Sunday, April 26, 2009

3 Easter B - 26 April 2009

3 Easter B - 26 April 2009
Acts 3:12-19; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24: 36b-48
James V. Stockton

It happens that I am not the person that perhaps many folks here today were expecting to hear and to see. Some of us here, myself included, were prepared to welcome the ministry of our guest preacher, but he called me Friday evening to let me know that he was unable to come. So, while I was prepared to come and participate in ECR’s Work Day yesterday, looking forward to a time of good fellowship, vigorous labor, and savory food, I needed to take yesterday to prepare a sermon, this sermon, in fact. I apologize for any disappointment at the absence of our scheduled guest preacher; and I pray that my preparations have been adequate.

Today I shall call upon my oath from my years in Scouting. Actually it’s the Boy Scout motto rather than the oath, which is much longer and which escapes my memory. As any of the Scouts from our own troop 1407 will tell us, it is the Scout motto that is quite appropriate today: “Be Prepared.”


I read a story about a priest. She knew she should finishing up her sermon for next Sunday, but she was also quite busy with other concerns of parish life. Monday, she tells herself, “I’ve got lots of time; I’ll get to my sermon preparations tomorrow. In the meantime, God, please tell me what to say in my sermon.” Tuesday arrives, and she tells herself, “I’ll get to my sermon tonight;” which she never does. In the meantime, she prays, “God, please tell me what to say in my sermon.” Then, it is Wednesday and she is praying harder, “God, I’m not yet prepared. Please tell me what to say in my sermon.” She continues this way through Thursday, through Friday, even all the way to Saturday. Saturday night she goes to bed praying harder still. “Please God,” she prays, “I haven’t come close to finishing my preparations to preach in the morning. Please tell me what to say in my sermon.”

This is the time of year that a lot of people are telling God, or loved ones, or themselves, “I don’t think I’m prepared.” And others are telling themselves just the opposite. For folks graduating from high school, from college, from graduate school, years of preparation are coming to an end. Similarly, whether at this time of year or any other, for people graduating into working life, people graduating into married life, people graduating into life as part of a couple, even as part of a family, for people who are graduating into retirement life, for all these people, long years of preparation are drawing to a close. And some are feeling prepared, and some are not.

And this is exactly where the disciples and friends of Jesus now find themselves. The reading today from Luke’s Gospel tells how suspicion and fear shape the first encounter between the resurrected Jesus and the disciples who have known him best. And people hearing this gospel, as we do today, learn that a defining moment of Christian faith and tradition begins blessedly immersed in human doubt. And they learn, I pray, that this is a sure sign of a truly a religious experience. “Why are you afraid,” Jesus asks, “and why are you doubtful?” And one wonders if Jesus means it the way it sounds at first: like a scolding. Or is he doing something more subtle by pointing out the obvious? Jesus invites them to hold him, to touch him, and know for themselves that he is real. He even demonstrates that he is so real, so material, so fully human, that he is just as hungry as the next person.

And why? I think it’s at least in part because this personal experience tells the disciples something they need to know in order to graduate from their apprenticeship. These details, finely recorded and plainly told, tell people of succeeding generations, yours and mine included, something important, something we need in order to move forward from our own preparations. Jesus doesn’t need perfect faith from the disciples in order to appear to them. Jesus doesn’t need your flawless trust or mine in order to be real and present in our lives. Fear and doubt do not chase Jesus away, Jesus comes to us anyway.

Tom Harpur, author and Anglican priest, writes in his book, The Thinking Person’s Guide to God: “If God exists, [we] need to see the logical necessity of doing something about it.” For the disciples, religious speculation, superstitious fear, and wishful thinking give way to tangible reality that becomes a fact of their everyday lives. Once they know that Jesus is risen they cannot undo it, or forget it, or ignore it. It shapes them from this day forward. And what they need to learn in order to move on is that their faith, or their lack of it, has very little to do with it. If we think about it for a bit, I think we realize that this is true of just about anyone.

Even the person or the peoples who do not follow God in Christ Jesus are shaped by his resurrection. If they have chosen to deny it, it doesn’t mean that they are malicious malevolent evil creatures. But it does suggest that there is a real likelihood that they experience God’s Love to a lesser degree than they might otherwise. If they have never known the resurrection, and I don’t mean that they’ve never heard a story about it or never read some scriptures; I mean if they’ve never met the risen Jesus Christ in the smile of a stranger, if they’ve never met in the helping hand of a friend the Love of God that conquers death and its allies, then they, too, have missed out on knowing the God as richly as they could have. And that’s tragic.

The absence or the muted-ness of God’s Love is as influential in the lives of some as is its fullness in the lives of others. Of course, in this case, only God hands out the diplomas. Only God can know with certainty whether a particular person’s response to God’s Love is a graduation or not. ‘Beginning right where you are,’ Jesus tells his disciples, ‘Go in the Name of Christ and tell people the good news that people may turn to God, and find that God accepts them.’ Maybe without even knowing it, this is exactly what they’ve been preparing to hear. Without knowing it, this is what they have been preparing to tell, preparing to live out as a fact of their everyday lives.

The priest ha struggled all week both to prepare her Sunday sermon and to avoid it. All week she prays to God, “God, I’ve made no preparation for my sermon, please tell me what to say.” Now, even on Sunday, even in the sacristy as she puts on her vestments, she is praying. And then, a still small voice rises up from within her heart: “Don’t worry,” it says; “I’ll tell you what to say.” The time comes for the sermon, the priest has nothing. “God, help!” she prays. And as she enters the pulpit, it comes. “Here is what you should say,” the voice tells her. “Yes, oh yes!” the priest is responding within. “Tell the people,” says the voice; “Yes, yes,” the priest replies. “What should I tell them?” “Tell the people,” says the voice, “that you are not prepared.”

Here is Gospel truth: the life of faith is filled both with buoyant hope and with gnawing doubt. Life in Christ is a life of speculation and certitude, of suspicion and trust. And the Good News is that once we accept this then the apprenticeship is over. Then we move on to the next phase, the next level, where we find that much of our wondering and knowing, of our believing and doubting, come right along with us into college, into our job, into marriage, family life, and retirement. Years of effort at preparation do not change this.

And from this we can realize that life itself is a religious experience. Doubts about God, doubts about one another, about the world around us, even doubts about ourselves, do not change God. God never doubts us. God faith in us is perfect faith. It is Christ’s faith in your desire and mine to hope and to hope again. It is God’s faith in our willingness to respond to God’s Love for us. It is God’s faith in God’s preparation of us to welcome in others all around us; people expecting to see, expecting to hear, exactly what they will find here: the everyday fact of God’s Love for all.

And so may Almighty God, who by the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ has illumined our hearts to life and immortality, grant that we and all who are raised in Christ, may continue in the blessing of the presence of Christ, and in the hope of Christ’s eternal glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stocton

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