Good morning, everyone. And thank you for some days of rest after Easter, and to Greg and all of you for a wonderful service last Sunday. You know, I don't often use sports stories up here, but the Lakers ARE in the playoffs-again-and their coach is a spiritual kind of guy, in a quirky sort of way. Phil Jackson has just co-authored a new book with Carl Rosen entitled, More than Just a Game. At its conclusion he writes: "There's more to life than basketball. But there's more to basketball than just basketball."

Well, this is Phil Jackson being his wonderful Zenself, but it wouldn't be a bad thing to say about Easter either. There's more to Easter than just Easter. Greg reminded us of this last week. In the crazy church calendar, we insist on marking time in a different sort of way. This is the Third Sunday OF Easter. Eastertide, we used to call it, in that beautiful Olde English parlance. Maybe we should tell that to all those folks who were here two weeks ago and think it's over! It's still Easter, folks, get back in here! The Resurrection is just beginning, and there's a lot more to come.

The lily David and I took home after the Easter service is still blooming. It's the only bit of Easter left in the house . . . the bunnies and other decorations are all put away until next year. But every time I walk past that lily, its almost overwhelming fragrance reminds me that Easter isn't really over. There's more to Easter than just Easter.

Now, I grant you, that's not necessarily an easy concept to grasp, and evidently it wasn't any easier for the first disciples either. From today's reading, they seem to think it's pretty much all over, and so the only reasonable thing to do is to go back to doing what they were doing before he had turned their lives upside down and inside out. Get back to work, back to normal, back to the familiar. Back to fishing.

Now, I sure hope that some of you fish guys out there wore your fish ties today. This would have been the day. Big time. One commentary I read on today's passage is entitled, "When the Disciples Went Fishing." Wish I'd thought of that for my sermon, because it's just so wonderfully ordinary. When the disciples went fishing. I mean, OK, so they'd known Jesus personally, and seen his miracles, and heard his teaching, and been through his arrest and crucifixion and . . . resurrection . . . ? All that and still they're pretty much in the dark here. Discipleship had not translated into a call to ministry. For them. They didn't get that it was still Easter, that Easter was just beginning . . . and that it was beginning in them. And it was already beginning to be more about them than him. That is to say, "normal" would never be quite the same.

In the face of so much that they could not comprehend, and with the memory of how they had fallen short, Peter and the other disciples went back to doing that which they knew they knew how to do. They were, in effect, giving up, giving in, assuaging the pain of their failed expectations and their own self-serving denial in the face of the pain of this world by pretending that they could block it all out and just go back to life as they'd known it before.

But Jesus stands in the way. There is to be no more business as usual. And he will not let them-or us-fall away from the commitments we've made nor the promise of new life through his resurrection power. They try to go back to fishing and Jesus is there to augment their catch and to serve them breakfast.

Several of you have told me that this is one of your favorite Bible verses. Their friend Jesus, now the Risen Christ, stoking a charcoal fire there on the beach and cooking the fish. "Come and have breakfast." So familiar, so comforting, so loving. But then, as we might suspect, as soon as they're warm and full and happy and reassured, he doesn't offer them siesta time. Instead, he takes them farther on down the path from discipleship into ministry. "Do you love me? Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. Feed all those within the circle of my love."

What they-and we-need to learn now is that loving him means to love in the same manner who and what he loves. And it is this love, this loving, that draws us, all of us, into ministry.

Today we honor and commission those among us who have accepted the ministry of Stephen Ministers. As a congregation, we are fed and blessed by their willingness to commit their time and energy and spirit into training, that they might serve among us. As I hope you've been reading in the Sentinel, and as we've heard today, Stephen Ministers work quietly behind the scenes to care for this flock of Christ's fold, to help ease the pain of grieving, depression, divorce, illness, and other life challenges and hard places, through a distinctively Christian caregiving lay ministry.

Now, in those days of church life, that literally meant food. One of the hallmarks of the early Christians was that they shared everything they had, and so, because there were some rich folks among them who had extra to spare, the poor folk in the mix never had to go hungry. But, over time, one group had come to feel that their group of widows wasn't getting as much food as the widows in another group.

So, the disciples decided that, while they were busy teaching and preaching, they needed some help "waiting on tables," as the text says, distributing the food fairly. So they commissioned Stephen and six other men, described as being full of the Spirit and of wisdom, and these seven became the first deacons of the church, those called to serve and attend to the needs of the people of the congregation, set apart to participate in ministry and pastoral care.

Our Stephen Ministers, men and women now, carry on this pastoral care within the life of our congregation, distributing the "food" of spiritual care and counseling. They are available to us when we need special loving support through difficult times. And they model for us the way Christ Jesus is available to us all, in the course of our daily lives, our normal day-in and day-out lives, offering the warmth and nourishment and support of an unexpected breakfast on the beach. Offering more than we could ever have hoped for. "Do you love me?" Jesus asked. "Then feed my sheep. Care for those I love. Keep them safe and lift them up."

Jesus knew that it would not be easy for those first disciples to live as Resurrection People-as Easter People, as one of our modern hymns proclaims. It is not easy to remember that Easter is more than just Easter. On the surface, life may look the same as it did before, but we know that this is not business as usual. The Christ continues to be present among us in so many ways, ever ready to guide and focus, to mend our broken hearts and revive our sagging spirits. And he empowers those from among us, those who are full of the Spirit and of wisdom, to feed us with the spiritual food that comes through him from the heart of God.

But the nature of this gift, this amazing grace, you see, is paradoxical, because it is given to us that we might receive it, and then in turn share it with others. First, we must be willing to receive, but then it is not for us to hoard and keep. God's gift through Christ is not given so that we might just go on with our daily lives, strong and whole, living only for ourselves. Oh, no. This is a gift meant for others, a gift intended to enable the community of faith to fulfill God's mission in the world. "Do you love me? Feed my sheep." This is the command to all of us who would be faithful to the One who bids us "come and have breakfast" and then, when we are ready, to follow, to all the people and places to which he will go.

There is more to Easter than just Easter. And its evidence is in the give and take and give again flow of grace in and through our lives. Given to us by the One who concluded his book by saying: "This bread is my body given for you. Take, eat." "Do you love me? Feed my sheep." To him be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. Amen.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2001. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.