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Hillside Street, Bennington, Vermont (802) 442-2559
"resolutely inclusive, spiritually alive, and empowered for ministry in the world." |
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“Encounters with the Risen Christ”--April 18, 2010 Acts. 9:1-9, John 21:1-19
Posted: April 18th, 2010 @ 11:09am
Our readings for this Third Sunday of Easter include 2 resurrection encounters with Jesus, which, perhaps obviously (though the obvious should never be overlooked) are the only kind of encounters available to us. As of yet, time travel has not been perfected, so we cannot go back in time to encounter the Jesus who walked and talked and healed and died in ancient Palestine. We, like every other human born after the 3rd decade of the Common Era, can only encounter the Risen Christ. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” the Risen Christ says to the disciples, including Thomas, gathered in the upper room. John includes that story and that statement in his gospel for our benefit, as much as for the disciples’. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
A recent Pew Center Report on Religion found that 50% of mainstream Protestants report having had mystical experiences or moments of self-transcendence (cited by Bruce Epperly in “Process and Faith” website, 4/18/10) . Probably at least half the people here this morning have had some kind of mystical experience or moment of awareness of being part of something greater than themselves. Maybe the person sitting next to you. Maybe you have had such an experience.
That’s what happened to both Paul and Peter, two of the great figures of the Christian tradition, though clearly their experiences were unique to them. We shouldn’t compare our experiences with theirs. Just because you weren’t knocked down and blinded or fed a breakfast of fish on the beach doesn’t mean you haven’t encountered the Risen Christ.
But we can learn some things from Peter and Paul’s experiences of encountering the Risen Christ. First of all, neither of them had these experiences because they were particularly holy or good. Paul, or Saul as he was known at the time, was, as you’ll remember from our reading, “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” He was on a witch hunt, if you will, seeking out followers of the Way so he could tie them up and bring them back for trial to Jerusalem. We are first introduced to Saul when he was standing by and approving the stoning death of Stephen. He was “zealous for the Lord,” all right, but so are militant jihadists and that crew of “christian militants” in Michigan who planned to kill police on their way to overthrowing the government. So you don’t have to be a monk or nun, peacefully sitting
in contemplation, to have an encounter with the Risen Christ.
Peter had gone back to fishing, probably because he couldn’t think of anything else to do since he had done that his whole life before he met Jesus. And he wasn’t doing it too successful-ly, for, John tells us, “that night they caught nothing.” Not only was Peter not doing too well at fishing, but he hadn’t done too well at being faithful to Jesus, having denied even knowing him three times the night he was arrested. Into his failure as a fisherman, the Risen Christ reveals himself to him, telling the men to cast their nights on the right side of the boat, and then to bring some of their catch in to him, for breakfast. And into his failure as a faithful follower, the Risen Christ asks Peter 3 times if he loves him, tells him to feed and care for his sheep, and then to follow him, just as he had the very first time he’d met Peter by the lakeshore.
“I live and work with a lot of folks who believe that God has given up on them,” writes James Harnish, a United Methodist pastor in Florida. “They believe that their failures are so great that there is no way that God can use them to bring hope or healing to others. Many have lives that are controlled by the memory of some past failure. Many of them throw in the towel and decide that the way life has been is the way life will always be. They accept the identity their failure imposed upon them.” (Blogging toward Sunday, the Theolog of the Christian Century, 4/18/10)
Peter and Paul were both “failures” who found out that God was not done with them, that God was not limited by their wrongheadedness or bullheadedness or even any evil or betrayal they had committed. The Risen Christ chose to reveal himself to them, and the rest, as they say, is history...
...although not quite. Although neither Peter nor Paul had any control over how they encountered the Risen Christ, they did have a choice as to how to respond to those encounters. Peter chose to jump out of the boat (which, interestingly, as one commentator notes, is the traditional symbol for the church [Peter Woods, I am listening blog, 4/18/10]) and to wade ashore. He painfully answered each of Jesus’ questions to him about whether he loved him, recalling his triple denial, and he chose to follow in the Way of Jesus, even though, as Jesus pointed out to him, that would include his being killed for it.
Paul literally turned his life around. This man of power and knowledge allowed himself to be led by the hand into Damascus and put himself into the hand of the very people he had been seeking to arrest and wipe out. He then submitted to their teaching and to leading of the Voice of the One who had confronted him, and took on a whole new vocation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer insisted that “If you board the wrong train, it’s no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.’ Sometimes we need to get off the train altogether.” (Cited by Deborah Smith Douglas in Weavings, xxv, #3, p. 19) Paul got off the train altogether.
So, we must ask ourselves, if we have had an encounter with the Living God, with the Risen Christ, maybe in prayer or contemplation, maybe in nature, maybe in being part of some action for justice or healing–Am I willing to look honestly at my life and acknowledge the mistakes I’ve made, the failures I’ve had, but also to believe that God is able to work through me and in me to be a force for healing and transformation? Am I willing to even acknowledge that my current course of living is taking me in the wrong direction, in the opposite direction to where I want to end up, and so I must get off the train and trust that God will provide an alternative form of transportation?
Maybe you don’t think you’ve a mystical experience or an encounter with the Living God. Half the people in the Pew Center study didn’t, and our culture puts so many layers over and obstacles in the way of perceiving such an encounter or experience. But maybe you wish you had. Or maybe you at least acknowledge that people do and you think you might be open to it. Few of us get knocked off a horse and blinded, though there are plenty of events in life that can do that to you. There is wisdom in cultivating an active awareness of our inner life, as one priest and therapist suggests (Robert Corin Morris, Weavings, op cit. P. 7) , so that if we do get knocked down–by some loss, some failure, some reversal, some new insight--, we may have some inner landscape within which to explore our options for response.
“True resurrection lies on the far side of dying,” one wise woman reminds us. (Deb. Smith Douglas, op cit.) “However, our dominant culture is committed to continuity and success, to avoiding pain and denying death.” (P. 17) We don’t like to acknowledge that pain and struggle, even the death of parts or all of us, can lead to greater good, greater life, which doesn’t mean we should be actively seeking pain or death either.
“I like prayer,” someone has said, “I don’t like change.” (Sermon Nuggets, Lindy Black, textweek .com, 4/18/10) There is no such thing as an encounter with the Risen Christ that doesn’t change us, whether we have been good or bad, a success or a failure, there is always more life to be experienced, the depth and breadth of God and what God is able to do in and with us is limitless. “In an Easter sermon at New York’s riverside church, the Rev. William sloane coffin said, ‘Christ isrisen to convert us, not from this life to some other life, but from something less than life to the possibility of full life.’” (cited by Harnish in Christian Century , 4/6/10, p. 21) Our encounter with the Risen Christ may be personal, but it calls us beyond ourselves, into relationships with others, the ripples keep getting wider and wider.
“Do you love me?” we are asked by the Risen Christ. “Then feed my sheep. Follow me.” So may we follow. So may we find ever more abundant life. Amen, and amen.
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