When Will I See You Again?
The day after Easter Sunday I was reminded of the late great Prof James Noel at SFTS who used to say to preachers, “whatever else you do on Easter morning. Make sure you get him out of the tomb.” Now I don’t want to assume I knew exactly what Noel meant by that, but I believe it had something to do with doubt. Did he really rise? Did he really show up to the disciples? Or are these stories just metaphors for new life, and butterflies and spring?
And when I began to think about this, while pouring my first cup of coffee the morning after Easter, I started to doubt whether I, as a preacher, did my job. Did I get him out of the tomb? Did I get him out of the tomb? I wasn’t sure…and the question brought me to tears, because the truth is, I have no idea if I accomplished that. And then I took a breath. I preach, God does the rest.
In our Gospels, Jesus shows up to the disciples in a very real and physical way, time and time again, those who hear of its return to disbelief and doubt. And maybe we return to nice metaphors because it’s easier than trying to explain to others our extraordinary experience of the ways in which Jesus shows up. So many of you have some to share your resurrection appearances of loved ones only to doubt and explain it away. And many of you have experienced an appearance by Jesus, or aren’t sure if you have…or maybe, and we doubt because words to try to explain the experience become useless.
And that’s why this simple quote by Whitman on your bulletin cover is perfect for these seven Sundays of Easter.
We were together…I forget the rest.
I’m sure you’re sick of hearing me say this but this life, this Bible, this Jesus, the spirit, this God, is not something we understand with our heads as much as it’s something we experience with our whole bodies, until we know it, in our bones, with our gut. That’s where trust lives. It doesn't live on a page, it doesn’t live in a doctrine, it doesn’t live in a seminary. It lives in our experience of the risen Christ who shows up time and time again. God does that. What do we do with? That’s the question. Do we reduce it to metaphor? Or a nice story we aren’t sure was real? Do we chalk it up to coincidence? Or do we grab hold of it?
We were together, I forget the rest.
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There is a particularly loud bird in my neighborhood. He showed up one morning during Lent… and was so loud I would stop to listen… and he had a million different calls…one after the other…That was the first time I had ever heard a bird like this. Each morning, and evening, I’d hear him again.…I became fascinated wondering what it could be…. so I made a recording. And played it for the Bible study class…and those first few days…I was in awe of its many many songs…and because we were studying the psalms…I began to understand this bird as praising God with a countless song in countless ways…And when someone told me it was probably a Mockingbird, I googled totem animals and learned that if a Mockingbird was hanging around it was a discovery of your own power and influence…ooooh, I thought…I’m powerful and influential...
And then after about a month of this, the mockingbird became the loudest bird in the neighborhood to the point of drawing out the sounds of other birds, and I began to laugh, thinking about the dynamics between the birds. how annoyed the other birds must be by the new guy in town, like the town drunk, who sounded ridiculous with all those different calls… He must suffer from a multiple personality disorder… just mimicking and mocking…
And then… I began to feel sorry for the mockingbird…
My experience of this one bird went from fascination and pure joy to
But here’s what is real. This bird has become a part of my home now. He’s there when I wake and he’s the last one to go to sleep. He sings when I make a sandwich, as I dust off baseboards, while I write a sermon when I’m walking to the car. I don’t wonder about him as much as I used, I’ve just come to trust his presence. I hear him even when he’s stopped singing, as my memory of his songs plays on in my head. In my body. His songs have become something I count on as a part of my home, much like the dog, or the view of the water…the things that are just there, that we take for granted, as part of our life, despite how majestically grand they were when we first came into contact.
These experiences are no different with people in our lives, and maybe especially those we love most. We project onto them what we need them to be, or what we fear them to be…and over time they become a part of us, and we are a part of them…and what’s real…what lasts…is not the projections, not the hopes and not the disappointments, it’s that wordless presence that lives in our bodies, it’s what rings in our ears, and what we see when our eyes are closed… they are…and we are…together…
When the mockingbird decides to pack up and leave…When one of you packs up and leaves…I won’t remember much but I’ll only remember that we were together…because we were part of one another’s home for a time…
We were together…I forget the rest.
