SERMONS

Luke 24:1-12, 13-35
The Reverend Angela L. Ying
Bethany United Church of Christ
Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010

Bread

You Knead it.

You Bake it.

You Toast it.

You Add to it.

Butter it up.

Watch it rise.

Bread

You can smell it from afar

You can leave it out and it hardens
Bread

When our ancestors Abraham and Sarah were barren in their old age hoping to give birth — let alone be ancestors to a multitude of nations — it was in offering Bread to three strangers — that Abraham and Sarah were told it would be so.
Bread of birth

When Jacob wanted to trick his elder brother, Esau out of his birthright and blessing, he fed him bread.
Bread of betrayal
When the Hebrew people fled to be free and had no time for the bread to rise, they took and received the unleavened bread of Passover.

Bread of freedom
When Moses brought his people out of the Pharaoh’s empire, crossing the Reed Sea — and instead of going the simplest route, took the way of the wilderness — God provided the people each day with manna.

Bread for the journey
Bread

When David was hungry, he and his people ate bread from the temple even on the Sabbath.

Bread of God that breaks from conventional ways.

When Jesus, in the beginning of his ministry, was praying and fasting in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, Satan tempted him to use his power to turn the stones to bread.

One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

When Peter, James and John and the disciples looked out and saw that there were 5,000 people — they wanted to send the people home. But Jesus said, what do YOU have — bring to me what you have. The disciples brought forth what they had — five loaves and two fish. And it was enough for all — with baskets leftover.
Bread that makes miracles
When the disciples did not know how to pray, they asked Jesus “teach us how to pray.”
Give us this day our daily bread.
Bread

In the final hours when Jesus was at table, knowing he would be betrayed, denied, suffer and be crucified — Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to his people.
Take, eat, do this in remembrance of me.

Bread of life

On that first day of the week, at early dawn, when the women came to the tomb, they went to pay their respects to their bread of life.

Having phoned, and text messaged the other women they knew, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James had remembered to come with every spice they could think of to anoint the dead Jesus.

You get Jewish, Irish and Asian mothers together, and there is nothing they have forgotten.

Why, they will remind you of what you were to remind them about.

The women had remembered. The fact that they were prepared was an understatement.

Completely in control, is more like it.

Until —-

They found the Stone rolled away from the tomb.

And yet — in the gospel of Luke, the women did not freak out.

Why — they went right in.

Walked right on into the tomb, as if that was part of what they remembered as their plan.

But when they went in — they did not find the body.

Come on now! Stay with me — Here is where it gets a little bit complicated.

For death, is clean, clear, closed and nailed down.

Not so with Life and definitely not for the Bread of Life!

The women found the Stone rolled away and nobody. I mean NO body.

The women were perplexed.

Okay, terrified — when they do not see the body.

Who wouldn’t be?

Perplexed, puzzled, and pondering what to make of this. When Out of nowhere, two men in dazzling clothes – guess they wanted to make sure the women didn’t miss them – stood beside them.

“Why are you looking for the Living among the Dead?”

He is not here.

He has risen.

And then they said something that sounds like something my grandmother would have said,

“Remember.”

Remember.

Remember how Jesus told you and the other disciples when you were back in Galilee — in the south end.

Do you remember?

Will you remember?

Remember when Jesus told you that he had to be handed over to sinners, be crucified on the cross and in three days rise up.

Do you remember?

It is when the women remembered that everything changed.

No longer were their hands full of spices for burial, but open and empty with hope.

No longer were they the ones prepared, but the ones now out of control.

No longer were the women the ones without voice, but the first ones to bear witness to the risen Christ.

They remembered.

They remembered Jesus’ words. Remembered who they were and whose they were.

What happens when you remember Jesus’ words?

The women left the tomb.

They left the place where they came looking for death.

They went to their faith community.

They spoke.

They told of what they had seen and heard to the Eleven and to all the rest.

They kept telling the apostles, repeating, recalling, remembering.

You can hear them now!

“And then Mary went in, and Joanna after and you won’t believe what happened next?”

The women couldn’t stop telling all the people.

Kept telling everyone what they had seen and heard.

Because once God gives you voice, even a preacher knows this — you have to use that voice!

Remember. They remembered Jesus’ words.

A friend from seminary told me the story of when he and his granddaughter went out on a boat ride.

It was a beautiful day when the two of them went out together. Something they had planned and prepared for a long time.

