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GIVE AND LIVE

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Third Sunday of Easter
April 14, 2024

Jesus stood among the disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  (Luke 24:36-37)

 Have you ever caught someone trying to swindle you?  I have.  Soon after graduating from college I set out to buy a car that would be my own.  I’d been driving the old family smasher for years at that point, compliments of my parents.  It was a 1969 Chrysler Newport that could seat about twenty.  It was time for something newer and smaller.  So I began saving money as I’d never saved it before.  I remember taking every paycheck to the bank and watching the numbers grow in my passbook savings account.  In fact, sometimes I would open up the savings book and just look at it: cradling it in my hands, pondering how far I’d come, and how far I still had to go. 

When I thought I’d saved enough for a good used car, I began checking the newspapers and shopping the lots.  One day I came across a car with a price on it that seemed too good to be true.  It was a late 1970’s model Chevy Impala – still the size of a yacht, but small and sporty compared to the old Chrysler.  “She just came in this morning,” said the salesman walking up to me in his plaid, polyester suit (it wasn’t long after the disco era).  “Why don’t you take ‘er out for a spin?” he added.  This I did, and drove the car to pick up a friend who came back to the lot with me. 

We began examining the car.  It was silver in color with no apparent scratches, dents, or rust.  Then we noticed some odd fixtures on the roof.  My friend said that these looked like what would hold a siren in place.  The Chevy was likely a former police car, driven hard and now prone to break down.  Not a good buy.  “No,” said the salesman with an absolutely straight face.  “This car has had only one owner, and that was a little old lady.”  We scratched our heads and continued examining the car.  Eventually we looked in the glove box and found there some papers belonging to the police department of a neighboring town.  A police car, indeed.  So we hopped in my Chrysler.  It was as big as a whale, and it was about to set sail.  The dishonest salesman tried to show me something else, but I would do no business with such a scoundrel.  I felt rather proud not to be so easily swindled out of my precious bank account.

This week as I read through the 24th chapter of Luke, I recalled my experience on the used car lot.  The disciples of Jesus, on some deep level, must have felt swindled.  For three years they had given their all to following Jesus.  Their commitment to him had been the highest priority in their lives, overshadowing the pursuit of their livelihoods, the enjoyment of other friends, even their commitment to family.  I think we tend to underestimate how costly it must have been for them to break ranks with the cultural and religious expectations of their time and place and follow in the footsteps of Jesus.  To heed the call of an itinerant preacher to the extent that they did was to gamble not only with their integrity as persons, but also with their ultimate loves and loyalties.  How would I have responded to Jesus, had I been in the disciples’ shoes.  How much of myself would I have been willing to give?  True, most of us have placed our faith Jesus.  I suspect, however, that most of us also have hedged our faith to a lesser or larger extent.  Not the disciples: they’d risked it all.

We find the disciples today presumably late in the evening of the first Easter Day, probably in the same upper room where they’d eaten the Passover meal a few nights earlier.  Since three-o’clock the previous Friday afternoon, they must have been thinking that their three-year venture with Jesus had been a foolish gamble.  They’d put down everything they had, and they’d driven off the lot with a lemon.  Jesus had been publicly and shamefully executed, leaving them with nothing but dashed hopes, empty pockets, and a movement that was going nowhere.  It was all over.  Since that morning they’d been hearing reports from some women that the tomb of Jesus was empty, and that an angel of the Lord had said he was risen from the dead.  But Luke reports that the disciples regarded this as an “idle tale.”  In other words, file that one under “fat chance,” in the same folder as the mythical little old lady who owned the police car.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  They were not going to be swindled again. 

So I ask you again: have you ever caught someone trying to swindle you?  My guess is you have.  You’ve learned to beware of swindlers.  They are everywhere.  Just this week I received a truly eye-popping email of the sort that I didn’t think made the rounds anymore: the old Nigerian government-official scam.  The sender claimed he was trying to transfer $75,500,000 out of his country, but needed a foreign account to make it happen.  Might we allow him to park the money in a Grace Church account?  If so, all I had to do was provide him with some baking details, and he’d cut us in for twenty-percent of the loot.  Who needs a capital campaign?  What could possibly go wrong, except – oh – everything?  What surprised me about this email is that its continued circulation indicates that it works.  Some poor souls are still falling for it. 

The world is also full of swindlers: financial swindlers and emotional swindlers.  The world is full of people and organizations who, if you let them, will drain you of faith, hope, love, and joy.  Family and friends, politicians, faith traditions, even professional sports teams can let you down.  Some years ago a lifelong fan and season ticket holder of the Cleveland Browns was dying prematurely from cancer.  He decided to write his own obituary, and his one request was that six players from the Browns serve as pallbearers at his funeral, and lower his casket into the grave.  Why?  So that the Browns could “let him down one last time.”  New Yorkers know the feeling.  Two NFL teams that play in the Meadowlands of New Jersey, and an MLB team in Queens are especially adept at tearing out your heart and letting you down.  So beware of emotional swindlers who will let you down, and financial swindlers who will leave you stranded by the side of the road.  Be on your guard at all times.  It’s no wonder why so many people are angry these days, and glare at the world with clenched fists.  Swindlers are everywhere, scheming night and day to take what you have. 

