“By This Everyone Will Know”

John 13:31-35

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." 

When I sat down Monday morning to plan worship and read over this week’s lectionary Scriptures, I was surprised to see this passage since we had just meditated on it a few weeks ago on Maundy Thursday as we gathered together to celebrate Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, the passage from where the “Maundy” in Maundy Thursday comes—the commandment, the mandate from Christ for us to love each other just as we have been so greatly loved by him.

I think it was so important for the disciples gathered in the upper room that last night before Jesus’ death to be commanded to love. They had been following Jesus for so long now, getting used to that life and those ways, but they were about to walk into something new, a post-crucifixion world that would look different and sound different and feel different. Jesus had been with them, teaching them, showing them, explaining to them how to love as he met with people—as he healed them and fed them, as he welcomed them and named them, as he invited them and forgave them. Jesus told them that he would only be with them a little longer, and then he would be gone—that all of this would then be their deal. They had been taught, and now it was their turn to go on without him, their turn to go out into the world and show the love of their Lord.

In our NRSV version of this passage, Jesus says to them, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Our NRSV translates the Greek so well in many circumstances, but in this one, it’s a bit lacking. It says that we “should” go out and love one another, “should” kind of sounding like a suggestion. But the Greek for that word suggests something much deeper, saying that Jesus has loved us in order that we go out and love one another. This translation is much clearer—it is not a suggestion, but a mandate. I have loved you in order that you will go out and love one another.

This is not a new commandment for the disciples, for all of us. The commandment is there from the very beginnings of Scripture. In the 19^th chapter of Leviticus, we are told by the Lord that “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The commandment to love resounds throughout our Biblical story, but it takes on a new meaning when Jesus says it as his life is drawing to a close. The newness in this mandate to love can be found in the reason why we are called to love: that God loved us so much that a Son was given—given to live for us, given to die for us, given to rise for us. The newness in this mandate comes with the new life found on the empty cross and in the empty tomb, comes with the new life of resurrection.

I think it’s so important for us to read and hear this mandate anew this day, this commandment to the disciples to go out and love, to read it in concert with the commandment at the empty tomb for the disciples to go out and tell the good news of resurrection. It’s so important for us to read and hear these commandments together because you can’t have one without the other. It’s not enough to simply to go out and speak the good news of resurrection—what good is it going to do if we go out and speak the words but do absolutely nothing to back them up? We are not called to simply share the good news of resurrection, but called to live the good news, to show and share the good news, to embody it in such a way that everything we do shows the good news of life, of resurrection, of love. We are called to let that good news take root in us, so that it emanates from the very core of our being, so that it lives through us. Called to embody it in every action so that everyone will know we are disciples of our resurrected Christ before a word is ever on our tongue.

There was a very sweet, gentle, kind man who was a member of my former church, and I did his memorial service after he died from a short but very valiant battle with pancreatic cancer. Bill was a true disciple in every sense of the word—he welcomed folks, invited them to his table and made meals for them, healed them as he listened to them and prayed for them, as he never met a stranger. He was a disciple who embodied this kind of love —evident as a co-worker spoke at his service. She said, “Bill never flat out told me that he was a Christian, but I just knew it by the way he treated folks in our office. He was pretty high up and didn’t need to do anything he did, but he took the time to stop by our desks every day, to ask us how we were, to ask about our families, to tell us that he would pray for us when times were rough. He asked us to lunch when we didn’t have any other invitations. He treated us with gentleness and grace and forgiveness. It wasn’t always easy, and I’m sure he was tired at times, but that never stopped him. He loved us deeply because he had been so deeply loved.” Wow. His words and actions as a disciple were entwined—he embodied the love of Christ, lived it to the very core of his being. By that, everyone knew that he was a disciple. It was amazing to hear that story, and I thought to myself, “How different would our world be if we all embodied that forgiveness and grace, that acceptance and kindness and love?”

“I give you a new commandment,” Jesus says, “that you love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Frederick Buechner speaks about this kind of love, this embodied love, as he says:

To lose yourself in another’s arms, or in another’s company, or in suffering for all [of those] who suffer, including the ones who inflict suffering upon you—to lose yourself in such ways is to find yourself. Its what it’s all about. Its what love is…in the Christian sense, love is not primarily an emotion, but an act of will. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, he is not telling us to love them in the sense of responding to them with a cozy emotional feeling…on the contrary, he is telling us to love our neighbors in the sense of being willing to work for their well-being even if it means sacrificing our own well-being to that end, even if it means sometimes just leaving them alone. Thus in Jesus’ terms, we can love our neighbors without necessarily liking them. In fact liking them may stand in the way of loving them by making us overprotective sentimentalists instead of reasonably honest friends.

