter”. Christians did not call their leaders priest, or president; Christians called their leaders servants. I think that each of us was able to reclaim that humility and servant hood that are such essential elements of our lives as Priest’s of the Church. I am deeply grateful to this faith community for the gift of time away – to the diocesan faith community for the chance to serve as Jubilee Officer of this Diocese – and to the national Church community for the support of those who labor in the fields of Christ’s Church with the invitation to gather in Christ’s name and fearfully work out the solutions we seek in order to address the issues of Domestic Poverty that cripples each and every one of us who gathered in the name of the Christ we claim to serve.

The author of Luke/Acts recounts the story we heard today from the sixteenth Chapter of Paul’s stay in Philippi. Several characters are introduced to extend the story line and then discarded when they have fulfilled that purpose. Such is the case of the slave girl who possesses a spirit of divination and who’s “fortune telling” talents brought great profit to those who managed her. As soon as her function as mover of the plot line allows us to have Paul and Silas ensconced behind prison walls, the main story can emerge. The powerful presence of God in the midst of the depravations and shackles of human prisons portrays for the early community the sure and certain power of belief in the risen Christ. Many of the early believers would face just such a fate for their ministry, and this example would serve to strengthen their resolve. The jailer’s question has rung down through the ages – “what must I do to be saved”? For those whose flavor of salvation runs closer toward the evangelical side of the Church Acts 16:31 serves as a lynchpin for their mission, “believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” However, even for those of us who shy away from that sort of evangelical fervor – the power of the message of salvation is no less diminished. Identification with and living out the ministry of the Good News of God in Christ is central to the lives of all who follow the resurrected carpenter’s son from Galilee. It is the power of that message of hope from the Gospel accounts which calls each of us here on a Sunday morning to witness and worship; to continue in the apostle’s teaching and fellowship and to be nourished in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup.

It is this work of discipleship in community for which Jesus served as our model and our great high priest. The prayer that we might share in the Glory, which has been given to those who believe so that we might be with Christ to “see” the glory that is, and was, and has been from before the foundation of the world – speaks to the great and unfathomable love between Father, Son and Spirit which the author of John’s Gospel begins to articulate. It is this priestly ministry in which we are all called to share – that the strength and value of community begins to unfold as our gift and our giving. L. William Countryman in his book Living on the Border of the Holy – Renewing the Priesthood of All; writes of several types of priesthood. Countryman identifies them as the priesthood of Humanity, the priesthood of Religion, the priesthood of Christ and the priesthood of the Christian People. I highly recommend this text for anyone who is looking to deepen their understanding of, what for me had been a foreign concept – the priesthood of all believers. I share with you one paragraph from that book in which Dr. Countryman is examining the Priesthood of the Christian People:

“The priesthood of the Christian people is the priesthood of all humanity, interpreted and formed by the priesthood of Jesus. To suppose that Jesus created a new priesthood from the ground up, as if no priesthood had existed before him, would be a radical break with our tradition. The earliest Christians insisted, despite prolonged challenges from Gnosticism, that the GOD of Jesus was also the original CREATOR of humanity. The HOLY does not deny its former work in its later work. The CREATOR doest not push aside the grace of creation in order to make room for the grace of resurrection, for the two are, at their deepest level, fully continuous. But Jesus interpreted the fundamental priesthood through his own service in it, as he taught and celebrated and lived out the good news. The priesthood of the Christian people, then, is the fundamental priesthood of humankind, understood afresh in terms of Jesus’ message and experience.[1]

I discovered during my week in NJ, in community with others who live out the ordained priesthood of the Church – part of the glory of the priesthood of the Christian people. It is this work, this priesthood which each and everyone of us gathered here this morning takes on in our choice to gather around this table and remember as Jesus taught us to take bread and bless it and break it and share it with each other to be spiritual food for our human journey. The gift and blessing of this place in community is learning the role of priest and exploring and sharing that with our families and neighbors and becoming the kindom of priests to serve our God and each other. It is in that ministry – in that priesthood that the Christ can offer on our behalf the prayer…”so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.”
Amen.

