Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

John 20:1-10 Easter - April 12, 2009

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Last summer I was on vacation with the family out on Martha's Vineyard. Pam's folks have a little A-Frame cottage they built themselves forty some years ago. It's not what you'd call fancy, but we've all had a lot of fun out there over the years, and it's given us a chance to enjoy the island too. One of our regular events, when we're out there, is this great tag sale they hold every year at the Oak Bluffs Tabernacle. When I have the time, which I usually don't when I'm here but usually do on vacation, I find it interesting to poke through the cast off bits and pieces of other people's lives. It can be a fascinating way to spend an hour or so, as long as you wash your hands when you're done.

On our most recent visit, Pam came across one piece she immediately jumped on. It was an old red painted sign with a message on it by someone named Annie Danielson. It read, "Home is Where Your Story Begins." Pam loved it, snatched it up, paid the exorbitant price of one whole dollar, and it now adorns the wall in her office at school. That probably would have been the end of that, except that I've been surprised, over the last few months, at how often that message has come to mind. Home is Where Your Story Begins. It's not the most profound thing I've ever heard. But it somehow managed to dance around in the back of my mind until I began to feel there was more there than met the eye. Over the course of a good many years of preaching, I've learned to trust that feeling.

Home is where our stories begin. Let's say I was to have you all close your eyes and relax, and then, after a minute just say, think about "Home." Home runs deep. I'd be willing to bet, with just that one word, we'd find ourselves tapping into some of the most deeply embedded, most powerful memories of our lives: where we came from, who and what has influenced us, the lessons we learned and all those things we had to overcome. Some of these memories we cherish; some, no doubt, we'd just as soon forget. But, for good or ill, they have and continue to shape our lives and our self-understanding. They are the memories which give rise to the stories we tell of who we are and where we came from. Home is where our stories begin.

But then, something interesting happens. The stories take on a life of their own. And that happens because when we tell our stories, we don't just repeat the details of the day to day grind of our childhood. We pick and choose. We select, out of the vast collection of our memories, just those few we think are important. We use our memories as the raw materials out of which our stories are created. Necessarily, we focus on some events more than others. We leave out all the mundane stuff and the parts that make us look stupid, I do anyway, and mold the rest into something that seems like it might be worth the telling and, more, worth the listening to. After all, if it's going to be the story of my life I don't want it to be boring.

I came up with a great illustration of this. It comes from the book Falling Through Space by Ellen Gilchrist. Listen to how she tells her story:

This is my home. This is where I was born. This is the bayou that runs in my dreams, this is the bayou bank that taught me to love water, where I spent endless Summer hours alone or with my cousins. This is where I learned to swim, where mud first oozed up between my toes.... This is my world, where I was formed, where I came from, who I am. This is where my sand pile was. I have spent a thousand hours alone beneath this tree making forts for the fairies to dance on in the moonlight. At night, after I was asleep, my mother would come out here and dance her fingers all over my sand forts so that in the morning I would see the prints and believe that fairies danced at night in the sand. (Reprinted from Spiritual Literacy by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat)

Beautiful yes? I think so. She's found a very creative way of telling her story. You might notice that this story is built on what we must assume is a mere fragment of the whole of her life. But despite that, it manages to capture something very important. In this one paragraph, Ellen Gilchrist tells us that we cannot know the essence of who she is until we know the story of the little girl who grew up playing in the mud and sand on the bank of the bayou. That's the power of creative storytelling; it can say so much in so few words.

But when we do this, when we boil down our memories into the story of our lives, something happens. In the process of shaping and sharing our stories a transformation takes place. When we take all the myriad experiences of our lives and carefully select out those few that are going to represent our essential selves, what happens is that home, the physical place where we grew up, stops being where our story comes from. Once our story is in place, it is our story that becomes the source of our home, not the other way around. The story we tell becomes the home that we live in.

And if that's true, as I believe it is, the question for us becomes, how are we going to tell the story of our lives? How will we attempt to get across the essence of who we are? What do we include and what do we leave out? The truth is, we can tell the story of our lives however we want to. I'm not suggesting we just make stuff up, although that seems to work for some people. What I'm saying is that we have real choices to make. The story of our lives isn't carved in stone.

