So far, we’re still dallying around with mission statements and figuring out just where and when to enter into some of our community’s important conversations, and yet, we are also learning all that we can about what’s going on in Oak Ridge and her surrounding communities. Oddly enough, it was the Unitarian pastor who reminded us all that our romantic ways of thinking about Oak Ridge need to die before we can see how to make a difference in the community as it is now. We’ve been learning that our pristine images of a highly educated and motivated community are not the whole story when we think about how far we need to go to solve economic disparities, drug related issues, and the frustration that comes with churches being mostly places for the like-minded to gather for patting ourselves on the back on Sunday morning. After giving us some idea of what it might take to have an “Oak Ridge resurrection,” our pastor friend got sure and certain ribbing for actually posting on their church sign that the Unitarians were doing “Easter” services this year. The Unitarians, as accepting as they are of all faiths, have never much been known for big holiday proclamations of the “Risen Lord!”

But looking back the prophet Isaiah tell us that God is about to create “a new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” As hard as it is for us to change, or to be able to change our communities, God says through the prophet, “Be glad and rejoice in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight.” Perhaps God has something like that in mind for Oak Ridge, or for the greater Knoxville area, or for our state or nation. We are given signs to look for in this new world order – the greater health and well being of both the very young and very old, the economic justice of people having enough food and shelter for themselves without someone else encroaching on it, the enjoyment of work, the blessing that children will be to God and to their descendants, and finally, ending up with an image of a world where the powerless are not devoured by the powerful. It sounds like the idyllic place that we would all like to inhabit.

But the truth is this: in order for this to take place, the old has to die, the former things are not to be remembered, dwelt upon, or held in such high esteem that they can never be touched. There were plenty of times that Jerusalem did NOT want to be changed by God. There were times when God’s people said, “ENOUGH! Enough of this God who demands all our time and energy! Enough of God wanting our worship and sacrifice! Enough!”

As British writer G.K Chesterton once said of the Christian life, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” (Beyond the Walls of Resistance, p. ) More often than not, we give up on this vision of something so totally new and so totally different that we could celebrate every life and depend on God to listen to us before we even started speaking. We let our hopes die in mission studies and over hurried lunch meetings. We let our doubts and fears overtake us, and spin another myth that everything in our little world is OK without trying to change anything.

The Rev. Eugenia Gamble who has become a pastoral inspiration to me explains our dilemma somewhat like this. She said that she has always cherished the resurrection image of the caterpillar turning into the butterfly. The humble caterpillar represents all that is old and boring in us, the part that munches away on potato chips in front of the TV. The elegant butterfly gives us hope that we will one day be able to soar above it all. But there’s this transformation that has to take place in us first, and it happens inside the cocoon. As an introvert, she finds this image comforting of spinning a tiny retreat house where you can curl up and nap or read a good book and hide away from the rest of the world. One day when she was explaining this desire to cocoon away, a scientist friend of hers reminded her of what actually happens inside the cocoon. Once the caterpillar is inside, it doesn’t just sprout wings one day after reading the paper, it has to fully disintegrate, rearrange its genetic pattern, and totally become a new thing in order to grow into the creature we know as a butterfly. Eugenia said, “Oh, like caterpillar soup.” “Yep, like caterpillar soup!” said her friend. (Sermon: Caterpillar Soup, Transformational Stewardship Conference, March 2007)

The life of middle class U.S. Americans has often been dubbed a cocooning lifestyle. We go from our homes on suburban cul-de-sacs, to our cars, to our cubicles and offices, back to our cars, maybe talking to a person in the drive thru, but never really engaging with our neighbors or colleagues too deeply. Perhaps it’s also because we feel like we’re in such caterpillar soup. We know that our old lives aren’t quite doing it for us, and we haven’t quite morphed into what’s next. There’s something spiritually missing when we fail to engage, when the Palm Pilot seems to be more in control of our lives than we are, and certainly more so than God is. It’s not that the Christian life, the new Jerusalem life, the risen life has been tried and found somehow wanting; its that it’s too darn hard to get that involved and so we drop back to what feels familiar to us.

