Mary, don't you weep

Yes, I am a BIT late in posting these Easter sermons. I preached Easter Day and Easter 3. I was blessed by colleagues preaching Easter 2 and Easter 4 at St. Paul's instead of me.

Easter April 4, 2010 St. Paul’s Isaiah 65:17-25
Ps. 118 Acts 10:34-43
John 20: 1-18

As remarkable as this weekend weather is, it IS natural. The rains and the floods, the wet basements, the washed-out roads – as awful as all that was, that WAS natural, too.

We woke up this morning to a new heavens and a new earth – washed clean, sun shining, flowers blooming. Those former things - -the floods, shall we say, of our lives – are not to be remembered today. A spring morning like this one seems miraculous, astounding, amazing – but it IS natural. We knew the earth would turn and the spring would come back again. We are delighted – we may not understand how it all happens, but we knew, somehow, it would.

Death is natural, but resurrection is not.

If we had been there with the disciples, and put Jesus into the tomb on Friday, we would have expected that he would still be there. That is natural.

If we were Mary, weeping and grieving, going to tend to our dear friend’s burial place, we would have expected it to be the way we left it.

But what Mary found was decidedly not natural. It was a scene of confusion, beyond recognition. Had these men taken the body? Mary was so expecting the natural that she did not even recognize anything out of the ordinary about them – about these angels in white. Mary turned and challenged the one she assumed – quite naturally – to be the gardener. In fear and haste she assumed – quite naturally – that this one had taken away the body of her beloved friend. And when she finally recognized him, she realized he was so different. “Don’t cling to me,” he said, so unlike her beloved teacher whose feet she had washed with her own tears just a few days before. No longer only that man of the natural order, that human being like the rest of us, he was now “on his way to God, and he was taking the whole world with him.[i]” NOT a natural thing to do, but maybe that is something of what Isaiah had in mind when he spoke of God creating a new heavens and a new earth. Into this new heaven Jesus is going, and taking all of us, all of what it means to be human, to suffer, to love and to die, into that new heaven along with him.

There are many ways to die a natural death: Jesus met a violent, bloody end, executed like a common criminal. Other people drink themselves to death, or jump off bridges, or are so sad they cannot bear to live another day. Some people die long before their time, and others embrace death as a friend in their old age. All lives come, one way or another, to their natural end.

But today, with this story of the stone rolled away from the tomb, we have hope for something else. Into this new heavens and new earth something entirely new and different has come to pass – or is this something God has had in mind all along? Did not God say, though Isaiah, that no longer will infants die only a few days old? Did not God promise, in this new earth, for a person to live a healthy life for 100 years? Did not God promise that each family would live in their own home, not threatened by foreclosure or loss? Did not God promise that this new earth would produce food in abundance, watered by the gentle rains of the new heavens? Children would not be born just to die in war, and old enemies, like wolves and lambs, lions and oxen, would lie down in peace. If that is the case, then this holy mountain, foreseen by Isaiah, is not a natural place at all.

Into this un-natural place, this new heavens and new earth we have all been baptized. Today we welcome Joseph into this fellowship of crazy, unnatural hope. And as we renew those baptismal promises today, as we feel the water of new life splash on our heads, we know this myth of the resurrection to be true. We know it in our bones. We know it in our souls. We know it right down at the bottom of our natural hearts.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

[i] The unnatural truth - Jeremiah 31:1-6; Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18 - Living by the Word Christian Century, March 20, 1996 by Barbara Brown Taylor

Easter 3-C Apr. 18, 2010 St. Paul’s Acts 9:1-20
Psalm 30 Rev 5:11-14
John 21:1-19

Conversion stories are a dime a dozen. Who hasn’t heard somebody say, NOW I see the light. NOW my life is going to be different. NOW I’m going to turn around …

To do what? What are those conversion stories about? Usually just that one person, who usually is someone who has gotten into a real pickle, whose life is in trouble and who NEEDS to turn around. The college kid who wakes up from a bender and says, I’m never going to drink that much ever again! The man who has gone on a shopping spree when he saw the sale sign at Best Buy – just how many TVs do I need, anyhow? We all know stories about people who ate too much or loved too much or hit their head against any number of walls one too many times. Conversion stories are stock in trade for interviewers like Oprah Winfrey or Barbara Walters.

