A sermon preached at Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 15, 2018, Easter 3, Year B.
Readings: Acts 3.12-19; Psalm 4; I John 3.1-7; Luke 24.36b-48
One of our biggest temptations during times of uncertainty and transition is to long for those good ole’ days–the unspecified times in the past when in hindsight, everything seemed right and good and like it should be. The country artist Rascal Flatts says it this way: “I miss Mayberry, sitting on the front porch drinking ice cold cherry coke, where everything is black and white.” Whatever our own personal Mayberry might be, we miss it. Those were the good ole’ days of yesteryear. But, ultimately, Mayberry is a temptation because it is an illusion, and an illusion that can become an idol. Those good ole’ times we idealize had their own rough patches. Maybe we don’t remember them so well now, but they were there.
The Church is subject to the same temptation. We miss the good ole’ days when… When everyone was off work on Good Friday; when there weren’t baseball games or Ironman triathlons on Sunday; when we didn’t disagree on this or that; when every family looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.
The first letter of John, which we heard from this morning, shows us that there was never this golden time in the Church when everything was perfect. Our reading today has this lovely verse in it: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” How perfect. It is tempting to hear that and smile and claim we are all one family, each one of us a child of God, all united in our love for God and for one another. Just like in Mayberry, sitting on the front porch swing, ice cold cherry coke in hand, loving Jesus and loving each other, without a care in the world.
But, if we’re honest, that’s not reality–not for us, and not for the community of I John. No, the community to which this letter is addressed is a community in turmoil, in the process of dissolution. It had fractured in two. From the rest of the letter, scholars think that the opponents of the writer of I John claimed to be sinless and perfect themselves, that Jesus’ humanity was not important for salvation, and that they didn’t have to follow the commandments, including Jesus’ new commandment to love one another. The writer of 1 John tries to argue against all these heresies. And naturally, both groups claimed to be speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit.*
These are serious disputes. They’re not arguing about small things, but about the foundation of who they are, only 70 or so years after the death and resurrection of Christ. The stakes are high. People are upset. We’re not in Mayberry anymore.
We read this section of I John during Eastertide, so we get this picture of turmoil and conflict in Christian community alongside the resurrection appearances of Jesus, alongside the surprise and wonder and excitement of discovering that Christ is risen! We get this communal friction alongside our alleluias. But that’s the whole point of Easter, really, because that does reflect our lived reality as Christians in community. Over and over again, right in the middle of our hopelessness and conflict and turmoil, the resurrected Christ shows up.
In today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke, the disciples are in a room in Jerusalem. They have been met by a couple of folks who were on their way to a town called Emmaus. They met a man on the road who talked with them about Jesus and his death. And then at table, this man took bread, broke it, and gave it, and their eyes were opened. And the man was Jesus Christ. They run back to Jerusalem to tell the others. And while they are telling them, Jesus shows up.
They are startled and terrified. Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” He shows them his hands and his feet. He commissions them as witnesses to his life, death, and resurrection. They are sent to proclaim the good news.
Jesus chooses to show up, to reveal himself to his disciples, when they are wondering what the future holds. Jesus chooses to show up when they are terrified and on edge. The resurrected Christ shows up, not when things are perfect and calm, but when they need him most–in their anxiety, questioning, and despair. And Christ makes them a community again–a community of witnesses to the good news of God in Christ.
Christ shows up here, too. Christ shows up in our lives today. The resurrected Christ shows up in the midst of our turmoil and uncertainty. And Christ makes us, like those first disciples, witnesses to the good news of God in Christ Jesus: that the love of God is stronger than death itself, and that God loves us–even us–with such powerful love.
Christ does not call us to Mayberry, where differences are ironed over and ignored, this imagined community of what-ifs. Christ calls us to Christian community, where we who are many and different are one body, because we all share one bread and one cup. This is real, authentic community, stripped of illusions, where we are not united because we are all the same, but because we all belong to Christ.
Christ calls us to be a resurrection community, where God’s love is not only abundant in these walls, but where God’s love spills out of us and we become bold witnesses to what God has done in Christ.
But for this to happen, we must leave Mayberry behind. The what-if, imagined, idealized Mayberry communities only distract us from what Christ is calling us to now. These Mayberrys keep us planted in the past, in the world created in our image and in our likeness. They are a prison; they are blinders on our eyes; they are stumbling blocks on the way. But the resurrected Christ calls us to the now. We are called to be his witnesses now. We are called to see a world created in the image and likeness of God. We are called not to Mayberry, but to the Kingdom of God and to live a resurrection life in Christ.
*See, e.g., Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1979).
Storied Grace 