St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Clay Center, KS

PLOTTING THE RESURRECTION

One of my colleagues wrote an inspiring story with this title for an Easter sermon. It was about a woman he visited through a serious illness that led to her death, and how her faith changed his own life and ministry. The title has always stimulated my imagination: I think of a garden plot as well as a Sherlock Holmes type ?plot?. (It?s that one that really intrigues me).

When I read scripture, it is most often as an epic love story, full of joy, sorrow, drama, discovery, death, birth, and rebirth. The main character is a Lover unlike any other: beyond mysterious, and yet as close as your own heartbeat - A Master (and Mistress) of disguise ? appearing in countless surprising and unexpected ways ? Someone holding immense power, who chooses not to use it in the expected way ? Someone who loves eternally, and yet is most concerned with the present moment ? Someone who loves each one of us as if we were the only one; yet cares passionately for the well being of every living creature ? Someone who is dying to give us infinitely more than we can ask for or imagine ? Someone who we, infuriatingly, don?t trust! What a story!

And the plot continues; it continues in us. Will we finally listen to the One who loves us more truly than anyone else? Or, will we continue to listen to the voices of others who trap us in illusions of fear and insecurity? Will we cast away false lovers, or continue to live lives out of the soaps? Do you ever find yourself talking to television characters, telling them to wake up and do what?s obviously right for them?

The Good News is that our Lover never ever gives up on us ? goes to hell and back again for us. There is always hope for us, and the story never ends! We are part of God?s Plot, God?s Story. What more could we possibly want? Now is the time to claim our own part in the Plot! Let?s get digging!

Mother Susan