single persons, people
of all races and families
of every kind.
Sunday
Service:
Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
Child care is available
Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 29
Apr 01
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
The Church of
Our Saviour
in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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Once Is Not
Enough
Reflections on the
lessons
for the Third Sunday of Eastertide, 29 April 2001
at St. Matthews Lutheran Church, Secaucus
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Jeremiah 32:36-41 Psalm 33:1-11
Revelation 5:6-14 John
21:1-14
I grew up in a small town in the Ozark Mountains, mainly in the 1960s. And in that place, at that time, there was very little to do. We had one movie theater that played last year's films. But it was 100 miles to the next town where theaters showed first run movies. I could go on, but you get the picture. It was a very quiet place. Until.
Until, about 1966, when a local entrepreneur -- inspired by that year's hit TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies -- decided to tap into our region's (he thought) surefire tourist market. He opened an amusement park: "Hillbilly Village". Out on the edge of town he slapped up a stockade fence out of old bark slabs from a sawmill. Around 4 or 5 acres. Inside that, he threw together a few rough shacks meant to make the folks coming down from St. Louis or Chicago for our wonderful trout fishing and whitewater rivers stop and get a taste of backwoods life. Sure.
He hired a local woman to come make soap in an outdoor kettle. He had some teenaged boys dress up in overalls and lounge around on the porch of a swayback old cabin. There was -- for some unknown reason -- a W.W.II surplus jeep parked there next to an old cotton wagon and a Model T carcass. The only other attraction I can remember was a pigpen with a tired old sow and her pigs in it. And a chicken coop, too, I think.
The place lasted one or at the most two summers. But the collapsing fence slouched there at the entrance to our town for another 20 years. I don't remember what it cost to go to Hillbilly Village -- not much, I'm sure. And I don't remember ever seeing anyone else there. But I went there. I adored it. Just loved it. I could see hog pens from my bedroom window. It is entirely possible that I passed right by my own grandmother making homemade soap on my way to visit the place. No, the attraction was simply that there was something to go to right in my own town, not hours and hours away.
God help me, but I felt like I was finally living at the center of things, in a cosmopolitan vacation destination. I had to go to Hillbilly Village again and again and again. If you ever hear me claim that I was a mistreated child, you should remind me of this sermon. My Dad gave out first, then my Mom, but my good old Grandpa took me almost as often as I wanted to go. I bet I went to that pathetic little show a dozen times the first summer it was open. I can still imagine my folks rolling their eyes. "AGAIN? Don't you think you've seen enough?" And they were right. As an adult, I have learned that in many, many situations, once is certainly enough. Usually more than enough.
But the Bible is good for us because it reminds us that there are other times -- important times -- when once is not enough. When it comes to saying,"I love you," once is never enough. Pastor Moser and I have learned that telling someone the Good News of God's unchained love for absolutely everyone only once is not nearly enough to get the message across. And today 's gospel -- our fourth post-Resurrection appearance so far this year, shows that even Jesus knows that several encounters are required before his disciples can understand something about the whole new life we stand on the brink of entering.
No one who is called to follow Jesus is simply called once. Those who are called to preach, teach, heal, forgive, and minister to our neighbors in the name of Jesus are called to that discipleship again and again. It's part of the elegant symbolism of the Easter story: Jesus comes again and again in all kinds of ways to his friends. Continually inviting them to find new ways -- their own right ways -- to serve God. Once is not enough. Nothing in Jesus' life -- not his birth, death, resurrection, none of it -- is a one-time historical event.
It gets kind of mystical sounding, but -- remember -- we don't have to understand it all at once. Jesus keeps coming to us again and again until we get it at last. The magic of Christian living is the way that the important things about Jesus aren't in the past for us to remember, but in the present for us to experience. The Bible stories about Jesus appearing to the disciples aren't about what happened to Peter and the others a long time ago. Or at least they aren't ONLY about that. They're stories about how we are, and how God deals with us. Not one word in the Bible says that the post-Resurrection appearances recorded in those pages are the only ones ever.
What is seen and unseen is a big issue in all of the post-Resurrection stories. Jesus appears and even his friends don't recognize him right away. Sometimes they recognize him but refuse to believe what they see. Or the disciples look up and he's gone. In today's gospel, Jesus isn't recognized right off. But when Peter finally knows who it is, nothing can keep him from getting to Jesus as quickly as possible. These things happen to us. We don't get to know Jesus through books or confirmation classes or sermons. We come to know Jesus when we run into him right where we live.
Even with the great promises of Jesus' complete and abiding presence among us, we still fall back into old patterns. We stop fishing for people and go back to fishing for plain old fish. Yet no one who is called to follow Jesus is called only once. And it's time for another post-Resurrection appearance.
Jesus will tease us and coax us and hound us as long as it takes. The gospels are one big testimony to the repeated calls for apostles and disciples to step off the treadmill and start living a new kind of life. But our own lives are, finally, the best places to learn that lesson. Who among us has not heard God calling us into abundant life over and over again? If the Bible were to be sent to a publishing house today, it would probably not make it to the bookstores. The editors would think it was too over-the-top. And too repetitive. First, the guy dies and then comes back to life. Then he shows up a half a dozen times to make the exact same point to the same old cast of characters.
As a child, there was something life giving I found at Hillbilly Village that went far beyond the theme park experience. And later I read about it in the Bible. The important thing about Easter is not what happened in that tomb. The big Easter message is that right down to this day everyone still has unlimited second chances.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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