Making Pie, Sermon Notes from the Harmony Service

Rev. Lisa began the Harmony service sharing a story of her father, nearing his death, reflecting on his life and his loved ones.  After acknowledging his parents had been gone a long time, he then announced that “Mom’s gonna bake a pie for me.”  As they discussed this, they decided that it would be custard, one of her specialties and one of his favorites.   

Rev. Lisa noted that there is so much we do not know about eternity.  We know we will be resurrected, but we don’t know what things will look like.  Rev. Lisa noted that from today’s gospel  (Luke 24.36b-48), it was apparent that Jesus’ body had changed…he didn’t need doors to be in a room…however, he reassured his followers that he was indeed resurrected and not a mere ghost.

Furthermore, Rev. Lisa observed that the Bible has several stories where Jesus is hungry.  At a wedding feast, at a table with prostitutes and tax collectors, at Passover.  He even prepares food for others.  Jesus had a human body and he knew bodily hunger.   And knowing what we know about him, it is logical to think of him experiencing hunger.  We know he hungers for our love and hungers for our help to do God’s work in the world. 

We know something about the kind of hunger food cannot fill…the kind of hunger money, accomplishment or even others can fill.  We need love and self-love…we need to learn to love ourselves.  Jesus talks a lot about being in God and us being in him and him being in us.  It’s way beyond the kind of relationship we can have with each other…this mystical you-in-me, me-in-you relationship that offers us. 

Rev. Lisa suggested that it isn’t that different when you make a pie for someone you love.  That person is in your heart as your prepare the pie and then the pie literally becomes part of another person.   This might remind us of the Eucharist…Jesus’ body is given for us and we as members of the body of Christ given for him. 

 

1^st John promises that the culmination of this sort of relationship is that “when Jesus is revealed, we will be like him. For we will see him as he is.”  And we will see ourselves as we are: full of the light sna love of Christ.