Holy and Incomplete

Luke 24:36-48           While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

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I have a picture of my two daughters when Kira was five and Willa was just a baby.  Willa is in a baby seat on the floor and Kira is sitting next to her, wearing her school clothes and a paper pilgrim bonnet and big white collar.  Obviously, it was near Thanksgiving.  In her kindergarten class they had been remembering those pilgrims who were the first to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Every schoolchild in America must know what a pilgrim looked like, because I think we all have done this study unit.  It’s an important chapter in our American history; we learn the story and re-enact it every year because it tells us something important about who we are.  Even though we may argue about the accuracy of the story; even though we should acknowledge that the story could have been told differently, from different perspectives; even though it is only one of many possible stories about our beginnings as a nation, it is still a story that matters a great deal to our identity.

People have to have stories about where they came from and how they became the people they are.  And the stories don’t just crop up fully formed.  The histories don’t just write themselves.  A lot of time and telling and retelling and conversation have to go into the process of defining who we are.

The same is true for us as Christians - our identity.  And the first stories, the most important stories for us, are the scriptures. 

The story we hear today from Luke is like the one we heard from John last week, so it might sound like deja vu all over again, as the great Yogi Berra said.  But it’s an important story, so worth hearing twice.  In Luke’s telling, two of the disciples had just returned from a road trip. They were walking from Jerusalem toward Emmaus.  It was the day of the resurrection, but these men did not know that. They only knew that the tomb had been found empty.  And while they were walking and talking, they encountered the risen Christ – whom they did not recognize.  As they walked together he interpreted for them the things about himself in the scriptures.  And when they stopped at an inn and sat at table together, he opened their eyes to him in the blessing and the breaking of bread.  They ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others they had seen and spoken to the risen Christ.

So this is where we are when our story begins and Jesus enters the room with them.  Just as John told it in chapter 20 of his gospel, they were terrified.  And just as John told it, Jesus greeted them with words of peace.  He shows them his wounds to convince them of who he is, and in Luke’s telling he goes a step further, eating a piece of fish to prove he’s not an illusion or a hologram.  He is a real presence among them.  They might not be able to explain this but they know they didn’t imagine it.

In John’s telling of the story, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on them at that moment.  He simply breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  Luke differs on this point.  He says, in verse 49, “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”  Power from on high – the power of the Spirit of God.

But the Holy Spirit won’t be given until the day of Pentecost, 50 days later.  It will be more dramatic than the story John tells, but you’ll have to come back for that one on May 24. At any rate, the stories of John and Luke are telling us the same important things:  The resurrected Jesus came to them and, although this appearance was mysterious, it was real.  He opens their minds to understand who he is.  And, finally, they both tell us the risen Jesus has work for his disciples to do.

Luke makes it clear here that the good news of repentance and forgiveness must go out to all the nations of the world.  He also makes it clear that it is the responsibility of Christ’s disciples to proclaim this message.  And, furthermore, he makes clear that it begins here and now.  Make no mistake about it – the church has a mission that is the core of its identity.

That’s why these stories are so important for us, because they tell us where we came from and what purpose we were created for:  Faith and Action.  This is who we are.  This is what we are all about.  This is where we are going.

All good in theory.  It’s just when we try to live it we run into all kinds of problems.  If we try to live lives faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ not a day goes by that we don’t encounter trials and our own weakness and uncertainty about what we are trying to do.  The gospel sounds quite clear until you try to put it in action.  We see this reality, also, in our scriptures.  We see the difficulty of living the good news through the epistles.

In the letters of Paul to the churches he established, we see signs of conflict and confusion and faithlessness.  And in the letters of John, also, we see signs that there was trouble in paradise.  The letters in the New Testament were all written to the church of the first century in the various places it took root.  They give us one side of a conversation, from which we can imagine the kinds of problems that they were struggling with.

We can tell there were divisions among the people about how to be faithful in the midst of a world that was indifferent or even hostile toward Christ.  We can see there were misunderstandings about what it means to live in faithful Christian community, and we can see that there were even disagreements about the fundamental beliefs they shared.  There were schisms in the faith communities when the conflicts couldn’t be worked out, and then sometimes hostility toward the ones who had split from the church, who seemed to be proclaiming a different kind of gospel.  At the root of all the trouble seemed to be a problem about reconciling what they believed with how to live out that belief.  Don’t we still struggle with the very same things?

We believe we are forgiven, but we may not be sure what it means to be a forgiven people.  In some way it separates us from the rest of the world, but by the same token it demands that we remain in the midst of this broken world.  We are called to be a living witness to the message of forgiveness through God’s undying love. 

