Do You Love Me?--sermon preached by Shirley Dasher-Strader on April 25, 2010

Scripture:   John 21- 1-19  Click here to go to scripture.

Have you ever blurted out something without thinking it through or done something without really looking at what the consequences or repercussions could be?  Have you ever said something so hurtful that as soon as you said it, you wished you could take it back…but you couldn’t or ever betrayed someone you love, or done something destructive to a relationship with someone you have committed your life to, that you can’t undo…there is no “do over”?   Have you ever replayed different scenarios in your head of how you would have done it differently if only you had the chance to make it right?

            Do you remember how it felt?  Or maybe more importantly, are you feeling that now?  Are you living in that place now?  If any of that rings true for you then Peter’s story will resonate with you…if it doesn’t then less just say, welcome to Peter’s world.  In our reading today from the Gospel of John, we take an intimate look at one of the transforming moments in Peter’s life.  This last chapter is often referred to as John’s Epilogue.  An Epilogue is a short chapter or section at the end of story that often details the fate of the characters in the story.

 I think it serves as a beautiful bridge to help us understand what transpired between the time of Peter’s denials of Jesus and the day of Pentecost, when he would truly began to live out his call as Peter, the Rock, upon which Jesus would build his church.  Most of us know the story of Peter’s denying he knew Jesus three times after Jesus was arrested.  But, how did he get past what must have been for him an unforgiveable offense of denying Jesus, for contradicting everything he had professed regarding Jesus?   How could he let go of what must have been almost unbearable guilt and shame for what he did? 

Remember Peter was boastful and prideful in the way he spoke in front of the other disciples regarding his faithfulness to Jesus.   He was the one who said earlier in John’s Gospel that he would “lay down his life for Jesus”, or in Matthew and Mark he said “though others may fall away because of you, I will never fall away”, to even going as far to say in Luke, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death”.   This is the same man who only hours later would give in to his own fear and doubt and betray the one whom he professed to love so deeply.  How does one live with that?  What do you do with that heavy a burden?   

The Good News is that God knows what is in our heart; the pain, shame and guilt that we carry, but has other plans for us…far greater plans.  This story is Peter’s story but it is also our story too.

As we take a look at the very beginning of this reading, Peter and some of the other disciples are back at the Sea of Galilee.  And what is he doing?  He’s back doing the same old thing he used to do before he met Jesus.  Three years have gone by since he came to know Jesus by these very same shores and left it all behind to follow him.  Three years of witnessing miracles and healings, talking, walking and eating with the Messiah, being taught amazing things and learning at the feet of the Son of God. 

Yet, here he is now, right  back to where it all began, doing the same old, same old…going back to what he knew, what is comfortable, living in the past.

 It is safer, you know.  You know what to expect, you don’t have to answer to anyone, you don’t have to worry about letting anyone else down nor setting yourself up for failure again.   Sound familiar?

            Ahhh, if only it were that easy, Peter.       Jesus has other plans for you.  

After they had fished all night and were getting ready to come in as dawn was breaking, a voice calls out from the shore.  “Friends, haven’t you caught anything?  “No, we sure haven’t”.   “Try throwing your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.”   You know they were probably on that boat thinking “Whatever” but they did it and were unable to even bring the net in because it was so full.   It was suddenly like déjà vu.  Now one of them realized why the voice had sounded so familiar.  “It is the Lord” he shouted, and with that, Peter was in the water heading to land leaving the rest behind. That’s Peter… impulsive, passionate, well intentioned but still at this point…unreliable Peter.

When he gets to the shore, Jesus has a fire going to provide warmth and prepare the breakfast.  Not just any fire but specifically a charcoal fire.  Imagine what must have been going through Peter’s mind as he walked out of the water and made eye contact with Jesus across that charcoal fire.  The last time he saw Jesus and had denied him, Peter was standing at a charcoal fire warming himself.     Talk about bringing home all the memories of that horrible night and what happened afterwards!  Imagine all the emotions, all those feelings of guilt and shame; they must have been almost unbearable for Peter.

