"Make It Real!"    San Williams, UPC

Luke24:36b-48

We’re now in the third Sunday of Easter, which means we’re still pondering these Gospel stories that proclaim Jesus’ resurrection—puzzling over them might be a more accurate way of putting it.  On Monday morning after Easter Sunday I opened an e-mail from a young person who wrote, “I had no idea what to make of the whole resurrection story, or what I really believed about it—which is to say, I don’t really know what I believe about the cornerstone of Christianity!  But it’s comforting to think that even the first people to hear of the resurrection might not have known exactly what to make of it either.  That gives me hope to keep trying and searching.”  My hunch is that this student speaks for many of us and not just young people.  Indeed, she echoes the experience of the first disciples. Well, our scripture reading this morning from Luke is aimed at disciples of every age who are still wondering what to make of the resurrection.

As we sit here pondering, puzzled, still wondering, the risen Christ bursts into our assembly this morning with his word of grace, “Peace be with you…Why are you frightened and why do you doubt?” Why are we frightened?  Well, let’s see.  We’re frightened because we live in a world of war, poverty, disease, neglect, prejudice, fear, isolation and sinfulness.  We’re frightened because the bottom has dropped out of our economy.  Because ice-caps are melting and rain forests are disappearing.  Because there are people with big bombs and guns who wish us harm.   And as to Jesus’ question, why do we doubt?  Well, for starters, we doubt because it’s been two thousand years now since these great things took place, and our violence toward one another has not abated.  We doubt because we are modern people steeped in the hermeneutic of suspicion and we don’t have any substantiating data about the dead rising to new life.  We doubt….Well, you can fill in the blank.   

Yet interestingly enough Jesus is not surprised by our confusion, nor does he condemn the disciples difficulty in believing.  Rather, he gets in our face with his very real, physical presence.  He shows his disciples that the risen Christ is no phantom. He startles us by revealing the physical, fleshly nature of his resurrected life.  "Look at my hands and my feet," he says…"touch me and see…I have flesh and bones…Does anyone have something to eat…”  Someone hands him a piece of broiled fish and he eats it in their presence.  Clearly the risen Jesus is no ghost, no disembodied spirit back from the dead. No, this Jesus who was dead is alive in a new body, one that still has skin and bones, hands and feet, teeth that can chew and a digestive system that works. Perhaps if Jesus had just died and left his body behind so that his immortal soul could fly off to heaven, we could all shrug our shoulders and sing about the sweet bye and bye. But no, Jesus shocks his disciples by appearing as a real flesh and blood person. Changed, yes, but still human.

Now at this point, let’s pause in our joy and wonderment.  Why does Luke insist on presenting the resurrection of Jesus as something tangible, corporeal, palpable? Why, for that matter, did the early church formulate a creed that included the statement, “We believe in the resurrection of the body?” Luke anticipates this question, and sends us back to the scripture.  Jesus, Luke writes, “Opened the disciples’ minds to understand the scriptures.”  Remember—Jesus says, in effect—how from the beginning, God has promised a world that is as good as the Creator wills it to be?  Remember how, in the Law of Moses, God commanded a just world, one that is free of envy, idolatry, theft and violence?  Don’t you recall how the prophets proclaimed a new world order, in which the poor and the hungry eat like kings, the powerful and the violent  no longer oppress the vulnerable, a world in which swords and spears will be melted down and recast as farm implements? Yes, the scriptures tell the story of a day when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream...and crying and weeping will be no more, war will be no more. Now do we understand? The bodily resurrection of Jesus signals the beginning of God’s promised New Creation.  No wonder the disciples were beside themselves with joy.   

But Jesus isn’t content simply to open our minds. He tells us that we are witnesses to these things. He asks us to stand in the midst of a world in turmoil and proclaim that hope is alive because Christ has risen.   

Of course, anyone can say “Christ has risen,” but until we put flesh on our words, the world will not listen. As a young man, Mahatmas Gandhi studied in London. After learning about Christianity, and after reading the Sermon on the Mount, he decided that Christianity was the most complete religion in the world. It was only later, when he lived with a Christian family in East India, that he changed his mind.  Gandhi observed that this Christian family did not practice the nonviolent love that Jesus taught.  In that household Gandhi discovered that the word too rarely became flesh—that the teaching of Jesus didn’t being to live up to the reality of Jesus.   

Yet when I think about the ministry of our congregation, I see the teaching of Jesus becoming the reality of Jesus in a host of ways.  For example, at the evening worship last Sunday, Renee, our campus minister, gathered us in a circle at the end of the service. She gave each of us a $10.00 bill and challenged us to turn that money into some tangible ministry. Then she walked around the circle and anointed our foreheads with oil, saying, “Freely you have received, freely give.” The money in our hands was just a piece of green paper, but  Renee commissioned us  to transform it  into something palpable, edible, physical, and real—into food in someone’s stomach, a bus pass in someone’s hands, a smile on someone’s face.  Witnessing to the  resurrection is just that direct, concrete and embodied.     

Wherever people do justice and love kindness, wherever the hungry are fed, the stranger welcome, the enemy forgiven---that’s where we witness the birth pangs of resurrection. Sometimes our witness takes a surprising, and even humorous, turn. A couple weeks ago, I was standing at the door of the food pantry, welcoming folks as they came in. I was wearing a name tag that identified me as a pastor. One fellow came by, and when he saw my nametag, he stopped and said, “You know the difference between you and me? You work for God. I am God!” I said, “Well, come on in. God is welcome here. Get something to eat.”

This morning, we’re ordaining and installing our new class of elders and deacons. Deacons, make no mistake about it:  whenever you visit the sick, deliver a casserole, telephone the homebound, or write a note to the grieving, you are touching the wounds of the risen Christ.  And to our elders coming on the session, you will help us become a more fleshly congregation.  Lead us into those ministries which witness to God’s affirmation that creation matters, that love, justice and forgiveness matter. Help is practice the love we proclaim.

Friends, we’re not unlike the first disciples who responded to the news of the resurrection with a mixture of doubt, disbelief, joy and wonder. But we are, all of us, witnesses to the hope given to the world through the bodily resurrection of Jesus.  Now, let’s go out and make it real.