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Mystic
Congregational Church, UCC Mystic,
Connecticut Sermon
from April 30, 2006 “Unfinished
Easter” Rev.
Patricia L. Liberty Scriptures: Acts 3:2-19 Luke 24:36b-49 Of
all the ways the risen Christ may have chosen to greet his disciples when he
suddenly appeared in their midst, “hello” doesn’t appear anywhere or
whatever the first-century equivalent of that might have been.
In fact, the whole conversation is just a little bit curious, if not
downright odd, when you think about it. The
peculiar sequence of the interchange is heightened when you consider that Jesus
just appears in their midst, bypassing the usual way one enters a room: via the door. There
was no knocking, no announcement, no peeking in the window to see if they were
home. He just appears in their
midst, seemingly like 5th year students at Hogwart’s learning to
apparate. Then,
the first word out of his mouth is not “Hello”, or “What’s up, how are
you” but “Peace”. I suppose
that was more helpful since the disciples were a little edgy to begin with, and
having a supposedly dead person appear in their midst probably added to their
marginally controlled confusion and anxiety.
Of course, if we want to be biblically accurate, Jesus’ showing up and
saying, “Peace be to you” does follow his own admonition to greet any house
one enters with a blessing of peace. (Luke 10:5-6).
So to say that the disciples were a little thunderstruck is probably an
understatement. But
for us, it’s a little different. We
have heard these stories for so long that it’s hard to be surprised by them. Not only do we know what’s going to happen, but we also
know about biology. Being people of
modernity, it’s easy to bracket the resurrection appearances as either quaint
tales of antiquity or allegorical yarns woven with strands of truth, central to
our faith but not to be taken literally. After
all, rising from the dead is not scientific.
There must be another explanation. One
of the things that we share with the earliest disciples is confusion about the
resurrection. The writer or Luke's
Gospel minces no words when clueing us in that the disciples were not only
startled but terrified as well. As
post-modern Christians, we're not likely to be terrified but we are, for the
most part, no more certain what to make of it than they were.
We have trouble sorting it all out.
Like them, we are left make meaning out of this mysterious and uncertain
series of events. This resurrection
account from the end of Luke’s Gospel organizes around a few things to help us
out just a little bit. First,
Jesus shows them his hands and feet. Barbara
Brown Taylor writes, “One of the most peculiar things about Luke’s
resurrection story is the way Jesus identifies himself to his friends.
‘Look at my hands and my feet,’ he says to his frightened, doubtful
disciples. They are shaking in
their sandals. They are wondering
if they are having a group hallucination when he offers them four sure proofs
that he is who they think he is: two
hands and two feet; ten fingers and ten toes which could belong to one else but
him. … Isn’t it a peculiar way
to identify himself?” When I hope
someone will remember me or recognize me, I am not apt to jump out of my shoes
and invite them to have a gander at my feet. (Home
by Another Way, page 119). It’s
not just the message that it’s not a ghost they are seeing that readers are
supposed to get, though that is important, too.
What Jesus is really calling attention to are his wounds.
That’s what we’re supposed to notice.
It’s our first breadcrumb on the path to insight about the resurrection
that we can easily follow. Jesus
tells them to look at his wounds. He
has to tell them because looking at wounds is not something most folks do of
their own accord (maybe, doctors and nurses but not the rest of us).
When we see wounds of any kind, our first tendency is to look away, to
avert our gaze. The
man who weeps in the hospital lobby all by himself, the homeless woman who
shuffles past us as make our way from shop to shop, or even, for that matter,
our own brokenness that stammers out in whatever it is that we are or fail to be
for better or for worse. We are all
a mess of contradictions, a jumble of the good the not so good, a smattering of
fear and faith, and there are countless moments when our slip hangs below the
hem of our days. We are a wounded
lot. When
Jesus comes back, his wounds are still visible, changed but still visible. It is one of the greatest joys of the resurrection—healing
is possible, scars are acceptable, victory is not the same as perfection.