Buecher reminds us that love is not often comfortable, not often cozy, not often easy. While love may be all of those things at times, there are so many others when love is hard work, hard stuff, self-sacrificing gut-wrenching stuff. There are so many times when loving means looking into the face of an enemy and realizing, proclaiming even, that they are also a child of God. So many times when love means sitting at table with someone that we don’t want to accept. So many times when we feast at the table with folks who don’t look like us or act like us, folks who don’t worship the same way we do or don’t worship at all, folks who weren’t born in the same place as us and don’t speak the same language, folks who live and love differently than we do. Isn’t that, after all, what the cross is all about? About hard work? About self-sacrifice? About acceptance of those whom we deem unjust but whom God deems just? About the forgiveness and grace and abundance that comes with love? About loving others—even when we don’t necessarily like them—but because we have first been loved so greatly by God?

I read an amazing letter this week, one that must have been hard and horrible to write, to even imagine. This letter speaks about the kind of resurrection forgiveness and love that our risen Christ mandates us to live, to embody. It was written by a Jesuit priest to the surviving brother responsible for last week’s awful bombings. Here is some of what was written in the letter:

Dear Dzhokhar,

You don’t know me, but you tried to kill my family. You couldn't have known, but my brother ran…in the marathon and trained for months. My sister-in-law was an amazing and supportive wife as she always is and was ready to run the last 5 miles with him. Your bomb was at the finish line that they were trying to cross.

My mother, father and sister were waiting for them at the finish line. You didn't know it, but my mother thinks that she saw you down there. My sister is only three years younger than you, and you set off a bomb in front of her.

You don't know me, but you tried to kill some friends of mine. One of my best…friends was working in the store in front of which you or your brother laid down a bomb. That bomb exploded, and gave her the worst day of her life. I was a high school teacher, your bomb wounded one of my most promising students with shrapnel.

Dear Dzhokhar…you killed a child who was a part of the community who made me the man I am today…You tried to drive a city which gave me courage in the face of cancer into complete and utter fear…Dear Dzhokhar, for all of this, I can't hate you... Today I thought about the fact that you are only 19 ... you are just a kid. You must have been so afraid. You were a victim like so many are victims. You were brought something you shouldn't have been brought into because you likely didn't and couldn't know any better.

I am glad that you are going to prison, and I hope that you will have many long years there in supermax in Colorado. I hope that no one I love will ever be threatened by you again, but I can't hate you. I can't hate you because whatever you brought into Boston was enough hate for a good long while, I won't and can't hate any more. I can't hate you because I remember being 19, I thought many things were a good idea which weren't. I never would have went where you were with that, but I was certainly not an adult at 19.

I can't hate you because, even though you did unspeakable things ... somehow you are still my brother and your death can never be my gain.

I can't hate you, and not just because I am a Catholic, and a Christian, and because in a couple of months I will be a priest, I am a human and I simply can't hate you.

Dear Dzhokhar, I still have hope for you.

The rest of your life will be in prison. I have seen men change their lives there. I hope that you won't be executed, because I know that we can hold you, safely, for the rest of your life.

I can't say what your story might be there but I know that I, as a Christian, and you, as a Muslim, believe God to be merciful... so I can't help but have hope for you...

Dear Dzhokhar, I will pray for you. Next year, when my friend and my brother cross that finish line on Boylston, your brother's cause will have lost for good, but I will pray that you will know, somehow still, the love that my brother, sister-in-law, mother, father, sister, friends, and students all have given me.

Dear Dzhokhar, I will pray for you that you will come to know that PEACE and LOVE are the only ways in which world will ever be changed.

Dear Dzhokhar, I don't and can't hate you. I am glad you are in custody, but you are just a kid, and you are lost. I will love and pray for you, because somehow your sin was turned for good, and my community and the people I love will only be stronger in the end.

Dear Dzhokhar, Godspeed.

Wow. I pray that you will come to know that peace and love are the only ways the world will ever be changed. I will love you and pray for you that your sin will be turned into good. What amazing words of grace and forgiveness and peace. What amazing words of love. That, friends, is how we celebrate that we are people of the Christ’s resurrection—by accepting, by hoping, by loving. That is how we celebrate and live as Easter people. That is how we flourish with love, how we embody love, how we let love root deeply into our souls, all because we are Easter people. “I have loved you,” Christ says, “in order that you also love one another.” This is not always a love that is easy or comfortable or comforting, but it is a love that we are commanded, mandated to live. It is a love that is first given to us on the cross, a love that comes with the miracle of the resurrection, a love that is so essential to us that it becomes part of who we are—a love that emanates from every fiber of our being. It is a love that will be one of the only things that ever changes the world. It is a love by which everyone will know we are disciples. It is a love that passes all understanding because it comes from God. And thanks to be God for that. Amen.

"Do You Love Me?

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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." 6 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. 7 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. 8 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. 9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." 11 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. 12 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. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. 15 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." 16 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." 17 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." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me." 

I was on vacation over that awful weekend last December, that terrible Sunday that followed the terrible Friday of Newtown, that terrible Sunday following some of the worst news that we could ever imagine—that 20 sweet 5 & 6 year olds had lost their lives because of violence, because of illness, because of sin, lives lost because of the awful brokenness of our world. It was weird being gone from this place that Sunday because you are my faith community, and just like the rest of you, I needed to wrapped in the loving arms of this place, of these people. But I have to admit that I was also glad I wasn’t here, glad that I didn’t have to preach, glad that I didn’t have to find light in the midst of such darkness, glad that I didn’t have to proclaim good news in the midst of such awful news. Although I know that the Spirit can do amazing things, I don’t know if I could have wrapped my head around the awful brutality of Newtown to even be able to get any words out to you.

