Apostles on Both Sides of the Door

April 16, 2023
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

John 20:19-31[1]

There are times when the best idea is to stay behind closed doors. It’s safer there. Outside, you might catch a disease, get hit by a storm, or get shot. It is a dangerous world out there, both literally and figuratively. Our fears can drive us to seek shelter. When you’re faced with an actual pandemic, tornado, or active shooter, responding to our fear by seeking shelter is the right thing to do. Make sure everyone you’re responsible for has made it to safety. Stay inside; and wash your hands.

Responding to a tornado, a pandemic, and gun violence require different responses; but there are similarities. Once the storm has passed, it is time to assess the damage, check on our neighbors, and offer help where needed. In the pandemic we kept our doors shut, but we still needed to assess the damage, and the potential for long-term disruptions, and we still needed to check on our neighbors. After the terror is over, we look for the lost, check in with loved ones, and help others recover.

Sometimes our help is not needed, at least not yet. Tragedy and hardship can be slow moving. It is hard to wait, knowing your help will be needed, but right now it might aggravate the problem. Even worse, our urgency to help out diminishes with time, and a few months from now we’ll be distracted by other urgent matters and forget about the needs that remain from the last tragedy. We want to help right now! But we must discipline ourselves to conserve our supplies, our money, and our energy for when it will be most helpful.

When the danger is more of a metaphor, when the threat is not immanent, and the damage is harder to discern, it can be harder to know when and how to open the door or reach out to others. When we are safely behind the metaphorical locked door, we can attend to our personal needs, healing and wholeness only with those we trust, and ignore the troubles on the other side of the door.

The church, at times, has become closed to the outside world. The sacred and pure are reserved for a private group, and the rest of the world is profane, dirty, and hazardous. The public and, especially, the political world outside the door is off limits. We view with skepticism those who want the church to have a voice in the public sphere, especially when they’re not from our church. Beyond that door, however, are the social, economic, political, and civic realities that affect us all. And God did not call us together as a church to hide the gospel and hoard away the grace.

The doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked. Whether it was fear of the religious authorities who might come after them as associates of Jesus, or for fear that they might be accused of having stolen away with the body, John tells us the disciples met behind a door that was closed and locked. But the door did not keep out the risen Christ. Jesus enters in wherever we are, even when we’re hiding in fear, bringing peace.

Thomas had his doubts. We don’t know why Thomas doubted; perhaps, like most of us, he resisted easy answers to the hard questions of faith. Many of us have experienced the deep darkness of doubt, or struggled with the troubling silence of God. Most of us have managed to cling to our faith in the midst of such experiences. The hardship experienced during these intense periods of doubt and despair has been described as “the dark night of the soul.”[2] Even Mother Teresa of Calcutta struggled with doubt; she “felt so abandoned by God that she was unable to pray.”[3] Doubt is a natural part of faith.

We might ask the question, “Why did God let grandma die of the virus?” or “Where was God when the floods hit Fort Lauderdale?” Why didn’t our thoughts and prayers save the lives of those five people at the bank in Louisville, Kentucky? We doubt, and we wonder why the terrible things keep happening.

I get it. I have my doubts too. But I think we often get stuck looking for a miracle, a happy ending to everything, the perfect savior to make everything better. When we seek only the perfect, we don’t recognize what is there in the imperfect, the wounded, the possibility that God doesn’t always make the bad things go away. Sometimes God is right there with us, weeping with us, praying with us, sharing the pain and sorrow and hardship of life. Sometimes, when we search too hard for Jesus, we don’t notice that he’s already in the room, seeking us out, wherever we are, just as we are.

The other disciples didn’t argue with rational and empirical explanations. Thomas didn’t seek out Jesus to demand answers. Jesus entered the room, despite the locked doors, in order to reach Thomas. Jesus came to meet Thomas where he was, seeking him out when he had lost faith. It can be that way with us as well. When we are faced with difficult questions, and our hold on faith is tenuous, God will seek us out, enter through the locked doors that we have built around us, and offer us love and grace when all seems lost.

