Young Grape Vine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every year, TIME Magazine puts out an issue called the “Person of the Year” issue, which features a person who – and I quote – “for better or worse, has done the most to influence the events of the year.”  Sometimes, the Person of the Year is not really a person, but a group of people, or an object.  Like in 1982, when it was the Computer, subtitled the “machine of the year.”  And then, in 2006, the Person of the Year was…YOU.

That’s right.  YOU were TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year because YOU have the incredible ability to influence the information that comes across computer screens          across the globe via the internet.   YOU have the ability to make it personal – to make it YOURS.

The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, for example, lets YOU create and edit YOUR own entries for words, people, events, and ideas.  YOU are able to define YOUR world.  YouTube, the online video sharing site, lets YOU post whatever video YOU please for the World Wide Web to view.  Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, allow YOU to create YOUR profile with YOUR pictures, for YOUR so-called “friends.”

The image that this World Wide Web evokes, of course, is that of a spider web, its silk strands interconnected, and reaching far beyond the boundaries of the bubbles of our immediate surroundings.   Because of the internet and its capabilities, YOU are more connected to the world than ever before.  I mean, did you ever think you’d be able to reconnect with the person who sat beside you in your first grade classroom but who’s now living in Antarctica and with whom you haven’t shared a single word in 30 years??

Now, I use the internet just about as much as anyone else.  I have at least three email addresses through which I connect to people I know all over the world.  I find Facebook to be a satisfactory way to kill some time, and my newest obsession is online Scrabble.

So, I’m not condemning the internet.  BUT, all of these online connections can leave you wondering:  Is there still a place today for the Church – you know, that what-may-seem-antiquated physical get-together of the followers of Jesus?  Well, you know I’m going to say yes…

And this is why.

For one thing, there’s been some recent research that suggests that our internet connections don’t really connect us.  There have been several articles recently that have suggested that social media actually contributes to the epidemic of loneliness spreading across our globe, which seems kind of ironic when it can look like you have so many friends!   One author has compared these types of connections to junk food:  they fill you up momentarily, but ultimately contribute to your emptiness and malnutrition.  We may look like we’re connected to all sorts of people across the globe, but our connections are actually pretty shallow.  You can wish someone “Happy Birthday” online, for example, but you can’t share a cake with them without actually being with them.  No internet connection can substitute being present in the same room with another person, breathing the same air, feeling the touch of a loving embrace.

And, it’s as if Jesus knew that some 2000 years later we would need a deeper connection than what the World Wide Web can offer.  Because in today’s Gospel reading he reminds us of what being connected to him is really like.  Connection to each other and to God, Jesus says, is not like a giant spider web bridging the distance between millions of computers, but instead like a vine, and like branches that extend directly from that vine.

I worked on this sermon last week at a coffee shop, sitting at a table by a window.  And it just so happened that outside the window, was a vine of ivy that climbed up the wall of the building, its leafy branches in full bloom.  I didn’t plan it that way, but it was fitting, considering Jesus’ metaphor in today’s text.  And so I studied that vine.

Here’s what struck me.  A gentle breeze blew the leaves around, but didn’t blow them off the vine.  Each branch was connected directly to the vine, and yet the branches intermingled.  The stems of the branches were green with life.  The leaves also resisted gravity; the vine supported them, held them up.  And, at the very end of the vine were more branches sprouting – tiny little leaves, small, but already full of life.

Jesus says that being connected to God is like those leaves, connected to the vine.  The vine gives nourishment and support to the branches. The vine – Jesus – gives the branches – us—life. And the Church – that antiquated, physical get-together of the followers of Jesus – as it connects to the vine, also connects to each other.  The vine – Jesus – is what brings us together.  And here’s why this intimate sort of connection is so important.  When the power goes out at my house, I can live without the internet.  It might take some creativity to occupy myself, but a connection to the internet doesn’t keep me alive.  But I can’t live –I can’t function –without a connection to Jesus.  And that’s what Jesus means here when he says, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”  Without that center vine who cares for and nourishes us, who loves us unconditionally, and without the vinegrower who prunes us so that we are able to grow, we might as well be dead.

Now, there are a lot of people out there who think they don’t need this Jesus vine and the church of branches.  There are a lot of people who brush the church aside, calling it insignificant or irrelevant.  But I would say that without being connected through grace and forgiveness and love to Jesus and to a worshiping community, they are absolutely missing out.