[1] L. William Countryman, Living on the Border of the Holy, Renewing the Priesthood of All, Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, PA, 1999, p. 63

Sixth Sunday After Easter - Year C (RCL)

Sixth Sunday of Easter – Year C (RCL) 2010
Acts 16: 9 – 15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21: 10 – 22 – 22-5; John 14: 23 – 29
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR
May 9, 2010

OF LEAVE TAKING AND LETING GO

Let us pray: resurrected Jesus we long to know you as intimately as your disciples did. In your relationship with them you were somehow changed after your defeat of death. You commanded your followers not to cling to you and told them that you must depart in order to send your Holy Spirit, the Paraclete to advocate for them and us in your kindom. Teach us not to fear the thought of your leaving – rather to anticipate the depth of new relationship with you through the grace of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

(SUNG) IF ANYONE LOVES ME, THEY WILL KEEP MY WORD
AND THE FATHER WILL LOVE THEM, AND WE WILL COME TO
THEM AND IN THEM, BE HOME.

Jesus delivers these words at table with the disciples within the context of the last supper. These remarks immediately precede events in the 15th Chapter of the Johannine text where Jesus will spell out “the new commandment” that is given to “Love one another, as I have loved you.” In these verses, the writer of this text helps to “set the stage” as it where for the introduction of this most important message that Jesus will leave with the followers prior to the crucifixion, death and resurrection events that will follow. The “priestly prayer” (that they all may be one) and the “farewell discourse” will wrap up the theological and Christological arguments that the author conveys to this community which is facing deep persecution from both the Romans and the Temple Jews – and it must have been most reassuring to them to know that the promised “advocate” or from the Greek “parakletos” would guide and guard them in the absence of the Messiah of God whose fate was much, much different than expected.

So what is the nature of this word from the “parakletos”? It appears only 5 times in the Christian Scriptures, 4 times in this Gospel and once in the 1st Letter of John where it is used to refer to Jesus. Most other references to the “spirit” or “Holy Spirit” of God use the Greek word “pneuma” and have been translated typically as “spirit” or “breath” or “wind” in reference to the presence of God’s Spirit come among humankind. We have anglicized this Greek word with the English Paraclete, which The American Heritage Dictionary defines as “1. The Holy Spirit; 2. To invoke to the side of; thus to call.” Biblical translators have rendered the word as “advocate” or “counselor” or “comforter” and even “sustainer”. However the word translates for us – in the context of the audience for which this text was composed hearer’s would have heard the many and varied nuances of meaning that the Greek allows for. Parakletos could mean a lawyer who pleads the case – or a witness who testifies on your behalf. It could also be used to refer to an individual who offers comfort, advice or counsel and emotional strength in time of need. It can also refer to someone who comes to your aid in times of distress or danger. According to William Barclay in his reference bible on the Gospel of John, “Parakletos was literally someone called in, but it is the reason why the person was called in which gives the word its distinctive associations…Always a parakletos is someone called in to help when the person who calls is in trouble or distress or doubt or bewilderment.” [1]

Certainly this would describe the original followers of Jesus and their state upon hearing that Jesus would leave them and the concern and worry about what might happen in the absence of their teacher and guide. Jesus in an attempt to calm their hearts and their fears tells them that though he must depart from among them – this “spirit” will be with them to abide in their ministries – to abide in their Church. So in a way – Jesus helps to prepare them with these verses (as well as several verses afterwards this is, after all, the author of John’s account and nothing in that account gets said just once) for that interim time between the resurrection and post resurrection appearances until the Pentecost moment and the presence of the Paraclete into their midst. So – like so many of our experiences in life, Jesus’ time among us helps us stretch and grow so that we might find out what life might be like in those “interim” times. You get where I’m going here? This faith community of St. Stephen’s finds itself in one of those times. The vision for where God might be leading us is being discerned in community as we seek to live out our call here and beyond our doors to be the welcoming and healing presence for the downtown Portland community in which we serve. Perhaps there are some lessons from Jesus’ experience with the earliest manifestation of Church that we can apply to our experiences with the 21st Century church where we find ourselves in “transition” both as a Parish and as a Diocese that begins a new ministry with a new shepherd. Bishop Michael spent three hours with many of us this past Thursday, and we were able to share with him our vision of what St. Stephen’s is becoming as we deepen our understanding of what it means to be a place of welcome and healing to ourselves in community; but especially to those who have yet to find us. I was deeply impressed with the new Bishop’s manner and what seemed to me a genuine and sincere willingness to listen and learn about the people of St. Stephen’s – who we are, what we have been – and perhaps most importantly what we might become as we live out our call to welcome the stranger and heal the wounded in body, mind and Spirit. Bishop Michael suggested that we might examine Henri Nouwen’s book The Wounded Healer as a model from which we could carry out the healing work that we believe God is calling us to in this place. Nouwen explores in this short book how “in our own woundedness, we can become a source of life for others.” I think it would be a truly valuable exploration for us to examine how our own brokenness can become a source of strength and healing for those who come seeking that in this place. Perhaps a four to six week book study in conjunction with a light soup supper similar to our Lenten explorations might offer us a deeper insight into this aspect of how we see our ministry reaching others and helping to heal the brokenness of our wounded world. I would certainly be willing to join with others and explore this book as the Bishop suggests – and by doing that begin to discover what it means to be God’s healing presence for any and all who come seeking that gift.

