Sermon of the Week:
What’s it Gonna Take
An online sermon preached with The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on April 19, 2020.
Second Sunday of Easter #pcusa
Keywords: After the Resurrection, Thomas, Science, Doubt, Owen Meany.
Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-733469. All rights reserved.
Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
1 Peter 1:3-9
and John 20:19-31
What do you do, after Jesus’ resurrection?
Its kind a weird place, right?. Perfect for some awkward silence.
Christ is risen! … Now what?
But here we are, the Sunday after Easter.
And it’s true, the followers of Jesus are in this weird, weird place.
In John’s telling of the Easter Story,
Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb early, while it was still dark
to help tend to Jesus’ corpse.
Jesus had died too late on Friday, near the sabbath,
for it to be done properly
so she came when the sabbath was over,
the next business day, as it were.
But Mary found the tomb open.
So she ran back and told the disciples
(there is a lot of running in John,)
and two of the disciples ran back to the tomb to see what was going on,
and they found it just as she had said:
tomb open, no Jesus,
clothes-that-he-had-been-wrapped-and-buried-in
all folded up just so
and they saw it, and they went back home.
But Mary lingers, and sees the gardener,
but it’s not the gardener, it’s Jesus!
And there’s this beautifully touching moment where he calls her name
and she knows. Right there, she knows.
and she calls out to him, Rabbouni, my teacher,
and he tells her not to hold him back,
but to let him be what he now is
risen, alive.
And so she runs to tell the others: I have seen the Lord!
That’s John.
But what happens after that?
Well, that’s our story from today, the story of the disciples
huddled in a secure location, doors locked, unsure what’s next.
There’s been all that running back and forth between these places,
the public places of Jesus’ humiliation and crucifixion and burial,
to wherever-it-is that the disciples have scattered off to,
no more running, they can’t even go outside any more,
closets and inns and safe-houses and homes,
their own isolation, and quarantine.
The Sabbath rest is over. The sun is rising over Jerusalem.
And he is no longer there….no longer there in the tomb.
So there’s euphoria, because Jesus.
Jesus resurrected
Jesus no longer bound.
No longer locked behind stone.
No longer dead.
There’s caution, because Jesus.
Following Jesus now means a possible bounty on your head.
There are people about, everyday people
who once welcomed him on a donkey and a colt, right,
but who later turned their back on him.
And the authorities, both Roman and Religious
would not be pleased to know that the stone was rolled away.
There’s unsettledness, because Jesus.
He wasn’t there! He wasn’t where they laid him!
This Jesus who kept on doing such….strange things
back when he was alive!
Sure, Mary says that she saw him.
But what happened? What really happened to Jesus?
///
One of my favorite novelists is John Irving,
though, truth be told, after a while there are only so many stories
about New England boarding schools and circus Bears that I can handle.
But I love A Prayer for Owen Meany.
That novel is on my top-five-books-of-all-time list.
John, the narrator, (catch that, the narrator’s name is John)
John regularly talks with his friend Owen Meany,
about the meaning of belief and the persistence of doubt.
Owen is a quite unusual boy
unnaturally short and stunted,
he’s bullied and teased,
and even so, a boy who shows extraordinary character and depth.
John struggles to believe, throughout the book.
For Owen, belief comes much more naturally,
and John wants to know why.
There’s this scene, at the schoolyard as children
where John confronts Owen about his faith.
There, in the schoolyard, Owen points to a gray, granite statue of Mary Magdalene
[The schoolyard has a statue of Mary Magdalene?
But that’s not the point….]
When they’ve been there a while,
and it has become so dark that they couldn’t see the statue any longer,
Owen asks John if he knows that the statue is still there.
John says, well, of course, he knows It’s there.
Owen pushes a little bit:
“YOU HAVE NO DOUBT SHE’S THERE?” Owen nagged at me.
“Of course I have no doubt!” I said.
“BUT YOU CAN’T SEE HER—YOU COULD BE WRONG,” he said.
“No, I’m not wrong—she’s there, I know she’s there!” I yelled at him.
“YOU ABSOLUTELY KNOW SHE’S THERE
—EVEN THOUGH YOU CAN’T SEE HER?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I screamed.
“WELL, NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT GOD,” said Owen Meany.
“I CAN’T SEE HIM—BUT I ABSOLUTELY KNOW HE IS THERE.”[i]
///
And Jesus said,
Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe…
Owen Meany might be an EXEMPLAR of the kind of faith
that the Gospel of John celebrates,
one who believes so fully and completely
that he does not need to see
he doesn’t need to touch
he believes
and he orients his whole life around his belief.