It may not look like Jesus. John tells us that the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus, not at first. It is likely that when Jesus comes to find us in our moments of despair, we will not recognize him either. How can we know when God arrives? Jesus gave two clues to Thomas. He spoke the words, “Peace be with you,” and then said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”[4] When God comes to us in our times of doubt, we will recognize God’s presence when peace is offered, when the pain and sorrow of life is acknowledged, and when we realize that we have been sought out by that love which is stronger than death.

We may not recognize that God was with mom when she died, as the nurse held her hand, singing familiar songs to her as she let go of this world. We may not realize that God was not in the tornado, but in the voice of the store manager hustling everyone into the basement. We may not recognize the face, that it was God’s smile on the first-responder who helped us out from under the debris. We may not recognize the risen Christ, who appears like a regular person, wounded, weeping, sharing the experience of life with us.

John’s story doesn’t end with a private celebration locked away behind closed doors. The story continues with Jesus giving them a new name and a new task. They are no longer disciples, meaning followers. Now they are apostles, those who are sent into the world to carry on the mission. “As [God] has sent me, so I send you.”[5] The Apostles had the Holy Spirit breathed into them, and were sent out the door to bring peace and love, hope and healing to a world in turmoil.

We might rest content with what we have already accomplished, sharing the peace of Christ behind the closed door of the personal and private. But the world outside that door needs us. Disciples, apostles, followers of Jesus can’t just focus on ourselves. We are sent to others. Strengthened by the peace of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are sent into our community to help people in need or in distress, people who have lost loved ones to the virus, their homes to the storm, or their jobs to economic insecurity. We are sent over the phone, and through the internet to bring hope and solidarity to those struggling with isolation and fear. We are given the charge to bear the forgiving, transforming love of God into every sphere of human existence, the social, economic, political, and civic realities that dominate our lives.

The storm may not be over. The virus may not be contained. The threat of more gun violence persists. Our fears and doubts remain. Our questions may not yet have answers. But we are more than disciples. We, too, are apostles. We cannot simply attend to our personal well-being. We must be apostles on both sides of the door,[6] taking care of ourselves and our own, but also taking care of everyone else too. We share in the manifestation of the risen Christ who seeks us out wherever we are, and sends us out to heal the world. Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Attributed to St. John of the Cross, 16^th century Catholic mystic.

[3] Nicole Winfield, “Mother Teresa despaired that God had abandoned her” in Providence Journal, Sep. 3, 2016.
https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20160903/mother-teresa-despaired-that-god-had-abandoned-her.

[4] John 20:27.

[5] John 20:21.

[6] D. Cameron Murchison, Pastoral Perspective on John 20:19-31 in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 404.

Show Me the Scars

April 11, 2021
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

1 John 1:1-4; John 20:19-31[1]

Have you ever been not believed? “No, really. I saw it. It was right there!” It’s even worse when the doubt is delivered in a condescending tone. “Yeah? Suuure. Oh, I believe you.” When the other disciples told Thomas “We have seen the Lord,” they must have been hurt when he said, “Unless I see… I will not believe.” This was one of their own brothers, one who had lived and travelled and experienced the living Jesus right along with them. Why wouldn’t he believe them?

It is easy for us to impose our twenty-first century scientific worldview on the situation and defend Thomas. After all, we are trained to be skeptical, to test and verify what we hear. Don’t trust anything you read on the internet, right? Thomas is suspicious. He didn’t experience it himself, so he needs to see in order to believe. That’s understandable. How can he know it is really Jesus if he doesn’t see the wounds?

Sometimes wounds are a tool of conveying identity or experience. Scars have a tale to tell – “I’ve been there.” We can learn a lot from people who carry the scars of their experiences. Want to know what combat is really like? Ask a wounded veteran. Want to know what prison is like? Talk with an ex-con. Want to know what to expect from your upcoming surgery? Ask your neighbor who has been through it. “We’re you there when they crucified my Lord?” Show me the scars, Jesus, and I’ll know it’s really you.

