Eternal life...for Vampires

John 6:35-40

Human beings have always been scared of death.

It’s the great unknown, and it leads to some of the most important questions, philosophical and practical, we ask ourselves and each other.

That’s why all cultures through the centuries have developed mythical characters

who have the gift of eternal life, who are able to cheat death,

and keep going on going on for ever.

Think of Vampires.

Death-cheaters “par excellence”,

they die to the world only to come back overnight to eternal life…

or least until someone stakes them, shoot a silver bullet in their heart,

or decapitates them…it depends on whom you ask.

The interesting thing about Vampires is that

as they receive the amazing gift of life eternal,

they find themselves paying a very steep price for it:

the price of alienation.

Vampires, who cheat death, lose life as we know it in the process.

We are communal beings, defined by our relationships

(sons, daughters, siblings, spouses, friends…)

Vampires are alienated from the community of the living

because the living

[to paraphrase the sharks in Finding Nemo]

have become food, not friends.

Also, human beings are creatures of the daylight:

the sun is good for us, for our crops,

for our interactions, for our emotional well-being.

And the sun destroys Vampires.

Finally, they are alienated from their own self.

Vampires are unable to see their own reflection.

In spite of the fact that once they are “reborn” they never grow old,

they never change,

they progressively forget what they look like,

symbolically losing their identity, their self.

Living forever is not without problems, is it?

Eternal life comes with a price tag.

But this is not the kind of “eternal life” Jesus is talking about.

When Christ tells us that

all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life,

he is not talking about quantity of life, but quality of life.

Jesus is not talking about the life we know,

our current, often broken, definitely temporary life extended to infinity,

but of a life renewed, transformed, free

that begins in the present, continues beyond death,

and will take the form of the resurrected life on what we call the last day.

We don’t need to die

to receive the kind of “eternal life” 

that Jesus is talking about.

We need to embrace Christ and everything he stands for

to receive the gift of rebirth that God promises.

This new life begins here and now,

when we meet the risen Lord and accept his gift of Grace and Forgiveness.

It is not a perfect life, it is not a life outside of this world,

outside of our community, and it is not a life without evil and pain.

But it is a life filled with Hope.

Whoever comes to me will never be hungry;

whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Jesus presents us with a life of plenty, a life of joy even in the darkness,

the ability to hope even when the going get rough,

because no matter what happens we have seen the Lord

and we know that he is risen and present to us at all times.

He has not simply cheated but destroyed death [as our collect says]

Sin, evil, desperation have no more power over us

and the moment we embrace this and believe in him,

we begin a new life, an imperishable life, in Christ.

We are not Vampires, 

we are brothers and sisters o

f Jesus Christ: 

the Son of God, the source of our hope,

the giver of the true eternal life.

Amen

Easter 3C Go Fish!

Easter 3C - John 21:1-19

Go fish!

Disciples...

One minute you want to hug them and the next you want to strangle them!

Less than a week ago they were locked in a room, expecting the worst

and the Lord came to them,

reassured them that everything would be alright and gave them a mission:

As the Father sent me, I send you.

You are not to sit here secluded in a locked room.

You are to go out and be the Church.

I am bringing you peace, peace of mind and peace of heart.

Bring others the same peace – the same absence of fear –

that I am bringing to you, Jesus commanded,

And here, take the Holy Spirit, to protect and empower you.

I guess the commissioning didn't really register,

since barely a week later we find the disciples back home.

Can you believe these guys?

They went home to their life “before Christ”.

After all that had happened, after all they had learned and shared.

After the resurrection!

They went home.

They went home and back to their usual pattern, the daily routines.

I guess they needed more time to wrap their minds around the new deal.

And Peter took them all fishing...

Well, if you are a fisherman after all that’s what you do.

I guess it was comforting to be back on the boat, back on the water.

Flowing back into the usual pattern of pushing the boat out into the lake, lowering the nets and raising them up again...

counting on muscle memory for a while.

It is restful to do what you can do without thinking,

as we say ‘with your eyes closed’.

And it provides a space where, while your hands are busy, your soul has time for reflection.

Some people garden, some fold the laundry

(and if you belong in that category, you are welcome to my house any time!)

After all what would you do if you were given so little detail about your mission:

as the Father sent me, I send you...where? to whom? to do what?

