The disciples did what made sense to them in their uncertainty, hanging out in their clubhouse, the upper room where Jesus had been with them, praying and sticking together. They could have stayed there and been safe and lived out their days. But the Holy Spirit came and blew them out of there, gave them different languages to speak and different missions and sent them out, some going here, some going there, most of them, it seems, heading off to places they’d never been before. Out to danger and difficulty and, for many of them, martyrdom, suffering and death. No more status quo. No going back to the life they had before Jesus came along. 

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Because of course the disciples back then didn’t really get it. It’s not everyday stuff to have your beloved friend and teacher appear before you when you saw him dead just a few days before; it’s not everyday to have him disappear from your sight just when you’d got used to having him around again. It’s no wonder that the disciples were confused, standing there gaping upwards with no idea what to do next. All the explanation in the world, all the careful teaching and preaching Jesus did with them, could not prepare them for this. No more than it does for us, even though we have the benefit of time and tradition and overfamiliarity to help us get used to it all. What in the world does this mean? there he went – what are we supposed to do now?

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Maybe the first question of evangelism for us is an even deeper one: perhaps it requires us first to ask ourselves, what feeds me? what makes me come alive? what is it that is of utmost importance to me? To preach the good news to others in whatever way we are called to do it, we need to know the good news ourselves. When we are grounded in God’s love and spiritually alive, we can’t help but show it – the joy, the peace, the fruits of the Spirit are evident. Evangelism is, then, about finding deepest nourishment for ourselves, and showing others what we have found.

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But when Thomas asks Jesus more about this, how do we get there, exactly? Jesus sounds a little less comforting. You know how, he says. I am the Way there. The Way, the Truth, and the Life. Not so much the Home where you can hunker down and hide from the world, but the Way. Not the thing that makes you feel safe, but the Truth. And I’m calling you ever onward into life, to follow me.

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After the pandemic, students shared how they longed for a space to eat and rest, and that hospitality is why we were welcomed onto UC San Diego 18 months ago to partner with interfaith organizations in the Center for Ethics and Spirituality.  Not long after we started, a student brought a friend who said, "Oh you're the Nice People with Free Pizza!”  Our space was important to one student who brought another because that student was important to the first.  To that point, in December, St. Francis donated a gift to Agape that pays for this hospitality at SDSU for this entire year.  Thank you.

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In worship together every Sunday, we follow this same pattern: we gather, we hear and talk about scripture, we share the meal, and we are sent back into the world. And what we hope is that what happens to these disciples on the road happens here as well: that in what we do together, we meet the risen Christ, our hearts burn within us, and we hurry out to share the good news of God’s work in the world. Right?

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How often have you felt this same hopeless frustration with yourself? With your own doubt?

Your own fear? Whatever that rankling, thorny bush you find yourself caught in when you

consider God, whatever that is for you?

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So the same question that sought us out on Good Friday seeks us out today. Whom are you looking for? What do you seek? We’re drawn here on Easter morning, looking for joy, love, light. Each of us longs for something to connect to outside of ourselves. But we might not yet see that Jesus, the challenging, self-giving Jesus of the gospel stories, is what we’re looking for.

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We’re all looking for something. Seeking and questing is what’s got us here today, part of a community of people trying to worship God and follow Jesus. Some blurry desire for meaning and rootedness, some need for structure and clarity in a confusing life, some good news in our suffering – something draws us into church in a time and place when most of the world around us isn’t bothering anymore. We are looking for something, or someone. We’ve come to see.

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It’s a lot of story to take in in a short space of time – and it’s a lot of emotional ground to cover. Jesus looks very different from the first act to the second – in the first, he is telling his disciples exactly what to do and looking authoritative; in the second, he is silent except for two enigmatic answers to the high priest and Pilate. In act one he chooses action, and the crowds like that: the powerful ruler, coming to be their king, fighting all the forces aligned against him. In act two, he chooses not to act – and the crowds don’t like that at all.

