Easter II

Elizabeth M. Hoster
April 15, 2007

Well, what brought you back this morning?

We joke about this Sunday being low Sunday. I think it is THIS Sunday on which we should have a big brunch
and give out the chocolate , to the adults more so than the kids. On this Sunday of all Sundays, we are going to need some FUEL. Because if you came back, today, you just may be asked to do something.

Last Sunday was all about this amazing gift we have been given of the resurrected Jesus. And just by showing up, those of you who came back have the guts to ask, “okay, now what? What happens next? What are we to do?” For those questions this morning, there are some interesting answers. Today we have three readings that first show God doing something wild, new, illogical, completely unexplainable, and then show God asking humanity to respond.

In Acts: In the middle of the night, an angel of the Lord breaks down prison doors, and sends the apostles right back into the Temple, right back into the fight. And that angel of the Lord says, “Go, stand in the Temple and tell the whole people the message about this life.”

Reading number two: from the most radical book in our canon, rarely heard in our lectionary:

God gives a follower of Christ, possibly an elderly apostle, a vision, a dream of God from a God’s eye view, (which cannot be reduced only to a tract in code against the Roman occupying forces, nor be reduced to a tidy mathematical or political equation:) The angel tells him to “write in a book what you see. “Do not be afraid.” He says, Go, write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this.”

And then, finally we think we are on safe ground in the Gospel, the text we are most familiar with. The resurrected Jesus appears, first to a group, then to them plus Thomas. He shows them his hands and his side, shows him that he is the real deal, and that only the one who has suffered is to be believed, and then tells them, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and “touch my wounds... do not doubt, but believe.”

All of these readings are gathered under a collect that says we are to be a part of this new covenant of reconciliation, and that we are to show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith.

All of this wild new action of God is a little unseemly for some: We pride ourselves in the Episcopal church
of having a three legged stool of scripture, tradition, and reason.

Well, this is the Sunday where God takes a good healthy kick at the leg marked reason just so we remember who is in charge.

We then remember, in the words of Jeremy Taylor, that “the heart of reason, that vital and most sensible part,
is an ambulatory essence, and not fixed.”

Or, in other words, God’s action changes our notion of reason, and stretches our limited vision just a little more
into the horizon of God’s possibility.

I am willing to bet that it is that new sense of possibility that brought you back this morning. You got what Easter was about, after all! Easter was all about God’s gift to us. This Sunday is about how we are stretched to respond to that gift. Maybe you showed up because God’s work in your life hasn’t been all that rational, either. Maybe God has knocked down some prison walls in your life. Maybe God gave you a vision of renewal. Maybe Christ did walk through some door, lock it though you tried, and showed you his wounds. Nothing else would explain why you showed up this morning.

This season is not just about last Sunday. It’s also about this Sunday. It is about how we respond to the resurrection for the rest of our lives. It is about this wild, beautiful dream God has for us where we are to see what God has dared to do, then let it affect all that we do and all that we are. God breaks down our prison doors, and asks us to speak the truth about what resurrection means.God gives us visions which bid us to love God first, to go by God’s economy which values most what we may value least, and take care of those in God’s creation who need it most. Because there will be some kind of end, and the love of Christ will triumph, but we need to live that love NOW if there is to be real justice in the world.

And finally, God does the wildest irrational thing by having the resurrected Jesus walk through a locked door, show his wounds, and ask us to receive, and believe. So go. Stand in the Temple. Stand wherever God has asked you. Stand and tell others the very real message about this life, and about YOUR life. Tell them that God really does raise life out of death. That God really does break down the walls of our self-made prisons. That God dares us to dream and imagine with God what a just world may look like. And that, no matter how we may try to lock the doors of our hearts, God walks through the anyway, and asks us to see, and receive, and believe–anyway.