Community Church Sermons

Year C

April 18, 2010

The Third Sunday of Easter

Tend, Feed, Speak

John 21:1-19

Acts 9:1-20

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

LISTEN IN!

Has anyone seen Jesus?

I came into the Sanctuary early this morning looking for the Lord, but he was nowhere to be found. Checked the sound booth in the back, and the Fireside Room up here. No Jesus. I even went over to the Tellico Joe Café in case the Lord might’ve needed a nice hot cup of gourmet Fair Trade coffee and a raspberry Danish.

But the Lord wasn’t there, either.

Does anyone know where the Lord is?

That’s the same question people were asking back at the time of the first Easter. The women went out to the tomb early on the first day of the week. They found the stone rolled away, but when they peeked inside…no Jesus!

They asked, “Has anyone seen Jesus? Does anyone know where he is?”

One of the most intriguing parts of the post-Easter experience is that the risen Christ is never where you expect him to be! Those who go looking for him in the cemetery tomb don’t find him! On Friday, they saw him die on the Cross. They saw him laid in the tomb. They saw the big stone rolled into place.

But three days later, nobody can find Jesus!

“Does anyone know where Jesus is?”

Has anyone seen Jesus today?

Tim? Rhonda? John? Bob?

“Where is Jesus?”

That’s one of the best and most important questions we can ask as Christian people, and as a church.

“Where IS Jesus?”

The Gospels provide the answer to the question asked that day long ago. It comes through the voice of an angel at the empty tomb. And here it is - the answer to the question, “Where is Jesus?”

“He’s not here.”

That’s what the angel says.

We would do well to ponder these words about the whereabouts of Jesus.

“He is not here.”

Barbara Brown Taylor served as an Episcopal priest for twenty years. She is one of the most brilliant preachers in America. But after those twenty years, Barbara left the priesthood. She shares her story in a book called, “Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.”

Now it’s not for lack of faith that Barbara Brown Taylor left the church’s priesthood. Far from it. I think it would be fair to say that Barbara’s faith journey deepened her understanding of WHERE the risen Christ is in the world. And where Christ is, is not necessarily where the Church is or even wants to be. Like many of us, Barbara struggles with the way in which the Church’s resurrection faith has become inwardly turned, self-serving, all about getting us to heaven and meeting our needs, and sometimes even becoming injurious to people outside because of intolerance, judgmentalism, and exclusion. She laments that in the name of protecting the integrity of the scriptures and Church doctrine, the Church so often tramples on the basic human rights of people. We Christians are often far more concerned with taking care of ourselves inside the Church than we are of reaching those outside the Church.

So maybe those of us on the inside need to hear again the words of the angel.

“He is not here.”

Well then, where IS he? If not “here” – on the inside - where is Jesus in these days after Easter?

Again, the angel speaks.

“In Galilee. Jesus has gone before you to Galilee.”

Why do you suppose Jesus would go to Galilee of all places?

Why not just hang around in the cemetery where his followers can easily find him and get a spiritual buzz over this miracle of resurrection? Can you imagine the crowds that would come and the celebration that would follow? Can you calculate the size of the offering, or how many autographed pictures of the risen Christ could be sold on EBay?

But he is not here in the cemetery. He is in Galilee. Galilee!

Why not go to the Jerusalem Temple and show the priests just how wrong they were? Why not march back to the Governor’s Palace and give ol’ Pontius Pilate the scare of his life? That would feel almost as good as Lane Kiffen singing “Rocky Top” after the Vols beat the Gators.

But Jesus is not here. Neither is Lane Kiffen. Lane has gone to Southern California.

Jesus has gone to Galilee. Galilee!

Why do you suppose Jesus left the tomb, left the Temple, left Jerusalem, left “church”, so to speak, and went to Galilee?

Well, here’s why. And it’s a wonderful “why”. Jesus went to Galilee to reclaim a lost soul.

Jesus went to find Simon Peter - the one who had denied him three times - the one who, under the weight of his betrayal, had run back to his old life as a fisherman – in Galilee.

Simon Peter, you see, had given up on Jesus.

But Jesus had not given up on Simon Peter.

So the risen Jesus went to Galilee to redeem a lost man.

Where is the risen Jesus? He is out in the Galilees of this world, reaching out to embrace those who are estranged from the love of God and the joy of life. Some are “out there” because, like Peter, they have failed miserably on their own account. Some are “out there” because some tragedy has swept over them leaving them brokenhearted. Others are “out there” because they have been hurt and abused by churches and people claiming to represent God. Still others are “out there” because they are “different” and that’s where society has pushed them. And many, many others are “out there” because they have never known the joy or even the possibility of a personal relationship with a God who loves them enough to lay down his life for them. There are a million different reasons people are “out there” in Galilee.

So where is Jesus? Jesus is out in the Galilees of life – whether it is the Galilee to which Peter fled, or the Galilee of cancer, or the Galilee of loneliness, or the Galilee of child abuse, or the Galilee of grief, or even the Galilee that is now found in our Village at the corner of Toqua Road and Cheestana Way – and all the other sad Galilees that have been created in peoples’ lives because of what happened there last Thursday.

And do you know what? We saw Jesus out there in the midst of that terrible tragedy. He was there in the person of Elton Pierson and others of you who were among the First Responders who rushed there to offer help. He was there in the person of Charlie Barnard, our brother over at First Baptist Church and who is the Fire Department Chaplain. And He has been there in you. Charlie called me yesterday. He was with the Butcher family helping to plan Larry’s funeral service. He said, “Marty, the family has been thinking about using the Click Chapel, but I don’t think it’s big enough. Do you think there’s any possibility they could use the Community Church?”

And speaking on your behalf, I said, “Charlie, absolutely. We will do whatever we need to do to help care for that family.”

That’s who we are! That’s what we do! That willingness and commitment to reach out to those dwelling in Galilee is one of the reasons I love our church.

Jesus is not here. Jesus is “out there” – in the Galilees of life - where people need his redeeming love.

So why are WE here today?

Well, the late Mother Teresa once answered a similar question by saying something like this: “We in the convent – or the church – come together to worship God, to pray, and to learn about Jesus. Then, when we have gotten to know him as best we can, we leave the convent each day and go out into the streets and try to find him at work.”

That’s our job, too, as Tellico Village Community Church. We teach a Gospel about a good and loving God who never gives up on us, and who sent his Son into the world to find and redeem lost people and to welcome them into the redemptive love of the family of God. And then we invite those “found” people to join with us in reaching out to others.

We are gathered and nurtured “in here” to go and serve “out there.”

To the reclaimed Peter, Jesus said, “Tend my lambs and feed my sheep.”

To the redeemed Saul on the Damascus Road, Jesus said, “Go now and speak my name to the Gentiles.”

You see, once Jesus has found you, he gives you a job to do.

Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep. Speak my message.

Are you ready to head “out there” this week?

Let’s go find Jesus.