I have to wonder if the disciples were suffering from buyer’s remorse after the death of Jesus.  How could they not have felt drained and disillusioned?  Just before today’s Gospel reading, Luke reports that two travelers from the road to Emmaus had joined the disciples in the room where they were hiding.  The travelers brought with them another report of an encounter with Jesus alive.  It was as they were all trying to sort this out when today’s reading from Luke begins.  Jesus himself stood among them.  A logistical question immediately comes to mind.  How did Jesus get all the way there from Emmaus?  Not in a Chrysler.  Not in a Chevy.  On foot, trailing the two travelers?  No, in a new resurrection body, the likes of which confused the disciples.  They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  They were frightened, they doubted.  The most positive thing Luke has to say about them is that they disbelieved for joy.  Another reputable translation of the phrase is it seemed too good to be true.  If you’ve been around the block a few times you know that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Well, these disciples had been around the block.  In fact, all of the gospel writers testify to how guarded they were in those early days after the resurrection of Jesus.  How slow of heart they were to believe.  Fool me once: shame on you.  Fool me twice: shame on me! 

Luke describes how Jesus himself had a difficult time convincing the disciples that he was alive.  First he showed them his hands and his feet, presumably so they could see the wounds of his crucifixion.  He was no impostor standing before them.  Then he invited their touch.  If they didn’t believe their eyes, they could touch him and feel his bones and flesh.  Then he asked if they had anything to eat, and when they had given him a piece of broiled fish, he ate it in their presence.  Next he sat down with them for what must have been the most interesting Bible study class ever in history.  He opened their minds to understand the scriptures.  He showed them how Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalmist we not snake oil salesmen.  They had all pointed to the death and resurrection of Jesus, and it had happened.  They had told the truth.  The disciples weren’t being swindled.  God really had raised Jesus from the dead.  They could trust again. 

Finally, Jesus did something that alone should have awakened the disciples’ recognition: he sent them on a mission.  He sent them out to proclaim the possibility of repentance, and the promise of forgiveness.  Throughout the three years they had spent with Jesus, he never blessed them merely for their own comfort and enjoyment.  He’d never taught them merely for their own wisdom and fulfillment.  He’d never empowered them merely to pursue their own success.  Rather, he sent them out to spread the message of the kingdom of God.  He was always sending them out into this world of swindlers to give of themselves.  That trademark commissioning is exactly what he did again.  The risen Jesus took all this time and effort to reveal himself to the disciples not merely to assuage their grief, not merely to dry their tears, but so that all people might share in the new ride of his resurrected life.  Imagine: after all the disciples had been through, Jesus sent them out again to be witnesses of the resurrection. 

How about us?  Are we ready to hear the call of the risen Jesus, who sends us out to give of ourselves, even into this world of swindlers?  To say yes is to be risen with Christ, to share in his eternal priesthood, and participate in his work to make all things new.  Surely, you saw that one coming!  For the second sermon in a row, I’ve made a clever pivot from the Biblical message to the business of a capital campaign.  In my mind, however, it’s not a pivot at all to move between heaven and earth.  Spirit and substance are both part of God’s creation, and to be concerned about the former is to act in the latter.  To share in the risen life of Christ is to give of ourselves, and work to make all things new in this life, on this earth, at this time. 

Today we launch the public phase of our campaign.  Today, we hear the trademark call of Jesus to ready ourselves for a mission, and restore Grace Church for service in the kingdom of God.  As you consider your own participation, let me leave you with a parable I once heard that originates from the land where Jesus walked.  It’s called Two Kinds of Seas, Two Kinds of People, and it goes like this:

In Israel there are two seas.  One is fresh and abounding in fish.  Fields of green adorn its banks and children play along its shores.  Men and women build their houses near it and birds their nests.  Life is happier because it is there.  Further south there is another sea.  Here there is no splash of fish, no song of birds, no children’s laughter.  The air hangs heavy above its waters, and neither man nor beast will drink from it.  What makes the difference between these two seas?  Not the River Jordan which empties the same sparkling water into both.  Not the soil in which they lie.  Not the country that surrounds the two seas.  The difference is this: the Sea of Galilee receives but does not keep the Jordan.  For every drop that flows into it another drop flows out at the other end and continues down the Jordan to the other sea.  The other sea hordes its incoming waters jealously; it keeps every drop it gets.  The Sea of Galilee gives and lives.  The other sea gives nothing.  The other sea is called the Dead Sea.  There are two kinds of seas in Israel.  There are two kinds of people in this world. 

Here’s a secret that the world has always been slow of heart to believe: to give is to live.  It’s true.  He is risen.  We are witnesses of these things.