When I was a student at the Chicago Theological Seminary, we had a youth program called DEPTH. Yes, we brought young people to the seminary for a weekend event. The word was an acronym. The “P” stood for “Partner”; an event where we would bring two different youth groups together for a weekend of learning and service together. The two groups would often be from different contexts – one suburban, Caucasian, the other urban and African-American or Latino.

One weekend in particular we invited guest speakers, one of whom was a former gang member and CeaseFire[2] outreach worker. CeaseFire was an anti-violence program which would attempt to mitigate conflict on the street before it turned violent. These people were often former gang members, who used their street credibility as an inroad to show community members better ways of communicating with each other and how to resolve conflicts peacefully.

When our guest spoke about his experiences, and why he had joined the gang, the room grew silent. He spoke about a deep need for belonging, to be part of something bigger than himself, and to be important and respected in a world where the color of his skin, his accent, and the neighborhood he was from labeled him as less than others. He had lived that life, nearly died from it, and finally escaped from it. As he spoke, you knew that TRUTH was being spoken. He had the scars to prove it. The kids in the room who had been showing off and acting tough were now hanging on his every word, and we had to start dinner an hour late.

This man, now in his thirties, had learned conflict-resolution skills, understood the legal and penal system from the inside, and had a way of helping kids see the inherent value in themselves. Despite all the strikes against him, despite all the negativity, racism, and fear directed at him, he had found a way to respect himself, and respect others, to value life more than money, peace more than power, love more than hatred. “I was a gangster;” he said, “now, I’m a person.”

Must we see in order to believe? Is seeing truly believing? Are we prisoners of our senses, distrusting and rejecting whatever we cannot see, touch, taste, smell, or hear? Thomas had seen. He was there when Jesus gave sight to the blind, fed the five-thousand, and healed the lepers; and, significantly, so had the disciples who bring him the news of the resurrection. Does he not trust even his friends? They have lived through the same earth-shattering experience of the arrest and crucifixion of their master, and yet Thomas cannot bring himself to trust in their word. And this is where the community of believers is threatened from the very start.

Has something happened between Thomas and the other disciples? There is no mention of a falling-out in the Gospels. But for some reason, Thomas doubts them. This is strange for a community built on love and trust. Thomas challenges the credibility of the other disciples. Maybe it was the betrayal by Judas that had shaken his faith in his friends.

Now, you won’t trust someone you think is a liar or a hypocrite. This may be part of our current dilemma in politics and the news media. We’re pretty sure the politicians and talk-show hosts are all liars and hypocrites, or at least the other side is, and so we trust no one who doesn’t reinforce our pre-conceived ideas. Sometimes we listen to what sounds good so much that we forget that we don’t know these people or their true motivations. We might fall into the trap of thinking that we can trust people whose job isn’t to tell us the truth as much as it is to tell us what we want to hear.

But that wasn’t the dilemma for Thomas. These were fellow disciples; the people Thomas probably knew better than anyone else. Did he think they were liars or hypocrites? Was their word not good enough for him? What more proof did he need?

It may be that there is no solid data, no verifiable proof or empirical evidence that will convince us to believe something we’ve always denied. Sometimes it’s easier to live with a lie; the truth can be too painful, especially if it reveals our sins and shortcomings, our failures and foolishness. Thomas might have thought, if Jesus is really alive, then I was wrong to flee, to abandon him, to give up. Even worse, he’ll know what I’ve done.

We don’t get to see the scars or touch the wounds. And yet, if we are to move from death to life, we must have some faith. There is a point when we must stop distrusting one another simply because we don’t like what we hear. We must find a way to trust the motivations of the ones who love us, who know us best, and who want us to grow toward health and wholeness.

It is possible to believe in God, to believe in the risen Christ, and to carry on the work of the Church without proof. Even if our own faith is shaky, even if we don’t have the same conviction as our fellow beloved disciples, we can try to trust in them. If the Church is a community based on love and trust, then we really do have to trust, and love, one another. Especially when we hear the impossible, “We have seen the Lord.”

