“Now Appearing Weekly“
Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
On February 4, 2007
I think I know the sermon you’re hoping I’ll preach this morning. If not in your heart of hearts, in a shallower frontal consciousness of the day’s events, you’re hoping I’ll preach the football analogy sermon, aren’t you? Using the gospel reading, that would be the one that goes something like this:
Coach Jesus stood there on the lakeshore and got in the boat and took the team about a hundred yards out. And after they had been playing all night through the game, but they hadn’t been able to catch anything, he turned to Peter and James and John, who were in the boat with him and he said to them, “Go deep.” And they said to them, “Jesus! Don’t you know anything? We haven’t been able to catch anything that way all night long. The fish know what’s going on here. We need to run with it!”
And Jesus said, “Go deep.” So they did, and this time they caught it. They caught it with such power and such vigor that they couldn’t pull the net in, it was so loaded with the catch. And when they got back to the goal line, to the beach, it was Peter who said, “I’m not worthy, Coach Jesus.” And James and John did a victory dance, and then they got a big Igloo cooler of sea water and tried to pour it over on top of him. And Jesus said, “Trust me. Trust me.”
But I could not, with integrity, say at the end of that, “This is the word of the Lord.”
I’ve been preaching in the epistles for this season of Epiphany, in First Corinthians particularly. So I am going to stay with that. I’m going to be guided by the Lectionary rather than the secular calendar here, although it’s working in my mind even as it is your. The reading comes from the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, verses one through eleven.
Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.
I Corinthians 15:1-11
You know, it’s fun that Super Bowl falls on a Sunday always. I enjoy that, too. But I have to tell you, I am of the opinion that football is not a simple analogy for the Christian life. Not just a simple one. Of course there are parallels you could draw, and illustrations that one could make. But I can’t tell you that I think football is just a simple contiguous analogy for living the Christian life. Nor for that matter do I think basketball is. Nor hockey. In fact, I’m pretty sure hockey isn’t anywhere even close to it. That looks like it’s just an analogy for combat, to me.
I want also to go on record as saying that it does not seem scripturally sound or theologically sound, to me, to presume that God has a favorite football team. I tried to argue earlier in the season with the rest of the staff that the Saints were God’s chosen team because of the name and because of all the suffering in New Orleans. But apparently I was wrong about that.
Today we do have two coaches who make a wonderful witness to their Christian faith as a part of their celebrity status. And I think that’s a wonderful illustration of good stewardship that they would use that moment of fame to point to their own faith. It is something that causes me to say “Praise the Lord and thanks be to God!” In fact, Ben Hill IV e-mailed me an advertisement that apparently is running in some of the major papers of both coaches standing and looking at each other, speaking to there being ultimate purposes in life. Underneath the blurb says something like, “We are grateful for the vocational successes that have led us to today’s game, but we want everyone to understand we believe there are more ultimate truths and purposes than those that will be played out here at six o’clock this afternoon. “ I think it’s a wonderful thing that they are able to do that together. That both of them are able to come together in a common witness that way.
Praise the Lord! Thanks be to God! But First Corinthians fifteen, one through eleven, finds the apostle who earlier had been talking about spiritual gifts suddenly now speaking of the Resurrection, and Resurrection appearances. Paul is reporting appearances of the resurrected Christ. First of all he appears to Cephas, he says. Then to the twelve. Then to five hundred. Then to James, and then to the apostles. And then, as to one untimely born, Paul claims that Jesus appeared even to Paul himself. That Paul places himself amongst those who are least deserving of the experience of seeing the resurrected Jesus.
Across the two thousand years of the history of the Church, people have continued to report appearances of the resurrected Christ. Appearances of God with us. Some have been capricious. I refer, in part, to the one I saw on e-Bay back in 2005. James Rigo reported that he found an image of Jesus in a stain on his shower stall. He sold it on e-Bay for two thousand dollars. It was bought by the same casino in Las Vegas that earlier had paid twenty-eight thousand dollars for the partially eaten grilled cheese sandwich on which the owner reported to see an image of the Virgin Mary. Now there is a fellow from Ontario who is trying to sell a toaster that he reports will produce a piece of toast with the image of Jesus on it every time. He is asking for a starting bid of a thousand, two hundred dollars. When I looked last, nobody had bid anything yet.