But what does Jesus do?  He feeds Peter and the rest.  He breaks bread with them once again; he provides nourishment, warmth, and a safe and welcoming presence.    Does he take this opportunity to rake Peter over the coals for what he did? No.  Did he tell Peter how disappointed he was in him? No.  Did he bring up the past and remind Peter of all the things he said and then didn’t do?   No.    What does Jesus do?  He simply asks Him “Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?  And he answers, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.         Then Jesus said, “Feed my Lambs.”

  Notice that Jesus doesn’t call him Peter but calls him “Simon, son of John”; it is like when our parents or teachers call us by our full name.  This is meant to get our attention and I don’t know about you but it certainly gets mine whenever I hear “Shirley Sue Strader!”  But unfortunately for me, usually when I heard my name used in that way, the person saying it probably wasn’t displaying the same compassion, patience and understanding that Jesus did!

Also, there is something very telling in the words that Jesus and Peter use here to describe Love.  In the English language we use one word when we speak of love.  We say things like “I love you” or “I love your new golf cart”, or “I love how you play pickle ball” one word fits all so to speak.  Whether you are speaking of a person, object or action, we use one word.

But in Greek, there are different words used to describe the different forms of love.  There is eros, which is a sexual intimate type of love or lust, from which we get the word “erotic”.  Then there is the word philo or phileo which is an affectionate type of love, a friendly love, a brotherly love from which we get the word Philadelphia or the city of brotherly love.

Then we have the highest form of love, agape love.  It is a self giving love, a sacrificial love, as in the love God has for this world and for us.  A love that we are called to embody as followers of Christ.  When Jesus asks Simon “Do you truly love me”, Jesus uses agape. But when Simon answers him, Simon uses philo.   You can almost envision Simon with his head down, having difficulty making eye contact with Jesus. It is as if he is saying Lord, you know that I have a really deep affection for you, you are like a brother to me.   But Simon is being honest here, authentic, real… he hadn’t shown Jesus agape love, that sacrificial kind of love, when the rubber met the road, when it was time to put his talk into action…how could he respond to Jesus’ question any other way...truthfully.  Jesus was not deterred; he still voiced his confidence in Simon by saying “Feed my lambs”.  Jesus was still entrusting him with a crucial responsibility and had no intention of letting the past interfere with the plan he had for Simon’s life.  Jesus was in essence telling Peter to “Let it go”!     Don’t dwell in the past, don’t stay in your comfort zone, there is much work to be done!

When Jesus asks Simon a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you truly love me?”  He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you”.    Again, Jesus uses agape and Simon answers with philo.   But Jesus isn’t fazed by it. He still says, “Take care of my sheep”.  Jesus is letting Peter know that he is still calling on him to take on even more responsibilities and challenges as he goes forth in his ministry.   Jesus is calling on Simon to move on with his life, to take hold of the life that he has been designed for.  Jesus is letting Simon know that he trusts him, that Simon has the gifts and the abilities that are needed to continue the work which Jesus started.  Jesus is encouraging Simon as he passes him the baton.

And in the third and final exchange, which also matches the number of denials Peter made, an interesting twist occurs.   When Jesus asks Simon this one last time, “Do you love me”, Simon answers “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you” and then Jesus says “Feed my sheep”.  But this time Jesus uses the word philo too, rather than agape.  There are some scholars and theologians that debate the relevance of the differing uses of the Greek words for love in this passage, but, I stand with those who see a real significance and a deeper purpose in the change of words that Jesus used.  It is Jesus meeting Peter where he was.   It was a way for Jesus to connect with Peter, to let Peter know it’s ok, to let Peter know “I am right here with you”.  

“Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you”.  Jesus can work with that.  Jesus knows Peter’s heart, his strengths, his weaknesses, his passion and his love for him.   Jesus also knows that right now Peter is coming from a place of woundedness, a place of guilt and shame and Jesus wants him to know that all is forgiven, all is well.     It has not changed God’s plan.   “Feed my sheep”. 

Jesus renamed him Peter for a reason.  He was to be the rock upon which the church would be built.  Jesus knew what would happen with Peter.   Peter just didn’t know what would happen to Peter!.  Peter received the gift of grace.  He experienced that gift of complete forgiveness.  He was redeemed.  He was reaffirmed.  He was reinstated.  He was resurrected.  This is the beauty and richness of Easter.  We all are resurrected! 