And I have to admit that I find myself in much the same place today. We all find ourselves in the same place—a world that seems so dark, a world where the brokenness of such senseless violence seems to have taken over again, a world where unexplainable things happen and people senselessly mourn once again. A world in which, as one of you so simply said on Facebook this week: “I’m tired of having to try to explain violence to my children.”

From the violence and craziness and fear in Boston to the explosions that took the lives of dozens of folks, and the livelihoods of so many more in Texas, from the scare of letters laced with poison sent to our leaders, to the renewed anguish and anger of Newtown parents so evident this week, to the senseless pain that has surely gone on in families and communities that have gone unnoticed, there sure seems to be a lot of darkness in our world. Overwhelming darkness. I have loved the sentiments I have seen so much on Facebook this week that no darkness can overcome the light, but sometimes that darkness does seem like it’s taking over. Sometimes it is simply too hard to imagine that there is light, to see it, to feel it warm us up.

And like many preachers who have gone on before me, I have found myself tempted over the last few days to try and give answers to you about why this darkness and suffering happens, solutions and explanations that might make us all feel better and happier and lighter. None of us wants to feel this way, feel the darkness of no answers and no reasons, but we do. There are times like these when it simply feels like the darkness is here to stay. Theologian and writer Frederick Buechner shed some light on this for me in a video I saw this week. He said:

I used to think that, as a minister…you’re supposed to know the answers. That you go into somebody who’s having a troubled time and you tell them something that’s going to make them feel better or give them something to hold onto. I’ve decided since that that’s the least of what you do. You go and simply are with them. I feel that I am the one who must bring healing, hope, and explanation, but I’m not. That’s God’s business.

Wow. Very helpful words for this preacher! It is God’s business. It is God’s business, and we are all here together—asking, praying, searching, yearning for some light in the darkness. I’m so glad, so thankful, that we have Scripture, Scripture that is our witness to the work of God in the world, that points us to who God is and what God does and how God loves and responds in our world. And I’m so glad that Scripture, from it’s very beginning, describes a world of deep darkness, a world that is illuminated by the glorious light of creation. Scripture testifies and celebrates our God who turns darkness into light.

Friends, even though we feel very dark and very sad this day after this horrific week, the Good News is that we are an Easter people, people who are called to live in the light of Christ. I don’t think it’s an accident that each of our 4 Gospels testifies to the women who went to the tomb on that resurrection day, and that they found the empty tomb just as the sun was beginning to rise. These women and the disciples and all of the other followers had been living in deep darkness, after being witnesses to such horrific violence, after seeing their friend, their relative, their teacher die. They had been living in the darkness and overwhelming depression of grief, not sure if they would ever be able to feel the light again. But then they went to that tomb just as the sun was beginning to rise. They heard the best news imaginable, saw it with their own eyes. They lived through the darkest night imaginable, and that darkness was turned into light for them on that resurrection day.

And I love that Jesus appeared to them again that day on the beach, as John tells us. I’m not quite sure why he decided to show up again—maybe he remembered how tough a time the disciples had had truly believing what he had told them about how he was going to die. Maybe he felt that they needed to see him one more time just to make sure it was all real, that the resurrection had really happened, that the hope and light of resurrection was true and real and believable. I love that he came again at daybreak, as our story tells us, just as the fishermen disciples were setting out to make their catch for the day, just as the fish were beginning to jump and bite, just as the sun was beginning to rise in the sky. Jesus sat with them on the beach to have breakfast, giving them bread and fish once again just as he had with 5,000 others many weeks before, feeding them and making all things new.

Maybe this breakfast, a breaking of the fast, happened at daybreak to signify a new beginning, the new beginning of hope and joy and new life and resurrection that Jesus brings. Maybe this breakfast reminded them on the shore, and all of us, that sharing food is what makes us human, what makes us community. Maybe this breakfast reminded them, and all of us, that just when things are the darkest, there is always the light of morning, the light of new beginning. “Come,” Christ said to them, “and have breakfast.” Maybe this breakfast invitation reminded them, and all of us, that eating is necessary for life—for new life—and so is Christ himself.

I think it’s tempting for us to stop at this part of the story—this morning breakfast scene. It’s tempting for us to sit and bask in the light, to lay back with full stomachs and rest a bit believing that full stomachs and bright sunshine are all that we need. Tempting for us to bask and rest a bit and ignore the world going on around us. But we can’t.

Just as Jesus asked Simon Peter the question, he asks all of us the same thing: “Do you love me?”

“Of course we do, Lord.”

“No,” Jesus says, “I mean it. Do you love me?”

“Yes, of course we do!”

And then again, a third time: “DO YOU LOVE ME?”

“YES!” is our response.

