Reading: Luke 24:36b-48
After Jesus dies and is buried, the disciples do not expect to see him again. They accept that his body is in the tomb, and his soul has gone on to the world of the spirits – a world separate from this one.
But when some of the women go to anoint his body, they find the tomb empty. When two other disciples walk home from Jerusalem, a stranger starts walking and talking with them, and when they stop and break bread they recognize him as Jesus. Immediately they go back to Jerusalem to let the others know what they have seen.
While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I, myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
Then
he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: the
Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and
forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these
things. I am going to send you what my
Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with
power from on high.”
Meditation
A half-century ago in a land and a time far away, a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was in trouble with the elders of the church he was serving.
Some members of the congregation had heard him on a local radio station a few days before, calling in to an afternoon talk show. They thought they recognized his voice. Their suspicions were confirmed when he identified himself as the senior pastor of their church. And they were livid that he was phoning in to criticize, in the name of God and of their church, a decision of City Council to cut support for a number of welfare programs in order to balance the budget.
Because of the neighbourhood – welfare and working poor – that had grown up near the church he was serving, he knew the plight of the poor. The proposed cuts to social assistance programs would make it more difficult for many families to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. He urged the members of City Council to change their minds, and ended his call with a prayer – on local radio! – for God’s compassion and wisdom to be known and to prevail.
Some of the church members who heard his call, or heard about it, were furious. A silent few were supportive. Others were puzzled and confused. Many said they were embarrassed, ashamed and afraid for the church’s good name among their friends in other churches.
When the elders heard the concerns and complaints, they asked the minister to stop this new direction he was one, and never do that again – at least not in his role as minister of the church. His job, they said, was to preach the Gospel and save souls – in other words, to bring people to their knees before God and prepare their souls for heaven. There were spiritual and physical realms, and heavenly and earthly concerns, and it was important to distinguish the two and keep them in the right priority.
I wonder what the elders would have suggested he do if some day – maybe even at Sunday worship after opening prayer, Jesus were to show up at the door, hungry and alone, asking, “Please, do you have something to eat? Some food you could give me?” Because that is part of the story about the risen Jesus we’ve read this morning, isn’t it?
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Going back to the story, the response of the elders to the minister’s foray into prophetic ministry on local radio fits well with an image of spiritual life I grew up with, and that’s still common. It’s the image of climbing a mountain that rises up and away from the world, that stage by stage, trial by trial, renunciation by renunciation, and commitment by commitment takes us higher and away from Earth below, and nearer to heaven above and to God.
I think of Thomas Merton’s autobiography of his journey into his calling to be a monk and to grow in prayer and understanding of the mystery of God. It’s called The Seven Storey Mountain and none of us bats an eye the title and all its suggests.
The mountain even becomes an image of charity and inclusiveness towards people of others religious and spiritual traditions, when we allow that there may be a variety of paths up its slopes. Paths with different names, teaching and rituals that in the end lead us all together to the one peak.
But what if … what if when we get to the top, and we expect, and ask to see God, the answer is either an angel or a hand-painted sign that says, “The One you’re looking for is not here, but is gone down to the valley below. And the message is, ‘Come find me. Be with me in the valley. Walk with me and work with me for the good of all down there.'"
Isn’t this the point and the conclusion, for instance, of the story of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration? To start with, he takes only three of his disciples with him; he doesn’t want to give the whole group of them the idea that the mountain top is the goal. And when the three see him there with Moses and Elijah as the living fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets, a voice from heaven tells them not to start building a shrine up there, but instead to follow him back down to the valley where God and the kingdom of God are really wanting to be, are needed to be, and will be.
And isn’t this also the point of the story today? That Jesus is not raised to some ghostly, spiritual realm beyond the reach of Earth and worldly concerns, but to continuing life within the realm of Earth and in the midst of all its daily, physical, flesh-and-bone concerns and issues.
“Do you have something to eat” he asks. And just as they always have the disciples gather what they have and share a meal with him. Then, after their physical hunger and their body’s needs are met, Jesus helps them understand how this fits with what the Law and the Prophets say about good and truly human life, and with the way the Psalms point to the presence of God in all aspects of earthly life, through praise, lament and faithful prayer.
Last Sunday two things happened here at Fifty.
One was the online worship, posted as always mid-morning on the church Facebook page, and we hope it was faithful, helpful and meaningful.
The other was a pop-up, drive-through collection of food for the Stoney Creek Food Bank just down the highway from us, that was the best we could do in the midst of pandemic orders to stay at home except for essential services, assuming that essential services includes feeding the poor.
From 1 to 4 last Sunday afternoon, two members of the Mission and Outreach Committee were in the church parking lot with a car with an opened trunk. People drove up, placed their contributions for the Food Bank in the trunk, chatted with the Committee members at a safe distance, and went home.
By the end of the afternoon there was a carload of food that one of the Committee members then drove down to the Food Bank the next day. And as she pulled into the parking lot there, she saw ten people – representing ten different households, standing silently in line waiting for a chance to “shop” for food. Two of the people, she says, were carrying babies.
And who is to say which of the two things – the online worship or the pop-up Food Drive, more clearly bore witness to the Gospel of Jesus the Christ and the kingdom of God.
As though we even need to choose between them.And one more thought.
The pop-up food collection brought together and connected a lot of different people – the Mission and Outreach Committee organizers, the people from our church and from the community who drove by to drop off contributions of food, the Food Bank organizers and volunteers, and the people in need all around us who were lined up to get food.
In what group of people do we recognize the face and the hands of the risen Jesus?
Is it even just one group in particular?
Or is the risen Jesus and the kingdom of God on Earth somehow known in the loving and generous inter-relationship of them all?
Is it maybe any time people come together in ways that help make life good for all, that the Word still lives, the Spirit still moves, and God becomes more and more the kind of God that God wants to be in the life of the world?
Thanks be to God.
(The hymn following
the meditation was “As a Fire is Meant for Burning.” The lyrics to the first verse resonant strongly
with the famous direction of Francis of Assisi to “preach the Gospel always; use
words when necessary.”)
As a fire is meant for burning with a bright and warming flame,
so the church is meant for mission, giving glory to God’s name.
Not to preach our creeds or customs, but to build a bridge of care,
we join hands across the nations, finding neighbours everywhere.
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