My grandparent's home was a modest three-bedroom tract house that, with the exception of the crafty white bric-a-brac skirting the front porch, looked just like all the other houses built in the fifties and squinched into their tiny places on their tiny little blocks. My mother’s parents, Mama and Papa as I lovingly referred to them, were fourth generation Texans who had left it all behind and headed West to build a better life in California. Papa was one of four brothers in a family of ranchers. When he left Texas he did so against the family's wishes—none of them had ever left Texas. They were certain no good would come of it.
Times got hard for the LaRoes in Texas and they were eventually forced to sell the family farm—the farm they referred to as “the Big House.” It is now owned by the Dole Fruit Company and, with a little help from Ralph Lauren and Laura Ashley, looks just like a ranch house should look, with pictures of my family lining the walls for authenticity. Tourists come from all over the country for weekends on the dude ranch—the Big House that once belonged to my family. The LaRoes never forgave my Papa for what they called “runnin’ West,” and they credited him with destroying the family.
I wonder if any of you have stories like that, family histories that underlie every holiday function? Although they are rarely spoken of, still they linger about every gathering, like Easter eggs left over from last year, hidden off in some corner somewhere and smelling. And you just know not to put Uncle Joe next to Grandma Claire—you may not really even know why they can’t stand one another, but you play along with it because nobody wants to be responsible for ruining the holidays. I have been to plenty of churches that felt like that: you come to visit and you feel something in the air, you don’t know what it is and you're not about to ask anybody. You get the feeling that even if you did ask they wouldn't tell you.
People often ask me, “What makes Open Prairie so special?” Well of course I take utter delight in that question because there is much that makes Open Prairie special. But I think the most significant thing is that the folks who call this congregation home are looking for something more. They are looking for something deeper than the come-to-church-every-Sunday, sit-next-to-someone-you-don’t-know, hold-your-breath-through-coffee-hour kind of experience. The people who are a part of this community want to grow. There is a marvelous spiritual hunger that is palpable in this congregation. We want to strip away the falseness and embrace the questions, the heartbreak, the struggles and the journey that are there just beneath the surface. This is a special place because we are Resurrection people: a people formed by our own wilderness experiences. And we are here to invite others in because we know what it feels like to be kept out.
We are a Resurrection people who look to the life and the teachings of Jesus Christ and seek to truly integrate God’s love and purpose into our daily living. We are a Resurrection people, and when the stone is rolled back from the tomb, the first thing we see is freedom—not death, freedom. When the stone is rolled back we don’t look to the past for answers; we ask what’s next and how can we help. We are a Resurrection people because God has blessed us with one another, companions on the road to the future, authentic, wonderfully and powerfully made.
Mama and Papa were heroes to me, just like you are heroes to me. Like you all, they were authentic, faithful, hard working people. Texas Church of Christ they were, and that meant no instruments in church, no alcohol, and no profanity. “Dag nabbit” was about as bad as the language ever got around their house. Although my Mama did have a rebellious side: she had a secret passion for Elvis Presley! I caught her more than once wiggling her hips to his music over pot full of bubbling black eyed peas. Pretty risky for a woman who was raised to believe that the Devil made rock 'n' roll, and dancing would surely take you straight to hell in a hand basket.
Mama and Papa taught me a great deal about authenticity. For them, as for you, the freedom to be fully who they were meant risking being set apart from others; it meant being set apart even from their own families. But they knew that authenticity was worthy of the price it exacted. They did not shape or bend to accommodate society's vision of who they ought to be and who or how they ought love. And that meant a lot to me growing up. It means even more to me now.
In a generation when it wasn’t popular to do so, they believed that all people were valuable and deserved to be treated as such. They devoted their lives to that belief. Both of them worked at Patton State Mental Hospital in San Bernardino, California for over forty years. Papa was a grounds keeper and Mama was a cook. They were friends to and with residents of that institution. They were friends to and with people whose skin color was different from their own. They were friends to and with all kinds of folks of whom the family back home did not approve. They didn’t make a big deal about it—it was just who they were and how they loved.
