SERMON FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER, APRIL 18, 2021          TEXT: LUKE 24:36-48

          A friend of mine decorated his office door with cartoons from The New Yorker. One of my favorites showed two men on ladders, peering into a huge container, with all kinds of notations and equations inscribed inside. One says to the other, “Actually, I got some pretty good ideas when I was inside the box.” Another cartoon pictured a man standing in front of a litter box and admonishing his cat, “Never, ever think outside the box.”           

          Our society celebrates innovators, people who push the envelope, revisionists who venture beyond old ways of understanding and challenge others to think differently. God defines Godself as an agent of movement and change: “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old,” God tells the prophet Isaiah. “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19). We, who are created in God’s image, value what we already know, but it is not in our nature to be confined by it. God calls us into the future, “by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown,” as the prayer puts it. Still the changes that come when we venture or are pushed outside our box can be overwhelming.

          Today’s story from Luke makes perfect sense. Of course the disciples were startled and terrified. Of course they were filled with doubts. They thought they were seeing a ghost. The confirmation of Jesus’ bodily presence — ghosts don’t have flesh and bone, after all, nor do they eat broiled fish — while settling that question, did not put an end to their uncertainty. Luke tells us that although they responded with joy, “they were disbelieving and still wondering” (v. 41).

          The disciples had not really understood much during Jesus’ lifetime, despite his teaching, his miracles, and his clear predictions of what was to come. Now once more he opens their minds to understand the scriptures. He charges them to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name, to bear witness to all nations. Ready or not, they have to start thinking outside the box. “You are witnesses of these things,” he informs them in no uncertain terms. He is telling them who they are here and now because he has come into their lives.           

          And he is speaking to us as well. We too are witnesses of these things.

          Years ago I had a conversation with my dad about candidates running for public office. I asked him what was the most important factor determining his choice. It wasn’t either the R or the D after the person’s name, although he was a lifelong Republican. It wasn’t first and foremost the polices they promised to enact, since, as he pointed out, there was no guarantee that they would have the support they required from other politicians to make that happen. The critical factor for Dad was the sense that a particular candidate would be able to learn from experience, to grow into the job.

          This week my brother and I were talking about recent events in our lives, puzzling over the way we had reacted. Together we identified the common reflex; it popped out of the box we grew up in, in particular the parts our father had constructed. Dad was not one to live on the edge; he led a well-ordered life by design; his assumptions about the way things should be were remarkably sturdy. Yet he realized the value, indeed the necessity, of resilience in himself as well as in the leaders for whom he voted. The header on his obituary wasn’t “George Ralph Strohl, Jr., Visionary.” Nonetheless, in heart, mind and spirit he traveled beyond the limits set by his fears. Over the years he ventured outside of the box he had inherited and grew into the job to which God was calling him.

          One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Hebrews 12:1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” Witnessing is not the exclusive work of heroes and visionaries, although there are many of them in that great cloud. The fact is that even the luminaries are no different from the commoners in their basic qualification. Jesus charges his followers to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins. He is asking them all, from the greatest saint to the thief on the cross, to speak of what they know. They know what it means to be forgiven in his name. Jesus begins with the group of feckless disciples, who failed him so miserably in his hour of need. Who, after all, was better qualified to speak of God’s mercy and the new life it creates?

          One of my friends often reminds me that it’s a miracle of grace that forgiveness happens at all. Jesus is calling us to be everyday miracle workers, to take the mercy he gives us and spread it to others. Ordinary people like you and me and my dad share an uncommon power: we are forgiven forgivers. And that will rock whatever box you’re in! Amen.