April 26, 2009:  What Makes This Believable?
Luke 24:36-48, 1 John 3:1-7, Psalm 4
Eileen Parfrey -- First Pres, McMinnville

            If you’ve ever watched the TV show, Jeopardy, you’ll understand when I say, if the answer is “Jesus eats a fish,” what is the question?  Luke has been explaining the resurrection ever since two angels told the women why the tomb was empty.  On the way to Emmaus, an unrecognized Jesus meets friends and teaches them about why the Christ had to suffer.  He disappears but later shows up to the whole group, asking for a piece of fish.  So, if “Jesus eats a fish” is the answer, what’s the question?

            If you hadn’t been raised in the church, if you didn’t already consider yourself a Christian, what would make this story believable for you?  What would make this worth staking your life on it?  Because that’s what “believe” means—by life.  When you “believe” Jesus is the Christ, that doesn’t mean you agree with a fact, it means how you live your life is different because of it.  There is a difference between Truth (capital T) and fact.  Thomas Merton, the mid-20th century monk, writes that Truth is a Way and a Person, something to be followed and lived out in relationship.  To discover the question about Jesus eating a fish, we’ve got to know him as a person and try to live the way he did.
 
            The risen Jesus shows up as the disciples are questioning the two who failed to recognize him on the road to Emmaus and tried to have supper with him.  Jesus scares the liver out of them.  The Biblish for that is, “They were startled and terrified.”  Well, I’ll say!  I don’t know how those two on the way to Emmaus failed to recognize him, because the body of this Jesus looks like the victim of a crucifixion—an unmistakable, ugly, terrifying mess.  It’s why Jesus shows his hands and feet.  Jesus shows his friends the fact that he is the same guy who really was dead.  To establish that he really is alive, he asks for something to eat. Ghosts don’t eat.  We know this really is Jesus, because he gives his disciples more than the facts; he gives them Truth (with a capital T) by teaching them how to know him through scripture. 
           
            God knows we need facts.  We are 21st century Americans, trained to trust what we can measure and observe. Facts are the basis of our concrete, tangible world. But facts are only useful here when they are in service to the Truth, when they inform our relationship with this guy-who-was-dead-and-is-now-alive.  Far more important is the experience of Jesus as Person (with a capital P), because that’s when we come to know him.  This is the axe the writer of 1 John is grinding.  To know Jesus is to be like him. 
           
            This has always struck me as a little heretical—I mean, who would dare to be like God?  But what we promise at our baptism, what we re-promise every time we witness a baptism, is to try to be like Jesus.  For me that is such an unattainable goal!  The writer of 1 John doesn’t say to accomplish the goal.  God knows it’s beyond our reach—we’re only human.  We don’t have to succeed, though.  We are to be oriented to Jesus, we just have to try.  It’s why God became human in Jesus, why Jesus was raised from the dead.  Continuing our relationship with Jesus is the experience of Truth (with a capital T) that we need in order to become like him.  The Biblish for that relationship is “discipleship.”  This strikes me as an intimidating term.  Let’s just say it’s a relationship that shows God has a stake in our being like Jesus, and is willing to do everything possible to help.  As if to prove that, God is persistent and relentless about showing up in our lives in all kinds of tangible, concrete ways, if we only recognize them.  Really.  Our lives our filled with God sightings.

            Sometimes when God comes we are amazed and startled, like those Easter-evening disciples who watched their risen friend eat a piece of fish.  Startling, like my friend, Dorothy, who found herself in a town she’d never been in before, with a sudden-onset illness that kept her in a hospital bed for a week, surrounded by strangers, hearing God’s call on her life.  Amazing, like when my toddler son nearly died and I found myself thanking God for the gift of the experience.  Sometimes when God shows up, it’s exciting and glorious, like when the women met the angels at the empty tomb.  Like watching the sun rise over a Willamette valley orchard as the fog disappears into the foothills or like Mt St Helens spewing ash into the air.  Sometimes God’s appearance is in ordinary, mundane ways, like the two who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and prevailed upon him to stay and eat supper with them.  Ordinary enough that St Benedict reminded his followers to receive all strangers as the Christ.  And mundane as the never-ending diaper changes and the dailyness of cooking yet again today (didn’t I do that yesterday?).  As mundane as taking your turn in the church nursery, washing up after a potluck, caring for the church building, the everyday showing up at work to stock shelves or file invoices or enter data or make service calls.  People who come into your life at just the right time.

            You may not recognize them as such, but you’ve had God experiences.  God knows that we know a thing is real if we can see and touch and smell it.  But Truth (capital T) is more than real.  Truth is something we “believe,” as in “by life,” as in “stake my life on it.”  And that’s the point:  we stake our lives on this story.  And in doing so, we are changed.

            You might have heard there’s a pottery show in Portland this weekend.  Every paper I saw this week had articles about local artists exhibiting at the show, which reminded me of an experience I had last summer.  Lilly Endowment gave Springwater a generous gift in support of a sabbatical.  We called the sabbatical “Bringing Creativity to Faith” and designed it to provide experiences of God through art activities.  I got to go away to study with artists, while Springwater stayed home and had three artists-in-residence come to them.  One of the places I went was Grunewald Guild, in mountains outside Leavenworth, WA, sort of religious art camp for grown ups.  One activity was a raku firing, which by the end struck me as metaphor for God’s work in our lives. 

            The potters had spent the week making pieces for the rest of us to glaze and fire.  Kilns get very, very hot, and normally one waits until they’ve cooled before they are opened, but a raku kiln is rigged to be opened while it is still hot, so as to remove the hot pieces and to place them in a pile of combustible materials.  Of course, as soon as the red hot pottery hits the dry grass and pine needles, a fire blazes up.  After a few seconds, the flames are smothered and the piece is carried to a tub where it is plunged in water amid much hissing and steaming.  The process embraces the whole gamut of human experience, it seems to me—from the contemplative act of painting the glaze, to the sociable munching as we gather while the pieces fire, to the very real danger of the open kiln, the sudden violence of the flames, the relief of smothering, the final moment of tension as the pot hisses and sinks into the cool water.  We never knew how our piece would turn out.  Sometimes the pots were damaged in the process, but all the elements were there—earth, fire, air, water—and they resuled in unpredictable, uncontrolled, stunning beauty.  Never what we expected, but always more than we hoped.  That is the experience of God in our lives, friends.  Never what we expect, but always more than we had hoped.  Tangible, concrete, the very things of life itself.   If only we believe.  By life, my friends.  Experience God’s activity in you by life.