Jesus
tells them to look at his wounds. They
are part and parcel to who is he is now just as much as a few days ago. His new life is very much connected to his suffering and his
suffering has been transformed. He’s
not just proving to his doubting disciples that it’s really him; he’s
pointing to a central truth about ministry.
We
are, all of us, wounded healers. Our
greatest strengths will always grow out of our deepest pains, our greatest
doubt, our most profound fears. Psychology
calls it integration. The risen
Christ says, “Look here at my hands and feet” so we can look at the places
of our own wounds with the promise of similar healing. The
second bread crumb falls on the 41st verse where Jesus asks for some
broiled fish and eats in their presence. While
I would like to think that this is included in the story as a way of blessing
our penchant for potluck suppers in the Congregational tradition, alas, there is
absolutely nothing in the text to suggest that that is a faithful rendering.
It’s actually a whole lot more profound than that. Here’s
where a little history may be helpful. I’ll
try and keep it brief and not too painful.
You see, trying to get a grip on the resurrection was a big thing for the
early Christians, and it’s not too hard to imagine that people came up with
lots of different ways of understanding it.
As the old joke goes, ask three Christians about just about anything and
you get five opinions. Some things
never change and it was true in the first century. Among the more popular
explanations for the resurrection toward the end of the first century—this was
heavily influenced by the secular philosophies around Christianity—was the
notion that Jesus was a disembodied spirit, a ghost.
It was problematic, but not necessarily for the reasons that you might
think. This
whole notion that Jesus was a ghost was connected to a heresy of the early
church called docetism which held that
Jesus only SEEMED to be human. After
his seeming birth, came his seeming
life, came his seeming ministry, and
finally his seeming death. For the Docetists, it was all an illusion.
Going along with that belief system was the notion that nothing in this
life mattered because none of it was real.
People were just passing through on their way to something better.
It was the first-century precursor to “pie in the sky when we die by
and by” notion. There
are a lots of reasons why that was problematic, but the one that Jesus focuses
on here is that it undercuts any sense of mission that the early church was
developing. If we’re just passing
through and the sufferings of this life are just illusion, then there is no need
to care for another, no need to alleviate human suffering, no need to love one
another, no need to tend to the planet, no value in the loving relationships we
spend a life time trying to build. It
is counter to the very essence of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The economic, physical and political needs of human beings, the commands
to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God are the very cornerstones
of the Judeo-Christian faith, to all that Jesus taught and believed and lived
and died for. If
it was all just an illusion, then where does one plant mission?
So, the risen Christ appearing in the flesh and not as a ghost was
central to the early church’s understanding of mission.
Coming right on the heels of that, Jesus says, “You are witnesses to
these things.” It makes the
connection between what’s real and what we’re supposed to now do about that.
There is a progression from proof, such as it was, to the commissioning.
Go teach and preach and make it known.
The commission is to go. But
the good news is we don’t have to have it all together, that we don’t have
to have it all figured out. If the
disciples waited till they had the resurrection all figured out, to this day,
none of us would be doing much of anything.
The best news of all comes right at the very end—that is that we don't
have to do it on our own. There is
a promise of presence and power and peace to undergird the disciples of every
age in their work. While
the risen Christ is clear about their commission, he's also very clear that they
aren't quite ready yet and tells them to wait for the Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit comes not just on the day of Pentecost, that
great holiday. It comes in your
life and mind at all kinds of different times, when the word becomes alive, when
we discover some new energy mission and ministry, when we feel a passion to go
out and do something and be a part of something that witnesses to the goodness
of God. Unfinished
Easter is finished a little bit at a time in your life and mine when,
strengthened with the spirit, we bear witness to the life God dreams for
creation and for all who are a part of it—around the table at the Soup
Kitchen, around our own kitchen table, around the communion table, in deeds of
compassion and care and mercy and peace, in moments of witness that come in the
face of what is wrong, when we stand with moral courage instead of fear.
Unfinished Easter, then, becomes just a little more finished. So,
celebrate Unfinished Easter. Write
your own ending as you bear witness to the resurrection.
Alleluia and Amen. |