God, we find ourselves locked away, unable to love and trust. Come into our presence. Speak your words of life into our hearts. Say to us once again, “Do not doubt but believe.” Help us to know the risen Christ. Show us his face reflected in those around us. May we, who have not seen, come to believe and be blessed.  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] CeaseFire was an anti-violence program and initiative of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention aimed at reducing street violence by using outreach workers to interrupt potentially violent situations. It ended in 2015.

Apostles on Both Sides of the Door

April 19, 2020

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

John 20:19-31

There are times when the best idea is to stay behind closed doors. It’s safer there. Outside, you may catch the deadly disease or get hit by the storm. It is a dangerous world out there, both literally and figuratively. Our fears can drive us to seek shelter. When you’re faced with an actual pandemic or tornado, responding to our fear by seeking shelter is the right thing to do. Make sure everyone you’re responsible for has made it to safety. Stay inside; and wash your hands.

Responding to a tornado and responding to a pandemic require different responses, but there are similarities. Once the storm has passed, it is time to assess the damage, check on our neighbors, and offer help where needed. In the pandemic we have to keep the door shut, but we still need to assess the damage, and the potential for long-term disruptions, and we still need to check on our neighbors, but perhaps over the phone rather than over the fence.

Sometimes our help is not needed, at least not yet. Tragedy and hardship can be slow moving. It is hard to wait, knowing your help will be needed, but right now it might aggravate the problem. Even more, our urgency to help out diminishes with time, and a few months from now we’ll be distracted by other needs and forget about the families who lost a loved one, or a job, or a home. We want to help right now! But we must discipline ourselves to conserve our supplies, our money, and our energy for when it will be most helpful.

When the danger is more of a metaphor, when the threat is not immanent, and the damage is harder to discern, it can be harder to know when and how to open the door or reach out to others. When we are safely behind the metaphorical locked door, we can attend to our personal needs, healing and wholeness only with those we trust, and ignore the troubles on the other side of the door.

The church, at times, has become closed to the outside world. The sacred and pure are reserved for a private group, and the rest of the world is profane, dirty, and hazardous. The public and, especially, political world outside the door is off limits. We view with skepticism those who want the church to have a voice in the public sphere, especially when they’re not from our church. Beyond that door, however, are the social, economic, political, and civic realities that affect us all. And God did not call us together as a church to hide the gospel and hoard away the grace.

The doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked. Whether it was fear of the religious authorities who might come after them as associates of Jesus, or for fear that they might be accused of having stolen away with the body, John tells us the disciples met behind a door that was closed and locked. But the door did not keep out the risen Christ. Jesus enters in wherever we are, even when we’re hiding in fear, bringing peace.

Thomas had his doubts. We don’t know why Thomas doubted; perhaps, like most of us, he resisted easy answers to the hard questions of faith. Many of us have experienced the deep darkness of doubt, or struggled with the troubling silence of God. Most of us have managed to cling to our faith in the midst of such experiences. The hardship experienced during these intense periods of doubt and despair has been described as “the dark night of the soul.”[1] Even Mother Teresa of Calcutta struggled with doubt; she “felt so abandoned by God that she was unable to pray.”[2] Doubt is a natural part of faith.

We might ask the question, “Why did God let grandma die of the virus?” or “Where was God when the tornado hit Mississippi?” We doubt, and we wonder why the terrible things happened. I get it. I have my doubts too. But I think we often get stuck looking for a miracle, a happy ending to everything, the perfect savior to make everything better. When we seek only the perfect, we don’t recognize what is there in the imperfect, the wounded, the possibility that God doesn’t always make the bad things go away. Sometimes God is right there with us, weeping with us, praying with us, sharing the pain and sorrow and hardship of life. Sometimes, when we search too hard for Jesus, we don’t notice that he’s already in the room, seeking us out, wherever we are, just as we are.