These stories go right along with our culture that celebrates the individual, the great “I.” Me First. Me Alone. I’ve got to get my act together before … I need to take care of Number One …

You know these refrains. It would seem that this great conversion story of Saul, being blinded by the light, falling off his horse, turning away from his life of persecuting the followers of Jesus, is Version No. 1 of all those narratives. Was blind but now I see. How many times have we heard that?

And yes, Saul-before and Paul-after ARE two different people. He DID turn his life around. That WAS the big moment from which he could never turn back. But what makes the Saul/Paul narrative different from what we hear on Oprah or a Barbara Walters special, is that this new Paul isn’t converted just for his own personal growth and development, or as one step among twelve, or to get in touch with his inner self. Paul is converted for the world. Paul is converted so he can take the story of Jesus into the world, and by so doing change it. Paul is recruited for the New World.

Paul’s conversion happens in a couple of stages. First, there is the incident with the light and the horse. Then he stumbles around and is led to recover in someone’s house. Then Jesus sends a messenger, Ananias, to this Saul-not-yet-Paul-still-in-limbo, to give him his preaching instructions. Paul is to bring the story of Jesus to the gentiles, to kings, and to the people of Israel. In short, Paul is to take this story of Jesus – the one whose disciples he has been persecuting – out to the whole known world. He is not to keep all this good news to himself, this light-filled, healing, new life stuff. Paul is recruited for the New World.

The story of breakfast on the beach is also a story of this New World. The last thing the disciples are expecting from that morning of fishing is anything new. It is soon after Jesus’ death, and amazingly, they have seen him since – with Thomas, examining the marks of his death in his hands and feet. They know something new has happened but they are not quite sure what. But in this story of the miraculous catch of fish, they begin to get hints of what this New World will be like. Do you remember those Gentiles, Kings and People of Israel Paul will preach to? They are like the fish – an abundance of fish, a plethora of fish, so many fish that they fear the nets will break. This is what the New World will be, Jesus promises. So many people following the Way, so many people converted and seeing the light and falling off their horses that you will have your hands full as you try to reach them.

So the New World is a place of abundance, of lots of bread and fish and always enough to go around. The New World is also a place of love: these inhabitants of the New World need love, and the disciples are the ones who take the love of God to them. That’s why the conversion story about Saul is not just about Saul; it’s about what Saul DOES once he becomes Paul. This story of breakfast on the beach is not just a story of a good time the disciples have with their old friend. They get their marching orders here. Feed my lambs, Jesus says. Tend my sheep. Get out of yourselves and into the world, into the New World of compassion and abundance.

“Follow me,” Jesus says. But there is a cost to that following. He uses this peculiar metaphor of old age and infirmity – is the kingdom of heaven like living in a nursing home? Where the nurses tie belts around your waist, so you won’t fall down, and lead you where you don’t want to go? Breakfast on the beach makes following Jesus look as easy as – dare I say it? – falling off a horse! But I think here that Jesus is reminding us just how high the cost of discipleship is. Jesus is reminding his beloved friends of his own death, of the cost of his being the herald of this New World of compassion and abundance. To be a follower of Jesus is to risk angering some very powerful people who would rather the world stayed old, with people going hungry, and staying wounded and alienated, and living in darkness and fear. That old world is a much easier place to govern. It’s so much more predictable, if the poor stay poor, so the rich can stay rich, if people just stay in their places and follow orders.

Don’t follow orders, Jesus said. Follow me. See the light. Come have breakfast. Now, who are you going to invite to this party? And what are you going to tell them about how your world has changed?