So the boys went home.

But it was not business as usual. It couldn’t be.

Jesus had told them that they were not fishermen any longer.

Jesus had made them fishers of people.

They were destined to a very different catch.

So the nets stay empty.

I wonder what was going through their minds,

whether they felt they had lost their touch.

See, in those three years with the Lord they were transformed.

Their identity, their very core was different.

They were incapable of going back to life before Christ.

But they didn't know it yet.

So Jesus, once again comes to the rescue.

Do not do what you used to do, my friends.

Listen to me: I am showing a different way to use those nets.

And it works.

The miraculous catch is Peter’s clue to the identity of the man on the beach.

After all Jesus has been showing them

a different way to do things for a few years now.

And it always worked.

They have been fishing for people together

and their metaphorical nets were always filled to capacity and more.

I believe that the miraculous catch can be the Church’s clue too.

We often lament the fact that our communities are shrinking.

Not true here at All Saints’, but definitely true denomination-wise.

So we feel we have to come up with new and exciting plans

to “lure people through the doors” and to keep them here.

And we often go overboard, trying to control the outcomes,

taking our cues from the ways of the world.

(We all want our Church to function like big corporations...

we all want to be more like Google, bless our hearts)

Brothers and Sisters, I believe this story has a better message for us today.

Let us just do what Jesus told the disciples to do:

let us go and and be fishers of people.

As the Father sent me, he said, I send you.

Jesus came to us and fed our need for peace, for forgiveness, for love in action.

He showed us mercy, understanding, compassion.

And we were hooked!

Now it’s up to us:

Let us find the ones who are hungry for Christ, for the love of God, for the story of redemption and resurrection and feed them - physically and metaphorically.

Let us feed their bodies at shelters and soup kitchens.

Let us feed their heart with comforting words of hope and welcome.

Let us feed their souls by sharing the story of our spiritual journey,

by telling them how God takes us back every time we mess up,

how Jesus is present in our pain and in our sorrow.

We are not aquarium keepers, my friends, we are fishers of men and women,

called to be out there on the water.

Now of course that may not be a very comfortable place, I know.

The water can be a place of discomfort, distress, even pain.

The water is often a place where we find ourselves naked, like Peter, disarmed,

dependent on something larger, more powerful than we are.

But the good news is that we don’t have to go alone.

No one has to. Jesus sends in pairs, in small groups, in communities.

And we don’t have to do anything that he hasn't done first.

Even dear old Peter,

who after everything has happened is being forgiven,

taken back into the fold, and can barely believe his luck.

Even Peter is told that although the journey will be hard

he doesn't have to go about it alone.

Yes, Jesus sends us out, in a boat, on the water but here’s the catch

Follow me - he says.

Follow me.

Amen

Thomas, the "None"

Easter 2c - John 20:19-31

First Sunday after Easter for us.

The first evening after the resurrection for our raggedy bunch of disciples.

They are still trying to figure out what the heck has just happened.

Mary has told them about the empty tomb, she has told them about seeing the Lord,

and they have no idea of what that is supposed to mean.

In spite of the many times Jesus had alerted them to what was to come.

And since they don't understand, they don't know what the future holds -

they have locked themselves in a room out of fear.

A perfectly acceptable human response to an uncertain tomorrow;

almost always related directly or indirectly to death.

Fear causes us to live in a perpetual state of anxiety and,

let's be honest: it's exhausting.

Yet put yourselves in their...sandals:

We can imagine what kind of questions are going through the minds of the disciples.

What if the authorities accuse them of having stolen the corpse?

What if the people come after them – guilty by association with the Jesus movement?

I'm not judging them. They had a lot to be afraid of.

It's a dark world out there.

Who are we to blame them for locking themselves in?

In Greek the word used by John is Kleiso – like close, also like cloister, and key.

It is also etymologically related to the word ekklesia – the Greek for church/assembly –

literally derived from the verb ek-kaleo, "to call forth."

So the ekklesia is the community that is NOT in fact closed,

but called to be unsealed, outed, free.

So this locked room, this fearful anticipation of possible doom is

not exactly what Jesus would expect from his people, is it?

So there he comes, calling them out once again.

And bringing a gift.

Peace be with you – he says. Peace. What a gift.

Peace is the opposite of fear.

War is always dominated and led by fear.