Whatever it is that we are holding onto, whatever is keeping us tied to the past that prevents us from experiencing the fullness of the love of Jesus, Jesus is telling us to let it go!    Guilt, shame, self pity and self doubt are not of God.

 If we don’t let it go, then our focus will always be on us and not on God and God’s will for our lives.   If we continue to hold onto those things and emotions that are not of God, we hold ourselves back from experiencing agape love, the love God has for us and the love God desires for us to share with all God’s people.  So if Jesus were to ask you the question he posed to Peter “Do you love me?”  How would you answer?  Which word would you use or would you have a totally different answer? However you answer it, know that God is right there with you every step of the way, each and every day, saying, “Follow me.”  May you find encouragement and peace and open yourself up to agape love as you answer that question and follow God’s lead.

When You Least Expect It--Sermon preached on April 18, 2010

Scripture Reading:  John 20: 19-29  Click here to read scripture.              

  This sermon follows in a rather strange way upon last week’s sermon where we talked about  expecting Jesus to break into our lives.  This week I am here to tell you that even when you least expect it, God, out of great love for us, steps in and gives you a miracle.  This is the message in the Gospel that we heard today.  Now most of the time, people who preach on this passage focus on the second half,  the section on Thomas and his doubts.  And there is good reason to do that—people need to know that it is all right to have doubts, to be human as it were, to need the reassurance from Jesus that He is who He said he was.  But today we will look at the first section of the passage, that miraculous, unexpected visitation by Jesus on His now fairly motley crew of defeated, depressed, terrified disciples.

                Where do we find these disciples?  We find them locked up in a house fearing for their lives.  We can envision in our mind’s eye this picture…Here is a group of tired, frightened men and women huddled together, almost paralyzed with fear, without direction, and having no idea of where to go from there.  Imagine, if you will, this group of folks, gathered around each other in fear and trepidation and contemplate their surprise when Jesus suddenly appears to them.  See them leaping to their feet and surrounding Jesus in wonder and awe as He stands among them. 

                Notice that  John does not record that the disciples were gathered together praying and seeking God’s direction.  They, more than likely, were not.  In fact, if they had the energy to speak at all, we can suppose they were engaged in variations on the theme of “what do we do now?”  They were lost souls, adrift in fear and uncertainty and I, as I said last week, can identify. 

                We can only assume that these were lonely people.  They had lost their teacher, their friend.  They had heard from Mary Magdalene that Jesus was alive but we have no record that they had seen Him for themselves.  One thing is evident—they were not out looking for Jesus.  They were locked in a room, trying to figure out how to get on with life in the midst of what still seemed to them to be a tragedy.  And how many times do we find ourselves in similar places?  Life simply gets the better of us.  We come undone, we, at least on the inside, huddle in fear and insecurity.  People desert us or betray us, our bodies fail us, our jobs overwhelms us, our kids or partners break our hearts…We lose it….the assurance, the certainty that we will succeed, or live well, or have the skills and knowledge to do all that life demands.  We are no different from those disciples linked together by the loss of all they held dear, in fact, all they had known for the past months.

                And, then, seemingly out of nowhere,  Jesus appears and grants them peace.  Peace, that sometimes elusive, yet always desired feeling of knowing that everything is going to be ok.  Now  Jesus did not tell the disciples that the struggle was over, that life would be easy from here on out, or to go back to the safe, secure lives they had left behind when they answered His call to follow Him.  What He said was this, “Peace be with you.  As God has sent me, so I send you.”  Now, let’s think this though…What did God actually send Jesus to do?  Can you imagine what the disciples might have thought?  Hold on…wait a minute…this Jesus, our friend, our teacher, our master, just died on the cross after being beaten by Roman soldiers, humiliated, scorned, and tortured.  One would therefore assume  that the gift of God’s peace (precious though it is) does not mean that the battle is over.   But let me be a little clearer…

                I believe that God gives to all people at least two kinds of miracles…the first kind is the more obvious…a great need arises, an illness occurs, or a grief explodes with the intensity of a sudden landslide.  In our hour of despair, we turn to God for answers, or strength, or forgiveness, or health, in other words…a miracle.  And sometimes, a miracle occurs.

                The other kind of miracle is more subtle, and although probably more prevalent, and is more often missed.  This is the miracle that happened for the disciples at that moment “when they least expected it” and Jesus appeared.  And into our lives, even when we are not expecting it, our great and gracious God appears.

