Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · April 15, 2007

Second Sunday of Easter

Prayer of the Day

God of hope and new life, thank you for the invitation into abundant life with you now.  May our encounter with you give us the courage and the words to tell others about the life we know and the love we have experienced through the risen Christ.  Amen.

Scripture

John 20:19-23

One of the Scriptures suggested for the Church to consider today comes from the gospel of John.  They are the verses that follow immediately after the verses that were our Easter Scriptures from last Sunday.  They were the verses in which Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb, runs to tell the disciples, and then has her encounter and experience with Jesus.  Our Scripture today begins with Verse 19.

When it was evening on that day, the day of resurrection, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so send I you.”  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.  If you retrain the sins of any, they are retained.”

May God give wisdom and understanding of this Word for us today.

Message

Now What?

Kim Ryan

Here we are.  It is the Sunday after Easter.  The beauty and the scent of the lilies are fading just a bit.  The crowds have thinned somewhat.  They always do.  The chocolate bunnies at my house are diminishing.  Or in my case, already gone.

I, for one, am relieved that it is after Easter, mostly because it means those 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter are over.  Those 40 days in which Christians traditionally give up something or take on something – a practice or a habit.  So Easter’s being over means Lent is over, and thank goodness!  Because, this year for Lent, I gave up fretting and whining.  Then I made a really big mistake.  I told people.  I told my colleagues, my family, and my friends, “I’m giving up fretting and whining for Lent.” 

So I spent the 40 days before Easter with people saying to me, “That’s not fretting, is it?”  “You wouldn’t be whining, would you?”

Note to self:  Next year, I’m not telling anybody what I give up for Lent.

Sure enough, Monday morning, the day after Easter, at staff meeting, Jacob, our youth minister, looked at me and said, “So, now what?  You going back to fretting and whining?”

Only time will tell.  You may remember Rick said it takes 40 days to change a habit, so we’ll see.  Now I’m really wishing I hadn’t told all of you about the fretting and whining thing, because now you can hold me accountable.

But in the midst of Jacob’s teasing question, “Now what?” is the really important question for after Easter.  “Now what?”  We find ourselves this morning, as the proverbial fly on the wall, looking into the locked room, from the gospel of John.  It is where the disciples are huddled in fear, following the crucifixion and following Mary Magdalene’s amazing declaration to them, “I have seen the Lord!”

“Now what?” they must have been asking themselves.

We know that question on some level.  Don’t we?  That big holiday is over, and on the evening before school starts on Monday, the routine re-establishes itself for the week ahead.  We pause, “Now what?”

We know it when big life events occur.  They push you out of the hospital with a new baby in your arms.  They have to push you out of the hospital, because otherwise, you would just stay there.  As they push you out of the hospital with a new baby in your arms, you think, “Now what?”

Or a child starts kindergarten, or graduates from high school or college, and the parents think, “Now what?”  That’s not to mention what the child is thinking.

Or a child drops out of high school or college, and everyone thinks, “Now what?”

Or a career is ending.  Age and the protocol of retirement whisper relentlessly, “Now what?” 

Or there is a diagnosis.  “Now what?”  There is an illness – sudden or extended.  There is death.  Everything changes, and those left behind wonder, “Now what?”

We can empathize, can’t we, with these disciples?  Let’s just hide away.  Let’s just lock the door.  Let’s just let life go on around us, without us.  But the question wraps on our seclusion, and on our fears, and our apprehension.  The question bridges us into the next step of life and living, if we let it.  “Now what?”

And Jesus steps right into the seclusion, right into the hiding, right into the apprehension, right into the fear, and says, “Peace be with you.”  Those are sweet words.  Aren’t they?  “Peace be with you.”  We love that part.

Then Jesus says, “Go.  God sent me.  I’m sending you.  Go!  Go be agents for release and freedom and forgiveness, not for captivity.”  Jesus breathes the holy presence and power of the Spirit among them, and within them, and between them.  “Go,” he tells them.  “And now what?”

Well, we are the “now what.”  We are here this morning because someone heard the question, asked the question.  We’re here singing songs.  We’re praying prayers.  We’re centering our lives, and the lives of our families, and the lives of this community – grounding in God – because someone asked the question, “Now what?”  Someone listened to the leadings of the Living Presence of Christ.  Someone shared an experience, an encounter they had which freed them and empowered them.  We are here, thanks be to God.

So, have you heard it?  Can you hear it?  If you’re here today for the first time, you may not have heard it.  But if you come back…  Well, let’s just say, “When you come back.”  When you come back, I’m betting you will hear it soon.  You will hear it because the very walls of this church are shimmering, “Now what?”  The new bricks, the new basketball goals, the new music center, the exquisite Sunday School rooms, the years of hopes and dreams and prayers fulfilled.  At last!  The new life.  All are asking, “Now what?”

And we could hide.  We could hide in this wonderful building.  We could lock the doors to keep it safe and to keep us safe.  We could let life go on around us, without us.  Or we could hear the heartbeat of the Spirit:  “What now; what now; what now; what now?”

I’d like to share an experience I had last summer with you.  I attended a class for a month in San Francisco.  It was really rough, let me tell ya’.  It was a training in spiritual direction, but we didn’t just talk about prayer and spiritual processes.  We didn’t just listen to lectures about that.  We did do those things, but we were invited into experiences – new experiences and practices.  In fact, every morning, for an hour, for 30 days, we practiced an experience – some different kind of prayer.  It was a little intense.