The other disciples didn’t argue with rational and empirical explanations. Thomas didn’t seek out Jesus to demand answers. Jesus entered the room, despite the locked doors, in order to reach Thomas. Jesus came to meet Thomas where he was, seeking him out when he had lost faith. It can be that way with us as well. When we are faced with difficult questions, and our hold on faith is tenuous, God will seek us out, enter through the locked doors that we have built around us, and offer us love and grace when all seems lost.

It may not look like Jesus. John tells us that the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus, not at first. It is likely that when Jesus comes to find us in our moments of despair, we will not recognize him either. How can we know when God arrives? Jesus gave two clues to Thomas. He spoke the words, “Peace be with you,” and then said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side” (John 20:27). When God comes to us in our times of doubt, we will recognize God’s presence when peace is offered, when the pain and sorrow of life is acknowledged, and when we realize that we have been sought out by that love which is stronger than death.

We may not recognize that God was with grandma when she died, as the nurse held her hand, singing familiar songs to her as she let go of this world. We may not realize that God was not in the tornado, but in the voice of the store manager hustling everyone into the basement. We may not recognize the face, that it was God’s smile on the first-responder who helped us out from under the debris. We may not recognize the risen Christ, who appears like a regular person, wounded, weeping, sharing the experience of life with us.

John’s story doesn’t end with a private celebration locked away behind closed doors. The story continues with Jesus giving them a new name and a new task. They are no longer disciples, meaning followers. Now they are apostles, those who are sent into the world to carry on the mission. “As [God] has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). The Apostles had the Holy Spirit breathed into them, and were sent out the door to bring peace and love, hope and healing to a world in turmoil.

We might rest content with what we have already accomplished, sharing the peace of Christ behind the closed door of the personal and private. But the world outside that door needs us. Disciples, apostles, followers of Jesus can’t just focus on ourselves. We are sent to others. Strengthened by the peace of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are sent into our community to help people in need or in distress, people who have lost loved ones to the virus, their homes to the storm, or their jobs to economic insecurity. We are sent over the phone, and through the internet to bring hope and solidarity to those struggling to survive a global pandemic. We are given the charge to bear the forgiving, transforming love of God into every sphere of human existence, the social, economic, political, and civic realities that dominate our lives.

The storm may not be over. The virus may not be contained. Our fears and doubts may remain. Our questions may not yet have answers. But we are more than disciples. We, too, are apostles. We cannot simply attend to our personal well-being. We must be apostles on both sides of the door,[3] taking care of ourselves and our own, but also taking care of everyone else too. We share in the manifestation of the risen Christ who seeks us out wherever we are, and sends us out to heal the world. Amen.

---

[1] Attributed to St. John of the Cross, 16^th century Catholic mystic.

[2] Nicole Winfield, “Mother Teresa despaired that God had abandoned her” in Providence Journal, Sep. 3, 2016.
https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20160903/mother-teresa-despaired-that-god-had-abandoned-her.

[3] D. Cameron Murchison, Pastoral Perspective on John 20:19-31 in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 404.

Do Not Hold On To Me

April 12, 2020

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

John 20:1-18

They were young men still, Peter and John. Though they had been following Jesus for a long time, more than two years, there was still more boyish energy in them than manly reserve. So it is not surprising to see them jump up at the words of Mary and race for the tomb. “He’s not there?” you can almost hear them saying. “This I’ve got to see!” As if in competition they race for the tomb, and the “other disciple” – presumably John – outran Peter and got there first. Peter, not one to lose a race, marches right into the tomb.

What they find there proves that Mary was right, but they’re still stumped. You can imagine them saying to one another, “Huh. I don’t get it.” Peter presumably comes to the same conclusion as Mary, that the tomb has been raided by grave robbers. John takes a second look. Maybe he notices the care with which the burial clothes have been arranged. Not robbery, but something else.

If the body was moved, to another tomb, the burial clothes would not have been left behind. And if the body had been stolen in order to be desecrated, why the care taken with the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head? John saw and believed that something bigger was happening. But it would take something more to make it sink in for them. Later that evening the Lord appeared in a locked room and they were finally able to say: “We have seen the risen Christ!”

