Continuity
The Rev. Jeffrey A. Geary
Second Sunday in Easter
Psalm 4 Luke 24: 36-48
April 30, 2006
Next weekend, the confirmation students are having a retreat. During the retreat, we re-enact the events of holy week, asking ourselves questions each step of the way, and reflecting on the significance of Jesus ministry in our own lives, and in our world today. It is a something like a “stations of the cross,” only our stations consist of the road to Jerusalem - (played out in the field behind the church and in the pre-school playground); the upper room and last supper - (for this we seek the highest room we can find - the top of the bell tower looking out over the village green); then we travel to the memorial garden our front - (our very own garden of Gethsemene); back in here to sit before the cross; down to the basement where I have my very own secret tomb; out into the cemetery and the night; and finally, following the resurrection, following Easter, back here, around the communion table, for a celebration of Pentecost. And somewhere between the empty tomb and the gift of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost, the confirmation students will all write their own personal statements of faith, declaring what they believe of God’s presence with them and in our world, and why God has called them to be members of the church. Please keep them and their faith journeys in your prayers this week!
There are two ways to tell a story of faith, whether that be of our own faith journey or the faith journey of a community; one way is to focus on continuity and the other is to describe significant change. We may highlight the “turning around,” conversion, or transformation we’ve experienced or seen, or we may emphasize how God has persistently and consistently traveled with us over the years, through difficulty and hope. Most of the confirmation students tell a story of continuity - a story about how God has always been with them, gently but persistently drawing them into a life of faith. But for a few, their story will be one of sudden change, profound experience, firm decision, aha moments.
For Luke the story of the resurrection is a story of continuity; the Jesus whom God has raised is the Jesus who died. When the resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples he displays his hands and feet to emphasize that it is really him. The point, for Luke, is that the resurrection is not a radical new beginning, but a sign that God is present with, and faithful to, God’s people, without interruption. That nothing, not even death, can separate us from God’s love.
The resurrection does not erase old wounds; it is not an escape from the past. It’s not even a new beginning. Rather Luke insists that the new life Jesus is given is not one where he returns in victory and power, to right the wrongs of the world, to reign victorious over all creation. Instead, the new life Jesus is given means he will be present with his disciples as they continue the ministry he began; the same ministry that led to his death.
In Luke’s gospel we don’t see evidence of the resurrection in a world made suddenly new; the Roman Empire still controls Palestine, injustice abounds. Instead we see evidence of the resurrection in the disciples response to Jesus’ call to continue his ministry: to walk faithfully with God despite risk, despite danger, despite uncertainty.
Which is another sense in which Luke’s story is one of continuity, because he continues it in the book of Acts. And if we’re paying attention to what the disciples do in the book of Acts, we see that they are finally doing all of the things Jesus did in Luke: healing, teaching, creating communities of justice.
So for us as Christians in the twenty-first century, Easter is not the season when we passively rejoice that somehow Jesus has made everything better – that would require an incredible amount of either naivete or cognitive dissonance. Just as in Jesus day, injustice, hatred, and evil still abound. Rather, Easter is the season when Jesus calls us to continue the ministry he first began. The season of Easter is therefore an active time of recommitment to God and engagement in the world that Jesus so dearly loves.
An Easter perspective on the ministry of the church is not a matter of donning rose colored glasses when we look at the serious, entrenched injustice of our world or a matter of celebrating trivial victories that feel good but have changed little. It’s about assessing, as a church, how we must live, what we must sacrifice, what we must dare if we are to carry forward the ministry that Jesus first began. For it is when we continue Jesus daily, concrete work, that transformation of our world comes about. Such change is not instantaneous and it is not magic. It is not miraculously wrought from the outside. Rather is it about being changed people who live boldly in our world as we endeavor to take up the ministry Jesus began in our midst.
It takes courage to live faithfully with our resurrected Lord. Jesus continually calls us to face more honestly the woundedness of our world and of ourselves, that together we might discover new patterns of living that bring about God’s healing and wholeness.
How appropriate, therefore, that as one of the first acts following Easter, five new members are reaffirming the call that God has given them, committing themselves to life together with us, one of them seeking baptism for the first time; and we are not only receiving them as members, but are renewing our promise to demonstrate with own lives, the faithfulness, love and justice of God. This truly will be our central act of worship this morning.
I would like to share with you two exciting projects that our junior high youth group is a part of as a way of demonstrating the faithfulness, love and justice of God, and then I will invite our new members forward. First, each year our junior high youth group goes through a discernment process very similar to the one we did as part of our congregational strategic planning this spring. As the kids approach the end of our school year together, we think back over the discussions we have had all year long, we pay attention to the way we have prayed at the end of every meeting, and we lift up the concerns and issues and ways of being church together that we have explored.