Dan Baker, in his book What Happy People Know, talks about the stories we tell and how they shape who we think we are. He's a psychologist in a counseling relationship with a number of people. One of them was Rita, who was very unhappy in her marriage. Baker tells the story this way:

Rita assured me that she just couldn't leave [her husband] because she had nowhere to go, no way to make a living, and besides, it wouldn't be fair to [her daughter] to have just one parent. She couldn't get that last reason out with a straight face, though - she laughed at herself even as she said it. Somewhere beneath all of that cornpone submissiveness, she had a lot of heart. I liked her.

"I should'na married so young," she said. "Now I'm just 'bout stuck." She sighed from deep inside. "Story of my life." It was one of her favorite phrases. Victims tend to use it a lot. "That's one way to tell the story of your life," I said. "Here's another. A woman gets married too young, makes big sacrifices for her daughter, and realizes she's stronger than she thought."

"That's me, too, I guess." Both stories were true. Rita could spend the rest of her life living out either one. The question was, which one worked? We all have different ways in which we can tell the story of our lives. Some work, some don't. I call the ones that work healthy stories, and the ones that don't horror stories."

Healthy stories or horror stories; isn't that great? We can tell the stories of our lives in whatever way we choose to.

Now, with all this in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if you had almost forgotten that today is Easter. Some of you may be wondering why I haven't yet said anything that sounds much like what you'd normally expect of an Easter sermon. But I actually do have a reason for taking you on this long trip around the barn. And this is it.

Last week as I was doing some background reading for today's sermon, and I came across a statement I just couldn't let pass. It was written by someone named D. Cameron Murchison, and this is what she had to say:

"The Easter Sunday sermon should be the year's easiest sermon to prepare. Those who come to church on Easter Sunday morning come longing to hear one proclamation and one proclamation only, 'Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!' For the preacher, the homiletical task is that simple - announce the good news of the resurrection."

Well my friends, the first thing I want to say about this is that I have never known a minister who would agree that the Easter sermon was "the year's easiest sermon to prepare." That sounds more like something someone who doesn't do a lot of preaching would say. I think of that old cartoon where the minister is shaking hands outside the church after what has obviously been the Easter worship service. One man stops and says to the preacher, "You know, you're in a rut. Every time I come here you talk about the resurrection." I absolutely do preach about the resurrection every Easter Sunday morning and I hope you come here counting on it. But believe me, coming up with a creative way to say what we've all heard many times before is not exactly what I'd call easy.

However, I can and do wholeheartedly say to you this morning: "Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!" For those who came here today longing to hear that one proclamation, I don't want to send you home empty handed, or empty hearted. But, I'd be willing to bet that is only one of the many motivations that brought you all here today. Without necessarily being able to say just exactly what, I trust that some of you are here hoping to find a way to make the Easter story your own.

You see, as important as the proclamation is, in a world of doubt and skepticism, in a world that is increasingly alienated from the church, I don't believe it is enough simply to say, "Christ is risen;" especially on that one Sunday of the year that the pews are likely to be filled. If we simply announce and proclaim the resurrection and call that our worship, the most likely result is that we will send many of you home wondering how supposedly intelligent people can still believe it.

Well let me tell you something. I believe it. But I do have the same problems with the miraculous as many of you do. I struggle just as much with the theology of the church and the many ways it comes into conflict with our modern society. I can't honestly say I understand the mechanics of the resurrection, but I can say that it has touched me deeply. My heart is open to the living spirit of Christ, and because of that, I don't find myself getting lost in the details.

For me, the empty tomb is a story of hope, of joy, of love and grace. It is an affirmation, that we can live our lives free of fear because that which we fear most can not ultimately do us any harm. The story of Easter, over the many years of my faith, has sunk down deeply into my soul, until I can say with great confidence that it is part of the story of my life. I claim it as my story. I choose it as part of the way I explain my own essential self to others. In the same way that you cannot know Ellen Gilchrist apart from the bayou mud between her toes, you cannot know me apart from the resurrection. It is at the center of my life and all that I believe. Life overcomes death. Light overcomes darkness. We can, if we so choose, let go of fear in favor of life, love and joy.

But, that's just more proclamation isn't it. In the end, it's not enough to simply tell the story. It's not enough to argue about the story. What we need is claim the story. We need to make ourselves at home in it; to make it part of where we come from and who we know ourselves to be. Home is indeed where our stories begin. But in the end, it is your story that becomes your home; which means that Easter is not going to be your story unless and until you make your home there. It is not going to be the story of your life until you choose, out of all the myriad experiences and events of your life, to claim a resurrection faith and live in it.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! May you have a blessed and meaningful Easter, and may it become a living part of the story you tell.

Amen.