Sermon for April 22 - Earth Day

The Scripture Reading for this sermon is Luke 24:36b-48

Meister Eckhart once said, “If I spend enough time with the tiniest creature – even a caterpillar – I would never have to prepare a sermon.  So full of God is every creature.”  This sounds like a great idea to me.  How perfect is it that I won’t ever have to write a sermon again.  And since, as many of you know, I love watching nature documentaries.  I watch them avidly, I figure I’m a step ahead.

The last time I saw a caterpillar, however, was in December.  And there was something quite tragic about that.  A caterpillar in December in Manitoba.  The little guy was in his full furriness, inching its way across the road.  There was melting snow all around it, but the possibility of spring was still very distant.  I’m not sure how this happened.  I don’t know whether the caterpillar was late in arriving, or whether it was early, hatching from an egg, its body somehow fooled by the warm weather.  Nevertheless, it would not survive until spring.  I pondered the idea of squishing it, I imagined that would be a quicker way to go than freezing.  But I didn’t.  I moved it off the road, and hoped that a hungry bird would see it. 

That I remember a simple encounter with a caterpillar 4 months later, I think speaks to Meister Eckhart’s words.  “If I spend enough time with the tiniest creature – even a caterpillar – I would never have to prepare a sermon.  So full of God is every creature.”  I say this with all seriousness, and all gratitude, but I built a little relationship with that caterpillar.  It was able to evoke feelings within me, feelings of joy and sadness.  That was its gift to me.  And I do still at times wonder what happened to my little friend, knowing full well that whatever it was, it probably was not good.

This seems so far away from our scripture story for today, where we once again find ourselves in the company of Jesus’ disciples.  Rumors are starting to fly among them.  They talk about the empty tomb, they hear about an encounter on the Road to Emmaus.  Excitement is building, but they don’t know what it could mean to them.  Finally, the Risen Christ appears before them, and their response is the most normal response I can think of.  They are terrified.  They think he is a ghost.

As in the Thomas story, Jesus then invites the disciples to reach out and to touch him, to feel his wounds.  He is no ghost, he walks among them, he breathes among them in the fullness of his body.  And sure enough, he eats among them, he physically needs nourishment.  Whoever wrote Luke is really emphasizing that the Risen Christ has a body.  This is incredibly important to the author.  This is not a story about some transcendent being.  This is not a story about an ethereal Jesus, a ghostly Christ who dwells in our hearts and minds, a heavenly presence that whispers from far away.  This is a story about flesh and bones, which we all have.  It is a story about physical bodies, about creation and the world around us where we all live.  It is right here.

So often we want to put God far away.  We want to put God in the heavenly realm.  When we do that, the purpose of Christianity becomes about getting somewhere else, about leaving creation.  This world becomes a sort of proving ground.  It becomes a world that doesn’t really matter in the long run.

But the emphasis on the body in this story, says something entirely different.  Christianity is not a faith about heavenly places and superbeings.  Christianity is about this world.  Christianity says, if we want to encounter God, we can do so right here, right now, in creation, not outside of it.  When I use a word like incarnation, that’s what I mean.  That God is incarnate, to me, means that God dwells here.  That God has a body, that God is physical, that God can be touched, and seen, heard, smelt and tasted.  This is the wonder of the Incarnation.

Today we are celebrating Earth Day.  I think this is an important day to celebrate in the Christian calendar.  It is a day where we are reminded that holiness exists all around us, that to spend time with a caterpillar is to spend time with God.  And so I’m going to invite you to do that.  Spend time with a caterpillar, or a fly, or a shrub, or even a blade of grass.  Take a seed before it is sown and marvel at it.  Just marvel at it.  Today is an invitation to the fullness of our faith as Christians, a faith that does not look for God far away in the future, but a faith that knows God right here, right now.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Sermon for April 8, 2012 - Easter Communion

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting down with someone, and the conversation turned to communion.  She stated something that was very familiar to me.  Communion did not mean anything to her.  She went through the motions, but it was more just an exercise in tradition, or perhaps a “lets just get through this” sentiment..  Get the bread, dip it, eat it move back to sit down. “Why do we do it?” she asked.  She wondered if she was alone in feeling this, though she suspected others felt this way too.  I say this was familiar to me because it is something that I have felt.  Communion as a process of going through the motions.  I asked her if I could share this conversation, because I could not think of a better time to talk about communion than when we celebrate it on Easter morning.