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I almost think that Martha’s faith in this moment is the greater miracle in this story. We have heard this story before, and we know that Jesus will indeed raise Lazarus from the dead. But Martha doesn’t know that. All she knows is that her family’s best friend, their best hope, let them down terribly. Her sister can only weep at Jesus’ feet. How can Martha believe that this is not the end?

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We get clouded with the wrong things and see with the lenses of this world: bound up by the rules with which we live our daily lives, or by what the voices of culture and marketing tell us is possible or acceptable. The good news is that the healing of our sight is always offered to us, has indeed already been offered to us. The Light of the World offers us enlightenment – literally – and opens our eyes to see what we could not see before.

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That water is what satisfies us when nothing else can. It is what sustains us in the desert journey. It is what we need to really live. Yet we will go so long without it even so. It is easy to come to church regularly, be part of a Christian community, even be part of the ordained clergy, without really drinking the water. Easy until it isn’t at all anymore, and suddenly there you are, gasping like a fish out of water.

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Jesus shouldn’t have been telling Nicodemus something he didn’t already know. Jesus taught out of that same tradition that Nicodemus knew so well. But somehow Nicodemus had missed this. The life of faith can be like this – the Holy Spirit blows in to upset our assumptions and call us into new things. And sometimes it happens right there in material we think we’ve already mastered. It’s part of why we call scripture the living word of God. No matter how many times you’ve read the Bible, there is always something new to it. As is sometimes said, first you read the Bible, and then the Bible reads you. There is always something fresh in it, because it is a witness to the God who is alive and present right here with us – not just a God of antiquity and tradition. God still speaks to us, even today.

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The first practice we’ll try is something called the Prayer of Examen, a way of praying that looks back over the day to see what has happened in our walk with God. Created by Ignatius of Loyola for his fellow Jesuits to use, it’s a process of reviewing our day in God’s presence, to begin to know ourselves better in our walk with God – the good parts, but also the temptations and where we fall short. Because all of us have those temptations, ways we struggle to keep our faith and trust in God.

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But to make of Lent another chance for self-improvement is to set ourselves up for failure.  Not only will we fail at our well-intentioned efforts to make things better – you know what they say about the road being paved with those – but we fail at the most important thing of all:  our relationship with God.  For when we spend our focus and energy on ourselves and what we have done wrong, how we could improve – what many see as the point of penitence – we lose sight of where we should be focused, on God. 

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On this Sunday in the church year, we all get a little time together on the mountaintop: the gospel story of the Transfiguration takes us there. All three synoptic gospels include this story, so it’s clearly an important one. It shows the disciples (and us) who Jesus really is, a glimpse of his divinity. It also tells us something of our own response to that revelation – seen through the behavior of Peter, who’s kind of our stand-in in the gospel stories. But what we in the Western church sometimes forget is something the Eastern Orthodox church teaches: this story tells us about what God intends for us, the process that God is working in us even now. Transfiguration is not just about Jesus; it’s what God is drawing us all toward.

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Because there are times when the Bible just turns around and punches you in the nose. When it becomes clear that real people taught and wrote real words so that we would actually change our hearts and lives and live differently. And all the airy intellectualizing we are so fond of doing just turns out to be avoidance of the clear simple truth. When we hear scripture like this, then to say ‘the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God’ and to go off to coffee hour unchanged might just be one of the oh-so-many ways we have of making Jesus weep, yet again.

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I think this is why those fishermen Jesus walked by on the Sea of Galilee were so ready to drop it all and follow him. They were plenty busy with their work and their livelihoods and their families; they were mending their nets and tending to their boats and bringing in fish to sell to support themselves…and then Jesus came along. ‘Follow me,’ he said. And it became crystal clear to them in that moment what was really important, and what really wasn’t so necessary after all. The only activity that mattered was getting up and walking after Jesus, making community with one another as they went. There wasn’t anything else they needed.

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After all, what is it we’re looking for? Maybe it’s meaning, making sense of life or the world around us in a confusing time. Maybe it’s comfort and companionship, the deep love that comes from being truly known. Maybe we want to make things change in the world, bring about the beloved community we long for. I think each of us would answer Jesus’ question differently, if we were speaking honestly from our heart of hearts.

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