Today's Sermon

 

"To Sail"

 

Luke 24:1-12
            But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they went in, they did not find the body. ⁴While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. ⁶Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ ⁸Then they remembered his words, ⁹and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹²But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

To Sail

            I came out of the market across the street and was walking back over to the church one afternoon when I saw a sailboat right here in Richardson Bay. I don’t recall seeing one so close. The boat seemed small, but its little sail was filled with wind and it looked ready to go. 

            The thought came over me, “What an act of faith it is to sail.”  The thing propelling you forward is the one thing you can’t see.  You do all this work to master the craft, you try and learn the ways of the wind and how to work with it, then you trust that if you show up to it the right way, the wind will carry you.  That’s faith.

            While on spring break with dear friends, a group stayed up late one night to watch a film about the Australian teenager Jessica Watson who sailed solo around the world. The film is called True Spirit, quite a title for us.  In Hebrew, the word for spirit is also the word for wind, and for the breath of God. 

            Sailing around the world by yourself at 16, now that’s an act of faith.  I don’t mean a passive act of merely throwing oneself to the wind.  No, like all faith, it’s takes work—preparation, participation, and, most of all, practice.  That’s what gives you the best chance to meet the wind, the spirit, in a way ready to receive it. 

            I suppose this is the kind of faith that drove the women to his tomb that day.  Surely it would have been hard to get out of bed that morning had they not prepared for it every day of their lives.  It’s not that they knew that would happen, only that in life things happen.  The women were well-rehearsed in how to show up when it doesn’t go as you would like.  Jesus was dead, yet still they got up and went out to do what needed to be done. When they arrived at the tomb, he was gone.  The stone had been rolled away and Jesus was nowhere to be found.  This is the paradox of the Easter story.  We think, “Hallelujah!” but they are greeted not with the risen Jesus.  They are met with his absence.  The tomb is, well…empty.

            As some of you know, I plan at least what I might say long before the Sunday I say it.  Often it changes, but I like to have something in place.  When I looked at my notes for today, I had tentatively titled the sermon, “Running on Empty.”  What was I going through at the time?  What kind of Easter message is that.  This is a day of joy and triumph.  Love rises up, love overcomes, love comes back from the dead and wins.  Can you believe it.  That should fill your sails.  Hallelujah!

            I couldn’t recall what had me thinking about running on empty, so I scrapped the title, but as I did it came up in me that there are probably a lot of reasons some may have found their way here today running on empty.  As joyful as Easter is, as beautiful as we make ourselves for this day, the secret is for some it’s all they can do to get here and hold it together. If that’s you this Easter, that’s okay. Every sail is empty before it fills. Every sailor gets scared.

            I’m thinking today of a 4-year-old girl with a tumor at the base of her brain, and her family, filled with faith.  What is Easter this year for them?  I am thinking of a woman having to try out the term “widow” like an outfit she never ordered but can’t return, and of barely adult children who saw the last breath leave their father.  How hollow must Hallelujah sound?  I was determined to make it to Easter vigil last night at a nearby Catholic church; instead I found myself at the vigil for the Archie Williams students killed in the car accident.  What would those parents, those friends, give to have graves be empty today and not newly filled?  I’m thinking of so many truly terrified by what is happening to the world around them. Let’s not kid ourselves.  Are we sure love is going to win?  A lot of people for a lot of good reasons may be running on empty.

            Churches usually end the Easter reading where we did, with the account of the empty tomb.  It contains the promise of the resurrection, but no experience of it.  Today, I need an experience of it.  I at least need an account of it.  I need to hear someone say, “I’ve seen him.”  “It’s true!” So let’s, then, read on:  

Luke 24:13-35
13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. ¹⁷And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. ¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ ¹⁹He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. ²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ ²⁵Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

            28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ ³³That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ³⁴They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ ³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

            Two of them set out on the road, same day.  Jesus is gone, but they’ve already heard about what’s happened.  Then they’re met by someone they don’t recognize—that’s how it works with God; it’s all about recognition.  They proceed to tell this mystery one, who is, in fact, the risen Jesus, what has happened to him.  Can you imagine finding out you were Christsplaining Jesus to himself?  Jesus, still cloaked, starts to get frustrated. It’s hard not to be recognized. They still don’t see, so he teaches them again what’s trying to unfold in their midst. 

They come to a village where they’ll stay and they convince hidden Jesus to stay with them.  They’re starting to get it, but it’s only in the breaking of the bread that the eyes of their heart fully open to who he is, right in their midst all along.  The moment they see him, Jesus disappears.  Here and gone.  Paradox. They say to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us…” (Lk. 24:32) when he was with us.

            I have only three things to say that will hopefully get us back to Hallelujah: 

            One, have people not shown up for you on the road?  Somewhere along the way, someone or ones who saw you and came, dare I say, as God’s messenger?  I’m not saying they used religious language – who knows and who cares.  They met you on our journey and because of them you’re where you are now.  Who was it? Take a moment and conjure that person in your mind’s eye…One of the promises of Easter is that in leaving one place in one form, Christ shows up in all kinds of places in all kinds of forms. 

            Two, has your heart not burned at times, telling you something?  Do you believe you can trust it?  I know the church spent millennia telling you not to trust it, but we were wrong. Yes, we need the community and the teachings to help us distinguish between the true sacred burning of the heart from mere heartburn, but another promise of Easter is that you can trust what you cannot see but whose motion you can feel when it leads you into deeper touch with your capacity to love. 

            This leads me to what I will say last, to those who feel as if this Easter, they are running on empty:  All the more room for the breath of God, the Spirit, the wind to fill you.  It takes so much courage to be in this world.  You know that, don’t you?  Here you are.  And, despite what you may think, despite what some may have told you, you have enough love in you to show up to your life.  That’s what it means to be spiritual, to know that you have enough love.  Sometimes it feels like you’ve arrived at a graveyard with your friends, but, in fact, you’ve come to a boatyard.  It’s time to find the courage to be a sailor.  Keep doing the work.  Feel the wind, trust it, and go, for today, like Christ, the wind has risen.

            Amen.