It was when they got to the deepest end of the lake, where out of no where, heavy winds came upon them, and suddenly knocked the young girl completely out of the boat.

The grandfather tried to reach for her, but he just couldn’t. He did not have the strength.

Realizing he was too weak to pull her up by himself, he told her he was going to go get help.

By the time the grandfather got back on shore, hours had passed.

He and the others quickly went back to where the young girl had fallen out of the boat. But she was not there.

Then far out in the distance, they spotted her.

She was not moving. No longer moving her arms. They only saw her body floating.

Anxious and worried to get to his granddaughter, the grandfather pointed out to the others where he saw the girl’s body.

As the boat grew closer, they heard: “Grandpa! Grandpa! I remembered what you told me to do, to keep on keeping on — until you come back!”

At the empty tomb, when they thought all was dead and gone, they remembered Jesus words — and it made all the difference.

And yet, when they returned from the tomb to tell the Eleven disciples and the rest — the Eleven did not believe them.

When they had heard all that the women had said, it seemed to them an idle tale.

Thought the good news was nonsense. Thought the women were making it all up.

What the?!

Do you know what great lengths the women went through to come and tell all that they had seen and heard?

Do you know what courage it took for those women to speak of the crucified Christ now risen?

[I’m starting to sound like my mother]

The women who had been there with Jesus in Galilee, in Bethany, in Jerusalem, in the garden, at the cross, and at the burial.

These were women were not to be messed with.

And yet, the other disciples did not believe them.

How could this be?

You finally experience the risen Christ, and those close to you think you are making this all up! What gives.

You finally find the courage to speak and bear witness to the Christ you follow and have faith in and what Jesus has faith in, and they think it is nonsense?

What kind of Easter story is this?

I asked my husband John — why when the women came and told the disciples they did not believe.

He said, “Well, no one has ever been raised from the dead before, dear.”

Now here, I must confess, is where I am tempted to go back to my old self — discouraged, despairing and doubtful.

It is here where I contemplate looking for a date with death instead of new life.

Right here is where you too may let the others convince you that you do not know what you are talking about. That what you have to share is nonsense.

That you did not see or hear or experience what you did in the presence of God.

I have been there before. Have you?

If a turning point is remembering the Bread of Life — Remembering the words of Jesus.

Then another is remembering that we have something as people of faith worth sharing.

Something worth bearing witness to as an Easter community of faith.

For those stubborn, confident, keep to the purpose, faithful women — it didn’t matter if the others did not believe them at first.

They knew deep down in every part of their body that it was true. That the Bread of Life come down from heaven is Risen!

And yet, I can understand the apostles, who didn’t believe at first. Can you?

I know what it is like to be hurt and disappointed – to have my hopes dashed.

For the disciples, it had already been too much to bear.

I can see why they wanted to think it was nonsense.

After all, if Christ is alive:

You have to relive that you loved and loved deeply.

You have to face the fears that you have held on to for years.

You have to come face to face, as Harvey Cox writes, with the God who “restores not just a dead man, but a crucified man to life, which strikes a blow against morality, and an equally decisive blow against the unjust system that caused his wrongful death.”

For to remember and recognize Jesus, the Bread of Life, we, as the disciples, have to pay attention to what didn’t make any sense before in a whole different way.

To take ourselves less seriously and God more seriously — as when you thought you knew what was going on, but found you, too, could be surprised.

A woman was waiting at an airport one night,

With several long hours before her flight.

She hunted for a book in the airport store,

Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to sit down.

The woman was engrossed in her book, but happened to see,

That the man beside her, as bold as could be, grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between them.
The woman tried to ignore this to avoid a scene and continued to read, munched cookies and watched the clock as the man next to her continued taking a cookie.
The woman was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye!”

With each cookie she took, he took one too.

When only one cookie was left, she wondered what the man would do.

With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh,

He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

The woman snatched it from him and thought, “This guy has some nerve, rude and ungrateful” – she did not remember the last time she had met anyone like this.
Then the woman heard her flight number being called – she sighed with relief.

She gathered all her belongings and headed for the gate.

She boarded the plane and got into her seat,

Then took her book out
And as the woman reached into her baggage, she gasped with surprise:

There was her bag of cookies inside!
If mine are here, she finally realized, then the others were his — and all that time he was trying to share.
To recognize the Bread of Life, the community of faith learns to live life with more questions than answers.