Mary Magdalene’s experience is different. She too is confused by what she finds, but in her case she is blinded by grief. She came alone, while it was still dark, to pour out her grief before the tomb. She had been there, at the foot of the cross, watching as her Lord had died in that terrible way, and she was already deeply wounded. Imagine her pain when she sees the stone has been moved away, the body missing. She runs to find Peter and John and cries out, “They have taken the Lord.” She returns to the tomb in anguish.

When she does finally look in, hoping to find that she was wrong, that the body really was there, she instead sees the angels. The implication of their presence is lost in her grief, and in her distress she repeats what she knows, “They have taken away my Lord.” She then turns away from the tomb, away from this heavenly visitation. Nowhere else in scripture does someone brush aside an angel. But they are not what she seeks. Not even angels compare to the reality of Jesus. He is not there in the tomb, so she turns away.

Then the Lord appeared. In turning, she sees him, yet she does not know who he is. When reality is too much for us to cope with, our minds sometimes superimpose something rational, familiar. It must be the gardener. Again she turns away. Only, he calls her by name. “Mary!” And in that moment she knew: “My Teacher!” She turns around, to see the Good Shepherd who calls his own sheep by name.

We are often like Peter and John. We’re focused on the tomb and what happened to the body. We’re not content with mystery; we want the facts! And how are we supposed to explain this impossible, amazing event to anyone who doesn’t already believe? No one I know has actually seen a resurrection. But it does help me to remember that no one saw it happen on Easter morning either.

The resurrection was entirely between Jesus and God. There were no witnesses. No one can say what happened inside the tomb, because no one was there. When Mary arrived that morning, he was already gone. Peter and John saw the linen wrappings. Mary saw angels. The rest of the disciples didn’t even show up at the tomb; but that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point.

Jesus was too busy not being dead. He had places to go and people to see. Jesus lives, and he’s not just going to hang around in the graveyard. The Lord appeared, first to Mary, and then to the disciples, and then to Thomas, who doubted. He even went down to the beach to have breakfast with the fishermen.

There in the garden, the risen Christ appeared to Mary. This was the moment when everything changed. Jesus is alive. Our Lord is the Living God. The realm of God is here, in the heart of every believer, and not even death can stop the Ruler of Heaven and Earth.

“He is risen!” proclaims Mary, and we reply “Christ is risen indeed!” This is more than an historical claim. It is a deeply personal, as well as communal, affirmation. The disciples’ experience of the risen Christ is the same presence they knew before his death. The presence of the living Christ has been experienced by Christians in all times and places. Just as Peter and John and Mary each had a different experience in the garden, so each of us experiences the risen Christ in our own lives in different ways. But the presence of Jesus in our lives is real and powerful.

Easter is about transformation. It is the transformation of death into life. It is the transformation of doubt into belief. But more than that, it is the transformation of the world, and it won’t happen without us. Encountering the risen Christ in an Easter moment is staggering. But following Jesus after that encounter means that we must be passionate about the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God has been described as “the world the prophets dreamed of – a world of distributive justice in which everyone has enough and systems are fair.” This “is God's dream… that can only be realized by being grounded ever more deeply in the reality of God, whose heart is justice.”[1]

The kingdom of God was described by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the night before he was assassinated. “The question is not, ‘If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?’ ‘If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’ That's the question.”[2] The kingdom of God is not a place, but a way of living that puts justice, peace, compassion, and love first above all things.

There in the garden, Jesus said to Mary, “Do not hold on to me.” We cannot cling to him, hoping that he will make everything okay for us. Jesus sends Mary to proclaim the good news as he ascends to God, and she turns to face the future. A future that is not bereft of the presence of Jesus, but instead a future where the Living Lord has appeared, and all of us may follow and be disciples. Amen.

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[1] Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week, 2007.

[2] Martin Luther King, Jr., Mason Temple, Memphis, TN, April 3, 1968.