They were generous people. Mama used to tell me about how, when their kids were teenagers, the family would spent their last dime on fixings for a Friday night sock hop in the living room. All the neighborhood kids would come, and they would push back the sofa and chairs and dance the night away. She would laugh when she told this story. “We did not have much,” she would say, “but what we had, we shared.” Authenticity and generosity: those are my family jewels, treasures indeed. Authenticity and generosity: those are the same treasures people find here at Open Prairie. See, I have to tell you something about Resurrection people: they don’t have the time or the energy to pretend they are something that they're not. Because all their energy goes in to who they are and who they are becoming. Authenticity and generosity: those are our family jewels.
And that is God’s word for us this morning. The thing that is beautiful about this experience we call Church—wherever it is: here at Pilgrim Park, or at the Prouty downtown, or in our backyard, or at the Hornbaker's, wherever it is being held that particular Sunday—the thing that is beautiful is that we get to show up in an authentic way, with whatever it is we are going through. In Lent we figured out that we are all going through some stuff; and as I mentioned at the beginning of Lent our stuff doesn’t usually begin and end in a neat little six week package as Lent does. So my guess is that we individually and corporately are still going through the stuff. But that is not a problem for Resurrection folk, because with Resurrection folk you don’t have to be anywhere but where you are.
That tomb of trying to cover it all over, trying to put up a strong front so that others don’t know you are hurting or depressed or recovering or whatever—we don’t do that as Resurrection people. Instead we come before our God, who we know understands us where we are, and we come before each other, and we say, “This is where I am today, where are you?” And that, my friends, is what makes this group of people special. It’s not a fancy building, or the perfect chair, or the right location, or the coffee cake (as good as the coffee cake is!); it is a willingness show up with a spirit of generosity and authenticity. It is a willingness to be generous with our love and with God’s love that matters. People long to be a part of that. That’s what we have going on here, and that is why God is growing this church.
My favorite place in Mama and Papa’s home was the kitchen table. It was my favorite place because you got to be exactly who you were. Mostly, I just got to be a kid, and from my perspective everything important happened at that table. I learned how to snap peas and peal peaches and can strawberries at that table. Mama taught Papa how to read at that table. (My Papa had only an sixth grade education, so Mama insisted he read the daily paper to her out loud. He would come to a word that he didn’t know, and they would sound it out together. It was wonderful to listen to them working together like that.) Breakfast around the table was always warm and tasty, with robust conversation about the exciting places they were planning to visit in “the Coach”—that was the Champion motor home they had purchased in their retirement, which they kept parked on the front lawn. Best investment they ever made: they went everywhere in that thing, grandchildren in tow.
But what I remember most about that kitchen table is the strangers it was host to on Easter Sunday. Sure, it also accommodated every family birthday, anniversary, and Sunday dinner a table could hope to provide for. But on Easter, the youngest members the family were relegated to card tables in the living room, while an extra leaf was put in the kitchen table to accommodate the special guests that might be joining in the celebration.
And when I say special guests I am talking about people whom Jesus would have welcomed specially. My grandparents simply opened their door at noon on Easter, and whoever walked through it became the special guest. Most years that included my crazy Aunt Aurelia who never wore her front teeth in public, my Aunt Dot who was fond of pulling her skirt over her head to show her red slip off, her son Charley who suffered with cerebral palsy, and his wife Tony who had obsessive-compulsive disorder and had to brush her teeth every half hour. Moreover, it included but was not limited to an assorted cast of characters that changed depending on who was in or out of jail, rehab, or the hospital.
The adult table was of course dotted with sneaking grandchildren, daring enough to run to the big table and steal handfuls of black olives, one for each fingertip, swiping tastes of sweet potatoes and frosted cakes. Needless to say it was quite a scene, and the remarkable thing about it was that we all fit in. All were welcome there—children, outcasts, the downtrodden, the imprisoned, the homeless—and it would not have been the holidays without them. In some strange way they were all a part of the family.
In our own way each of us is a part of this family, the Open Prairie family, God’s family—all welcome into this fellowship. And we are blessed to gather together around God’s table with the feast of freedom spread before us. The stone has been rolled away from the tomb and each of us is being welcomed home. Christ’s divine light shines through all who have gathered here this Easter morning, beckoning us to new beginnings.
Today we truly have much to celebrate. Happy Easter. Amen.