Are there are some people who think electronic connections are enough.  There’s a website out there, even, for an online church.  You pick your little cartoon character and navigate it through a virtual sanctuary, even choosing a pew on which to sit.  But I’m sorry friends, no online connection, not even a so-called online church, can feed you like the vine feeds its branches.

And the vine literally feeds its branches.  There’s no “virtual” nature to our connection with God.  Our God chooses to connect to us in very physical, earthy ways.  Our heads get wet when we’re claimed as God’s children.  Jesus pours out his life for us in the nourishment of body and blood, bread and wine.  When we are hungry and in need, God feeds us.  Like Luther said, God is present in, with, and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

Now, God could have chosen to keep some distance from us, accessible only by something like an internet connection, but God chose instead to become one of us so that we could have a deeper connection to the One who created us.  So that we could know again and again what it is to be forgiven and loved, so that we could learn to depend on that love and forgiveness in everything that we do, so that we could actually feel alive.  That’s just the kind of God we have.

But there’s one more piece to this vine and branches image.  The whole purpose of the vine and branches is to bear fruit.  The prophets of the Old Testament often painted pictures of restoration that included vineyards.  The idea was that, where the water may have been polluted, wine was the preferred drink.  So the image of the vineyard meant hope of restoration for Israel.

And we can’t forget this image when we think of the role of those branches — the Church — in the world.  What we the Church are called to do, as branches of that vine, is to connect to the world in the same physical earthy ways that Jesus the vine connects to us.  We are called to give the world hope, by nourishing the world with the fruits of love, and forgiveness, and care.  Just as the vine feeds us, we are called, in return, to feed and nourish the hungry around us.   That’s why, after all, the church exists in the first place – for the sake of the world.

So, I think TIME Magazine had it wrong back in 2006, and every year that it’s named a Person of the Year.  The Person of the Year – of the decade, of the millennium – is not a world leader; it’s not a machine like the computer, and, I hate to tell you, it’s not YOU either.  The Person of the Year is always Jesus. Because Jesus is always connecting to us in ways we never dreamed possible – through water and bread and wine – and connecting us to each other in a Church that rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those weep, and connecting us to the world by feeding the world with the fruits of the love of Jesus.  And it’s true, apart from all of this, we can’t do anything.

So thanks be to God the vinegrower and to Jesus the vine.

Amen.

A basket of yarn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you would like to donate yarn for the St. Mark’s Prayer Shawl Ministry, we will gladly accept it! Each prayer shawl requires 3 skeins of yarn, so please donate in threes! You may purchase yarn at any yarn store and at Micheals or other craft stores. Most types of yarn will work (medium bulk is the best) and any color or mutlicolor works. Caron Simply Soft, for example, is a nice yarn and is available at Michaels. Please place donated yarn in the designated basket in the mail room.

Prayers shawls are created with our prayers and our love for members who need them, specifically for individuals who are homebound or hospitalized.

The St. Mark’s knitting/crocheting group meets the first and third Mondays of the month at 10:30 AM in the parlor. All are welcome!

•  Several resumes for the Financial Administrator position have been received by the Finance Committee, and the interview process is anticipated to begin in the coming weeks.

•  The Security Sub-committee of the Property Committee, led by Vicki Longshaw-Holtz, is reviewing and updating opening and closing procedures for the church building along with criteria regarding the issuance of keys. A special focus is being placed on the utilization of security camera surveillance equipment installed throughout the Church.

• The Congregational Life Committee has planned its second in a series of four “Sunday Speaker and Luncheons” to be held this year.  The luncheon will be held Sunday, May 20^th immediately following the 10:30 a.m. worship service and St. Mark’s very own Eva Larsen will speak on her involvement in the Nazi resistance during World War II.