I was going to come in today and describe all the different ways that communion has been important to me.  Just by way of example.  But I realized as I reflected on communion this morning that my understanding of it has changed this week, it is a very personal experience this week.

As some of you may know I was fasting this week, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.  My thought was that, “Oh, I will spend time with Jesus through fasting.  Then, when we participate in communion it will taste so good, and I’ll experience it in a wonderful new way, and I can share that with the congregation.  What a great Easter Sunday it will be!”  That was my pride talking.  And if I know one thing about God, it is that God finds pride hilarious.

3 times I broke my fast.  Each and every time I was able to rationalize it for myself.  But think about it, in a two day fast I had to eat three times.  Really Crouch?  I was able to say, “Oh I don’t wan to pass out at the wedding, I better eat just in case.”  Or “Oh I don’t want to be sick for the Easter Sunday service, I better eat just in case.”  Or, “Oh, I don’t want to get too run down before the drama.”  Or, and this is my favourite, “In the Jewish way of counting days, the day begins at sunset.  So since the sun has already set, it is technically Easter Sunday right now.”  And I ran to the fridge.

And I felt awful afterwards.  I felt tremendously guilty.  Even this morning when I woke up, I was feeling bad.  I said to myself, “Communion is going to be awful today.”  And then I realized, Wait a minute… I get to have communion today.  It was such a profound moment of grace.  Even though I had not succeeded in my attempt, there is still communion offered for me, there is still Easter Sunday.

Suddenly, this morning I found myself in Peter’s shoes, his story playing out for me.  All full of gusto and bravado, saying I would go with Jesus where no one else would.  Peter who denies Jesus three times, and who in the moment is able to rationalize his own safety, but who feels awful afterwards.  Three times he denied, three times I ate.  But Peter is able to experience such a profound sense of grace when Jesus asks him three times “Do you love me?”  Today, I am very fortunate that I will get to have communion three times, one for each time I broke my fast… as though Jesus is asking me, “Tim, do you love me?”

Does this mean I won’t ever fast again?  No, I’ll try again one day.  It just means that today I am getting a far different lesson than I would have had I succeeded.  A lesson of humility and grace.  That’s what communion means for me today, that’s what Easter Sunday means for me today.

One of the reasons I was happy about the conversation I shared at the beginning of this meditation was because that is a wonderful first step.  I was thrilled when she asked, because that means it matters, or at the very least it means she wants it to matter.

I cannot tell you what communion should mean to you.  I cannot tell you what the resurrection should mean to you.  But we need to spend time with it.  If we want those to mean anything to us, we must spend time with them.  Spend time with them in the company of friends, in the company of family, on our own in prayer and meditation.  I love talking about this stuff, you guys pay me to do it.  But it doesn’t even have to be with me that you speak about it.  Talk with one another.  Be open and honest.  Say, communion means this or that or nothing.  Say the resurrection means this or that or nothing.

Sometimes it will hit us.  We’ll be struck by a thought or an idea or just a feeling.  And sometimes it won’t.  Perhaps more often than not it won’t.  But that’s not what matters.  What is important is the struggle.  What is important is spending time with it.  Today when you’re participating in communion taste the bread, feel it in your mouth.  When you drink the juice, taste it, be aware of it, what does it feel like when you swallow it.  Spend time with the sensations. 

More than that, today is Easter Sunday, this is the most important day in the Christian year.  What does it mean that Christ is risen?  Spend time with it.  Talk about it over dinner tonight.  Talk about whether you and your family and friends believe it literally, believe it figuratively, or think it really has no bearing on your life whatsoever.  Grapple with it.  Place yourself in the story, who do you relate to most?  Where do you fit?  Bring that story into your life today.  Where is there death?  Where is there resurrection?  Have you experienced either of them?  Both of them?  Neither of them?  Talk to me, talk to God.  Let yourself struggle with it.  Really struggle with it.  This is the resurrection of Christ, it is worth the struggle.  Thanks be to God, Amen.