Tuesday, April 24, 2012

This Message Will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds



Psalm 4; Luke 24:36-48

            How is Missions Sunday like being an international government spy?  Well, before we can get to the punch line and the “Mission: Impossible” analogy I know you’re all waiting for, we need to set some background first. 
            First, this is the last chapter of the Gospel of Luke that we just read from.  It’s not the end of Luke’s story, because he also wrote the book of Acts, but it is the end of his Gospel.  This chapter begins with Jesus’ resurrection, when the women went to the tomb and found it empty and an angel told them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”  And the women go and tell the disciples.  Then, what Luke relates next isn’t about Thomas like we read last week, but about the road to Emmaus.  To refresh your memory, this is about the two followers of Jesus who are so discouraged by his crucifixion and the empty tomb and the report that he’s risen but no one’s seen him, that they leave town and go walking from Jerusalem to the town of Emmaus.  Along the road, Jesus joins them, only, kinda like a spy, they don’t recognize him.  Jesus asks why they’re so mopey and dejected.  They ask him if he lives under a rock because how on earth could he not have heard about what’s been going on in Jerusalem?!  They explain they were followers of this guy Jesus, who they thought was going to save Israel, and then their authorities crucified him.  And then three days later, his tomb is empty.  So, they’ve skipped town.  Jesus responds by interpreting the Scriptures to them, how Moses and all the prophets show that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and then to enter into his glory.  They get to Emmaus and Jesus makes like he’s going to go on, but they invite him to come eat with them.  Of course, Jesus breaks the bread and while he’s breaking the bread these two guys realize it’s Jesus!  And as they realize it’s him, he vanishes, again, kinda like a good spy, there one second and gone the next.  These two guys are so awestruck that they’ve just seen Jesus that they go back the way they’ve just come, all the way back to Jerusalem, to tell the others. 
And it’s as they are telling the others that our Gospel story today picks up with Jesus entering the room while they’re all gathered and talking about who’s seen him and who hasn’t.  Now, these others include the eleven remaining disciples, including Peter who has seen him, plus some other followers, or in today’s parlance, groupies.  Jesus has kinda concentric circles of people who hang out with him.  There’s the crowds who see him when he comes to their town, there’s the folks who have followed him all over everywhere, the groupies, there’s the twelve disciples who he handpicked, and even within the twelve, he often chooses Peter, James, and John to do special things with him, like witness his transfiguration or pray in the garden of Gethsemane with him.  So, the eleven disciples plus some followers are in this room that Jesus enters and says “Peace be with you.”  Now, of all the people in the room, three of them have already seen Jesus post-resurrection.  Everyone else has heard their firsthand reports, but apparently no one believes them because they all react to Jesus as though he’s a ghost.  Now, even though they just lived through Jesus’ passion and heard reliable firsthand witnesses of his resurrection, they still didn’t believe it.  Pastor Ken talked about doubt in his sermon last week and his final point was that “doubt disappears when we meet the risen Lord for ourselves.”  When we meet the risen Lord for ourselves, like Thomas in last week’s Gospel lesson and like others of Jesus’ followers in this week’s lesson, when we meet the risen Lord for ourselves, doubt disappears.  Jesus had to prove he wasn’t a ghost but was there in the flesh.  Just like with Thomas, he invited folks to touch him and see that it was really him.  He also ate some fish, because ghosts don’t eat.  They’ve heard Jesus was risen from the dead, now for the first time they see for themselves. 
Jesus had to get past their fear first.  If you remember, these folks have locked themselves in the upper room out of fear.  Jesus addresses their fear and disbelief first.  It really is him.  Then, just like on the road to Emmaus, he explains the Scriptures to them.  Minds cannot be opened when they are trapped by fear.  Jesus calms their fears and then he opens their minds to understand the Scriptures.  What has stuck with me all week with this passage is that even though they know the Scriptures, they still need them explained to them.  Even though they’ve studied the Scriptures, and we’re talking about the law of Moses, or the Torah, the first five books of the bible, plus all the prophets plus the psalms, so most of what we know as the Old Testament; even though like all good Jews they have read them and studied them, Jesus still has to interpret them to them.  It’s a repeat of what he did on the road to Emmaus, explaining how the Messiah has to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, that’s it’s all there in the Scriptures.  The Old Testament is all about Jesus!  