Sermons from the Pulpit

     You know what a password is. It's a secret word that you use to identify yourself, to prove that you're a friend, not an enemy. And you know what an acrostic is. It's a word made up of the first letters of a series of words or lines taken in sequence. An acrostic can work as a password.

     Jesus was no ghost, he was flesh and bones, and flesh and bones need food, so he asked them if they had anything to eat, and they gave him a piece of fish. They stood around him dumbfounded, watching him eat it, as if eating a piece of broiled fish were the most awesome thing they had ever witnessed, which of course in this case it was.

     There is a cross hanging up here behind me, dominating this place, identifying us, telling us who we are. It might surprise you to learn that this cross has not been here all that long, not nearly as long as this meeting house. In the early days of New England, our churches didn't display crosses. Oh, they were Christians, all right, but a cross isn't the only way to tell who's a Christian. And a cross can be too obvious in some circumstances.

     At the time when the New Testament was taking shape, some 1900 years ago, Christians needed secret symbols and passwords, because following Jesus could be dangerous. It can still be risky, in fact, but the risks were clearer back then. And here's one that they used. These two intersecting curved lines are a drawing of a fish. And this is the word "fish" in Greek: ICQUS

If you take the letters of the word ICQUS, you can make an acrostic with it:
IhsouV	Jesus
CristoV	Christ
Qeou	God’s
UioV	Son
Swthr	Savior

     And that's who ate the piece of fish! So a fish makes a handy reminder and a symbol of Jesus and who he was and what he was.

     Ah, but that's not all. Fish is also just food, ordinary food, typical food, everyday food in the times and places where Christian faith began. When Jesus eats that piece of fish it doesn't set him apart in any way; on the contrary, it is the most ordinary, everyday thing he could do. It makes him real, as real as lunch. It means he is really there. Just as he was made known to two of the disciples in the breaking of the bread earlier that same day in the village of Emmaus, so now he is made known to the rest of them in the munching of the fish.

     Words are wonderful. The word "companion" means literally someone who shares bread with you. A shared meal, a common meal, is the distinctive Christian ritual. In it Christ is our companion, God is our companion, and by the grace of God we have each other as companions.

     The communal munch. The communal lunch. You know by now, because Jane and I are continually telling you, that Jesus and all his disciples were Jews and the Last Supper was a Jewish Passover meal, what's now called a Seder. Well, these Gospels after Easter are the First Supper, if you like. The last shall be first.

     And in this reading from Acts, after the miraculous healing of the man lame from birth, when Peter preaches to the crowd at the temple in Jerusalem, and he says, "You rejected Christ, you handed him over, you killed the Author of life," those strong words aren't aimed at the Jews as such, they are aimed at us, they are aimed at anyone and any group who lacked or who still lacks the faith or the courage to sit at the common table with all the risks that that entails.

     There were no good guys in the Passion and Crucifixion story, just varieties of bad guys. That's why the forgiveness which Peter proclaims at the end of his little sermon is so vital for everyone. And it is still and always true that in the descendants of Abraham all the families of the earth shall be blessed.