So some of the appearances that are reported are capricious. Silly. But some are sincere. You may remember in Clearwater, in 1996, people reported seeing on the outside of a building an image of the Virgin Mary. While it was not my experience, it clearly was a sincere and meaningful experience for them, and it nurtured their faith. They came in real devotion and gathered around it. They created an organization that bought the building, and they made it into a shrine. Many of us were angry in 2004, when a vandal damaged part of the window. But the shrine is there today, still.
I was with my friend, Monsignor Higgins, who said about the image of the Virgin Mary on the side of the building, “You don’t have to go to Clearwater to see God in the world.”
That made sense to me. But I try to treat with sensitivity and respect where people report they see God, especially the resurrected Jesus, present amongst them.
Paul makes the point here in First Corinthians fifteen that the resurrected Jesus is showing up all over, appearing regularly there in the midst of the early church. For me, as he talks about it, from the beginning of his description to the end of these verses, there is a movement from seeing the visage of the resurrected Jesus. I think he believes he saw a bodily appearance. But at the end, it seems to me he has moved from just reporting about that appearance to reporting the experience of God’s grace. That’s what he’s seeing in the resurrected Jesus, the experience of God’s grace.
Listen to what he says: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me (that’s what’s been extended to him in the appearance), his grace is not in vain. “I did work harder than any of those other prophets or teachers, but it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
I’m with that movement. We see the resurrected Jesus when we see God’s grace appearing before us and amongst us.
So where have you seen the resurrected Jesus this week? I’m interested in hearing the sincere stories of where you have encountered an image of the Living God. I’ll treat those with respect. I’ve heard them from you. But I’m more interested in where you’ve seen the resurrected Christ in God’s grace.
At the end of this week, I sat with the Session on their retreat, and the officers present in a circle for about an hour and a half went around the room and shared where they had seen faithfulness in the life of this church and in their own lives. By the time we were about halfway around the room, the stories were so meaningful and so authentic, that it was clear to me that the resurrected Jesus was sitting there with us.
I sat with a family about two weeks ago, and in their grief they talked about the pain of losing their father and their grandfather. But as they talked, I heard them move from just tears to memories, to laughter, to a real sense of the vitality of how they had been blessed in God’s gift of the presence of that father and grandfather in their lives, and in that family circle at that minute, it was clear to me in the grace of that gift, the resurrected Jesus was there present with us.
I wanted to, like the women who run to the disciples after the resurrection, raise my hand and say, “I’ve seen the Lord!”
Ron Gilreath is a friend of mine. He’s an associate pastor in Atlanta, Georgia. He tells the story of his relationship with his neighbor. They both like yard work. And in their yard work, they began to talk to each other, and Ron discovered that his neighbor was not a believer in the Christian faith. But a very polite man. A man that Ron enjoyed, but he didn’t share his faith. As they would talk about it there, over the hedge, his neighbor would in a particular mannerism, say to Ron, “Well, I don’t want to be impertinent, but….” And he would share with him some reason for his disagreement. “I don’t want to be impertinent, Ron, but….”
And then one day Ron told him that Ron was going that night to work at a homeless shelter. In this particular community, churches sent volunteers to spend the night at a church gym. They took turns sitting up while the homeless people slept in the gym, so that someone would be monitoring and on watch. Ron’s friend said, “I can do that. I believe in compassion. I believe in helping others.” He took the three to four a.m. shift while Ron slept, the agreement being that he would wake Ron up at four. Sleeping there in the pew in that sanctuary, Ron says at four a.m. he felt a tug on his sleeve, and it was his neighbor friend waking him up and saying, “Ron, it’s your turn. I don’t want to be impertinent,” he said, “but I think the resurrected Jesus is in that gym.”
Wherever two or three are gathered, Jesus said, there I am also. Wherever human need is present, wherever in God’s graciousness God deigns to appear, we see the resurrected Jesus before us, still. And what I’m wondering is where have you seen the resurrected Christ appear in your midst in the last week. Particularly, where in the experience of God’s grace have you seen that?
We hear the stories of people seeing Jesus in the side of a piece of toast, or in a stain on a shower stall. I wonder if maybe one of the reasons in the void they bring forward stories of those appearances is because we’re not speaking clearly enough about where we are finding the Real McCoy.
Where have you seen the resurrected Jesus this week? Remember, it’s not a sign that you’re good enough. It’s by God’s grace. And why shouldn’t you deserve God’s grace? After all, it was for sinners that God sent Jesus.
©John T. DeBevoise 2007