                I have told you before that the theologian who has most influenced my thinking is Jesuit priest and scholar, Henri Nouwen.  You may know that Nouwen was a world famous professor at Yale Divinity School.  Nevertheless, he lived out his last years working almost anonymously with mentally and physically disabled persons in a community in Toronto.  Speaking directly to those of us, and I mean all of us, engaged in ministry, he says:

                “The great vocation of the minister is to continuously make connections between the human story and the divine story… Healing means revealing that our human wounds are most intimately connected with the suffering of God.  To be a living memory of Jesus Christ, therefore, means to reveal the connections between our small sufferings and the great story of God’s suffering in Jesus Christ,…By connecting the human story with the story of Jesus, we allow our [lives] to be converted …, from a series of randomly organized incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity to explore God’s work in our lives. “

                Is this not exactly what Jesus did when He entered that locked room and appeared to that ragged group of followers.  Deserted, seemingly abandoned and in chaos, the disciples sat silenced in fear and uncertainty brought about by the utter brokenness and despair that descended on the disciples after the crucifixion of their teacher and friend.  In Jesus’ commission to the disciples, though, He does exactly what Henri Nouwen says we must do.  He connects his life to the life of the disciples when he says, “God sent me, now I’m sending you.”  However the earlier connecting or bonding together of the apparent tragedy of the crucifixion is necessary for the connecting and bonding of the mission of Jesus with the mission of the disciples.  They had to share the death and despair, if they were to share the life and victory of Jesus.  And in the same moment that Jesus appears in their midst and grants them peace, He links them, and us, forever with His life and purpose.  But they were not expecting any of this.         And I say to you, today, that we must be willing to recognize, claim, and celebrate those miracles that happen when we least expect them.  Being open to seeing God’s work in our lives makes miracles possible.  And Jesus not only grants them peace, He breathes on them and they receive the Holy Spirit.  This visible sign of the imparting of God’s peace caused God to be alive in the lives of the disciples…and in us.  And they weren’t even looking for it…

                Finally, what do the disciples do with this miracle?  They pass it on—as we move past the Lord’s ascension and Pentecost, we will see the disciples move out into their world.  They did not grasp tightly onto the miracle, and stay in that locked room.  They and we are a people charged with passing on miracles and Open Circle gives us untold opportunities to do just that.  The greater challenge, just as we saw last week, is staying open to the work of God in our lives “when we least expect it”…those gentle surprises, those “aha!” moments when it all suddenly makes sense, or when a friend meets your eyes across a table and you know you are loved.  Just as importantly, it is also the challenge of being open to being used to bring unexpected miracles into the lives of others.  This is the wonder of Jesus’ appearance to His friends and it is what He calls us to do for our friends and neighbors and ourselves.

                We celebrate Easter again today because we are resurrected people and we are called to accept the miracle of new life through Jesus.  Stay ready, catch the unexpected and when you catch it, drop it, quite by surprise into the lap of the person next to you…or the person across the street who won’t even see you coming.  When we greet each other today, remember the miracles you give to those with whom you exchange God’s peace.  And imagine the wonder of a life constantly open to seeing the work of god…imagine your life constantly open to seeing God’s work in it…imagine the miracle…Amen and amen.           

Feeling the Fire--Sermon preached on April 11

Scripture:  Luke 24: 13-32  (Click here to go to Biblegateway.com to read Scripture)

I love the passages relating to Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances—there is a certain relief in having the crucifixion over and knowing that everything Jesus said would happen came to pass…not that we didn’t believe Him before Easter Sunday, but…let’s face it, the whole “rising after three days thing” was a little unsettling until we saw it for ourselves.  The Jesus we encounter in these appearances is a very focused Jesus—points us directly to what happens next.  Our story today actually picks up on the evening of Easter, but it is a wonderful story, one which requires our attention even a week later. 

            Two of Jesus’ followers are walking home; they are hopeless, drowning in despair.  They talk intently to each other, trying in vain to make the events of the last 3 days make sense.  They had put so much hope into this Jesus.  They believed that He was who He said He was and here they are—broken, desolate, almost weak with disappointment.  Ever been there?  I have and it’s a place I never chose to go—but life has a way of throwing us curves, catching us off balance and it is easier than I would like to admit to find ourselves in that place of deep pain and sorrow. 