• The Council is pleased to announce a brand new Communication Sub-committee of the Evangelism Committee. Carol Lippert will be serving as the liaison to this Sub-committee which will be dedicated to increasing and improving communication about all that is happening within the St. Mark’s community. The gathering of information to post on the website will be a major focus. All groups and committees are highly encouraged to use the website as much as possible to announce their particular news and activities.  All such communications should be directed to Carol Lippert at clippert@saintmarkselca.org or Pete Mullen at pmullen@saintmarkselca.org. If you are interested in serving on the Communication Sub-committee, please contact Carol at the email address listed above.

crochet hook & green acrylic yarn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Several of our members have been knitting or crocheting baby blankets (for newly baptized babies) and prayer shawls (for members who are homebound or in the hospital). This is an important ministry at St. Mark’s. If you are interested in being part of a knitting/crocheting circle that meets here, mark you calendars! Bring your knitting projects or your curiosity for learning and join Pastor Emily and other knitters/crocheters on Monday, April 30 at 10:30 AM in the parlor. We’ll work specifically on prayer shawls and include a time of prayer for our members in need. The coffee will be hot! Please see Pastor Emily for more information.

Padlock Deutsch: Vorhängeschloss Italiano: Lucchetto (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The doors were locked because they were scared. They were scared someone would discover them; discover their true identity, that they were followers of the One who was crucified. They were scared someone would drag them away the same way they took away Jesus, scared that someone would kill them like they killed him. And so they locked the doors because they felt unsafe and insecure,and the locked doors gave them a sense of security, a sense of protection.

After all, that’s what you do when you feel unsafe and insecure, right? You lock yourself away in your room, protected from the outside and from all the people you feel are out to “get you.” Perhaps the most insecure I’ve ever felt was about 10 years ago when I stayed at a youth hostel by myself in a city where I knew no one. I know – the silly things you do while you’re in college! Well, a strange man approached me one day in the lobby and started asking me weird questions about whether I was staying by myself, or whether I knew others in the area. He inquired about what I was doing there, and something about his questions just didn’t feel right.

Nothing ever happened, but I remember lying to him, telling him I was, in fact, with a group of friends, and then getting away from him as fast as I could, practically running to my room, shutting my door, and bolting the lock. When I did need to leave, I crept through the lobby area, making sure he wasn’t around, or if I spotted him, I tried to sneak past him without him seeing me.

There were other times in college when I stayed at other youth hostels, though most of these times with other people, where we had to stay in a large room with perhaps 20 other strangers. In these hostels, we felt so insecure that we slept with our purses under our pillows, or simply didn’t sleep at all, keeping watch over our belongings all night long. How we longed for a room with doors that would lock!

Now, given my own sense of insecurity, I can’t really blame those disciples for locking their doors, nor can I blame our own society for its emphasis on keeping people out. We’re scared of what people can do, and anyone in their right mind would be crazy not to lock their doors at night. Some people even add to that protection with alarm systems and gated entry ways.

But, I’m afraid that our insecurities these days go beyond locked doors and locked gates and enter the realm of our hearts. Hearts locked from fear and insecurity, paralyzed by exclusion and rejection. The recent emphasis that extreme teenage bullying has gotten in the press is only one indicator of this. Fear and insecurity have a lot to do with self-identity, self-worth, and self-esteem.

They have to do with how we think others perceive us, how we think others will accept us, and the extreme measures we’re willing to take to “fit in.” We put a padlock around our hearts because we’re scared that others can and will break into them, vulnerable as they are, and leave us wounded or what might as well be half-dead. After all, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and we certainly don’t want to be eaten alive. So we create all sorts of locked doors to protect our hearts –money, clothing, degrees, status, even the ways we alter our bodies,men and women alike. These are the things that mask the parts of us we don’t like, the parts that are wounded and vulnerable. These locked doors to our hearts present what we think is a more appealing image of ourselves, so that sooner or later, we trick ourselves into not feeling the sting of rejection or exclusion and all the insecurities that accompany it.

But what we don’t realize is that all of these locked doors start to suffocate us. It’s true, the locked doors keep people out, but they also keep others from seeing who we really are. They prevent us from living as the people God intended us to be. They start boxing us in, trapping our hearts in stale, musty air, creating in us and of us what might as well be a lifeless tomb. Dear friends, who wants to live in a lifeless tomb?

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among the and said, “Peace be with you.” And then, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

And then a week later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them this time. Although the doors, once again, were shut, Jesus came and stood among them anyway and said, “Peace be with you.”

It’s a strange detail in the text, the part about Jesus coming and standing among them. We know why the doors were locked, but we don’t really know how Jesus got there. The text makes him seem like a ghost, able to float through walls, through the most secured doors.