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Jesus was part of the disciples’ home for a time. They gave up their physical homes to follow him. They wandered together, lived with him day and night… witnessing his healing and his miracles, they listened to the scriptures come alive, and their understandings were challenged…They were fascinated by him and projections of who he could be… But perhaps more important…is who they became when they were in his presence, without knowing… They grew up with him, matured with him, came to trust him, and love him…they became a part of one another’s extended family and home.
And in today’s scripture, all of that seems gone…Two of them (disciples) are walking on the road to Emmaus…on the same day the women found the empty tomb, and they’re reliving all they had witnessed…
Frederick Buechner…describes the road to Emmaus as the place “we throw up our hands and say ‘Let the whole damned thing go to hang. It makes no difference anyway.’
Everything the disciples had hoped for has vanished…and they’re in disbelief and walking, perhaps in circles, grieving and re-living…and as grief will do, thinking, ‘Let the whole damned thing go to hang. It makes no difference anyway.’
I visited that road to Emmaus this past week, at first when I realized my friend Sharon would die, and again later when she did die…I threw my hands to God, angry at cancer, angry at the design of how randomly this life turns to death…occasionally the phone rang or I received a text, and we, like the disciples in Luke’s gospel, talked about all that had happened, How could this be? She was young, it all happened so fast…
On the road, Jesus and the disciples are walking and talking, only the disciples couldn’t see it was Jesus…And in those first few days of grief, nothing could open mine. Even Pastors doubt and throw up their hands. Even as Jesus recounts for the disciples and for me…the scriptures. and points out that this is exactly as scripture said it would be…Even as I hear James Noel’s words, “Get him out of the tomb.” I also hear these words of Jesus to the two on the road… “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!”
Foolish yes, because even in my doubt… I could feel the presence of God…without realizing it at the moment. Only now in looking back, am I sure. Like a mockingbird whose song has simply become part of the background of my home…whose song I hear even when he stops singing…without realizing it because his song now lives inside of me.
Vs 29-But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.”
Jesus starts on his way, and the disciples invite him to stay…We don’t know why. Was it kindness, hospitality, or was it because there was something familiar about him, something comforting in the way he spoke, was
We were together…I forget the rest.
And then…they sit down for dinner…. Something they must have done countless times together while living together…traveling together…
And in the taking and blessing and sharing of the bread……They see him. Not by some miracle, not in anything extraordinary, not an angel, no sky parting, no transfiguration, not voice of God’s, no dove… but in the simple act of sharing bread… This is where they recognize Jesus Christ…Over the need for food. That most basic common need is what we have in common from the day we enter our mother’s womb…Food sustains and food nourishes, and it is such a basic part of our lives, we forget to see it for the extraordinary blessing it is. Because eating has become a natural part of our existence.
Over a loaf of bread, Jesus shows up and then disappears again.
We were together…I forget the rest…
~~~~~
The majestic gifts of our lives get mixed up in the mundane ordinary experience of these gifts. When an extraordinary mockingbird becomes part of your ordinary home, and your extraordinary wife becomes part of your ordinary marriage, and your extraordinary friends become part of your ordinary routine…. And the love that lives in them and the love that lives in you all become one love, one body in Jesus Christ… we can be disbelieving in our joy…or we can dismiss it as just another Sunday.
When something becomes a part of you, if even for a minute, and then disappears…only to come back again, trust it as Christ. Experience it as real. God is a part of you. Jesus living inside of you, inside of us and between us…connecting us, until we become a part of one another…a part of the same body…part of the same home…
"We were together. I forget the rest.” May you know Christ this way always, as he is with you, and you are together.
What else is there to know?
Amen.