This whole resurrection deal, life out of death, feels engaging, interesting, maybe even inspiring for a few brief moments, but does it really describe what we are trying to attain as people of faith? Look, even those who were eye witnesses to the empty tomb were thought of as a little dim-witted. The disciples who had heard the interpretation of Jewish prophesies from Jesus himself were hesitant to believe the women returning from the grave. They were not idiots. They knew that even when they wanted to believe that Jesus could do anything that he told them, coming back from the dead seemed impossible. They considered it an “idle tale.” Even after seeing the sight for themselves, they were as afraid as they were excited. This meant that the tables really had been turned. How could they live their lives the same when something so different had happened?

Well, now it really is hard to find evidence that would make us live our lives any differently. We’ve looked. Every few years or so, there’s a new documentary on the historical Jesus or a means for proving that his tomb actually exists – even though you can visit today at least three sites in and around Jerusalem where they claim to be the actual place where Jesus was buried. The evidence has to be something other than hard empirical data. We’ll never really have that. The evidence is only available where we see signs of those who are trying to live the risen life today, for whom something is different because Jesus gave his life up so we might know life in a new way.

It’s all around us. Sure, we still yearn for the actualization of the prophetic texts in which old and young are vibrant and valued, and the wolves and sheep of this world figure out a truce to their never-ending power struggles. For every split second when we have eyes to see the world in this way, a new statistic emerges for how rotten we can be to each other as part of the human race.

But I would submit to you that those glimpses are there, the truth can be found that the world is different because Christ lives to make it that way. Christ inspires us to founder around in the caterpillar soup long enough to see a few butterflies emerge. For goodness sake, we are sitting in a Presbyterian Church, a Christian church that one would expect has an Easter message to tell about the Risen Lord. We want to shout it loudly and proudly that Christ the Lord has risen, but we are known to be a traditional and solemn bunch – stuffy, cold, and so in our heads as to have forgotten what it would be like to have an emotional experience of our faith. “It isn’t in us,” we might say – but just this week, I heard someone say what a warm church we were. I’ve heard people say how caring we are of one another. I’ve seen signs that the “frozen chosen” are having a spring thaw in spite of the less than cooperative weather today.

One does not expect to go to a tomb and come back with a story of hope, but we can see this happening every day. What was once dead, now lives again. What they say can’t be done is done by those foolish enough to believe this world is God’s world and important enough to change for the better.

This week, I also sat in Hot Bagel trying to come up with what to say to you this morning about new life and God’s part in it. Rumor has it that in Oak Ridge, small businesses don’t have much of a chance, and they are simply trying to get by. In many cases, this might be so. But as I sat there, two bus loads of rowers came by to say “thank you” to the owners for their hospitality. I wondered what would make buses detour through a parking lot to thank people they hardly knew – but I got a glimpse of that as I watched what happened. Donna, who many of you probably know, told me that she just loved to see them come into town, and she wanted to do something special for all these kids. As she came back off the bus into the restaurant she asked for volunteers to help do a cookout for all the kids, about 800 kids, on Memorial Day Weekend. I didn’t see her get any takers from those who were sipping their coffee, but I did see that she was willing to give, to show hospitality to relative strangers to our community. Out of her small business, she was willing to give abundantly to make someone else feel welcome.

Now I know this story is not exactly about curing diseases or bringing safe water to underprivileged communities – but it is about making a difference where we’re planted. Jesus didn’t travel that far in his ministry – to one city and a few neighboring towns at best. He healed those who came to him for healing. He fed those who were hungry and didn’t ask if they had money to pay for it. Those things were radical reorientations of what most people knew then and what we even know now. Simple trust, hospitality, caring, and faith in God went a long, long way. They still do. The new heaven and new earth are ready for us now. It’s letting go of what is dead in us so that new life can grow. Welcome to the caterpillar soup we know as being disciples of the risen Lord.

Amen.