To recognize Christ is Risen, the community of faith empties our lives with the hope of God, rather than fills it up with our baggage.

To recognize Christ in our every day lives, we can hold in tension our faith and our doubt, our belief and our unbelief, our hope and our despair. The “That’s nonsense” and “Let’s check it out.”

No wonder the disciples thought the women were making it all up.

Think of what’s at stake if all that the women said is true?

For the gospel is not for those who have it all together — and who does?

The gospel is for those who have loved and lost

The gospel is for those take a chance and were let down

The gospel is for those who risk and experience disappointment

The gospel is for those who take a leap of faith and come up short on their own.

It is for those who have been on the outskirts, the fringe, who have been left behind.
It is for those who have seen death unjustly who can only hope that a just God will vindicate the victims and break down the walls of racism, oppression, violence, injustice and hate.

The gospel turns the listener into a disciple. It turns the outsider into an insider in the house of God.
As one author expresses, “If there is no resurrection, we might as well pack up and go home; there is truly no reason to be here.

But if there is a resurrection from the dead, if Christ is alive, then all heaven breaks loose.” And you and I are no longer safe. No longer safe from being loved — loved by God.

And that – that, my friends, is scary stuff.

I remember, one of the lowest times in my life. It was in a few years into my coming as founding pastor of Bethany.

We were starting to grow. We had survived an organist who played like a durge, a secretary who wanted to do pastoral calls instead of type the bulletin. We had just two children, no church school, and I never knew when a toilet would leak. I had no idea what I was doing here.

At the same time, I listened as the people in the congregation were saying it was time for the people and the pastor to lead.

Time for the leadership to be passed on to the people of Bethany themselves.

For as it was, the leadership was made up of people from our sponsoring church, the former church, and the conference.

Not one person on the Board, except me as pastor was invited from Bethany.

I shared this with the folks from the sponsoring church that financially supported us, but they adamantly disagreed.

Told me that the Bethany people were not ready for this. Told me it was too early — nonsense.

Torn about all this and wondering whether I needed to leave, so as to not offend the lovely people on the Board who had come to help Bethany, but also knowing full well that the very people of Bethany were willing and ready to grow a new church.

I kept all these things in my heart.

Perplexed and afraid, I had watched four other church starts in the conference all close within a year or so.

Perhaps, our number was up. Number five. Last one close the door and turn off the lights. End of story.

I went to the following board meeting, knowing full well it would be my last.

I had done everything I could possibly do, but had not been able to convince the leaders from the sponsoring church on Bethany’s current board to let the Bethany people lead.

I went to our meeting prepared for death.

I still remember the moderator opening the meeting, business as usual. My head was bowed down. It was not going to be pretty.

Then I watched — for by some miracle, the stone was rolled away — everyone in the room from the sponsoring church was asked to step aside and make room for new Bethany board members, ministry teams and me.

I couldn’t believe it!

God remembered to come back!

In no time, the Bethany women got the word out that we were free to lead and be leaders in our own church. Others couldn’t believe it.

Thought the women were making it all up.

And as for me, I ran into the empty sanctuary, looked in and wondered to my amazement, what had just happened.

From then on, the Bethany worship and music team said they would dare to sing acapella if we had to — and would recognize God in God’s time in our cross cultural music.

From then on, women got pregnant (don’t ask me how!) and faith formation for adult and children was born.

From then on, we saw and recognize Christ whenever the community of faith would break bread together.

From then on, people felt called to lead to fed families, welcome immigrants and refugees each week and be led in doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our God.

Like Peter, I wondered, what had happened?

Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

The women remembered.

You and I remembered.

But, just in case you and I forget to remember.

Just in case, you and I cannot remember or recognize Jesus.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus meets us, even when we are not looking — on the way.

Even when we, as the two disciples, walking on the journey of life — our road to Emmaus — even when we do not remember and recognize Jesus at first in the stranger walking alongside us.

Even when our hearts are burning for a word from God, for healing and wholeness.

What does the Risen Christ who dares to come back have in store for you and for me?

It’s wide open.

Open space

Open garden

Open to free range chickens

Open worship

Open urban village

Open to all kinds and varieties of Bread!

Open to Life — New Life!

And as Bethany dares to remember and recognize God and one another — in the breaking of the bread — who knows what else will open up.

Will you remember? Will we remember?

The God who remembers.

The God who remembers … to come back!