Changing Diapers in Church -- Easter Sunday

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
April 8, 2007; Easter Sunday, Year C

(Luke 24:1-12) -- But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

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My best friend in seminary, Bill, was the assistant organist at our chapel. That chapel is a beautiful and holy place, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at the General Theological Seminary on the lower west side of New York City. Behind the great marble altar is a warm and engaging statue of Jesus gently caressing a little lamb. Many generations of the church's clergy have been nourished in the presence of Jesus the Good Shepherd, gently presiding over that glorious altar.

One day, Bill was going in to practice on the organ, when he noticed a disheveled looking girl walking around the chapel. She was dressed in an old flannel shirt and jeans; she had long unkept hair, a knapsack on her back, and a baby in her arms. She looked a bit spaced out and hippyish -- one of those souls the world has passed by.

Bill, being a good, genteel Southerner, spoke to her gently, "Pardon me, but may I help you?"

She hadn't seen him yet. She looked up a bit startled. "No, I'm just resting," she said.

Bill nodded, and went to the organ to begin practicing as she sat down. After a bit, Bill realized that he had forgotten some music, so he went back into the office to find it.

When he got back, the woman was at the altar, her knapsack thrown on one side of it. As Bill looked closer, he could see, the woman was changing her baby's diapers -- right on top of the fair linen of the high altar of the seminary chapel.

At first, he was outraged. Who is this crazy girl? But then he calmed down, being a good Southern gentleman.

"Uhh, I don't know if you are aware," he said quietly to her, "but some people, if they walked in right now, might be offended at what you're doing; where you're doing that."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. And she quickly finished and walked out.

Bill went back to the organ bench, but he found he couldn't play. He began to think. What's so wrong with a lost and lonely girl with a helpless baby finding what was to her a logical safe place to change a diaper? It was comfortably high, the only sanitary spot in a filthy city. If the altar of the Christ, who was born in a manger because there was no other place for his mother to lay her head, can't be used for that homeless mother... He wanted to cry, ...for all the hurt, lost, lonely people. He wanted for them, and for that girl, the warm security of the lamb, nestled in the arms of Jesus overlooking the altar at the Church of the Good Shepherd. This altar was a safe place for him; why not for her?

That woman is all of us. It's a jungle out there. Life is difficult. Life is very difficult. There is so much suffering, even when it just looks like normal life. At home with kids and parents, or in an office with regular hours and paychecks. Life is so very difficult for most of us. It is incredibly demanding and at the same time limiting; too often cut-throat and competitive.

Within each of us is a vulnerable, infant life trying to emerge. Some of that is our soul just trying to be good or do good, wanting to connect that with something greater than ourselves. The most important part of us is also the most vulnerable. It is the part of us that wants to love and be loved. All of us are like a child who is trying to learn to trust and love.

We need secure places, clean places to protect that vulnerable childlike quality within us. We need secure place, clean places to connect us to the holy, the transcendent, the greater-than-we. We need enough caring so that we feel safe enough to love. Safe enough to be able to be who we really are, to drop our outer coverings, and simply be ourselves, especially when we feel soiled and in need of a change.

I think I know why Bill wanted to cry that day in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. He knew that he had been safe in that place. He knew what it feels like to be a vulnerable, hungry child trying to learn how to love. He had been fed at that altar of the Good Shepherd. And now, he had made that altar a place of inhospitality for a lost woman and her child.

I believe that we are all pretty much alike -- we are all like weary mothers looking for a safe place to change our dirty diapers -- maybe a place to be nourished and fed a little -- so that what is most real and deepest within us, and therefore feels most vulnerable within us, can rise and live. We don't want to be frightened away with intimidating demands and dressing up and being good enough. We want to hear and know that we are accepted, and that we are welcomed to a safe place. We want a place where we can meet God and grow into becoming our real selves.

Each week I offer this open invitation: "No matter who you are or where you are in your pilgrimage of faith, you are welcome here; you are welcome at God's table. We like to say to people who are unsure whether this is a safe place for them, "You can belong before you believe." Those invitations are grounded in our belief that every person is created in the image and likeness of God.

I want people to know that this is a place where you can be safe; where you will be nourished and nurtured, because of the resurrection of Jesus. We want to live in the light of his life. We want to be like him, and if we are, people will know that they are welcome. Because Jesus said, "let the little children come to me and forbid them not, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God." That picture is in stained glass at the center of our gathering.

People will know they are welcome because Jesus reached out to all in accepting loving compassion. He dined at the house of the rich and religiously unobservant Zacchaeus, and he reached out especially to befriend and bless the poor. He touched the unclean lepers, and he healed those who were foreigners and strangers to his clan. He raised the child of a soldier from the occupying Roman army; he stopped the stoning of a woman caught in adultery; he promised paradise to the thief crucified next to him; he said "come unto me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." To some curious fishermen he said, "Come and see." To the spiritually curious he says, "Come and see." He fed the hungry, especially the spiritually hungry to whom he said, "I have food and drink that are not of this world." He accepted and loved all. The only ones he got testy with were those who were so certain of their own righteousness that they tried to cast others in the shadow of their goodness. The only ones he got angry at were those who oppressed the poor by abusing their power. He treated women with equal dignity as men; children with equal value to adults; outsiders and foreigners with equal hospitality as insiders. That's the model we are invited to live into; that's what we're trying to do in this community.

So I want this church to be a place of radical hospitality, because Jesus was a person of radical hospitality. And if that woman with her child were to wander into this beautiful holy chapel and rest for a moment; and if she were to notice that our altar is a clean place, high and wide enough for her safely to change her little child's diapers; and if our organist Charlie Rigsby were to walk in as she cared for her little one -- I know how big his heart is -- he would ask her, "How can we help you?"

And maybe he would offer her a hot, balanced lunch from our Community Meals program, or find medical care for her child through our health and dental clinic the Community Clinic at St. Francis House. If she were homeless, he might invite her to visit with one of our social workers at the Seven Hills Homeless Center that we started. She and her child might even become one of our first tenants in our new supportive housing facility nearing completion on Huntsville Road. Or if her heart were burdened, he might connect her to one of our priests or our deacon so that she might shed her burden just a bit. We would invite her to church where she will hear the story of another mother and her poor child. She would explore and celebrate with us, God's infinite grace, acceptance and love. She and her child would be fed spiritually with the prayers and music and fellowship of this place. They would be nourished with the Body and Blood of Christ, the sacrament that makes us one with Jesus and one with one another. She would come to know God and to know herself. She would come to know the God who dwells with her and in her and among us all. She would find peace.

That's what the resurrection of Jesus offers all of us. Peace. God has entered into every bit of suffering and alienation that human beings can experience. The cross is the symbol of God's embrace of our misery, evil and death. And what God does with all that is resurrection. New life here and now. New life grounded in the eternal. We are the community that lives in that light. No matter who you are, or where you are in your pilgrimage of faith, you are welcome in this place; you are welcome at God's table.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

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