Sermon preached by the Reverend Nicholas Lang, Rector

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

3^nd Sunday of Easter, April 22, 2007

In the Name of the Risen Lord Jesus who often appears as the stranger in our midst. Amen.

One of my favorite things to do is to go out for breakfast. I really know that I’m on vacation when I’m sitting at Tip for Tops’n in Provincetown – a small diner with the best value for the best breakfast – enjoying the leisure of that experience. Good food, good company – what a way to enjoy God’s bounty. What we have in the Gospel today is a breakfast story.

It is a very human story. The disciples have gone back to their daily routine as fishermen because they need to survive in spite of everything that has happened to turn their lives upside down. We even meet a naked Peter frantically jumping into the sea in search of a Jesus sighting. Again, when he they have difficulty recognizing the risen Christ – he appears to be a stranger – but their uncertainty is overturned once he begins to feed them. It’s not unlike our Sunday liturgy where Jesus feeds us in the word proclaimed and preached in our midst and the gives us bread and wine as symbols of God’s presence with us, God’s mercy, forgiveness and love.

Before we get too hungry for our bacon and eggs, I want to acknowledge that as a nation and a community we have once again this week followed a tragic story of death and destruction, the senseless, horrendous killing of 33 people on the campus of Virginia Tech University. I would imagine that, even if your kids are safe and nestled away in a college dorm far from Virginia, this incident has you on alert. Could this awful disaster and heart wrenching episode happen where my children go to school? And might it happen at the high school or lower grade level as it has elsewhere?

And what about this disturbed young man, the killer and suicide victim? What happened to the innocence of the child in him that created this violent, young adult with such uncontrolled rage? What kind of darkness in his life had turned any glimmer of hope he might have for a future into utter hopelessness and despair?

Certainly, if you have seen the video that has been played, you can understand why parents of the victims urged television stations to stop broadcasting the hate-filled videos of Cho Seung Hui, the 23-year-old English major did the killings. But what I find so very disturbing is that so many people throughout his life failed to really pay attention and respond to the many indicators that this was an extremely disturbed person and was obvuoiusly in huge internal, emotional turmoil. Yet they were not at all unlike the friends of Jesus on the shore that day, distracted by their routines and responsibilities, maybe just too busy to pay attention to the stranger in their midst.

There is no way to rationalize or excuse what Cho Seung Hui did, but I cannot help but wonder what might have been different if somewhere along the line, like back when he was in high school, he had been treated more kindly. He apparently had difficulty speaking and reading in public, looked different from most of his peers, had an accent, was a loner and when a teacher made him read out loud, kids mocked him and said “Go back to China!” No one even took the time to learn he was South Korean. Imagine the marginalization he experienced because of his race, coupled with whatever other life disturbance may have been happening in his family or home – all, I would venture to say the cause of serious clinical depression and rage.

What, though, might this story in the Gospel have to do with us and this tragic young life? I think what Jesus was really doing that morning on the beach was literally trying to “break their fast” –to break their fast from joy and hope and expectation and show them in the simple and ordinary sharing of a meal together that life would go on and that he would still be with them.

Sharing food is what makes us human but, more than that, it is what brings us together and unites as a family or a community. Animals scavenge alone. Human beings usually do not enjoy eating a meal in solitude. The comfort of a good breakfast and good conversation with friends or strangers can be a moment of grace. It’s really all about relationships and staying connected to one another and in community.

How often do most people today sit at a table and share food together – as a household or family, as friends? Fast food, eaten quickly and often alone, is so much the order of the day and the technology of the internet and text messaging prevents us from even talking to one another. How often have you observed someone in a restaurant talking on a cell phone – ignoring, at least for several minutes, the person in front of them?

Isolation is not a healthy condition. God did not intend for us to be loners or to be kept on the margins of life because of our race or gender or socio-economic status or sexual orientation or for any other reason. Jesus was always brining people together – all kinds of people from all walks of life – most often to sit down together at a table and share a meal. And Jesus gave us this holy meal in which we partake every week – no fast food, take out here. We gather together and share this repast as God’s family and the table to which we come is God’s table from which no one is ever excluded.

Yesterday, more than 150 people from across the Diocese of Connecticut and even from out of state came to the table here to listen to our story about the wonderful life we have known at St. Paul’s. They heard about our passion for growth, commitment to radical welcome, our creative development of many points of entry, how to start or build up a music program of excellence, and much, much more.

Members of St. Paul’s were involved in so many ways, setting up meeting space, serving coffee and bagels and lunch, offering directions and tending to the needs of our guests, giving their own personal testimony about why they are members of this parish.

Something that occurred to me as I read this post-Easter Gospel is that at one time or another – just as the disciples on the beach did not recognize Jesus – you and I came here as a stranger – unknown to most people here. Maybe we came feeling hopeless and discovered here all sorts of possibilities. Maybe we came with empty nets like Peter and Thomas and Nathaniel, and they were filled by God’s grace and peace and the welcome we received from others.

Words of Episcopal priest and superb preacher Barbara Brown Taylor say it best for me: “It is probably a good idea to pay attention to strangers. Whether they are giving you unsolicited advice about where to cast you nets or just standing there looking at you with eyes like daybreak, it is probably a good idea to pay attention to them since Jesus has a whole closet full of disguises.”

The blessing of this community is, of course, that no one remains a stranger for more than a New York minute. No sooner are we welcomed at the steps than someone wants to know our name and a voice says “Welcome! Come and have breakfast.”