Earlier, we read responsively today’s Gospel lesson.  Let’s pause to imagine what’s happening in this story—in that beautiful moment. 

               The disciples are fresh from Jerusalem where they watched their friend arrested, tortured, and executed.  They’ve cowered in fear and confusion.  Then had a series of what must have been bewildering episodes of seeing and talking to their dead friend.  Now, they’ve fled back home, to places and tasks that are familiar.  They are in Galilee, on the shore, listening to the water lapping and the breeze blowing and the fire crackling. 

And here is Jesus, their dead friend newly revealed to them once again, and this time he’s sitting here on the beach with them, helping to cook the fish, and then they eat it together. 

There’s both something strange and something simple about this story.  Nothing could be simpler than sharing food over a campfire with friends.  But this one is shrouded in trauma and mystery, because it is also a Resurrection story.  Here, are a few friends eating together after the worst violence that life could throw at them.

And it is in the strangeness and the simplicity of this moment on the beach that Jesus tells them, “Feed my sheep.  Tend my sheep.”

This Easter season we’ve talked about ways the resurrection stories apply to our current human needs from addiction and loneliness to fighting cancer.  And I’ve recommended some practical bits of advice—spending fifteen minutes in a phone call connecting with someone, eating together, walking the labyrinth, and dancing.

The task Jesus gives us in this story seems much bigger.  First, he’s inviting them, and us, to be more like God.  That’s one reason the Exodus story is paired with this Gospel today.  In the Exodus story, God hears the cries of the people suffering in slavery, and then God takes action to deliver them, to liberate them.  We are invited to be more like God—to hear the needs of those around us and to respond.  Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.

So this story sets us a spiritual task—to become better listeners.  And from that listening to take liberating action.

Jesus is also inviting them, and us, on a mission.  To share the good news, to make disciples, to spread this message and way of life.  And what’s going to happen when they do that is, they are going to help create a new world.  Feed my sheep.  Tend my sheep.

These resurrection stories invite us to change our lives.  They also invite us to participate in changing the world.  Joining in the new creation God has always dreamed of.  Our job is not just to do good, but to unite with God in the struggle for a better world, to fight the forces of evil, and help to set humanity free.

How do we, then, participate in the resurrection stories and experience liberation?

               In January I attended the annual retreat for United Church of Christ senior ministers, and our keynote speaker was the teacher, writer, and pastor Mary Luti.  Her talks centered on the ethical imperatives of the sacraments—baptism and communion.  When Mary talks there’s grace, humor, artfulness, and insight.  Here’s one insightful, ironic story that she shared about some colleagues:

Back in the 80’s some hip Andover Newton [Theological Seminary] faculty members decided to get off the hill and down into what was then called, forebodingly, “the inner city”. They got a sort of ministry school going in Roxbury, a predominantly Black neighborhood of Boston with real challenges and (largely bigoted) bad press. They spent hours on end consulting with area activists to learn what they could do to help address the neighborhood’s issues. One woman from the community listened patiently and politely as they nattered on, but soon she’d had enough. She stood up and began describing the richness of the community, the people who lived there, their beauty and accomplishments, their creative institutions, their courageous families, their struggle to make the neighborhood more than a frontpage horror story; and she demanded to know why smart theology guys seemed to conceive of Roxbury as a problem to be solved, not a gift to be received.

               We UCCers are so devoted to justice, to welcome, to inclusion, to doing the good, hard work of creating God’s community in the world.  But . . .

               Sometimes we are the ones who need to learn something.  We are the ones who need to receive a gift.  We are the ones who need to be set free from our own blinders and preconceptions.  Sometimes we need to be liberated from the ways we hold and use power.  Maybe we need to work more on that spiritual task of being good listeners before we act?              

               So, let’s listen to Virgilio Elizondo.  Elizondo served in the Archdiocese of San Antonio and was rector of the San Fernando Cathedral.  His lasting contribution to theology was to develop a mestizo approach in his book Galilean Journey.  I think he’s a a good teacher for us today. 

               Elizondo writes that God is often at work in the frontier regions, on the borders and the fringes, working to bring about God’s new creation.  And that the experience of pain and struggle of oppressed and excluded persons has given them insights into resurrection that the rest of us could benefit from.  He declares, “Society’s rejects—now reborn of God—begin to invite everyone to the new way that has been shown to them.  All are invited.”  They need only open their hearts to the working of the Spirit.

               What are the liberating gifts that the mestizo community has to share?  Elizabeth Johnson summarizes Virgilio Elizondo’s teaching:

First, the Galilee principle: what human beings reject, God chooses as [God’s] own.  Second, the Jerusalem principle: God entrusts the rejected with a mission, to confront the powers of this world in order to transform society.  Third, the resurrection principle: out of the suffering and death that this entails, God brings life, overcoming evil by the power of love.  These principles spell out the divine way of acting in the world made known in Christ.

               When God chooses those whom society has rejected, this choice is not just good news but is also “new life.”  A “profound rebirth.”  Because the experience of being noticed and wanted gives life.  Just as in the Exodus story, when God hears the cries of the slaves and works to deliver them.

               God chooses the oppressed, not to give them comfort, but in order to empower them in their confrontation with oppression and their efforts to transcend and transform.  The result will be the possibility of transformation for all of society.  They have divine gifts to give; if only we pay attention.

In this new self, revealed in Christ and his resurrection, we have the chance ourselves to be reborn, to rise again into new and better life as part of a transformed and better world.

               But, this doesn’t just come about magically.  We must feed the sheep.  Tend the sheep.  Or, as Elizondo states, this transformed self and society “must be worked at critically, creatively, and persistently.”

               So how do we receive these gifts and live this new life?  How do we participate in the resurrection stories and experience liberation?

               Virgilio Elizondo writes, “One of the greatest things the Christian has to offer our mixed-up and alienated world is that, while realistically facing the struggles of life, one can rise above them and experience and radiate authentic joy and hope, peace and serenity.” 

               Thus all those ordinary practices we’ve been recommending the last few weeks: spending fifteen minutes in a phone call connecting with someone, eating together, walking the labyrinth, dancing.  And today we are going to add to those Resurrection powers-- celebration.

Elizondo draws upon the mestizo traditions of fiesta and recommends that in the face of our human struggles, we claim joy, hope, and resurrection, when we celebrate with one other.

               “It is the prophetic-festive that keeps the spirit alive,” he proclaims, “and nourishes the life of the group.”

               In the fiesta we remember the past, but also get a foretaste of the future, when the fullness of God’s kingdom will come.  And the joy we experience empowers us to continue the struggle today.

So, we need to have parties.  Wide-open, multi-cultural parties that help us to transform into the people God dreams for us to be. 

Just imagine returning to the beach, this time not overwhelmed by trauma, fear, and confusion.  Imagine the disciples came to the beach with their families and friends, and this time they roasted the fish, while the children were swimming.  And then after dinner they danced, celebrating the new life they’d found in Jesus.  And the great opportunity and mission that lay ahead of them.  Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.

               Let’s claim that fiesta of newness for ourselves.  Whatever tries to hold you back or keep you down—the power of the Risen Christ exists to set you free, so that you too might rise up in power to live the life of fullness God has dreamed for you.