            Well, here they are limping along when, all of a sudden, a stranger appears.  He asks them to tell him what they are talking about.  They can’t believe that there is anyone who has not heard the news; but they recount the story of Jesus’ trial and death.  They admit their confusion at the events of the morning—all they really know is that Jesus’ body wasn’t where it was supposed to be—they’ve heard rumors, but it is all just empty talk to them.  Jesus then chastises them, calls them ‘slow’ and ‘thick’.  Jesus asks, “Why can’t you just believe?”  I can well imagine several points in my life when Jesus must have been asking, “Why can’t you just believe?”  Jesus gives these two travelers a history lesson they won’t soon forget.  Using the many prophecies which foretold of his birth, life, death and resurrection, he teaches them  how God’s word was fulfilled in front of them.  Still, they do not understand who He is…Not until they sit and eat with Him are their eyes opened.  And just as quickly, He is gone.

            What does this story say to us?  It is so easy for us to view these disciples as not really very bright, to condemn them for failing to keep the faith in the wake of what seemed like defeat, and to judge them for not believing and not remembering everything that Jesus told them was going to happen to Him and to them.  But this is hardly fair to them and it limits what we can learn as we approach the appearances of Jesus with fresh eyes this year.   

            Ultimately, the story about the disciples on the road to Emmaus is about the ability to grasp the moments when God is present in a very real way—not only as they are happening, but also as we reflect upon them after the fact and seek to grow from our encounters with God.  Jesus comes as the resurrected Christ to these two hopeless individuals and challenges them to learn from what he has to show them.  It does not matter to Jesus that they don’t know who He is at the time, He knows that God will use what He has revealed to them in God’s own way and God’s own time.  This is as true for us today as it was for these disciples. 

            Do we not routinely do the same things as these disciples did?  Things get desperately hard; we don’t understand what God is doing, we just can’t find the “feeling” we once had and God seems very far away.  It is not possible for God to seem any farther away than it felt for these two disciples in the wake of the death of their friend and teacher—the very man who told them of wonderful things to come, of promises of eternal life, of the in-breaking of God’s reign on this earth.  And yet, for them, when this man died, all of these hopes and dreams died with him.  And into their pain and despair comes this same Jesus.  How is it that they were unable to recognize Him?  They did not recognize Him because they did not expect to see Him.  With the death of their hopes and dreams, went their ability to trust that God was alive and working even in ways they could not see or understand.  And so, Jesus, walked with them for miles without them knowing who He was.  Amazing!

            They do, of course, eventually come to realize who He is—after He breaks bread with them.  And just as quickly as He appeared on the road He is gone; but they have been transformed.  Their recognition that they have walked and talked and dined with Jesus has changed their lives forever.  And then they realize that somewhere deep inside, their hearts were burning as He spoke with them.  Isn’t it interesting that they were able to reflect back and acknowledge, that in spite of the pain, something in them (their hearts!) burned with the knowledge that this person was God to them in their lives at that moment.  This causes me to wonder—how can we recognize the ‘burning in our hearts’ that tells us we are in the presence of God, sooner rather than later.   Imagine how different the conversation might have been had they recognized Jesus at the outset.  Instead of listening to Him lovingly lecturing them on what He had already taught them, they could have spent their day in adoration and gratitude to this man who had suffered and died for their salvation. 

            I can tell you of many people who have been God in my life—and, on rare occasions, I have known that I was in the presence of a messenger from God as they were speaking.  But, most of the time, I am no brighter than these disciples and things have to play out in my life before I realize the role that person or situation played in my life.  But because I have come to know the difference between being consciously in the presence of God and being in the presence of God and only later grasping the significance, it causes me to want to find ways to expect God to break into my life.  If the disciples on that road had been looking for Jesus, they would have seen Him right from the start. 

            And so, we as followers of this Jesus of Nazareth, seek ways to be aware of and alive to the workings of God’s Spirit in our world, in our time.  What would happen if we starting looking for the presence of God in every conversation that we have?  This is not to say that every conversation we have is necessarily of God, but in order not to miss a single one, should we not tolerate that possibility in each one?  What if I said, when someone challenges me or seems to put a roadblock in my way—God, I’m open if You want to use this person in my life.  How different would our experiences be if we allowed God to enter into every one?