“OK, then,” Jesus says. “Then go out. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my lambs. Go. Make sure everyone has their most basic needs met. Act. Feed. Love. Be my hands and feet in the world. Follow me.”
Jesus Christ brings the light of resurrection to give us new life, forgiveness, hope, love. He rises from the grave and invites us to breakfast—he fills us. But he doesn’t stop there. It’s not enough to simply come out of the darkness and then bask in the light that Christ brings. Christ calls us to go out into the world, our world that is so obviously hurting from violence and misunderstanding and sin and brokenness. That is a hard road for us all, but we are called to walk out in the darkness of grief and uncertainty, of violence and hatred, of sin—called to feed the lambs and tend the sheep, called to carry Christ’s light and the Good News of the empty tomb into that broken and fearful world.

I would like to end by sharing a prayer from one of my favorite books—it’s a book of prayers by Ted Loder called Guerillas of Grace. Let us pray together:

Sometimes, Lord,
it just seems to be too much:
too much violence, too much fear;
too much of demands and problems;
too much of broken dreams and broken lives;
too much of war and slums and dying;
too much of greed and squishy fatness
and the sounds of people
devouring each other
and the earth;
too much of state routines and quarrels,
unpaid bills and dead ends;
too much of words lobbed in to explode
and leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls;
too much of turned-away backs and yellow silence,
red rage and the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth.
Sometimes the very air seems scorched
by threats and rejection and decay
until there is nothing
but to inhale pain
and exhale confusion.
Too much of darkness, Lord,
too much of cruelty
and selfishness
and indifference ...
Too much, Lord,
too much,
too bloody,
bruising,
brain-washing much.

Or is it too little,
too little of compassion,
too little of courage,
of daring,
of persistence,
of sacrifice;
too little of music
and laughter
and celebration?

O God,
make of us some nourishment
for these starved times,
some food
for our brothers and sisters
who are hungry for gladness and hope,
that, being bread for them,
we may also be fed
and be full.

"A Resurrection Tale"

1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Luke 24:1-12

“A Resurrection Tale”

“It seemed to them an idle tale.” You know, I’ve read this story hundreds of times, but these words really jumped out at me this week. It must have seemed an idle tale. I, we, can only begin to imagine how idle, how unreal, it must have sounded when Mary Magdalene and Joanna and the other Mary shared the news of the empty tomb. These women were standing before the disciples, women who had seen their friend, their leader, their love die before their very eyes, women who had heard the sounds of the hammer hitting the nails, women who had seen Jesus’ head fall as he breathed his last, women who had wept and mourned bitterly. These women were swallowed up in grief, and the disciples could barely hold their heads up above the water over what they had just experienced 3 days earlier. So much going on, so much that they all experienced, so this news of an empty tomb must have sounded unreal, false—it must have sounded like an empty hope entombed with grief, must have sounded unbelievable.

To all of them gathered there that day, this tale must have sounded like an idle one. And in so many ways, it seems an idle tale to those of us who are gathered here today—so hard to believe, so hard to take in, so hard to understand how the linen cloths could be the only thing left in the tomb. Just as those gathered there over 2000 years ago had experienced such horror and terror and grief, we experience much the same thing today. We live in a world that struggles with so much—with the ravages of war, with the horrors of poverty and hunger, with the long term effects of racism and sexism, with folks who are left in shambles after a loved one is gone from their lives, with deep divides over how we treat each other in our political lives, with the effects of natural disaster, with long held divisions over how we believe in and proclaim God. In so many ways, it is natural for this tale of resurrection, of hope, of grace, of overwhelming and unconditional love, to seem unbelievable. To seem impossible. To seem untrue. To seem idle.

But we have to believe, don’t we? We have to go into the tomb with the women and see the linen cloths left behind. We have to believe that Christ is not there because he has been resurrected. We have to believe this for our stories, for our lives to be real. We have to believe that this is not an idle tale but instead a resurrection one. I have read it put this way:

…if this was an idle tale, then we must acknowledge that we live in a world where love is sentimental and powerless. If the tale is idle and Jesus is not raised from the dead, then we live in a world where there is no power stronger than the sin that kills us…if the womens’ story is just an idle tale, then there is no power that can break those bonds, and we may as well be wound round with our own gravecloths (Karen Pidcock-Lester).

I love that. If this tale of resurrection is not true in our lives, then we might as well be dead in the tomb with Christ. We might as well not live in our world, not thrive in our world, not act in our world, not love in our world.

 If this is an idle tale, then we have nothing to say to our neighbors in Newtown who are mourning the unexplainable loss of such sweet and innocent life. If this is an idle tale, then we have nothing to say to the folks in our community who are longing for the human right of having a roof over their heads. If this is an idle tale, then we have nothing to say to our service men and women who have been away from their families for many weeks and months over the past 10 years. If this is an idle tale, then we have nothing to say to our friends and mission partners in Mexico and Haiti. If this is an idle tale, we have nothing to say to the members of our church family who are sick and shut-in and hurting and sad and hurting. If this is an idle tale, we have nothing to say to the children in our midst to whom we have made baptismal vows and promises.