When we are at peace we are not afraid,

we are open to beauty and art and differences;

we are happy to meet the stranger and unusual

because we look at it with curiosity and excitement, and not dread.

So Jesus brings them the gift of peace, 3 times.

Since you are all familiar with the Gospels, I don't have to remind you of the importance of the number.

Jesus is tempted 3 times by Satan.

Jesus prays three times in Gethsemane.

Peter denies Jesus three times. Then, at the end of John's gospel,

Jesus asks him three times if he loves him and he offers Peter forgiveness.

The resurrected Jesus, offers peace

three times.

Pretty special. Rather insistent. It must be important.

Together with peace, Jesus brings them a commission – a shared mission:

As the Father sent me, I send you.

You are not to sit here locked in a room.

You are to go out and be the Church.

Bring others the same peace (the same absence of fear)

that I am bringing to you, Jesus commands,

And here, take the Holy Spirit, to protect and empower you.

What a great text for a day in which we celebrate 6 baptisms.

Remember baptism?

It's the day in which we were marked as Christ's own forever,

we received the gift of the Spirit, we were commissioned to bring peace to the world.

Not just the absence of war, but Jesus' peace – the absence of fear –

the assured and certain knowledge that we are loved with no bounds.

Sometimes I wish that cross on our foreheads would be a bit more apparent.

And possibly, just like Harry Potter’s scar, that it would start hurting anytime evil is near - namely, when we don’t keep our baptismal promises.

Now Thomas is missing when the other disciples encounter Jesus.

So he has some questions, some doubts.

There is nothing wrong with that.

We – human beings - were blessed with memory, reason, and skill

(as we hear in Eucharistic prayer C), so we tend to use them to figure out the world.

Thomas' problem, I suspect, doesn't stem from a lack of faith in Jesus,

but in his fellow disciples.

After all, he hears from them the same proclamation they heard from Mary Magdalene:

“We have seen the Lord!” but what change did it make in their attitude toward life?

The disciples were not immediately transformed by Mary’s proclamation of the good news. They didn't take action, they remained behind locked doors.

And even after Jesus himself shows up and shows them his hands and his side...

yes, they rejoice – the text says - but they don't really change their ways:

They still sit in a locked room.

Then they eagerly (and maybe a bit smugly) proclaim the Easter message to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord!”

but whoa, talk about cognitive dissonance.

Think about it:

Why would Thomas trust them when, in spite of what they are saying,

they take no action?

Why would he believe them, when although they *say* they have seen Jesus,

they are still locked inside of a room, filled with angst

instead of going out as Jesus has allegedly commanded them to do?

Seriously?

And that is the problem with the Church.

The "Nones" – those people out there who don’t believe in anything much,

who often describe themselves as spiritual but not religious –

the Nones, just like Thomas, seem to have more of a problem with the Church,

the ekklesia, than Jesus.

Why would they trust us when we say that we live a sacramental life,

that we see the Lord, that we hear the voice of God,

when our lives are just the same as everybody else's?

When we seemingly have no hope and no purpose?

When we run around as scared as turkeys in November?

Why would they believe us when we gather to sing Hallelujahs,

but God forbid we let them in to join the chorus?

We, the community of the baptized

tell them that this water, this oil, are signs of grace.

That they commission us, to live a special kind of life, a resurrected life -

new, fresh, with a purpose.

We tell them that they are signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our community.

A gift from God.

That we have been anointed,

that we are ready to do great things.

And then it's life as usual.

Nothing has changed. Always the same selfishness, the same despair,

the petty complaints, the lack of connection with God,

the same inability to put our own selves aside and serve the common good.

The same closed doors, closed minds, closed hearts.

Where is the risen Lord in all that?

My brothers and sisters, everything we say and do is a message

to those who do not know him.

Especially when we say and do nothing.

The Lord is risen.

We can continue to live quiet lives, where quiet doesn't mean peaceful, but silent.

Never sharing the gifts we have received.

Never showing others the same forgiveness that was shown to us.

Serving one another as Christ has commanded us to do

and inviting others to go with us.

Or we can do what we are told.

Let us REALLY go in peace to love and serve the Lord,

Let us go rejoicing in the power of the Spirit,

let us go and be the Church.

As His father sent Him He is sending us.

Amen