Risk. Dream. Hope.

 

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Georgetown, DE

Sirach 26:10 on Facebook and St. Paul's Facebook Page
Easter Day - April 17, 2022

 

It’s always so good to see so many faces here in church. Although, occasions like this always remind me of my very first church and the first time I met what is known as a “C&E Christian”.

Do you know about “C&E Christians”? Hang on, I’ll tell you.

 

I was Assistant Rector at Memorial Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. I had arrived in June. By Christmas, I thought I had visited almost every household in the church, and while I thought I knew most everyone, there were new faces at that midnight Christmas Eve service.

 

At the end of the service, one man greeted me at the door, introduced himself and said, “You’re new here, aren’t you?” Since June, I said.

“Well then, maybe you can help me,” he said. “The Altar Guild really needs help.” Oh? said I. “Yes,” said he.

“They need some inspiration. Some creativity.” Oh? said I. “Yes,” said he.

“You see, every time I come here, the altar is festooned with either poinsettias or lilies. It’s so boring. They need a change.”

 

And even though it was well after midnight and I was tired, I realized then and there that I had just met my first unashamed, self-affirming, unrepentant “Christmas and Easter Christian.”

 

No one like that here this morning, right?

 

This is our second Easter back in this church building since the pandemic began. We are slowly, slowly, slowly, returning to something that seems something closer to normal. Last year, we were thankful just to be able to be together again in church. Six feet apart. Masks on. No singing. But that was okay. We were back together and that was something beyond sublime.

 

This year, most of us can see each other’s faces. We can sing the hymns of our faith without masks and with great gusto. The choir is even courageously trying out new mass settings of music.

We can now stand closer together – although, if we get another “surge” of another “variant”, there are still red circles on the floor that will tell us how to “social distance”. And, I think we still have two whole cases filled with antiseptic hand wash.

 

Not only did we have a liturgical New Fire and a few other innovations (well, for this church), this morning, we have a hard-working Altar Guild who worked HOURS yesterday morning to polish and shine this church, as well as a whole new crew of acolytes and torch bearers and Eucharistic ministers. I could not be more proud of them.

And, this morning, for the first time in three Easters, we will be able to receive both bread and wine at communion. (More on that later.)

 

Even if it weren’t Easter today, it would still feel like there’s resurrection in the air. This little church is slowly coming out of the tombs and monuments to the past and the silos it built out of anxiety and fear. We are learning, once again, what it means to be a community of faith – to work together toward a common goal, and purpose and a vision and mission, each of us taking our part and working toward the common wealth of the community.

 

The truth of it is that we came so close to death, you could smell the resurrection. New life now seems to be around every corner in this place and if you listen, you can hear the crackle of excitement and possibility and hope.

 

In the midst of all this wonder, I am also keenly aware that many of us came to church this morning much like the women in Luke’s gospel came to the tomb that first Easter Day.

 

Luke’s gospel is very clear that it was the women who were there. He names them: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the Mother of James, and the other women. They tried to tell the others, what they saw – the stone rolled away, the tomb empty, the two men in dazzling clothes who told them that Jesus has risen – but the men would not believe them.

 

And, after the events of the last three days, who could blame them, really? It’s hard to hope when your heart has been broken by grief. It’s difficult to dream when the reality of your world has been violently turned upside down. It’s impossible to see beyond what is right here and right now when fear and the constant hum of anxiety have scattered thick clouds in your sight.

 

Some of us are still bearing our own burdens of loss or a sense of having been betrayed or not having been forgiven for something that happened so many years ago we can’t even remember the particulars of our sins – we just know that the forgiveness we seek is illusive and hopeless.

 

Others of us are anxious about a medical condition, a treatment plan, upcoming surgery. Still others of us are grieving the loss of a loved one – recent or many years past. Holidays can be unbearable for those who grieve. Memories can bring tears or laughter – or a mixture of both.

 

I confess that I have been grieving these last three days. His name was Lenny. Some of you have met Lenny. He was our 17.5 year old Shih-Tzu. He was a sweet, sweet soul but he had aged terribly in the past year. In addition to his arthritis, he had cataracts and he was deaf. His Vet said that he was in Congestive Heart Failure.

 

It was time for him to go. We knew that. Our heads knew that. Our hearts told a different story.

 

What has helped has been telling “Lenny” stories. Let me tell you one: A favorite family story about Lenny involved one of his sisters, Coco Chanel, a sassy Havanese. Coco would come downstairs to the TV room and, if she happened to see Lenny sitting on the lap of one of his humans where she had intended to sit, would devise a fairly simple trick to get Lenny to move.

 

Coco would suddenly start barking and run up the stairs into the kitchen. Always willing to protect and defend his family, Lenny would take off up the stairs, following her lead, barking at the back entrance kitchen door. At which point, Ms. Coco would literally turn tail and head back down the stairs, jump up on the chair and settle into her human’s lap, leaving Lenny upstairs looking at the kitchen door and feeling very self-righteous for having saved his humans, yet again, from a possible thief or rapist or annoying bible salesman.

Lenny fell for that trick. Every. Single. Time.

His humans thought it very entertaining. They called it “Dog-TV”.

 

In telling “Lenny” stories, I’ve come to realize that we have learned that particular coping mechanism from church. In church, we tell the stories of our faith every Sunday. We relive the central story of our faith once a year in Holy Week. We actually put ourselves in the story and re-enact the story with our voices and our bodies, with drama and music, walking the steps of The Way of the Cross, waving palm fronds, and actually hammering nails into a cross.

 

This is how we keep faith alive. This is how we nourish hope. This is how we risk and dare to dream audacious dreams that we might be made whole and be resurrected and find new life as a community of faith. This is how we are able to see clearly that the tomb is not empty – NO! –  but that it is actually filled with possibility and imagination and new life.

 

All of that . . . all of that . . .the hope, the dreams, the risking and the daring…. is possible because of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. That is why we tell the stories. Again and again. That is why we sing the old, old hymns of our faith. That is why, even in the midst of death and the pain of the loss of a loved one, we can still laugh at old memories and be comforted by them. Be healed by them. Be nourished and fed by them.

 

Easter is the day when we hear the news again that love has conquered death. Once and for all. Death has not won forever. Only love is eternal. And, no one can separate us from that love – as St. Paul preached, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

So, if I don’t see some of you again until Christmas – or perhaps not until next Easter – I want you to hear that. You may be separated from us, but nothing can separate you from the love of God. Not even you.

 

Happy Easter, my friends. Rejoice with me. Alleluia! The Lord is Risen.

 

The Lord is Risen, indeed! Alleluia.

 

Amen.