(SUNG) IF ANYONE LOVES ME, THEY WILL KEEP MY WORD
AND THE FATHER WILL LOVE THEM, AND WE WILL COME TO
THEM AND ABIDE IN THEIR HEARTS

Just prior to his sudden and untimely death, Author and mystic/priest/poet John O’Donohue was working on a book that has been subsequently published entitled, To Bless the Space Between Us. I have used that book many times in the past few years, as a source of insight and prayer; as a reference for meditations and retreat reflections and it is filled with insight and understanding of the many ways in which our relationships with God and with each other can be a source of healing and a balm of gentle grace when words can often escape expression of our deepest longings. My friend and clergy colleague whom I lovingly refer to as Holy Mother Church; is the rector of St. Stephen’s in Newport and the Vicar of St. Luke’s by the Sea in Waldport. Susan was the first person who introduced this book to me and she shared with me several poems and blessings from it – as well as many other pieces of poetry that speak to the varied and multiple spiritual experiences of our lives. I would like to share with you one of those “blessings” in the form of a poem from O’Donohue’s book entitled:

For the Interim Time

When near the end of day, life has drained out of light, and it is too soon for the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline makes everything look strangely in-between, unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless. In a while it will be night, but nothing here seems to believe the relief of dark.

Your are in this time of the interim, where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here is washed out; the way forward is still concealed from you.

“The old is not old enough to have died away; the new is still too young to be born.”

You cannot lay claim to anything; in this place of dusk, your eyes are blurred; and there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart and you can see nowhere to put your trust; you know you have to make your own way though.

As far as you can hold your confidence. Do not allow your confusion to squander this call which is loosening your roots in false ground, that you might come free from all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind, and it is difficult and slow to become new. The more faithfully you can endure here, the more refined your heart will become for your arrival in the new dawn.

Jesus says in today’s reading from the author of John’s Gospel, “But the advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” This is the promise to those who believe and keep the commandments of Jesus. Jesus’ commandments for the new covenant are but two – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and the second which is like it “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The promise of the Advocate, the Paraclete then is contingent on our obedience to these commandments and being faithful to them, we are promised that we will receive the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive – and that Spirit or parakletos will guide and guard us in that interim time until the Son of God will return in all glory to begin the reign of the Kindom of heaven. Yet, that Son of God can return – in us as the Body of Christ to begin the reign of the Kindom among us, right here and right now! I have preached before of this opportunity we are given in Christian community to bring about the promised reign of God the Kindom come – and we truly can be the healer’s and helper’s that we believe we are called to be. If we reach out to our neighbors those we know and those we don’t – God will be the advocate, the parecletos, the helper and work among us and instill within us the healing community that we have all experienced ourselves to be. I’m once again reminded that ALL of our time is “interim”. We exist in those “liminal” spaces that are but the passages of our spirits from one realm to the next – from the “known” to the unknown. Even as we begin to prepare to welcome the stranger among us – we are preparing for those times when we, “a royal priesthood” will take on the work of the Body of Christ and move this faith community to the next place that the Paraclete will lead us if we but listen to Her voice. Amen.

[1] Barclay, William, The Daily Study Bible, "The Gospel of John," Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1955) p. 194

Preaching Shared

The following Sunday's after Easter this year the people of St. Stephen's were gifted and blessed by other folks in our community who, either ordained or working toward that goal, took the pulpit and delivered the sermon in order to give me a much needed break - or a chance to travel on vacation or business for the Church.

Fr. Dale Carr (Priest Associate and Chaplain for the Providence Health System); Fr. Palmer Pardington (Priest Associate and recently chosen Interim Rector for St. Matthew's Episcopal Parish in Eugene); The Rev. Deacon Ken Arnold (Deacon at St. Stephen's) and Mr. Marcos Domiguez (Aspriant for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church) took turns at preaching during the month of April and the First Week of May.