It’s astonishing what Owen does
the good and the brave and the awesome that Owen does
animated by his belief in God.
It encourages him,
when he is teased and taunted by his peers.
It empowers him,
to do acts of bravery on behalf of those he loves.
If this has been your book too, you know the acts of stunning love
He’ll commit for others.
I’ve always been deeply impressed by Owen,
but I’m not quite sure how he does it.
Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe…
///
To make some sense out of what is going on in our scripture reading this morning
we have to recognize that practically everyone
in the 20th chapter of John
SEES the resurrected Jesus.
Surely Mary Magdalene does.
As we said, in John’s gospel she mistakes him for the gardener
and he calls her by name. She SEES him.
And so do the disciples, later that night, disoriented and unsettled,
locked behind closed doors, locked behind walls
when Jesus appears to them
THEY see Jesus.
We don’t get a chance to know whether they were incredulous, or not.
Jesus STANDS among them
Jesus offers them a word of blessing and peace, “Peace Be With You”
And SHOWS them his hands and his side.
And they saw, and they rejoiced, and he breathed on them the Holy Spirit.
These disciples talk with Jesus in the afternoon like Mary did in the morning.
Like Mary, they receive a commission from Jesus to go and to serve.
So: why should we be so hard on Thomas
who demands the same opportunity to see Jesus?
Year after year, Thomas gets a bad rap. They mock his doubt.
But I don’t think that’s fair. Not at all.
Unlike any of the others…
they saw, they felt, they touched.
He was elsewhere, and knew none of it.
So there he is, a week later,
and they report to him the findings. Let’s call it peer review.
And Thomas questions their research.
You saw what?
You observed these things how?
Come now, I need to be able to replicate your observations
before we go so far as to say “We have seen the Lord.”
///
Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe…
Some these days say that science and faith are at odds.
How else can you explain those thankfully-rare churches
that insist on meeting in person right now, during the covid-19 pandemic?
And then there are many people, committed to reason and empirical observation
who struggle with questions about ultimate reality, the purpose of life
whether there is a force for Good and love in the world we call God…
and particularly struggle when so many people who claim to follow God
are quick to discard scientific knowledge.
(Much less a lot of the teachings of Jesus, but that’s another sermon for another day)
And many of those science-skeptical churches point to
statements such as this reading in John as evidence.
Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe…
But they miss some crucial details.
I mean, frequent are the mentions in these readings
of “seeing” and “touching” the risen Lord
that we could expect a theologian to say that
the Bible is really all about empirical verification.
In this scientific age, more than ever,
we have all been trained to verify by trusting sense experiences.
Sight and touch make such very strong impressions indeed.
They provide evidence to be tested, replicated, recorded.
But did you notice how Jesus himself treats these inquiries?
“Put your finger here, and see my hands.
Reach out your hand and put it in my side.
Do not doubt, but believe.”
Touch and see.
Compare what your friends have been telling you, Thomas,
with what you know, what you observe.
Its ok, Thomas. Its ok.
///
So +1 for science, says Jesus.
But there’s something else going on here.
Up to this point in these passages,
Hearing and Seeing from Jesus himself is what defined the Jesus movement.
To follow Jesus meant you follow the LITERAL Jesus.
You walked behind or in front of with him.
You sat before him when he taught.
You ate at table with him.
Same with our text:
Peter and another disciple SAW the empty tomb.
Mary HEARS her name called.
Jesus SAYS “Peace be with you” and there was peace among those present.
Jesus teaches them the words of forgiveness,
and told them they would effect forgiveness.
But Thomas had not seen, touched, smelled, heard as the others had.
He simply had been absent, beyond the sight and sound of Jesus’ presence.
///
What’s it gonna take for Thomas?
For me, there is something in this story that deeply resonates.
There is a shift here that is subtle, but important.
The readers of this book would have all been like Thomas. Just like him.
The Gospel of John was written some two or three generations after Jesus
Long after the empty tomb
Years after the scattering
and the locked doors and the amazing ability of Jesus
to make his way through walls of brick and stone
to calm and to inspire and to renew.
Up until this story, faith came in the face of Jesus’ physical presence.
He’s right there. Hey Jesus, its me.
Tell me what you meant by what you said last week…
Here, in this story, the Gospel sets us up for the experience of God
not based on sight, on seeing and hearing Jesus
not based on the actual fact of Jesus alive in our midst in flesh and in bone.
