And it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. The disciples of Jesus were first called by name in Antioch Where was it for you? In these now balmier Easter days we find ourselves living the high life of reminiscence with the early Church. Churches are founded in places whose names we can barely pronounce much less understand. Christians are made from the most unlikely of candidates, old sinners, filthy gentiles, some reconstituted Jews. From the raw material of a seething, teeming reality these new Christians, these followers of Christ were made and seemingly, named for the first time. When were you named for the first time? Perhaps it was, as it should be, at your baptism. In the purified waters of a font in a suburban parish, or in a country place where half the folks were family already and the others as near as they ought to be. As a little red creature struggling mightily in his mother’s arms, refusing with steadfast voice the gift of grace. Announcing conversion with a wail and a tiny shaking fist. Was it then? Was it in the waters of the font that you first became a Christian? Or was it later? Was it perhaps on a cold day in winter in some little Church, praying for help, for guidance through the turbulence of adolescence, or some crisis whose details you can only faintly recall, or in the company of some priest or sister, or in the vicissitudes of, well, life. Perhaps on your knees all alone in the depth of need you first knew yourself as a Christian. Or perhaps somewhere else? In a schoolroom searching for answers in books that merely confused with their circumscribed characters? Or at a weekend lockdown or a retreat that seemed useless until you did it. Or in the back seat of a car fumbling for some mistaken predominance of identity? In the withering disposition of a pack mentality, the final notes of sarcasm in a fraternity of desperation? And it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. Or perhaps even now, even here it is yet to happen? When do we become Christians? In the struggle of infidelity Or in that moment, that singular moment at the end of a long journey of conversion when our hearts are finally turned to the life of the living God and away from our own sordidness. Is it yet to come? Staved off as long as we harbor all that junk that still lingers from our personal lents As long as we hold on to grudges, handicaps, heartaches, sinister dreams, dishonesties. As long as we cling to what we think must be right even when it has proved time and again to be wrong, very wrong As long as we keep stored up in ourselves the well-rehearsed scripts of indifference, ineptitude, pain, doubt, self-loathing. As long as we think we know the answers, after all that’s what mamma said, until we see that the world is more complicated than the truth we learned at our mother’s knee Brothers and sisters, there is one thing and one thing only that we need. We need Antioch. We need that identity. We need Antioch because we must learn to call ourselves something other than forsaken. We need Antioch. We need to learn to love rather than judge, to give rather than take, to provide for one another rather than constantly seeking the self, the damn self that will be truly damned if we cannot give ourselves over to Christ, all to Christ, fully to Christ, forever to Christ. Where will it be? Where will it be then? If not in Antioch, where will it be? Brothers and sisters we continue to revel in this Easter season knowing I hope full well that the complex completeness of Easter did not come on that solemn night of proclamation. Antioch beckons us in the name of towns and places as yet unseen, unknown, unexplored. And we respond full of hope that the fullness of Easter is still rushing in.

And the story has circulated to this very day. Indeed it has. Gossip is one thing, but real news is another. Stories get around. Things that might best have been left unknown become known. Sometimes it seems that our lives are circumscribed by stories, heritage stories, personal narratives, future projects. How many of us have not daydreamed or gone to sleep with a familiar narrative in our brains, seared somehow into our imagination? The Bible is filled with narratives, stories, in fact, it could be argued that all 2316 pages (in the Novus Vulgatus) are filled with a single story, a great arc of a story, the story of the Word from before time began until this very day. Of all the stories of the Bible, however, there can be none more powerful than what we have been hearing over the past several days, what we hear today. It is the story of men, disciples at a loss for words and identity, cowering in the confines of the upper room who nevertheless run at the startling word of the women It is the story of women, frightened and marginalized, yet not lacking in the courage to make their way to the tomb of a convicted criminal in the early hours of the morning. It is the story of a people longing to hear a word of encouragement, longing to hear a story that does not bear the old refrain of loss, of sin, of rejection, of doubt, of pain. It is the story of the world, a world that knows not its own potential, the potential for love over war, the power of life over death. It is the story of Jesus, the story he was born in time to tell, a story that is uniquely his and yet ours as well. And of course, the story of Easter, the story of Jesus does not end at the mouth of an empty tomb. Now, for fifty days that story will spill over, it will catch like straw caught by flame and we will hear, indeed relive the story of Easter. The story of Easter is the story of men and women, men and women who longed for freedom and found it in the story of a man from Galilee, a man who told stories of his own, a man who had the courage to put aside what was rightfully his to serve, to lay down his life. The story of Easter is the story of a people caught in the crossfire of competing narratives, a people who are ready to move through the Red Sea of human corruption to a promised land, a place of peace. The story of Easter is the story that the world which has inherited the mantle of Adam longs to hear, a story beyond the confines of human sin, beyond the parameters of the human imagination, an imagination mired in the lassitude of its own forgetfulness. The story of Easter is our story. We have inherited the mantle of John, of Matthew, of Luke and Mark. We are the evangelists of today and just as those men of old had only one thing to say, so we: He is risen. He is risen in the arch of the sunrise He is risen in the thousands longing to breath freely He is risen in the young and old, in the rich and the destitute, in the enemy and in the neighbor. He is risen in you and in me. He is risen in us. He is risen. He is risen indeed. And we have a question posed to us in the light of the resurrection. What will our legacy be? In the rawness of the Easter light, what will our gift to the world be? In the freshness of Easter air, what will we do to help those trapped in a world of dankness breath freely? In the brilliance of an Easter morning, in the joy of a candle flame, in the intoxicating scent of lilies, what will we offer to a world that cannot see, cannot breath? Brothers and sisters, why are you here? There must be more to this than the trickery of light. There must be more to our lives than our own failure. I am intrigued by a statement made by Pope Francis at the Chrism Mass in Rome about priests. He said: Priests must be shepherds that have the smell of their own sheep. That implies something, that implies passion, that there must be some passion, passion for service, passion for the needy, passion that extends beyond our own passion for comfort and consolation. There must be resurrection, rising to challenges even when we cannot see the goal, rising to excellence, rising to the joy of an eternal Easter, risen in our flesh and in the body of this community of faith. Why are we here? We are here because of a word, spoken in time, spoken through the ages, a word that proclaims: God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he poured forth the promise of the Holy Spirit that he received from the Father, as you both see and hear. See and hear. We gather and so we believe. He is risen He is risen indeed. O my brothers and sisters, how far can we go on that promise? It is a story that has circulated to this very day. Indeed it has.