But, friends, the great news of this Easter day, of this day of resurrection, is that we do have something to say, something to believe, something to proclaim and celebrate—that life triumphs over death, that this is no unbelievable, idle tale. This is a very alive, very true, very real tale of resurrection. Jesus Christ has come back to life for all of us—to proclaim recreation, to proclaim new life, to proclaim hope, to proclaim the overwhelming power of love found in resurrection.

This resurrection tale is very true for a couple in our own midst who have been praying and hoping and discerning and waiting for the past 6 hard years to adopt a child, a couple who will be the most delightful and fun and loving parents. The tale is being lived out in their lives in the form of an acquaintance of theirs who went to China several weeks ago, to a random and unnamed orphanage, not knowing whose child was there waiting to be held. As she and her mom played with the kids, her mom heard a worker say: “This is the Tamblyn baby.” In disbelief and wonder, she proclaimed, “As in John Tamblyn from Alabama, my former teacher?” How amazing is that? This young woman traveled all the way around the world, where she held her teacher’s daughter, the daughter who will be here in May. That is a tale of resurrection.

This resurrection tale is very true for a dear friend of ours, a friend who experienced the awful and tragic loss of her husband 5 years ago, just 3 weeks after they were married. She experienced such death and loss and confusion and tragedy, but she is now married with a beautiful, sweet, funny, loving little boy and a second little one on the way. What new life in the midst of death. That is a tale of resurrection.

This resurrection tale is very true for two little girls in Colorado, whose grandmother took her life last month after experiencing such loss and sadness and tragedy. This grandmother went to the post office quite often before her life came to an end and was so lovely to one of the workers there that she befriended. That postal worker asked a church member of ours for the address of those sweet grandchildren this week so that she could send those two little girls an Easter gift and tell them the story about how lovely their grandmother was to her. That is a tale of resurrection.

This resurrection tale is very true for two of our students who lost their dear father last year after a valiant battle with cancer. Their world was rocked and changed forever, but even in the midst of their mourning, they are still here with us working with our youth, going on mission trips, playing basketball, going to the beach with their friends, giggling and telling stories and laughing their hearty laughs. And they are about to graduate and go to work and graduate school—with their very proud dad beaming down to them. That is a tale of resurrection.

This resurrection tale is very true for the new friends we met in Haiti, whose orphanage crumbled to the ground around them a little over three years ago, crumbled as they stood and watched their home fall apart. This is their fourth Easter day since that awful January day, and they have a new home, one that is secure and built deep into the ground, one that is very colorful and welcoming and warm, one that is painted brightly with butterflies adorning the side to remind them of the power of resurrection. A tale of resurrection, indeed.

We have a choice. We can sit and stare at each other idly in disbelief, letting ourselves believe that the world is too scary, that miracles don’t happen in our midst, believing that it is easier to stay locked up in our rooms, to stay enclosed in our tombs, than to open the doors and believe in the power of resurrection. We can indeed believe that this tale is an idle one. Or we can listen to what the women of our lives tell us and go with Peter to the empty tomb. We can go to find that the linen cloths are the only thing left behind, and we can believe in the miracle of resurrection, in the miracle of recreation, in the miracle of new life. We can believe and celebrate and proclaim that this tale is a tale of resurrection.

When we choose to believe that this is a tale of resurrection, we can see all of the bright colors in our midst with new eyes, especially the liturgical white color of holiness. We can laugh with our children today, our children who are so hyper and happy and excited, laugh at their squeals of delight. We can come to the table as we are invited and celebrate that it is indeed set for us all. We can delight in the new life that comes with Spring. We can smell the lilies in our midst that remind us of God’s glorious act of creation. We can see the cross before us with new eyes and minds and hearts, ready to celebrate and proclaim that we have seen a miracle, a tale of resurrection. And because we have been amazed at all that has happened, we can leave this place and go out into the world, serving and loving as people of the resurrection. Thanks be to God.

Comfort, Complacency

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” 5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”8Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” 9Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ 11and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” 12Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

"Comfort, Complacency"

As we enter our journey into Lent, we probably shouldn’t spend our time looking for the word “lent” in our Bible indexes, in our concordances, or even googling the term “lent in the Bible.” Although there is Biblical evidence for the length of our days in Lenten time, it is not a Biblical practice—there was no such thing as Lent way back in those days. There are certainly stories about fasting and self-denial and prayer, but there is no evidence of this Lenten journey that we’ve all begun together. So where did Lent come from, how did all of this happen?

I love how Barbara Brown Taylor paints the scene for us, saying that the need for Lent

. . . did not arise until much later, when the initial rush of Christian adrenaline was over and the believers had gotten very ho-hum about their faith. When the world did not end as Jesus had said it would, his followers stopped expecting so much from God or from themselves. They hung a wooden cross on the wall and settled back into their more or less comfortable routines. . . little by little, Christians became devoted to their comforts instead: the soft couch, the flannel sheets, the leg of lamb with roasted rosemary. These things made them feel safe and cared for—if not by God, then by themselves. They decided there was no contradiction between being comfortable and being Christian, and before long it was very hard to pick them out from the population at large. They no longer distinguished themselves by their bold love for one another. They did not get arrested for championing the poor. They blended in. They avoided extremes. They decided to be nice instead of holy and God moaned out loud.