Over this past month, the Junior High Youth Group has been looking at how the Presbyterian Church (USA) does mission. We have studied several projects currently supported by our denomination, not only through financial contributions, but with educational materials, advocacy, and personal involvement. Particularly, during the past few weeks we have considered three programs.
Among those we have considered is a program called Seeds for Peace: Seeds for Peace is a summer camp program in Maine which provides an opportunity for youth from Israel, the occupied territories, and Arab nations to meet together and discuss their lives, the conflicts which define them, and their own hopes and fears regarding peace. Though one of the kids described it as ‘just camp,’ it is camp for kids who cannot safely talk to one another anywhere else. Camping together, talking together, playing together has proven again and again to be a transformative experience for those who participate, and, it is hoped, as these youth return to their countries and regions with a new commitment to live together in peace, a transformative experience for our world.
We took time again, as we did earlier this year, to learn about our denominations commitment to Borderlinks and No More Deaths. Last year, 290 men, women, and children died in the Arizona desert after crossing in to this country seeking employment. And over the past ten years, that number includes more than 3000 deaths. No matter what else you believe about the complex issues of immigration, these deaths are preventable. St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson AZ and the No More Deaths ministry send what they call Samaritan teams, named after the good Samaritan, into the desert with water, food, and immediate medical care in order to prevent these deaths. All year long, the youth have been praying for two student volunteers who were arrested by our government last summer for participating in this effort.
And the youth group looked at a ministry of the Presbyterian Hunger Program called Enough for Everyone. This ministry supports fair-trade purchasing (primarily through the Presbyterian Coffee project), energy efficiency (Electric Stewardship), anti-sweatshop work (Sweat-Free PCUSA), and micro-credit-lending (Oikocredit). With the exception of the energy program, our congregation already has a commitment to, or has contributed to, three of these ministries. For at least the last five year, the deacons have served fair-trade coffee during the social time before and after worship. Our pre-school has ensured that the tee-shirts we put on our children were not also made by children or other exploited workers. And our congregations peacemaking offering has twice been given to an ecumenical micro-credit agency provides self-development funding for women in Latin America and Africa.
After three weeks of study, prayer, discussion, the Junior High youth group has decided that they would like to contribute the proceeds from the Annual Swing-a-thon to the Enough for Everyone ministry of the Presbyterian Hunger Program. This money will contribute to the expansion of a co-op in Nicaragua which not only supplies our church with, among other things, “sweat-free” T-shirts, but provides a decent living for the women of this small Nicaraguan village. And the youth intend to keep a continuing relationship with this co-op by offering “Enough for Everyone” products to the congregation by operating a small ‘fair-trade store.’ next year. This store would raise awareness about the lifestyle choices we have when purchasing apparel, coffee, tea, and chocolate. The store will also provide volunteer service hours for the youth. It was clear from our discussion that fair-trade is an issue of love and justice.
The second project the youth are a part of will take place this week. Six years ago, our group was visited by Christ Pendergast, a former school teacher from Northport. Chris was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a little more than eleven years ago, and since that time has led each year a 150 mile wheelchair ride from Montauk to Manhattan to raise awareness and money in order to find a cure for ALS. To date, the ride has raised more than a million dollars for ALS research, but more importantly, it has become the center of a community for patients with ALS and for those who care for them. The Ride-for-Life which has become something of a Long Island event, began this past Friday, and you can watch it unfold on News Channel 12 all this week.
The youth have continued to learn more about ALS each year and to pray for people with this disease. You may remember that we contributed our swing-a-thon proceeds to the Ride a few years ago. But what I want you to know is that for the last six years, the youth group has very quietly, but very faithfully, delivered lunches and snacks to the riders when they pass through our part of Long Island. This Tuesday, we will make a hundred bag lunch and two hundred snack packs, write letters of encouragement, and pray for our friends. This is faithfulness.
God’s intentions are sovereign even over powerful systems that seem impenetrable and whose oppression seems inevitable. God’s faithfulness calls out to us through our scripture, imploring us to remember that God can and does bring about newness - but not absent our efforts. As St. Theresa of Avila famously said, “God has no hands but our hands, no feet but our feet, to do God’s work in the world.” In his post-resurrection visit to the disciples Jesus is clear that it is the disciples who have been entrusted with continuing Jesus’ ministry.
So this Easter, let us renew our commitment to carry forward Jesus’ ministry every day - believing in God’s power to bring about profound change in our world through our faithful efforts. May our worship and our work be one, announcing God’s new way. Amen.