TEXT: John 20:19-31Speaker: Mark Rupp

This morning, we are in the second Sunday of the Easter season, but before we transition fully into this season, I wanted to take some time to look back, make some connections, and perhaps add some clarity. 

If you were around during Lent, you might have noticed that even though our overall theme was “Composting Faith,” we used Children’s Time to talk about breadmaking. At first glance, those might seem like two very different things. One is about scraps and soil and decomposition, and the other is about flour and yeast and something we eat. As the person who helped design those Children’s Time lessons, I think I failed to always make the connections between the two very clear. But to me, they are both variations on the same story. 

Both composting and breadmaking are, at their core, cycles of transformation.

In composting, you take what is left over, what seems used up or even lifeless, and through time and the right conditions, it becomes something that can nourish new growth. It doesn’t happen instantly, and it doesn’t come out of nowhere. It is a process that depends on what came before, breaking down and becoming part of something new.

Breadmaking works in a surprisingly similar way. You start with simple ingredients, but what makes bread bread is the transformation that happens over time. The yeast works through the dough. It rises. It changes. And as we explored during Children’s Time, it is not a linear, one-and-done process. It involves waiting, folding, kneading, resting, and sometimes even starting again.

Both of these practices remind us that transformation is rarely about starting from scratch. It is about what happens when what already exists is taken up, worked through, and reshaped over time. I’ve named them as “cycles of transformation,” but in reality…

Text: Luke 24:13-35

Speaker: Joel Miller

When I say Christ is Risen, you say Christ is Risen Indeed!

Christ is risen….Christ is risen….

For an Easter story, the journey to Emmaus is remarkably, unremarkable.  If you’re looking for flashing lights and earth-shaking spectacle, you’ll find it at the empty tomb – earlier Easter morning.  Early at dawn, Mary Magdelene and other women bring spices to care for Jesus’ body.  They arrive and find – to their great confusion – no body, no Jesus.  Instead, they’re met by two men is dazzling clothes who announce that Jesus is not here.  He has risen. 

That’s how Luke tells it. 

Matthew adds more layers of drama: As soon as the women arrive at the tomb there is a great earthquake.  An angel with the appearance of lightning descends from heaven, rolls away the stone guarding the tomb, and sits on it.  And says those same words.  He is not here.  He has been raised. 

Mark and John convey a similar message: something earth-shattering has just happened.  The thin veil between earth and heaven, the material and the spiritual, has been pierced.  Jesus, who was executed, publicly crucified in Jerusalem, dead and buried, has been raised.  Don’t look for him among the dead.  He. Is. Not. Here. 

Which opens the question: Then. Where. Is. He?

This is the question hanging in the air as Luke transitions to the Emmaus Road story:

Luke 24:13: “Now on that same day (empty tomb day, Easter Sunday) two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.”

This piece, called “Emmaus Road: Breaking Bread” is displayed in that back corner of the sanctuary.  The artist, Matthew Regier, includes three key elements of this story.

There is, of course, the road.  A road is…

Text: Luke 19:28-48

Speaker: Joel Miller

What are you waiting for?

That’s what we say to someone when we’re trying to say they shouldn’t wait. 

What are you waiting for?  Take the trip you’ve been talking about for years.   

What are you waiting for?  Ask the girl out. 

What are you waiting for? Apply for the dream job.  Make the phone call.  Quit the soul-sucking job.   Declutter the things that don’t spark joy.      

You only go around once.  If you don’t do it now you may never do it.  Do the thing.  What are you waiting for?

Now that we’re all slightly more anxious about what we’re doing with our lives – or aren’t doing….   There’s another way those same words can be used.

What are you waiting for?  Waiting is a regular part of life.  We are constantly waiting on something.  We’ve been talking about this.  You mix up the bread dough, you wait for it to rise.  You layer and turn the compost pile, you wait for it to break down.  You have the surgery, you wait for it to heal.  You plant the seed, you wait for it to grow.  Waiting well is an essential practice for a healthy life.  We wait for the letter, or email to arrive.  We wait for the test results.  We wait to be old enough to drive, and then, since a lot of other people had the same idea, we wait in traffic.  Everyone is waiting for something. 

What are you waiting for?

It’s maybe an unexpected question to bring to the reading this morning.  Luke’s descriptions of the events surrounding Palm Sunday, as we call it, are full of emotion and action.  Not exactly the stuff of patient waiting.  Not some backyard compost pile where you need a microscope to confirm there’s something going on in there.  Here the activity…

Scripture | Luke 19:1-10

Good morning. I’ll begin this morning’s sermon with a song. I invite you to sing along with me, if you know the words. Accompanying motions are highly encouraged.

“Zacchaeus was a wee little man,

And a wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree,

For the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the savior passed that way,

He looked up in the tree.

And he said,

‘Zacchaeus, you come down!

For I’m going to your house today.

For I’m going to your house today.’”

As our collective chorus suggests, this is a popular song in many Sunday School classrooms. Though a significant portion of us did not grow up Mennonite–myself included–this song has crossed denominational boundaries. It seems many Christian traditions are intrigued by Zacchaeus’ brush with Jesus of Nazareth.

Yet, this song does not capture the complexities of the biblical narrative. The song tells us very little of Zacchaeus, and very little of Jesus, who invites himself into Zacchaeus’ home. The song reveals nothing that transpires after the invitation.

Luke’s text tells us that Zacchaeus is a tax collector. This career makes him wealthy, endears him to the Roman Empire, affords him a social and economic status unavailable to his peers. He is a messenger of Roman power, and holds a degree of political prestige, at the cost of communal respect and connection. The people despise Zaccahaeus.

This story comes toward the end of many others that depict Jesus’ life and travels toward Jerusalem, toward his eventual crucifixion. Luke is the only gospel that includes Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus. As we enter chapter 19, Jesus passes through Jericho, and the people gather. Zacchaeus is curious–perhaps even desperate–to catch a glimpse of this man, who is either renowned or notorious, depending on who is asked. Zacchaeus is so eager that he climbs a tree for a…

Text: Luke 18:1-8

Speaker: Joel Miller

The river is of the earthand it is free.  It is rigorouslyembanked and bound,and yet is free.  “To hellwith restraint,” it says.“I have got to be going.”It will grind out its dams.It will go over or around them.They will become pieces.

Wendell Berry, “Give It Time,” in Leavings: Poems

Let’s talk about prayer.  That’s what Luke says Jesus is talking about when he tells the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge.  “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always, and not to lose heart.” Luke 18, verse 1.

If you’re like me, your relationship with prayer has changed over time.  Different phases, different stages.  Including that point where you step back and question the whole arrangement of making seemingly reasonable requests of the Divine who supposedly has power to affect change in earthly circumstances but has been noticeably non-interventionist during the worst moments of human history.  If prayer doesn’t stop the war, end the genocide, prevent the pogrom, arrest the madness of the capitalist fantasy of profit at all costs, burst the dam, what is it for?          

These are questions one will face if one chooses to persist with the practice of prayer.

One of the directions this can take is toward what’s called contemplative prayer.  This is where I personally have felt most at home in the realm of prayer for many years.  Contemplative prayer is less concerned with changing what God does and more focused on changing oneself.  Or, more deeply, it’s not primary focused on change at all, but simply being with what is.  Contemplative prayer is a way of dwelling with the deepest part of ourselves, which is pure attention and awareness, which is God within us.  It sometimes uses words but welcomes silence.

One of the leading 20th century…