Sermons and Reflections:

Tuesday after 2 Easter B
April, 29, 2003
Lutheran Theological Seminary Chapel
Convocation 2003
The Rev. Rick Summy

"As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

It’s enough to take your breath away.

The doors are locked. The silence is deafening. Who can breathe? The fear is a heavy stone pressed hard to the chest. And then out of nowhere—Jesus. No longer dead. Breathing? A word of peace that is peace itself, present, whole, complete. Hands and side displayed and then, yes, joy! It is the Lord.

But amidst the fog of fleeing fear and much rejoicing, floating in air swirling with surprise and not a little shock, those words.

"As the Father has sent me, so…"

And you remember what that meant. Water turned into wine saves a wedding celebration. Extravagant abundance trumps stale scarcity. Living water for a Samaritan woman to whom you would not have even spoken a word. On the other hand, a royal official’s son healed. It’s enough to make you hyperventilate.

A lame man given legs to walk. Five thousand fed with next to nothing. The misunderstanding and the rejection of the authorities.

"As the Father has sent, so…" You remember what it meant. A woman caught in adultery set free. A blind man healed. Lazarus, dead as a doornail Lazarus, raised. You remember your own feet washed by his hands. A new commandment to love as he has loved. Impossible.

You remember your own denial and abandonment in the face of the cross. Death. His, not yours. You saw to that. And so much more.

"So I send you…"

And suddenly you can’t breathe.

I remember my one serious asthma attack, though I didn’t know what it was at the time. I woke up in the middle of the night short of breath. A walk downstairs and a glass of water didn’t help. And so I sat and rocked my oxygen-starving body back and forth, praying that the next breath would be a full one, not the sort of stabbing half-breath that was neither filling my lungs nor slowing my speeding heart. Too stubborn to go to the emergency room, I spent the rest of the night trying to catch my breath. I never did. By morning my chest ached and my head throbbed. I could barely think, hardly move. A trip to the pharmacy yielded an inhaler that finally opened my failing lungs. That first full breath was glorious. It felt like I might actually live. But I wasn’t taking any chances. I mean, you’ve got to breathe. The German in me gave way to good sense and I headed for the doctor.

If we are to live, we’ve got to catch our breath.

Perhaps that is why some of you are here. The rigors of Lent have passed. You survived Holy Week and the sheer exhaustion that is Easter day. You’ve even gotten through low Sunday and the annual rehashing of Doubting Thomas. So, back to the seminary for reunion, remembrance, perhaps a recapturing of the fervor (or foment) of that former time, a chance to clear the lungs and breathe freely for a bit before you are back at the work that can sometimes suck the air right out of you.

Or maybe you are here for a breather from the press of papers and preparation for exams or the breathless urgency of awaiting a call.

Maybe, though perhaps no one has noticed, you have closed the door behind you because you are afraid you can’t do it anymore. Your bones ache. Your idealism and imagination and desire have dried up and you find yourself clean cut off from loved ones, from coworkers, from your own sorry self. Everything and everyone seems to be breathing down your neck.

Although we are smiling and shaking hands and patting backs and even though we are truly happy to see old friends, perhaps secretly some of us have come loaded down, lugging our own doubts and fears up a long flight of stairs.

I’ll be OK. Just let me catch my breath. Words that often precede a heart attack.

It is November. The woman, once tall and robust, is now a bag of bones. She is dying. That’s what the nurses said when they called. Perhaps she has a couple of hours. Surely no more than a couple of days. Her breathing is shallow and infrequent, each strained respiration seems like it will be the last. But it goes on and on. Finally, a stepson, who is ever faithful to her despite a relationship that started out rocky and never moved beyond ambivalence, decides he must leave. He kisses her gently on the forehead. He says he loves her. And he means it. The next day she is sitting up. She is still living. Now, make no mistake. She will die, more likely sooner than later. There was no magic in the kiss. But there was love in it. And if human love can fill the lungs, even for a little while, just imagine…

Never mind lungs, in the beginning we were the dust of the ground. Just dust. But the Lord God formed us and breathed into our nostrils and we became living, breathing beings. Not unlike God. In the very image. Only we quickly decided we no longer needed the life support now that we could breathe on our own.

Fast forward. Ezekiel finds himself in the middle of a valley of dry, dead bones, the remains of an Israel that had decided it could breathe on its own. But all is not lost. Ezekiel is given a word from the Lord. "Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live." And it was so.

Creation.

Resuscitation.

And then on the evening of that day, the first day of the week: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

And we know what it means. There are those who can’t breathe for fear that the sound they make will bring a beating for no reason except that they exist. There are those who can no longer lift their chests for lack of food to eat or medicine to heal. There are those who hide behind closed doors because they are afraid that peace has not yet come, wonder if it will ever come.

We know what it means. There are those who breathe through masks of isolation these days, scared that the consequence of community is disease. There are those, I’m told, who are afraid to pass the peace, to drink from the common cup of life.

"So I send you." We know what it means. There are those who need to walk, who need to celebrate, who need to be set free. There are those who need not just a kind word and a loving hand, but justice. There are those who are dying and long for a living word or a loving kiss before they go.

Often we are among them.

And those are the ones to whom we are sent.

It’s enough to take your breath away. And without the breath of God in our chests we are but dust, dry bones. But…

"When [Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’" New Creation. Refreshing resuscitation. Promised resurrection. The breath of life.

There is no breathing on our own. No chance of catching our breath. And no need of it. The breath-giving Spirit of the risen Lord catches us and fills our lungs, revives our breathing, supplies our souls with grace sufficient to tend us through our doubts and fears and to strengthen us for service. The Spirit of the risen Christ breathes in and through and among us. Every time we take a breath. Believe it or not. It is enough. And so much more.

It is the beginning of eternal life.

So…

Amen.