            And what would happen if we starting looking for God in every sunset, every sunrise, every ocean and mountain—what if we said, “Ah, this is beautiful, God, I’m open to feeling the enormity of gratitude that I have for Your gifts right here, right now.  Imagine entering, at God’s invitation, the blessed place of presence, leading us to give voice to our grateful hearts.

            And what would happen if we started looking for God in every moment of pain, or isolation, or confusion—what if we said, “I don’t like this God, I don’t like it one bit, but I’m open to feeling You take me into Your loving arms and teaching me more about faith and believing and trusting in You than I’ve ever had the opportunity to learn before”.    I believe that God will honor every single time we do this, because God loves us as a mother loves her child.  And so, unlike the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we walk through life expectantly, heads up, scouting for God’s in-breaking into our lives. 

            We gladly pray with eyes wide open:

            God, wake us up to see You down every street, up every alley of our walks with You.

            God, shake us up, and give us an excited expectancy that You will speak to us through people we wouldn’t have chosen and situations that seemed inconsequential in times past.

            God, quake in us, and send us on our way to celebrate Your presence with hearts made new by the power of the resurrection of Jesus, Your Son.  Amen and Amen.

God So Loved--Sermon Preached at Open Circle on 4-4-2010

Scripture:  Luke 24: 1-12; John 3:16-17  Click on the passage to go to Bible Gateway

            

       Happy Easter!  What a wonderful day we are having and so now we come to that time when we look with new and fresh eyes at the Easter message.

I believe that if I asked most of you, regardless of your faith heritage, what the most learned, memorized, and quoted verse from the Bible is, you would very well respond: John 3:16. God so loved… Contemporary translations modify the words somewhat, but not the message: There are four aspects to that famous message: God loved, God gave, we believe, we live. There is a second verse that is quoted with much less frequency, but that verse, particularly for those of us who have felt the condemnation of the world is just as important. We hear this truth: “For God sent the Son not to condemn the world, but through the Son, the world might be saved.” The promise that Jesus did not bring condemnation with Him when He walked upon this earth is linked to our understanding not only of Jesus’ mission on this earth, but of our own mission.
              If you don’t know the little, yet profound book, “Hope for the Flowers”, I highly recommend it. Written to resemble a children’s book, it is anything but simple. Briefly, the story is this—two caterpillars, Stripe and Yellow meet up in a mass of caterpillars who are climbing all over each other trying to get to the top of this pillar of caterpillars.  Now Stripe and Yellow in the original book are a heterosexual caterpillar couple, but since that doesn’t even make much sense—like, how would you know about caterpillars?) , I’ve taken the liberty of making these caterpillars two ‘lady’ caterpillars  for our story today.  The point of getting to the top is unknown to all the caterpillars, they just know they need to get to the top in order to survive. One day, Stripe and Yellow decide to stop climbing. They leave the pillar of caterpillars and set up housekeeping in the forest. Eventually, Stripe decides that, in spite of [her] love for Yellow, [s]he must try the climb again. Yellow, on the other hand, listens to her inner self over her heart and remains in the forest. Now, one day Yellow is out for a walk, well crawl, trying to deal with her desolation at the loss of Stripe. Here’s where our story picks up:
       “One day a grey-haired caterpillar hanging upside down on a branch surprised her. [The older catepillar] seemed caught in some hairy stuff. “You seem in trouble,” she said. “Can I help?” “No, my dear, I have to do this to become a butterfly.“ Her whole insides leapt. “Tell me, [please], what is a butterfly?” “It’s what you are meant to become. It flies with beautiful wings and joins the earth to heaven. It drinks only nectar from the flowers and carries the seeds of love from one flower to another.” Without butterflies the world would soon have few flowers.” “It can’t be true!” gasped Yellow. “How can I believe there’s a butterfly inside you or me when all I see is a fuzzy worm?” “How does one become a butterfly?” she asked pensively. The grey-haired caterpillar replies, “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” “You mean to die?” asked Yellow. “Yes and No,” [s]he answered. “What looks like you will die but what’s really you will still live. Life is changed, not taken away. Isn’t that different from those who die without ever becoming butterflies?” And if I decide to become a butterfly” said Yellow hesitantly. “What do I do?” “Watch me. I’m making a cocoon. It looks like I’m hiding, I know, but a cocoon is no escape. It’s an in-between house where the change takes place. It’s a big step since you can never return to caterpillar life. During the change, it will seem to you or to anyone who might peek that nothing is happening, but the butterfly is already becoming. It just takes time! And there’s something else! Once you are a butterfly, you can really love—the kind of love that makes new life.”
      Well, as you either know or can imagine, Yellow spun her cocoon, and eventually became a butterfly. Longing to share the glory of this new way of being, she went off to find Stripe. Find [her], she did, and through some extraordinary butterfly to caterpillar communication, she convinced [her] to build a cocoon and become a butterfly [her]self. Their story ends with two butterflies kissing in the sun. Ours is just beginning, but the changing from caterpillar to butterfly bears much resemblance to being born in the spirit. Our essential selves remain through the transformation, but, at the same time everything about us is different, new, free.
     On this Easter Day, Jesus calls us to this new life, this changed life, this free life, this decision to leave caterpillar life behind. It is after this change that we truly understand John 3:16: Yes, God so loved the world as to give the Only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life.
     Is not the decision to believe, to become one of the “whosoever believes" much like the decision to risk becoming a butterfly. We are not certain where that decision will lead us, or what we may look like after the transformation. What kind of butterfly will we be? Where will or can we go? How high can we fly? But we know that we will experience eternal life, free from condemnation, free from death.