I am deeply grateful for their ministries among us - and for their gifted sermons to our Church.

Easter Day 2010

Easter Day – 2010
Acts 10: 34 - 43; Psalm 118: 1 – 2; 14 – 24; 1 Corinthians 15: 1 – 11; John 20: 1 – 18
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR
Sunday, April 4, 2010

WHO ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

Let us pray: Risen savior our joy this day is great in recognition of the fulfillment of your presence among us. We have journeyed this past 40 days through the times of temptation and test, of repentance and return, of cold and dark and finally into new light with rebirth and Resurrection. Fill us this and every day with the glory of your good news that we might resolve to live out your resurrection and proclaim our faith in the sure and certain hope of eternal life in you. May our song of Alleluia rise to fill the world with love in your name and bring hope to all who live in the promise of new and unending life in you. Teach us to recognize you when you call us by name and to see you in the faces of those whom we love – and especially those whom we do not. Amen.

(SUNG) I HAVE COME TO BRING THE TRUTH,
I HAVE COME TO BRING YOU LIFE.
IF YOU BELIEVE – THEN YOU SHALL LIVE!
I AM THE RESURRECTION, AND THE LIFE
THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN ME WILL NEVER DIE.
I AM THE RESURRECTION, AND THE LIFE
YOU WHO BELIEVE IN ME WILL LIVE A NEW LIFE.

In the rapid paced week prior to our resurrection celebration this morning, our faithful and dedicated music director who has voluntarily taken on the added responsibility of producing our bulletins since budget constraints forced the elimination of our Parish Administrative Assistant; did a marvelous job in compiling and reproducing 4 bulletins in about as many days. One oversight of that rapid production was the exclusion of the Gospel text appointed by the Revised Common Lectionary for Easter Sunday of Year C. The text printed in your bulletin was simply a repeat of the text from last year’s bulletin. The text which Ken proclaimed this morning from the author of John’ account of the Good News is the text appointed and the one for which your Priest in Charge had prepared his sermon. “Jesus said to her, woman why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Interesting question indeed; and one we might fairly ask ourselves as we gather in this place this morning. Who are you looking for? What might you be expecting to find here today that you have not found before? What do I suppose that I can preach about this day – this event that has not been preached before? Christians have been gathering on this festival day to mark the central act of our faith for some two thousand and ten years – is there really anything new that can be said about the discovery of the empty tomb and the failure by those present that morning to recognize the risen Christ? Probably not, its all been said before and much more powerfully and articulately than I would ever be able to do – so I’ll just go sit down now, and you can conjure in your memory the best Easter sermon you’ve ever heard!

I guess I’m not going to get off that easy eh? Well I can share with you some thoughts that have been ruminating in brain during this past week, which for people in my line of business can be pretty hectic and demanding. What I have tried to do is to make sure that I balance the care and nurture of my own spiritual health with the needs of the gathered community and the support and participation of the people of God in this “holy week”. I can tell you that the Gospel message proclaimed in Christian churches around the world this day – that the one who was judged, scourged and crucified and who has risen as was promised – produces a profound sense of joy that often defies feeble attempts at explanation. This is part of the reason that we incorporate into our celebration color and light, music which accompanies our voices with trumpets and grand flourishes from organ pipes. This is the day when all the stops are pulled out and we deck ourselves and our churches and sanctuaries in their finest array. “On this day,” says the psalmist, “the Lord has acted, we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Let me tell you one of the most exciting things for me about this day. This is Easter day begins the liturgical season of Eastertide which will extend for the next 50 days until we mark the Ascension and then the feast of Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit; this also means that Lent is over – and beginning on this day I can return to Breyer’s mint chocolate chip ice cream; and that is very good news indeed! Whatever the Lenten disciplines that we took on beginning on Ash Wednesday – we can now incorporate into our celebration of this festival day and the joyous season that accompanies it. Our liturgical colors turn to dazzling white and our sanctuary is once again filled with the beauty, fragrance and color of flowers that remind us of the return and rebirth of the season of spring. The simple pottery chalice and plate are replaced with our finest silver lovingly polished and buffed to its brightest sheen. The Light of Christ, which is symbolized by the Paschal Candle which we lighted last evening from the new fire – will burn in our sanctuaries and in our hearts for the next days of this celebratory season. Our renewal of and re-commitment to our baptismal covenant also part of our vigil liturgy reminded us of the promises which we made to “ continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers” to “persevere in resisting evil, and, when we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord” to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ” to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves” and to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”