But here’s what we know. Those locked doors – meant to keep out those scary authorities who were out to get the disciples– could not keep Jesus out. Jesus was able to pass through the doors the disciples had locked and enter into their very lives, and yes, their lives were far-from-perfect, too. Jesus chose to enter into their imperfect lives which were, at the time, full of fear. And, as much as we may want to protect our own hearts from being hurt, to lock doors around our hearts, Jesus chooses to enter our lives as well. There’s no door thick enough, no lock secure enough, that can keep him out.

It’s as if the resurrection weren’t simply about breaking through his own tomb, but also about bursting through to the locked doors of our tombs, breaking and entering the lives of our true selves, imperfect and insecure as they may be.   And then, once Jesus has made it in, he greets us, not with chastisement or judgment for our fear and all those locked doors, but with peace and a breath of fresh air. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “You’re okay.” And then he shows us the wounds in his hands and his side. “Look,” he says, “I’m wounded too.” And then, with the knowledge that we have a God who keeps us company in our pain and in our own vulnerability, we let Jesus lead us out of our tombs, through all those locked doors of our hearts.

We might begin, slowly at first, to unlock, and maybe crack them open a bit, but, before we know it, Jesus just kicks us out of them, sending us out boldly, as if there were no other option in light of the resurrection. “As the Father sent me, so I send you,” he says. So we go, broken as we are, fearful as we are, but most importantly, because there are others out there hiding behind locked doors in fear who need to know that they’re not alone either. And the resurrection is about spreading that message to them. God loves the parts of you that you’d rather hide. And because of that, God breaks through our locked doors and enters into our lives, giving us a fresh sense of boldness for the sake of the world.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.

American Easter eggs from Washington (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Christ is Risen! Happy Easter, everyone! “Because I live,” Jesus said in John 14:19, “you also will live.” That’s why they call it Good News.

Let me ask you a question: How many of you gathered here today, dressed in your Easter finery, colored Easter eggs this week or weekend? Well, I did. In fact, except for a handful of years between my college days and the birth of our children I’ve always colored eggs. I believe I’ve colored eggs for the better part of fifty-two years. I still color them. I’ve found a family that lets me come over and wreak havoc on their house while I color eggs with their children. I really can’t conceive of a proper Holy Week unless I’ve got dye-stained fingers. So if you colored eggs, then I’m with you.

Take comfort in this: we are not alone. Just over a billion real eggs are dipped and dyed every Easter in this country alone. The Dudley egg dye company sells over 10 million egg dying kits on every year. Not bad.

Eggs have always been used by the spiritual communities of the world as a symbolic food. From the druids, to the pagan fertility festivals, to Christianity, eggs have been a part of the celebration. The Christian use of eggs at Easter probably has its roots in a host of different cultures and traditions. But there are two connections that make the Easter egg a powerful symbol for this miraculous morning.

Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem brought him to celebrate Passover in that holy city. The Last Supper was a Passover Seder. One of the ritual foods arranged on everyone’s Passover plate was a hard-boiled egg, the “beitzah.” The egg symbolized the “chagigah,” a ritual sacrifice made in the Temple. After the Temple was destroyed, this egg also became a mourner’s reminder. The Temple sacrifice could no longer be made, because the Temple no longer existed. In Orthodox Judaism hard boiled eggs are still offered to mourners as their first food after a funeral. It is a symbol of new life.

For us, for all who follow Jesus, funeral rites were transformed on that Easter Sunday.  The women who had come to the tomb early that Sunday morning were focused on mourning. They were focused on the details of what they intended to do—anoint Jesus body with oils and spices one last time. They were focused on another practical matter—who was going to roll the stone away from the tomb’s entrance. This was a very practical matter as this huge stone was rolled in such a sway that it fit down in a groove so that grave robbers could not easily move it and so that wild animals could not get in and disturb the body. It was easy to roll the stone into place—not so easy to get it out again.

But as the women reached the tomb they could see that that stone had been rolled away and I find it somewhat surprising that they just walked right in. They do not see the body, but they see a young man in a white robe who tells them that Jesus is not there, that he has risen. They are to go to Galilee. Instead of participating in a funeral rite, these first witnesses were shocked to hear that Jesus had broken through the shell of death and despair. He was now living a resurrected life.

