Homily: St. Paul’s Easter 3
Lectionary
I’m not sure when the passage I have just read became embedded in my senses and memory. It had to be after the period when my siblings and I would spend several weeks in the summer with some friends of ours. They had rented a cabin on a lake / reservoir just outside Rock Mountain National Park. They had a boat and fished. My father was not an outdoors man but he had enough sense that he wanted his children to be exposed. I learned to waterski there. I learned to fish there. And I had my first – and really my only experience of frying a rainbow trout over a campfire as the sun rose over the majestic Rocky Mountains.
All of that combined made for a very full sensory symphony. I can smell and taste that fish to this day.
At some point I associated that memory with this passage from Luke and the similar one from the last chapter of John. At some level, Whenever I eat fish I think of Jesus revealing himself to his disciples in the meal he shared on the shore of the lake that day, after his resurrection and before his ascension – as recorded by Luke.
It’s not just the smell and the taste at that point. I tend to want to sing – or at least hear some music. The collect prompts me to listen to: [1]
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You
To see You high and lifted up
Shinin’ in the light of Your glory
Pour out Your power and love
As we sing holy, holy, holy
The song has a beat and background that reminds me of U2 but was written by Michael W. Smith. [That’s a positive association for me – maybe not for you.]
There’s a sequence of actions that takes place in this reading from Luke’s gospel, just prior to the ending. His gospel ends with what we might call an abbreviated version of the Ascension & the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost – each of them recorded more fully in Luke’s follow-up volume, the Acts of the Apostles. Here, just before he closes, he gives us this pattern:
- Peace be with you
- Look at my hands and my feet
- sharing a piece of broiled fish
- interpreting scriptures – “needing to be fulfilled”
- that the Messiah is to suffer
- that repentance and forgiveness needs to be proclaimed
- and finally, the direction to his disciples, soon to be apostles, you are witnesses
The last time I was here, 2 weeks ago, I said to you that I understood the Easter message to be directed at us. So here. The word I hear is that just as those friends of Jesus on the beach so long ago must be witnesses, so too, we must be witnesses.
There’s a song I used to play over and over on the piano, building up my spirit. It was a kind of a prayer. It was a way of transforming what had been the drudgery of piano practice – my mother continuously harping on it – turning it into something that fed my spirit.
You Are My Witnesses by Betty Carr Pulkingham [2]
Chorus You are My witnesses To the ends of the earth You are My witnesses To the ends of the earth
Verse 1: You are My people I love Gentle as dove Wise and harmless ones
Verse 2: You are My saints of new birth Living on earth But born from on high
Verse 3: You are My prophets and priests Proclaiming My feasts Telling the wonders of God
Verse 4: You are My shepherds of sheep Over them keeping watch by night
Verse 5: You are beloved of God Living His Word Dying His death till He comes
The verses seem to describe what a witness of the Resurrection looks like.
- saints of new birth, born from on high
- prophets and priests, telling the wonders of God
- shepherds keeping watch over the people
- beloved of God, living his word, dying his death
That’s a tall order. You would be forgiven for thinking it’s too hard. But there it is.
- If you follow in my footsteps
- You shall be my witness
- If you take up your cross and follow me
- And do not be afraid
- If you abide in me
- bear fruit in plenty
- love one another
Wow.
I think that what happened in the wake of the historical event that we call Easter, with Jesus’s appearances to men and women who lived thousands of years ago, … what happened then was the deliverance to all future generations of a challenge, a task, a responsibility, … to be witnesses.
Easter, by my reckoning, is not about something that happened long ago. It is about how we are linked with what happened long ago.
It’s a responsibility and a challenge that I think we often would rather avoid or at least put off.
That doesn’t take us off the hook, however, as witnesses to the resurrection. There are lots of us. But we have invested a lot in avoiding the kind all or nothing commitment that being a Resurrection witness involves.
We should have known, way back when the 1928 Prayer Book began every Eucharist with the words: “You shall love the Lord your God all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength, and your neighbor as yourself”, we should have known that much was being asked of us.
How many are the ways to witness?
- “abide in the Lord” – spend your waking and your sleeping days so aligned with the will of the Lord
- Figure out what it means to pick up your cross – most of us not called to be crucified.
- make a little peace in a world that is intent on making war, from the board room to the grocery store aisle
- hold and love a dying baby – and be able to go home and love your own healthy child
- Love the unlovable – forgive the unforgivable
In short, there are as many ways to witness to the Resurrection as there are people here to witness. We each may have our own path, but it will take all of who we are to pull it off. The witnessing takes all of us, mind, body, spirit.
It’s a funny thing about songs. I’ve quoted from several of them here. Often when I’m preparing to preach, I hear music or pieces of songs. Someone once told me that most church-goers care more about music than they do about the Prayer Book.
What I think is true about music and song is that it involves all of us: body, mind, spirit – sort of like the gospel that we’re here to witness.
I think again of another song that sometimes I can’t shake loose from my head. It’s from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.
Word of the Lord
For the Word was at the birth of the beginning,
it made the heavens and the earth and set them spinning,
and for several million years
it’s endured all our forums and fine ideas.
It’s been rough but it appears to be winning!
There are people who doubt it and shout it out loud,
oh they bellow and they bluster ’til they muster up a crowd.
They can fashion a rebuttal that’s as subtle as a sword,
but they’re never gonna scuttle the Word of the Lord
The Word of the Lord comes to us down through the generations and we cannot shake loose from it. My peace I give to you. Repent of all your short-comings – they are many. But my love is even greater. Then, forgiven, inspired, go and be my witnesses.
I leave you then with a question and a charge.
The question is to direct to yourself. How can you be a witness to the Resurrection? Serving fried fish by the side lake is a fine example. Just make sure you are serving someone who needs the love of God. Sing a song. But sing it with love and a transformed heart. Those who hear you sing will recognize the Lord’s presence for themselves.
The charge is this: go forth from here with the assurance that the Lord goes with you, beside you when necessary, ahead when it’s called for, and just behind you when you need to be caught.
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