Presence, Even If We're Out of Practice - Luke 24:36b-48

Has this happened to you lately? You run into someone you haven’t seen for a year or so, and you don’t recognize them at first. It’s a strange phenomenon, especially when you’ve known them for ages. Maybe it’s the masks, but I think it’s also the fact that we’ve all changed some. Some of us have more gray hair, maybe look a little rougher for the wear. I’ve also run into people who somehow look amazing and refreshed. But even if someone looks exactly the same as they did before, have you noticed that it can take a minute to register who they are, or to remember their name? It’s like we’re surprised or caught off guard by one another’s actual presence after so much time apart. We’re out of practice being together, and it’s going to take some time to get used to it again.

The strangeness of that points to the strangeness of this time we’re in. Life has opened up in some ways, but not others. We’re wondering what is safe to resume and what isn’t. We yearn for the freedom to get together again with reckless abandon, without fear or restriction. We are so grateful when things do open up, like church. And yet, though we thought we’d be racing to pick up where we left off as soon as possible, that’s not the reality. Many of us find ourselves holding back, a little unsure, a little out of practice being social. Maybe we got used to life in our pods or just sticking to the essentials. Now, as we start to see each other in person, we find ourselves in an uncertain, in-between time.

If you find yourself experiencing mixed emotions, or taken by surprise by the actual presence of other people, you’re in good company with the disciples. In today’s Gospel, the similarities are uncanny. Easter was still very new, definitely an in-between space for believers. The strange resurrection appearances have begun, and some disciples have seen the risen Christ while others have only heard about it. None of them understood it yet. But Jesus came anyway and stood among them, as Luke tells it. The disciples, who thought they were seeing a ghost, had at least four emotions all at the same time: terror, joy, disbelief, wonder. You think it’s strange to see someone in a mask with a little more gray hair after a year - can you imagine seeing your crucified Lord in person, with his wounded hands and feet? He had to eat some fish just to prove it was really him, flesh and bone. And he called them witnesses of these things. A strange title for those not yet sure what to make of it all. 

The resurrection stories are always weird like that. In some, Jesus is unrecognizable, and in others he seems to materialize through walls. In some, he eats with the disciples as he had a million times before. In all of them, he is unexpected. These strange stories are at the heart of our faith. They proclaim not the end to the Jesus story, but the beginning. It is the Church’s conviction that the resurrected Christ was present to his disciples, and is now present to us. That’s why we’re here, why the Church is here, to bear witness to that presence. A presence, we should note, that can show up when we least expect it and when we do not yet understand it. 

The retired Methodist bishop Will Willimon tells a surprising Easter story about the first church he served out of seminary. It was in rural Georgia, about as rural as rural can get. He served there a year, which, he said, lasted a lifetime. One time there was a fight in the parking lot after a vestry meeting. Another time there was adultery in the parking lot after choir rehearsal. He pleaded with them to stay out of the parking lot. As he tells it, he could’t wait to get out of there. 

About ten years later, he was speaking at an event when a young man came up to him and said, “You know, you and I have something in common. I’m serving the same church that you did.” “You’re kidding me,” said Willimon. “They’re still sending hapless students out to serve that church?” “Well, yeah. I thanked God in prayer last night that I have the privilege of serving a church like that one.” Willimon was confused. “Wait a minute, is this the same church, you go about 20 miles from the exit, hang a right at the gas station, that church?” “Yeah,” said the young pastor. “It’s often said in the community that there’s not a needy person within a mile radius of that church.” Willimon, confused and again making sure it was the same church, asked what had happened. “I don’t know, as I’ve only been there a year. But they often talk about a Sunday evening Bible study - the one you started that they didn’t want but kept going anyway after you left. They were studying one of Paul’s letters one night, and something happened. Some were moved to tears. They suddenly felt that they just knew what God expected of them.” So what happened, why the change in that place? Willimon came to the conclusion that the risen Christ had come and stood among them. “That’s church,” he said, “as church as church ever gets” (A Sermon for Every Sunday, 2018).  

We have something to learn from that little church in rural Georgia, a Gospel message, especially as we begin to gather again. We’re a little out of practice, maybe a bit wobbly like the disciples after the first Easter. Like them, we seem to have at least four emotions all at the same time. And what’s the Gospel in times like these? That the risen Christ comes and stands among us. It’s what the risen Christ does. The risen Christ has been doing this in Christian communities across the ages, from locked rooms with the disciples, to little churches in rural George, to Christ Church. 

Have you felt that presence here? I have. I have felt the presence of the risen Christ when this church is filled to the brim with people on Easter Sunday, and in the quiet hush of a weekday morning. I have been bowled over more than once with the message that this table we gather around belongs not to us but to the risen Christ. We’re here because he constantly, incessantly draws all people in with his abounding grace, the forgiveness of sins, and his presence. Christ comes and stands among us, just as Luke described it. 

We might be a little out of practice, not only with recognizing one another in person, but also recognizing the presence of Christ among us. Given our tentative reentry into community these days, it seems to me that this is a perfect time to be reminded of that presence. One thing we know from the biblical account, and from that little church in Georgia, and from this space on, say, a random Thursday morning, is that the risen Christ comes. I think we should get ready for this. Who knows, we might see the risen Christ at a finance committee meeting, or in a Sacred Ground discussion group. Or at a vaccine clinic or while parishioners bake cookies. Maybe when folks check on each other or have a few friends over to the patio. Certainly in worship, but also at a Green Groceries distribution or a recovery meeting in the Undercroft. Or simply when two friends sit and talk about faith in a time like this. Christ comes and stands among us, that’s the Gospel. And you know what else is the Gospel? That you and I are witnesses of these things.