I love her description—that the first Christians got complacent. They got comfortable with their lives, began thinking that they could do everything and anything for themselves without God’s help, stopped being bold and forgot how to proclaim the Good News, started to blend in instead of living holy lives.

And luckily, in the 2nd century, some very smart and faithful person recognized all of this—saw it and knew that something better be done to change it. They looked to their Bibles and began to realize that the number 40 kept on coming up from the Old Testament to the New, from 40 days and nights of the great flood, to the 40 years that the Israelites spend wandering in the wilderness, to the 40 days that Elijah spent journeying to Mt. Horeb, and most certainly to the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tested by the devil before his ministry began. Christian practices began to rise in many different forms around Easter time, some folks fasting from Good Friday until Easter Sunday morning, others fasting and praying for longer.

It was suggested that there be a Lenten time, the term “Lent” springing from the Anglo-Saxon word “lencten,” meaning Spring. It was also the word for “March,” the month in which our journey to Easter usually falls. The practice of Lent seems to have become more official during the Council of Nicaea in 325, very official in 373 after a priest suggested that his congregation fast for 40 days until the more intense fasting that would take place during the Holy Week leading up to Easter. I think these folks were very smart in suggesting that this Lenten time come during Spring, perhaps even hoping that it would be a springtime for the soul for all of the folks back then, a springtime of the soul for all of us. They were smart suggesting that we spend 40 days walking with Jesus to the cross, culminating in a resurrection from death for him, a resurrection for all of us and our lives. 40 days to pray, 40 days to fast. 40 days to examine our sin and confess. 40 days to open up our lives and souls, 40 days to look at how we are living our lives. 40 days to decide how we are blending in instead of stepping out and distinguishing ourselves as the true Christians we are called to be. 40 days to realize that, even though we think we can live without a Savior, we really can’t. 40 days to remember what is to live like we are people who are graced by God and God alone.

I think, in many ways, it’s pretty easy to find ourselves in the same place today as the early Christians so long ago. In so many ways, we have become complacent. We have become so comfortable with our lives, thinking that we can do everything for ourselves, that we don’t need anyone’s help with anything, especially God’s help. We are fitting in, no longer sticking out and standing up, no longer being bold in our proclamation.

Think about it. We have so much technology and information at our fingertips. As Patrick reminded us last week, we can simply google anything we’re interested in, any question we have, any phrase we want to learn about and have information show up in a matter of seconds. Most of us can walk into a Wal-Mart and have all of our needs met, whether we need a game or dog food or a movie or camping equipment or food for dinner. We can order our dinner online from restaurants and have it delivered to our car, not ever having to talk to anyone or hardly even move to eat. We can respond to other people’s comments and feelings on social media without ever having to see those folks face to face, to see their facial expressions or their pain or hear their voice inflections, making comments anonymously and without feeling. We can go through our days without being troubled by too much, and we can go through them without ever bothering to see what is troubling someone else. We are so often too scared to reach out to or defend someone who truly is the least of these, lest we take the risk of losing our livelihoods or our images or our standing in society. Life is, simply put, comfortable for us. And that comfort leads to complacency.

I’ve been struggling with this ever since I got back from Haiti in May—with the things that I took comfort in before the trip, with the things that allowed me to be complacent, with the things that helped me rely only on myself and not on God. After spending a week in the poorest country of the Western hemisphere, a country further devastated by disaster, everything changed for me. Life changed for me. After collecting bath water from rain that rolled down from the roof in Haiti, I’ve been struggling with how comfortable I am here using gallons of water daily for bathing and brushing my teeth and washing my face. After hearing that Haiti has an 80% unemployment rate and seeing so many people lining the streets trying to sell whatever goods they could scrounge up, I’ve been struggling with our stress over an 8-10% unemployment rate here (and please don’t get me wrong—I’m not trying to belittle anyone who is stressed out from unemployment at all—just trying to deal with the discrepancy). After seeing so many people cram into a tap tap in Haiti to get where they need to be, I have struggled with how easy it is for me to drive to and from work every day by myself here. After seeing so many people desperate for any kind of medical care—and so many folks who will never get it in Haiti—I have struggled with our heated debates about health care here, debates that have led to so much hatefulness. I have struggled with the fact that I get frustrated if I have to wait too long for the care I need here while so many in Haiti are thankful for any kind of health care they can scrounge up, not to mention those who will never get the care they need. No matter how we feel about health care, I have struggled mightily with our harsh words to each other over how we take care of eath other. After seeing a country that is so desperate for any kind of stable political infrastructure, I have struggled so much with our recent election. I hated it. I have struggled with our mean words to each other, struggled with the fact that each major candidate spent over a billion dollars to tear the other one down, struggled with the fact that I have been a very complacent participant in our system without ever really fighting for the changes I think we need.

Until I went to Haiti, I didn’t really realize how comfortable I was, how complacent I was, to just be in the world, to just be without ever really challenging the status quo, without doing as much as I could to help those in need. I didn’t really realize how comfortable I was proclaiming that I was a follower of Christ, a follower who wasn’t really willing to risk my place in the world or my livelihood or my life to truly follow him and do as Christ commands—to love my neighbor just as I have been so greatly loved. I didn’t realize how easy it was for me to settle by being nice instead of being holy. I didn’t realize the contradiction of being comfortable and being a Christian.

