“You are witnesses of these things.”
In our modern culture especially here in America,
we are inundated with all sorts of things,
information and words and images.
Stuff and activities just keep rolling towards us.
There are so many choices.
For example, sports!
There are so many choices in sports today.
We have football, baseball, soccer, basketball, ice hockey
we have mountaineering, hiking, fishing, sailing, deep-sea diving, etc.
And that is just sports!
Then you have to ask do you play it?
Or do you just watch it?
Then we look at news and all the choices.
Then we can look at food or music.
It just seems we are so over-stimulated;
so over-saturated with things and words and images and sounds.
How are we to make sense of it?
How are we to discern what sounds,
what images, what we take in, are important?
It’s really, really hard.
I do not think any generation has ever been
so over-saturated with so much from so many sources.
The danger is that because we get over-saturated,
we just blank out.
We are just overloaded and
we just get into that fog of nothingness and no response.
We are over-stimulated to the point
where we block it all and get completely unresponsive.
Teenagers are finding this and we see
teenagers will have a blank look on their face and they zone out.
I know it is every generation of teenagers but this seems particularly acute.
We ask a teenager any serious question and
they’ll go, “I don’t know.”
I believe they are completely over-stimulated and cannot process things.
We, ourselves, all of us, adults are over-stimulated too.
We are saturated by so much.
So what are we to do with all this?
I suggest that we adopt the Spirit of Easter.
The Spirit of Easter is the Spirit of a beginner’s mind.
What is a beginner’s mind?
A beginner’s mind is when you are eager to learn.
When you are eyes open and we’re taking in all the data.
And something happens and we go,
“Whoa, that’s so cool.”
Do you remember that moment when you first got something?
You were struggling with something and then
the ah ha moment came and the penny dropped
and you got it so to speak.
That is a very cool moment; that is a beginner’s mind!
Or the wonder of the beginning of something.
This morning on my walk I met one of our parishioners,
who has a 7-week old puppy and it is so wonderful.
That little puppy is chirping and ruff ruff ruff
because everything, everything is new.
Every flower.
Every plant.
Every experience to that puppy is brand new.
That is a beginner’s mind.
When we can look at things afresh, anew,
with new eyes willing to absorb in what is precious, what is beauty.
Now with a beginner’s mind, what we do is we take it in
and what we have to do is to be looking for something;
a beginner’s mind with something in mind.
A beginner’s mind with God.
The Resurrected Christ in mind.
Like that beautiful song that we opened with today:
“Alleluia! God is Alive!”
And he is alive in you and I and creation.
When we take on and adopt this beginner’s mind,
we have to shed our self-preoccupation,
our self-assurance that we have it all.
We have to shed the preoccupation
that we have the answer and
let the beginner’s mind open our mind.
And it says we will see things anew.
Now we went through a part of this opening process during Lent
called metanoia where we changed our mind;
transformed our mind set into being open.
But Easter comes with a new freshness.
Easter says to us as Jesus says to his disciples as the risen Christ;
“Peace be with you.”
Calmness. I told you everything will be okay.
I told you everything will be fulfilled according to,
exactly according to scriptures.
They had walked with him, for three years they walked with him.
They knew him up close and personal.
And they struggled with this peace.
It is okay to struggle with this
but what Easter says is that Jesus is alive.
He is alive in you and in me.
And he is in all creation.
And that message is a beginner’s mind
that looks at everything anew.
So what does that look like for us?
Here are a couple of pointers:
That we pause,
and you have heard me say a thousand times,
we become a man and woman of prayer.
And then we view life that God is in all things.
That God is in all of creation and in every situation.
And that is our premise.
That is what we believe.
Then we look with eyes to see
where exactly God is in this moment and in this place.
We first choose to believe and
then we see with a beginner’s eyes open for learning today.
There are a couple of things that are important about this.
With these new set of eyes, your pain does not radically go away.
Nothing changes insofar as the reality of life;
the pandemic will not suddenly disappear;
we suddenly don’t have to wear a mask;
and everything is all wonderful again.
Your loved ones, who are sick are still sick.
The people, who are dying are still dying.
But what changes is that we see God in the midst of this.
We see God in the midst of our pandemic situation.
We see God in the midst of the sick person
and those nurses and doctors, who care, the caregivers
and indeed within ourselves;
that we see God in every, single situation.
Let me give you a couple of examples:
I take a walk every day.
I go down Morton Avenue most days
and then when I am hiking, I go up the mountain.
There are so many flowers out right now.
They are blossoming in every color and smell that you could imagine.
If you are not noticing the flowers,
it is not because the flowers are not there.
It is because you are not noticing them.
They are everywhere right now.
God is alive in the flowers and in the beauty of our creation.
Take in the breath of life and feel it.
Enjoy the presence of God.
It does not take away your suffering.
It does not take away your broken toe;
or your sore ankle;
or your pounding head
but God is alive all around us.
The squirrels are running around
and the dogs barking and the cats meowing;
and whatever else we have going on.
God is alive.
When you wake up in the morning and
your spouse makes you a cup of coffee
and you smell the aroma of the coffee.
You look at your spouse and you begin to say something
and then you realize God is alive!
And he or she still loves me after all these years.
Surely that is a miracle in itself!
You see, God is alive here and now.
Look at your children or your parents
and marvel at their love;
their dedication and fidelity to you;
that in all these years in all the little weird things
that we do that irritate them, they still love us;
or your best friend, who is always faithfully there in good times and bad;
to look and to say and to marvel at their love,
their steadfast love and say God is alive.
You see, my friends, the Easter season offers us all
the opportunity to be witnesses to these things
and that begins with a beginner’s mind;
to witness to God present here and now.
Now there are two things to a witness:
a witness sees and observes
but a witness also testifies to what they see and observe.
Today, I am asking every one of us,
wherever you are watching from throughout the entire country and world,
I want you to take a look again at society,
at everything that is going on:
society will keep you busy,
will keep you away from these things
and then society will say if you do not see God it is
because God is not there.
That is a lie, my friends.
That is the biggest and persistent lie of our society.
God is alive and he is well and he is us.
May we open our eyes with a beginner’s mind.
May we be witness to Christ who is here and alive and
proclaim it with our actions.
First with a smile; with gratitude; with joy
and may we lift up our hearts.
God is alive and we are witnesses to these things!