(SUNG) KEEP IN MIND THE THINGS THAT I HAVE SAID
REMEMBER ME IN THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD.
IF YOU BELIEVE – THEN YOU SHALL LIVE
I AM THE RESURRECTION, AND THE LIFE
THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN ME WILL NEVER DIE
I AM THE RESURRECTION, AND THE LIFE
YOU WHO BELIEVE IN ME WILL LIVE A NEW LIFE.

I found a quote from an anonymous source that reads Christmas is the Promise – and Easter is the Proof. The captioned phrase “He is risen” speaks of the Easter moment to those of us who are believers. Unlike the other major Christian festival that we celebrated only three short months ago; the moguls of Madison Avenue have not been truly successful in converting the forty days of Lent into the only twenty shopping days left until Easter campaign. Colorful green and yellow ad inserts in the local newspapers tout the benefits of one stop shopping for your succulent holiday ham – but generally speaking we have held onto the sacredness of our Christian story in this season far better than the in the rampant “commercialization” of our Christmas festival, and we don’t have too much to fear from the consumer culture that looks to capitalize on the potential moneymaking opportunities of candy manufacturers and egg farmers. “He is risen” means more, however, than the smiling Pillsbury Doughboy image which has been traveling around in my circle on the internet. It is the claim, from those of us who find reason to gather here on Easter morning – that the story of the Incarnation (i.e. the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth) fills us with promise and purpose and mission. We who are among those whom Jesus loves (which includes ALL of creation) look to spread that Good News or Gospel of hope into a world, which is skeptical of claims about resurrection. The story, which we heard read this morning from the author of John’s account, is filled with intrigue and excitement, with doubt and with strength for those harried and grieving followers who trudged to the tomb early on the first day of the week. God, in infinite wisdom and sense chooses to offer the first appearance of the resurrected Christ to a woman – whom we know as Mary Magdalene. This devoted disciple is distraught with the fear that the body of her teacher, her rabbi and her friend had been dishonored by grave robbers or religious government officials who looked to make sure that his humiliation was complete. Whatever else Mary may have carried in her grieving heart that early morning; I can’t imagine that hope in the fact that Jesus would have surmounted death was in her realm of possibility. Why would it be? We all know, only too well, that death is the final moment. Yet something happened that fateful morning – something that she would not be able to explain – something which thousands of learned theologians in the years since have not been able to explain, because faith is not explained faith is experienced. Resurrection is not explained – resurrection is experienced. I have experienced resurrection in my life – all of you have experienced resurrection in your lives; too many times to not believe that it is possible. Those moments when the grief seems too great, when the guilt seems too crushing and when the hope seems too faint – God enters in and resurrection happens in spite of our doubts. The explanation is never needed as long as we are able to trust the experience. That’s what Mary was able to do when she heard Jesus call her name; she was able to trust the experience of love in that voice and know that it was no gardener – rather is was the voice of the one whom she loved. In fact, it was the voice of Love itself; it was the voice of God. It is the voice of resurrection, which continues to draw us here around this table to share the love, which is God with each other, and to recognize in that sharing that we are the Body of Christ called to continue the building of the kindom of God among us – in this place, in this time and for this community.

My guess is that we have come here this morning looking for the One who calls us to love. We have finished the Lenten journey and have made our way from Bethlehem in Judea to Jerusalem of Israel, and into the sure and certain truth that Paul writes about in the first letter to the early Church in Corinth; “but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain” and that the author of Luke/Acts proclaims; that “all the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” This is the good news of our Easter story. Easter, according to Theologian Jürgen Moltmann is “God’s protest against death”, this does not mean that death will not happen; I’m sure it will come as no surprise to anyone here this morning that death will touch each and everyone of our lives more times that we might care to know. The truth of the Easter experience is that because of the empty tomb and the encounter with the risen Christ that death will no longer hold sway over us. The struggle has been fought and won – the Risen one will gather all of the faithful and lead us into new life. That is our sure and certain hope this day – that is what we have come here looking for and that is what we have found; new life in the Risen Christ and in the Kindom of our God among us, right here – right now!

Amen