Decades after this story happened, the last disciple died.
Never again on earth would physical eyes
or noses or tongues certify Jesus’ presence.
Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe…
We would all be Thomas. All of us.
Turning and wondering how it could all be true…
Building our faith on testimony that we then test,
explore, probe, reason with
and, in doing this, we find life,
and we find deeper faith
and we find hope… just like Thomas.
///
My friend once called himself “Intolerant of intolerance.”
I keep laughing at that self-characterization.
But his point is that he doesn’t have much room for people who
are closed off to others.
In my own moments of self-awareness,
I don’t know how much room I have
for those who force faith to only be about certainty, and not mystery,
for those who denigrate the Thomases of the world…
which, at various times, would include all of us, if we’re honest.
These words Jesus speaks to Thomas…blessed are those who have come to believe,
aren’t about accepting a blind, uncritical faith.
They aren’t about believing without asking, without wondering
without searching, without doubt.
No! They are about finding a place
where we can live assured of God’s presence,
a peace that passes all understanding,
even if, even when we cannot see God.
They are about celebrating what Owen Meany had
that enabled him to live his life confident that even he
even short, ridiculed, stunted Owen, even he was a beloved child of God.
They are about seeing this world with wondering, interested
critical, investigative eyes
open to the POSSIBILITY that the RESURRECTED CHRIST might be here.
///
On Easter Sunday a few years ago,
I checked in with friends
and one of them, a pastor friend from Tulsa,
shared an amazing story of the RESURRECTED CHRIST.
So, Fellowship United Church of Christ, down the street from us, [she said]
has attracted a regular gaggle of protestors,
shouting VILE things at the children [who are] moving from
one building to the other,
[shouting] about a false gospel
about killing babies,
and burning in hell.
Ok, none of that surprised us very much.
But then Courtney kept going…
SO….my friend Aliye, who is outreach director at the Islamic Society of Tulsa,
called some of her people
and she called some friends from Temple Israel, the synagogue,
and some neighbors,
and they STOOD, at Fellowship this morning,
in 35 degrees and rain,
and they put themselves between the protestors and the kids.
And they sang “All you Need is Love.”
On … EASTER, [Easter Morning]!.[ii]
Said the Pastor to the local news media:
“It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen,
and I could never thank them enough.
Muslims and Jews shielding Christians from the hateful rhetoric
of other Christians—in Oklahoma!
Our Muslim and Jewish siblings
shielded us from a kind of hatred
similar to what they themselves experience so often
and we, with all of our privilege, experience so rarely.
This morning, our guests taught me hospitality with their care.
They humbled me with their love, their bravery and their presence.
They filled me with contagious joy,
singing with such goofy gusto.
On a day when we, as Christians,
celebrate the presence of God alive in the world,
to be so surrounded by love
was a truly holy experience.”[iii]
///
There are moments that I just know.
I just know. God is there, working and mending and healing and empowering.
And Jesus was right,
blessed is how I feel when those moments come and I believe.
But often it’s because I see something
some spark
some act
some love
and through that…I see Jesus, I see the risen Christ
breaking through another wall
a God who NEVER GIVES UP
who will come to me again if I wasn’t there to see it
just like God did to Thomas
and will come again if God has to
and again, until I see it….
And then I get it.
We gather Sunday after Sunday
and we hear the stories
and we sing the songs
and we nurture ourselves in community—even virtual community…
and we do all of this
to prepare ourselves
to experience God in our world
in our lives
these moments of hope and possibility and love
and to believe.
What happens after the resurrection?
Well: Jesus comes to us, whether we believe easily
or struggle mightily, or fall somewhere in between,
and then, with patience, Jesus allows us to look and question and wonder
whatever we need to get it.
My prayer is that we might all see Jesus
in the acts of those who love him
in the songs of those who seek him
in the care of those who imitate him
that we might believe
and join in with our own testimony
our own acts of brazen love, for others to see and to test,
and thus, for others to experience: risen, and alive. Alleluia!
May it be so.
Amen.
————
[i] From John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany (New York: Ballentine Books, 1989), 451. Cited in Nancy Claire Pittman’s “Homiletical Perspective” Second Sunday of Easter. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C, Volume 2. Lent through Eastertide. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 399.
[ii] Courtney Richards personal correspondence on March 27, 2016.
[iii] http://kfor.com/2016/03/28/interfaith-group-shields-churchgoers-from-protesters-on-easter/
Cover Image: He Qi, Thomas
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