Easter eggs, with their beautiful, brightly colored, decorated shells are meant to be broken, peeled and revealed. What’s the point of Easter eggs if you can’t have sliced egg sandwiches, egg salad, or hard boiled eggs with a dash of salt on them? Eggs at Easter are meant to be broken. The power of sin and death was meant to be broken and that’s what Jesus did. He shattered that shell, that constricting shell that had held humanity captive for so long. Every pink, purple, green, and blue egg is a sign of Christ’s triumph over the prison of death.

Jesus broke the mold. The resurrection was a prison-break. The first message from the empty tomb to the women is to “break out” as well. “He is risen!” He is not here. Leave this place of death. Gather the disciples and go to  Galilee. Expect to meet him there. Follow him.

When given that first directive—here was the first Easter egg—the women at the tomb flinched. Instead of proclaiming they clammed up. They were in funeral mode and they were being called in an instant to be in resurrection mode. They were being directed to immediately break out of the shells of their former faith orientation and go in a new direction. But they were so overwhelmed that they couldn’t. I get that. Sometimes it’s just so amazing that we stand there in awe, unable to move. Sometimes the message is so great that you can’t wrap your head or heart around it.

Friends, wrap your heads and hearts around this: Jesus calls us to break out into resurrection life—he demands that we break some eggs so that we celebrate the power of life, instead of cowering before the threat of death. I remember reading about a pastor who called his sons together at the moment of his death and with a smile on his face said, “Now the greatest adventure begins.” Death ushers us into the greatest adventure of life—eternal life.

But I have a concern, a mild fear. I fear that if we are not careful we will celebrate Easter with too many plastic, reusable, re-sealable eggs. All these plastic split-in-two-and-refill eggs are easy and convenient. Breaking them open at their neat seams doesn’t cost us anything.  Nothing is really broken. It’s too easy to seal them back up.

I’m afraid that too many followers of Jesus don’t want to truly break out of their shells, don’t want to truly embrace the invitation to radical resurrection life. But like the witnesses in Mark’s gospel, our faith will go bad if we do not break out and go to Galilee instead of just going home. We need to hatch out from a safe, socially acceptable life and embrace the resurrection life that Jesus offers us this Easter Sunday.

What if instead of enclosing ourselves in safe elliptical eggshells, we took on a new shape to offer the world? In his novel, Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck suggested that those raised with the reality of the resurrection might turn out differently. He writes, “Let’s say when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform (cross-shaped) box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes and egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?”

Can resurrection, if we live it, if we accept its radical demands, change us? A resurrection life, once truly experienced forever transforms. Look at terrified Peter. Look at Saul, become Paul who changed from persecutor to persecuted. Look at Luther—people pleasing monk to pope challenging firebrand.  If you break out of death and break into life, in the shape of a cross, nothing is ever the same. It is a great discovery.

Remember the first time your child discovered that a rib-eye steak tasted better than hamburger? You’re pleased until you hit the cash register. Remember when you discovered that lobster tasted a whole lot better than chicken nuggets—great until you saw the price. When we develop a taste for the better things in life it gets a bit more costly.

Developing your taste for the resurrection life, instead of the shell-encased life, is also equally costly.

It will cost you relationships—business assets—free rides—free time—the easy way—worrisome nights—time, money and perhaps even life itself.

But resurrection life is worth it. Resurrection life has no down side because there is no fear of destruction or denial or death. Resurrection life means that death is not a dead end. Resurrection life offers us a life with a resurrected Lord, now and every day.  Jesus’ death and resurrection has given death its ultimate beating. When the stone was rolled away, there was a rolling away of despair, disillusionment, sin and guilt and shame. He broke out so that we could, also. I love what poet Edna St. Vincent Millay said: “I shall die, but that is all I shall do for Death.”

In his play, The Trial of Jesus, John Masefield has the centurion who stood at the foot of the cross report to Pilate after the crucifixion. After the official report, Procula, Pilate’s wife calls the centurion to come and tell her how the prisoner had died. Once the account is given, she asks, “Do you think he is dead?” The centurion answers, “No, my lady, I don’t.”   “Then where is he?” she asks. He replies, “He has been let loose in the world, my lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth.”

He has broken free. The tomb is empty. It’s time to participate in resurrection and all you have to do is break a few eggs, show up, and meet Jesus. Amen.