      Let us look at how the four aspects of John 3:16 make up the glorious truth as it plays out in our lives. God loves because that is who God is. God needs no reason to love us, God loves because that love is the basic nature of God. The transformative aspect of this lies in the remembering that we are made in the image of God. If it, then, is in God’s nature to love the world, it is in ours as well. God gave the Only Begotten Son: This ultimate giving act springs out of God’s inherent nature as a loving God. This is the first half of the formula.
      The second half of the formula actually takes us back to our story of Yellow, the butterfly. We believe, we choose to quit the life of a crawling, hopeless caterpillar, and enter into the risky cocoon of transformation. At the end of this transformation, is our final step: we live. Just as Yellow was no longer hopelessly looking for what was at the top of the pillar of all those other caterpillars climbing over and on each other to get to the top, we find that the goal of life is the transformation into children of God. Now, there will be times when we ask ourselves just what that means. I believe that John 3:17 holds the answer. We fly free in the knowledge that Jesus did not come to the world to condemn the world but to save the world. And herein lies our mission.
     If Jesus did not condemn the world, why do we? I’ll pause a moment as you contemplate my question…….and, yes, I am suggesting that we condemn the world. Every time we fail to bring the gospel message of acceptance to anyone who feels excluded, isolated, or rejected we condemn their world. And their world is our world. Every time we sit idly by when some young person is bullied or rejected we condemn their world. And their world is our world.
     When we lift up our brothers and sisters, in every walk of life; when we pray, when we give, when we invite others to share in the joy of salvation, we carry on the work of Jesus in their world. And their world is our world. And so we fly free not only in our own salvation, but just as Yellow could barely wait to fly over and save Stripe from the pillar of hopeless, crawling caterpillars, we use our bright fluttering wings of joy and redemption to attract others to the great truth we have learned: God so loved, God gave. We believe and we live to share in the redemptive work of Jesus in this our world. We believe that God wants us to do it now—to be a part of the changing of history in the outcasts’ world, their world, our world.
     And so, we carry on—will you carry on with me?
And so, we look for ways to bring the good news—will you look with me?
We seek to find the lost, the scarred, the less than whole—will you seek with me?
We explore ways to expand our walls, to encourage everyone to enter—will you explore with me?
     We pray that God will use us to redeem the world, and not condemn it—will you pray with me?
Oh God, we believe that you want to send the spirit of Easter to this church and to the church universal. We pray for a renewed passion to bring Your justice upon this earth, Your earth. Forgive us when we are complacent or fearful, empower us to change the world, Your world. In the name of all that is holy and in Jesus Christ who came to the world to redeem the world.
Amen.