That is why I need these 40 days of Lent, this springtime for my soul, this resurrection for my soul, really, this time to fast and pray and reflect—to reflect about my place in the world, my complacency in it, and what I can do to challenge and change it. I’m sure many of you are in the same place. We all need this time to get ready—to get out hearts and minds together, to think about how our sin and spend time in confession, to realize, remember, and celebrate that Jesus truly is Lord, the Lord of our minds, hearts, lives.

I think about our Gospel story today, about how Jesus spent those terrible, gutwrenching, awful 4o days in the wilderness, spent them being tested and tempted to the very core of his being. He needed that time in the wilderness to get ready for his life of ministry, to be prepared for all that he would face along the way, to be set apart and to get ready for the cross that was awaiting him at the end of his journey. Jesus entered the wilderness for those 40 days and nights, and he was tempted by the devil to succumb to him, to succumb to power and privilege, to succumb to comfort, to succumb a god other than his own. Jesus needed that time to think about who he was, whose he was.

And so do we. We need these 40 days and 40 nights, this time to be a springtime and resurrection for our soul. We are entering into wilderness, a wilderness that is tough and long and fraught with temptations of power and privilege of comfort and complacency. We are entering the wilderness, but the good news is that we are not alone. We are still able to feel the mark of the cross on our foreheads from Ash Wednesday, and we are invited to the table today. This table is set for us, set to shake us out of our comfort, out of our complacency, set to remind us that we are given all we need right here. At this table, we are given the life of our Lord who lived and journeyed to the cross and died for every single one of us. Thanks be to God.

Harvest Labor

Luke 10:1-9

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, "Peace to this house!' 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, "The kingdom of God has come near to you.'

Recently, I’ve been fascinated, and frankly, frightened by a survey released by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life on the religious practices of Americans--in particular young adults under the age of 30. The results should be kind of scary to you, to me, to all of us who care about the young adults in our midst and the future of the church that we love so dearly. The results suggest that nearly 1/5, 20% of Americans, say that they are religiously unaffiliated, that they consider themselves to be “spiritual” and not “religious,” that they don’t go any church of any kind. These numbers are pretty alarming for this minister, and they get even scarier when they simply focus on young adults under 30. The number changes from 1/5 to 1/3, from 20 to 33%. Listen to some further results:

Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), while more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%), and one-in-five (21%) say they pray every day. In addition, most religiously unaffiliated Americans think that churches and other religious institutions benefit society by strengthening community bonds and aiding the poor. With few exceptions, though, the unaffiliated say they are not looking for a religion that would be right for them. Overwhelmingly, they think that religious organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and too involved in politics.

As a result of this survey, National Public Radio has spent some time interviewing young adults, asking them what is happening in their religious lives, their spiritual lives, asking about their faith histories and religious practices. These young adults tell fascinating stories. Kyle, 27, talks about the cross he had tattooed on his wrist as a teenager—a reminder of his faith during those times when he felt weak or unsure or had questions. But Kyle has since fallen away from his faith, not really able to explain why. When the interviewer asks Kyle if he believes in God, he says, “I don’t, really, but I really want to.” This response broke my heart. A Muslim young adult explains how he has fallen away from his faith because he can’t believe in a God who would ask Abraham to sacrifice his son; a young Christian woman explains how she was brought up in a Christian school but left the church when the school taught her to believe that homosexuality was a sin. She believes that each person is a uniquely created child of God and simply can’t reconcile the two ideas. A Jewish man explains how he spent every day of his life at the synagogue, but whose life was turned upside down by abuse and suicide in his home. Such different experiences, such different reasons, but the result is the same—the church is missing out on a vital group of folks just like these bright, smart, and searching young adults, and this vital group of folks is missing out on the church. The harvest is indeed bountiful, but the laborers are few.

The authors of the survey shared some other ideas about why so many young adults, or “nones” as they called them, aren’t part of any church or faith tradition right now. They suggest that the church should speak out on social issues, but maybe, just maybe, they are speaking out on the wrongs ones. They suggest that religious organizations have become too involved in politics, power, and money. They suggest that the church has gone from caring for the well-being of those around us, those outside these walls, to caring only for the spiritual well-being of those who only show up in the pews on Sunday, those who look the same and walk the same and talk the same. Maybe the church has chosen the wrong priorities in its message, causing it to become morally bankrupt. Maybe the church has gotten scared and gotten so caught up in itself and the arguments in its midst that it has chased many of its laborers away. And I truly believe that our own denomination has been very guilty of this in the past 2 decades. The survey authors suggest that our young adults want to work, that they are looking for a bountiful harvest—and that perhaps the church needs to find what has been lost and explore what can be found and reclaim its central message: that we love as Christ first loved us, that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, that we proclaim that great message of Christ’s love to everyone we meet. The harvest is bountiful, but the laborers few.

