Sermon on Luke 24:36b-48

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Today, we’re going to do a little bit of a time warp back to Easter Sunday.Some women disciples went to Jesus’ tomb to care for his body but found instead two dazzling divine messengers.

They told the men disciples, who didn’t believe them, except for Peter, who went to see the empty tomb for himself.

Two other disciples started traveling to the nearby village of Emmaus, when they encountered a stranger on the road. As the sun set, they invited him to eat with them, and as he gave thanks for the bread and broke it, they realized it had been Jesus all along! He disappeared from their sight, and they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples.

They were just finishing their tale, when Jesus appeared in their midst, and that is where our Gospel story begins today.

With the whole having been dead and the random disappearing and reappearing thing, it’s no wonder the disciples thought they were seeing a ghost. If we weren’t so familiar with the Easter stories, this would have the makings of a good ghost tale.

Even as Jesus invited them to touch him, they still weren’t completely convinced that he wasn’t a ghost.

So, he asked them for a snack and ate some broiled fish in front of them. Surely a ghost doesn’t need to eat.

Only then did the disciples seem convinced and calmed down enough for Jesus to get down to business, explaining to them everything that had happened.

It matters that Jesus had a body, and not just because ghosts are spooky.

It matters for Christmas, and it matters for Easter.

At Christmas, we remember that God became one of us—a fragile, human being who needed milk and diaper changes, who skinned his knees as he learned to walk, who laughed and played and grew and questioned.

At Easter, we remember that even though Jesus died an excruciating, humiliating human death, the power of death didn’t stop him. It wasn’t that his spirit transcended bodily form—he was resurrected with a body. He wasn’t a ghost or a spirit or a hologram. He was the incarnated God, God in the flesh, just as he had always been.

That matters because it tells us that the physical world matters to God.

That might not actually sound like good news, considering climate change and ecological disasters and shrinking animal habitats and extinction and all the plastic we use that doesn’t break down for hundreds of years.

If the physical world didn’t matter to God, we could just use up Earth’s resources and spend our time having good theological conversations without worrying about how humanity’s actions affect the world we live in.

But the physical world does matter to God, so it’s important that we don’t get stuck in our heads.

Lutherans have a strong tradition of education and careful thought, and that’s a beautiful thing.

But it also means we sometimes get a little head-oriented. We tend to ignore our bodies or even think of them as bad, sinful, or selfish. We tend to mistrust what our bodies tell us—things like “I need food” or “I need rest” or “The air quality is making me sick.”

In our highly-educated, Enlightenment-informed tradition, we tend to be suspicious of our spirituality or anything that comes across as too “woo-woo.” Because of that, we tend to ignore our intuition, we tend to focus on heady Bible studies and ignore spiritual practices. We can miss out on what the Holy Spirit is saying to us.

There are many gifts that deep thought and critical thinking bring us. But if we remain solely in our heads, we miss out on what our spirits and bodies are telling us. They have wisdom, too, and we’re not getting the whole picture unless we engage our heads, our spirits, and our bodies.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.’”[1]We can love God, and therefore our neighbors, our selves, and our world, with our whole selves.

When we become disconnected from our whole selves, we become disconnected from the Earth on which we live.

Our world which God created is suffering for our lack of connection to it. When humanity ignores creation for the sake of the bottom line or our convenience or our comfort, we are also ignoring our call to be stewards of the Earth.

This problem is way bigger than any of us individually, but without the actions of individuals, nothing will change.

In our Gospel story, we see Jesus reassuring his disciples that he is flesh and blood like they are, made of the organic material God created with such loving care. And once they’re calmer, he uses scripture to explain to them what happened.

But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus settled their spirits, opened their minds, and then sent them out to be his witnesses to the world.

It wasn’t enough to sigh in relief that Jesus wasn’t a ghost or revel in their newfound understanding. They had a mission to connect people with this story. It would take all of their heart, soul, strength, and mind, because sharing their story was borne of their love for God.

What form of loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind is God be calling you to?

On this day before Earth Day, might loving God and loving your neighbor take the form of loving our Earth a little better?

Just as Jesus equipped his disciples to love God and neighbor by sharing their stories of Jesus, God equips us to speak and act in support of creation.

Easter is a “no” to death and a big “yes” to life.

Jesus came back in a body, because material things matter to God, and if we only think people’s souls matter, then we’re forgetting that God delights in creation and calls it good.

We’re forgetting that God instituted the Sabbath, sabbatical years, and the year of Jubilee to provide rest and enjoyment of creation.

We’re forgetting that we are beings created in love by God out of the mud of the Earth, and that God chose to become a mud creature too—the very Jesus who ate fish with the disciples in today’s story.

God instituted water for baptism and bread and wine for communion—material things to help us feel connected to the spiritual.

What do polluted waters mean for baptism?

What do pesticides and unfair agricultural labor practices mean for communion?

What does that have to do with us?

Everything.

Humanity’s disconnection from the Earth is bigger than any one of us, but change is often made by small actions that add up.

James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

What is one small thing you can do today to care for the Earth?

Take some time this week to ground yourself in your body—stand on some dirt, feel your feet press into the Earth—and ask God to guide you.

Jesus equipped his disciples to share their Easter stories.

God will equip you to share your stories of new life, too.

[1]Luke 10:27