What it also shows, though, is a difference between knowing and understanding.  We are living in the Information Age.  We have knowledge at our fingertips, literally.  We don’t have to go to the library or ask an expert.  We can whip out our smart phone or i-pad or anywhere with the internet, which is almost everywhere, and look up what we want to know.  However, how much of that knowledge do we actually understand?  How much of that knowledge can we actually attribute meaning to?  Knowing is not the same as understanding.  Knowing what the Bible says is not the same as understanding it.  Being able to quote the bible is not the same as living out the Word of God.  We are not Christians who each live on their own separate island but part of the Christian community.  We test our own interpretations against Christian tradition, reason, the Scriptures, and experience.  We don’t do this on our own and we don’t gain understanding on our own.  Just as Jesus had to interpret the Scriptures to his own disciples and followers, even after they’d lived through his passion and resurrection, so we need them interpreted to us.  That’s what we do when we come to church, when we study the bible, when we pray and listen for the Spirit’s moving.  Knowing and understanding are two different things.  It reminds me of a science teacher I had in high school.  Her tests were pretty standard multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, and short answer.  However, her make-up tests, which I had to take one time, were not.  Those tests were strictly essay.  Write everything you know about protein synthesis.  Essays are harder because if you just string facts together and throw in vocabulary words like ribosomes and uracil and thymine, your writing isn’t very coherent.  To write a good essay, you have to show understanding of the facts and the terms.  It’s the difference between knowing and understanding.  You can know that grace is the unconditional love of God, but until you’ve experienced it, you can’t understand it. 
            Finally, getting back to Jesus and his followers, even though they’ve been his followers for three years, day in and day out for most of them, Jesus still has to commission them to be his witnesses to all the nations.  Jesus still has to call them.  Jesus still has to give them a mission.   “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” is to be witnesses and proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations.  We don’t do anything without a call.  Agents don’t act without a mission.  There’s no story, no plot, no TV show or movie, without a call, a mission.  We don’t just do good things because we’re Christians.  We do the specific tasks that God calls us to do.  Before seminary, when God called me to serve him overseas and I was researching different mission agencies, I found that some of them have very vague mission statements.  In effect, they say, “we do mission work because we’re Christians and we’re supposed to do good things like that.”  The one that I served with said we do this because we’re called to do this, we have a specific goal with a specific end in mind and specific means of how we go about it and why we go about it how we go about it and we know when we’ve accomplished our goal because we have specific ways to measure it.  God doesn’t call us to do vague good things; he calls us to specific ways of serving him.  When I was preparing to serve in Nicaragua, my mom asked about the needs here in North Carolina and just why I had to go to Nicaragua to serve God when I could do it here.  My answer was that God had called me to serve him in Nicaragua; at that time in my life God wasn’t calling me to serve him in North Carolina, like he is now.  At that time, God was asking me to walk with his people in Nicaragua.  At this time God wants me here, walking with y’all.  We are not called to all ministries in all places and all times but to specific ministry.  That’s part of why we don’t all have the same gifts.  Of course, sometimes the ministry corresponds to your God-given gifts, and sometimes it doesn’t.  Sometimes God calls the equipped and sometimes he equips the called.  Pastor Ken has a natural gift for speaking and preaching; I don’t, yet I’m also called to preach.  So the question is: what are you called to do?  What stirs your heart?  What has God put on your heart?  Is it something you’re ready to do or something you need some training in? 
            In your bulletin is a missions survey.  There are lots of specific ways we offer for you to serve God.  If the one you feel God calling you to isn’t listed on here, there’s a space where you can write it in.  What is your mission?  How is God asking you to serve him today, this month, this year?  Take a second to pray about it, reflect on it, and follow the Spirit’s leading.  And [air quotes] “as always, should any of you be caught or killed…” so what?  We know who we serve and we know where we’re going when we leave this earth. We also know that when we’re following the Lord’s will for our lives, we’re in the safest place we can be because we’re serving him.  What better place is there to be?

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