EASTER 3B
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
My teens used
to burst through the back door after school, shed their heavy backpacks with a
loud thud, fling their jackets on the
nearest chair, and make a beeline for the refrigerator. They would open it with
eager faces and scan the shelves with hungry eyes. Their stomachs growled as if
they hadn’t eaten for days, despite the nice, healthy lunches that I had packed
for them that morning. “Mom, I’m starving,” they would bellow as they leaned heavily
on the open refrigerator door. “Don’t we have something in here to eat?!”
That’s the
image that comes to my mind as I listen to the newly resurrected Jesus in Luke’s
gospel. He bursts into a closed room that is buzzing with the news of his
multiple appearances. He throws his cloak on the nearest chair, calls out to
everyone in greeting. And as his friends stand simultaneously gaping and trembling
and crying and smiling and even clapping their hands with joy, he pushes right
past them into the kitchen. He opens the first-century equivalent of a pantry door
and bellows, “Hey, I’m starving! Got anything in here to eat?!”
Now, I know
that scholars tell us that Jesus eats that piece of fish to prove to the
disciples, and to us, that he is not some kind of disembodied ghost. On the one
hand, we know that a friend, once dead, who pops up in multiple places at once,
breaking bread here and walking through walls there, must surely be a spirit
worthy of the spookiest of ghost stories. On the other hand, we all know that
ghosts don’t eat or drink, and we can’t really touch and feel their muscle and
bone. So, if the disciples can touch Jesus with their fingers, and if they see
Jesus swallowing a piece of fish, then surely this strange visitor is more than
your run-of-the-mill ghost. Resurrection must have brought him back with his
followers in body, as well as in spirit. Sure, I can see why Luke insists on
the fish story.
And yet, Jesus’
urgent cry of hunger still resonates with me. It has got to be more than just
proof of a digestive system. The resurrected Christ is always hungry, always
eating. He breaks bread with the two disciples on the Emmaus road. In John, he
cooks up a fish breakfast to share with the disciples on the beach. Bread and
fish, broken bread and baskets of fish … Remember the miraculous feeding of
thousands with bread and fish on the hillside in Galilee? Remember the Last
Supper? “This is my body.” “This is my blood.” “Take and eat in remembrance of
me.” Jesus hungers, but Jesus also feeds. Jesus’ hunger reflects our hunger—the hunger that he alone can satisfy. It is our hunger for God, for meaning, for relationship, for
community. We are like a hungry teenager desperately scanning the refrigerator
shelves and saying to ourselves: “My soul is aching and empty. There’s got to
be something in here that will fill me. It’s not this, and it’s not that. I
don’t know exactly what I want, but it’s gotta be in here somewhere. Somewhere
….?”
We might not always know where to find
the food that we need, but Jesus does.
There
has been a flurry in the news this week over a new book by young author Rachel
Held Evans. Evans, who is now in her early thirties, grew up in an evangelical
church. After blogging for awhile as a “moderate evangelical,” she has now
found her way into the Episcopal Church. She has just published a book about
her journey, called Searching for Sunday.
Needless to say, Episcopalians are ecstatic to have an articulate young adult
writing positively about our tradition! Evangelicals are less thrilled. There
have been blogs back and forth, arguments offered both for and against Evans’
claims about why the more liturgical churches are especially attractive to the
coveted “millennial generation,” adults in their 20’s and 30’s. One of the big
advantages that Evans gives, of course, for our tradition, is the prominent
place of the Eucharist, celebrated every Sunday. Another Episcopal priest,
agreeing with Evans, explains: “The Eucharist is the beating heart of Christian
worship. It brings transformation in a way that even the best sermon can’t. It
speaks to the whole person, not just the mind. Recovering a high view of the
Eucharist—and restoring it to its rightful place in Christian worship—is one
substantial reason we were captivated by the liturgy.”[1]
Young adults, just like each one of us older folks, are starving for a food
that the world cannot give. They are hungry for a meal shared in close
community, for a meal shared with Jesus himself. When he comes to them
in Jerusalem, Jesus gives two gifts to his disciples: a gift for the mind, in
the opening and sharing of the good news in scripture, and a gift for the
heart, in giving himself as our spiritual food and drink of new life in
him. Each time we gather as a Christian
community, he comes to feed us both in scripture and in the breaking of the
bread.
Many years
ago, I too was one of those coveted “20-somethings,” a mom with 3 children. I
was too busy to go to church. I was also too mad at God over the abrupt end of
my marriage even to do much praying, beyond an occasional angry fist-shaking in
God’s direction. During that time, I had a recurring dream. I was in a dark,
empty room filled only with a mini-fridge—the kind you put in a college dorm
room. I was hungry, and there was no food in the house at all. I bent down and
opened up the little fridge, full of hope. As I opened the door, bright light
from the fridge poured out into the darkness of the room. And yet, inside, the
fridge was empty, except for a couple of unappetizing containers of moldy
leftovers. It’s at that point—hungry and dejected, but unwilling to close the
refrigerator door—that I would wake up.
It doesn’t take a psychologist to
explain that dream: In the busy distress of my daily life, I was spiritually
starving. Whatever stores of joy and meaning and love that I had previously packed
into Tupperware containers and saved in my spiritual refrigerator, they had sat
for too long uneaten and untended. I needed the food that Jesus offers us: the
food of love, forgiveness, and new life. I needed Jesus to re-stock my fridge.
As you might expect, the dream went away when I went back to church to eat with
Jesus every week, and when I began to pray again.
There is a touching Pandora jewelry ad
in which young children are blindfolded and led, one at a time, over to a line
of mothers. Each child feels the hands and face of each woman, softly
fingering her cheeks and smelling beneath her chin. And every time without
fail, the child stops at his or her own mom. He smiles in relief and
recognition, rips off the blindfold, and beams, while the mother swoops the
child up in her arms.[2]
This is the way in which the disciples must have reached out for their risen
Lord: tenderly, tentatively, carefully fingering his hands and face as if they
were blindfolded. This is also the way we in which we reach out for our risen
Lord in the Eucharistic meal. Blindfolded and hungry, we feel our way forward
in the dark. We hold out our hands to receive his body. We feel its rough edges
and the familiar way it melts against the roof of our mouths. We open our lips to
receive his blood. We smell the wine-smell, we feel it burn our throats and fill
our mouths with sweetness all at the same time. Somehow, he is suddenly there with
us, but not as a menacing ghostly presence. He is there with us, loving us like
a mother. Opening his arms to us, rejoicing, laughing, and embracing. And we
are hungry no more.
[1]
Ben Irwin, “Rearranging the Chairs,” found at http://benirwin.me/2013/07/30/re-rearranging-the-chairs-a-response-to-richard-dahlstrom-responding-to-rachel-held-evans/?utm_content=buffer34594&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
[2]
https://www.facebook.com/pandorajewelry/videos/10153758110079867/?pnref=story
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