This very same problem is echoed in our Gospel story today—a bountiful harvest with few laborers to go out and do the work. Christ calls the disciples who are gathered there, calls so many more to go out. Christ anoints 70 of them (a number that suggests many, many more), and tells them to go out to every place and town, to meet people and eat with them, to accept their hospitality and meet with them, to heal them and love them and announce his kingdom. He tells them that the harvest is plentiful, that there is so much to do. He reminds them that it won’t be easy, that there is a lot of pain in the world and a great need for healing love, reminds them that they will encounter lots of grief and hardness along the way. But, even though it will be hard, they have to go. Christ anoints them, after all, to go out and spread his message of love, of acceptance, of welcome, of grace.

You know, I think that I could preach about 10 different sermons on this text, but there are several important themes in this story for us to think about today as we study this text. Christ anoints the disciples and the others to go out and set the way for him—he doesn’t simply say “go,” but anoints them, sets them apart, ordains them for their service, makes them ready. And he doesn’t send them out on their own. I love that the text specifically tells us that Christ sends them out in pairs. None of them has to go this alone, instead, they go together to support each other, to hold each other up, to lift each other up when one of the pair is having a rough time, when the other doesn’t think he or she can do it anymore. And they’re going to need each other, as the story reminds us, because this business of setting the way for Christ is not easy. “Go on your way,” Jesus says, “see, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” Jesus knows that they will meet resistance, perhaps even violence, along the way. Even though the disciples can’t quite believe it when they are told, Jesus knows how his life is going to end and that it’s not going to be pretty. He knows that this proclamation is hard, that there will be lots of resistance and lots of negativity, and he does his best to warn them. Even though he will have to die alone for his message, Jesus puts the disciples and the others together, gives them support, sends them out together.

I think this story also tells us about who we are and what we are to be as people of mission, about how to do mission. When they arrive in the towns together, Jesus tells them to sit with people, to accept the hospitality that is offered, however it is offered. He asks them to abide with folks, really, which is so much different than simply telling them about Christ and then heading toward the nearest door to get to the next person. Sit with them, listen to the stories of their lives, eat what they offer, spend time with them, get to know them, be with them, abide with them. Jesus then tells them to cure, to heal, to try and fix whatever has been damaged and broken in their lives. And then, and only then, tell them about the kingdom, setting the way for Christ. As a seminary professor of mine once said in a class set at a homeless community, “It is hard to hear the Gospel of Christ on an empty stomach.” Perhaps Jesus is telling them that the most important thing about mission, about preparing the way of Christ, is not the always the quantity of people who hear the message, but the quality about how the message is proclaimed.

Jesus pretty much lays it out for them, and none of it sounds particularly easy. It would be so easy and natural, almost, for the disciples and the rest of the seventy to shut down, to be scared, to refuse to go and do mission. This is really hard stuff. But they don’t—they have been told that the harvest is plentiful, that there is much work to do out in the world. Jesus sends them out into a broken and fearful world to labor—to live and to love, to eat and to heal, to listen and to share.

And Jesus does the same for us, folks, especially today. We have all been through a lot in the last few months in the life of our church. I know that you are hurting, and I know that I’m hurting, as well. It was gutwrenching to see your tears last week as you left worship, and it was gutwrenching for me to stand before you and hold back my tears when we sang “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” There has been so much change, so much transition in the life of our congregation—and there will continue to be as we search for an Interim Head of Staff, as we eventually search for the next person God is calling to be with us. Transition is so hard in so many ways, and in some ways, it can hold us back, can cripple us from going out in the world to work. In so many ways, it is hard to share the message of Christ when we are hurting, so hard to go out into homes when we are nervous about what will happen next in the life of our church community.

The news for us to hear today is both great and hard as we are reminded that the harvest is indeed plentiful—and always will be. There is so much struggling in the world, so much sin, so much brokenness. As we all know so well, our world struggles with violence, with war, with broken community, with so many “isms.” We have so many ways to hurt each other and break each other, and we live in a world that is broken and fearful because of all the ways we sin. We live in a world where people are hurting and lonely and distant and hopeless. Those young adults who shared their stories in the NPR interview echoed that as they spoke about the alienation and isolation, the violence and tragedy, the apathy and doubt that has kept them away from the church. The harvest is plentiful, and our Christ needs more laborers.

It is true, we have free will, and we can choose to shut down, to ignore the world around us, to live in sadness and fear, to ignore the harvest all around us. But isn’t it better to live as those who go out in pairs, those who are anointed and set free and made ready for service? As a congregation, we have been through so much in the last few months, but the world goes on around us. There is much work to be done and many laborers needed in this broken world. I really don’t think it’s a coincidence that today is Souper Bowl Sunday—because, no matter what we are going through, we are reminded today that there are so many hungry people in our midst, right outside these doors. It’s no accident that our PCM luncheon is coming up soon to remind us that folks need help paying the most basic of bills, that work on our Habitat house is just beginning to remind us of our basic need for shelter. Life goes on. It must. Folks, if we are nothing else, we are laborers. No matter what, there is always work to be done. The harvest is always plentiful. Thanks be to God.