One morning we were being led into a prayer practice known as centering prayer, in which one becomes quiet, and still, and focused in on one’s breathing – just breathing in and breathing out.  Letting go of words, letting go of thoughts, letting yourself become quieted and settled, kind of like a pond that’s been stirred up, and the dirt and mud  then begins to settle. 

It’s suggested you have one or maybe two words that you can repeat in your mind as you’re centering, so that when your mind starts to wander, you can say that word, and it will bring you back to a centered focus.  Words like “Jesus” or “Have mercy.” 

Some of you have heard me say this before.  I am not good at this kind of prayer.  The inside of my mind is a busy place.  There are just lots of things to think about, lots to plan, lots to organize, and lots to fret over.  So, this is not easy for me.  This does not come naturally to me, this kind of prayer.  But I have always been a very obedient student, so I’m trying really hard.  I’ve got my centering word.  I chose the centering word, “Empty,” because I thought that would be a good word, just to try to empty out all of that stuff that was swirling in my head.  So, there’s my word: “Empty.”  I’m focused.  I’m remembering to breathe, which sometimes we don’t.  I’m remembering to breathe, and I’m returning to my word, “Empty,” as necessary to help me stay focused, and often, to help me stay focused.

After about 20 minutes of this, a question from someplace deep within came to the surface of my mind.  “Why are you still living in the empty tomb?”  That was the question.  “Why are you still living in the empty tomb?”  I heard it.  It was a voice, but not a voice.  I felt it.  I thought, “What?”  I started arguing with the voice.  “What?  That’s not the kind of empty I was talking about.  That’s not what I was wanting.  Why are you still living in the empty tomb?”

That question grabbed me and has grabbed me ever since.  It is a question I’ve continued to ask myself and to explore its meaning for my life.  I believe it was a question of the Spirit, with a capital S.

One thing I immediately thought about, and I realized that Mary Magdalene, on the day of the resurrection and following, could have chosen to stay in the empty tomb.  She knew the resurrection had happened.  “Praise God.”  She could have camped herself right there.  She could have made a shrine.  She could have lit a candle.   Then she could have just let those who wandered by stumble upon the news and the truth as she waved to them from the front of the cave.

Most recently the question has been teasing me to explore it in relationship to Church.  Not just this church, but churches in general.  We, who are today’s witnesses to the living Christ, as that beautiful choir anthem described it and spoke of it.  Are we, perhaps, living within the empty tomb?  Just metaphorically speaking?  We believe in the living resurrection power of Jesus Christ.  We have experienced its healing, its hope, its challenge, its peace.  We believe in the resurrection.  Are we waving?  Are we just waving at the entrance of the tomb?

From what we are told in the gospel of John, we know Mary did not stay at the empty tomb.  She left that place.  She left that place of encounter with Christ, and she went to others to say, “I have seen the Lord!”

The disciples didn’t stay in their places of seclusion, or fear, or hiding, or apprehension.  They went to others to share their encounters of the living Christ, or we wouldn’t be here.

So, that question:  “Now what?”  That’s our question.  That’s your question, and my question, and our question as a community of faith.  “Now what?”

Gay Reese, a Disciples minister, along with our own area minister, Kris Tenny-Brittian, did extensive research with thousands of congregation, thousands of people, exploring that very question.  How is that Christians in churches follow the encouragement of Christ to go beyond the safety zone of the locked room and beyond the safety zone of empty tombs? 

Several of us in this church have been reading Gay’s book, Unbinding the Gospel, as we anticipate her visit with us this next week.  It’s pretty simple.  What they discovered is people will come to church if they have never even been to church.  People will come to church if someone invites them.  If someone invites them to a worship service, to a big event, to a fellowship dinner, to Sunday School.  Just like Bill and Juanita Powell, years and years ago, invited the young family of Dick and Mary Ann Barb.  They said, “Come visit our church.  Come to a fellowship dinner.  You don’t have to bring anything.”  What a great welcome.  And the Barbs are with us this morning, and they’ve been here ever since that invitation.

It’s an invitation.  But even before the invitation, even before asking, comes prayer.  That’s what Gay and Kris discovered in their research.  What must come first is prayer.  Whatever happens next begins with and is sustained by prayer. 

So, you have a prayer of Gay’s that is from her book.  With Gay’s permission, we have printed this prayer.  I ask you to take this prayer with you this morning.  We are going to pray it together this morning, but I ask you to take it with you, put it some place you’re going to see it.  Would you pray this prayer with me and with others of this congregation for the next 40 days?  Let’s see what happens.  What does God want to do with us in the next 40 days?  Please pray with me…

Oh, Lord, how can I help people see your face?  Who do you want me to pray for?  Show me today, lead me to the ones you can reach through me.  Please show us how our church can serve you, how we can better organize ourselves to help you.  Let us be a part of what you want to do next.

Amen.

Now, if by chance you misplace your prayer, and you think, “What did I do with that?  Where is that?  What was I supposed to pray?”  Just by chance if that should happen, just pray, “Now what?”

I trust God will answer.

And we say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

We have a story to tell the nations.  Let us not hide or be silenced by fear.  Embolden our hearts to put voice to our faith.  We are your redeemed; you are our resurrected Lord.  Let us say so!  Amen.