Our relationship with Christ sets us apart in some way, but it doesn’t set us apart as models of perfection – that is abundantly clear, isn’t it?  Our status as forgiven people merely shows that if it can happen for us it can happen for anyone.  We are on the road, but not far beyond the starting line.

The story of ourselves has to include these two paradoxical realities: that we are forgiven and cleansed of our sin, on the road to holiness, and also that we are everyday sinners standing in the need of God’s grace.  As John says, “We are God’s children now, but what we will be has not yet been revealed.”  We are both holy and incomplete.  We need to hold these things two things in mind, as difficult as that may be, because otherwise we lose sight of our mission. 

Christ didn’t die so we could live more comfortably in this world.  Christ didn’t die so we could be swept away into another world where we can live in comfort.  In short, he didn’t die for our comfort.  He did it for love of creation and he asks us to help in the redemption of creation.

It is in this way that we are co-creators with God.  As the Word of God became flesh and lived and died among us, we human beings were drawn into the story.  As the Holy Spirit was bestowed on us, we were given the power to be co-authors of this story.  And the story has continued for generations.  This is also part of our story: that the community of faith continued to go out farther and farther into the world to proclaim the good news of repentance and forgiveness.  And at the same time they continued to be in conversation with themselves about who Jesus is in relation to the world and the God of Israel, what it means to believe in and bear witness to Jesus Christ, and what it means to put our faith in action in the world.

We are, and always have been, a people of faith and action.

The stories of scripture tell us this, and it is important that the stories we tell about ourselves don’t disconnect us from this truth.  As messy as it is, we need to stay connected with these old stories.  As uncomfortable as they might make us, we need to see our stories as extensions of these stories.  As I said on Easter Sunday and will say again and again, our ancestors who gave us the scriptures merely gave us the beginning of the story.  It is up to us to pick up the threads and continue writing it with our lives.

The Power of Forgiveness

John 20:19-31            When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

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There is a scene in the film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” when the three escaped convicts run into a group of people all dressed in white, singing. 

As I went down in the river to pray studying about that good ol' way

And who shall wear the starry crown? Good Lord show me the way!

They almost look like ghosts. Slowly they walk down to the river where you see there is a preacher standing in the water, baptizing.  One by one they get dunked in the water and come out cleansed, forgiven, renewed.  Delmar, one of the convicts, gets swept up in the beauty of it and runs in to the water to get baptized too.  He comes back to the other two all dripping wet, smiling, and says “Well that’s it, boys, I’ve been redeemed! The preacher’s done washed away all my sins and transgressions.”  He says, “Including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.”  Ulysses says, “Delmar, I though you said you was innocent of those charges.”  “Well, I was lying,” Delmar says, “and the preacher says that sin’s been washed away too.  Neither God nor man’s got nothing on me now.”

He’s a simple-minded fellow, and after that episode he gets the mistaken impression that the law has no claim on him anymore, even though he is an escaped convict, because his sins were washed away in the river.  He’s forgiven … and he can’t understand why the lawman doesn’t get that.  Poor Delmar.  He has an oversimplified understanding of the power of forgiveness.  But at least he’s giving it it’s due.

In some way I appreciate that, because too often I find that we act as though we have evolved beyond the need for forgiveness.  We are quick to cast it aside as something too quaint for the world in which we live.  We think it foolish to forgive someone who might turn around and hurt us again.  And we think it equally foolish to admit any need for forgiveness, lest someone think us weak.

If we think about forgiveness at all, we probably think of it as something God does.  But not us, at least not when it’s too hard. 

Jesus says otherwise.

He certainly did that Sunday night in Jerusalem when he walked through the door where the disciples were hiding, scared.  It had been a ghastly weekend; they were afraid.  John blames their fear on the Jews, but I doubt that.  That’s John’s bias coming through, writing the gospel more than half a century later, at a time when Christianity and Judaism had both changed in different directions.  The disciples didn’t fear the Jews; they were all Jews.  The only reasonable fear of the Jews they might have had is that one might turn them in to the authorities out of a misguided sense of loyalty.  The real fear, for all of the Jews, was of the Romans.  It was the Romans, alone, who had the power to crucify.

But that night, beside the fear I am sure they were feeling alarm and confusion at seeing Jesus again for the first time.  The man who had been crucified three days before now appears very much alive in front of them.  They see the nail marks in his hands and the place in his side where the spear pierced him.  And he says, “Peace be with you.”

And after greeting them with peace, he says these three things to his disciples:  First, as the Father sent me so I send you.  Then, receive the Holy Spirit. And finally … about forgiveness? That ball is in your court now.

Forgiveness is in our court now.  But, man, do we find it hard to do.

We often don’t want to forgive others.  Much of the time we would rather wallow in our resentment and nurture fantasies of revenge.  Sometimes we confuse it with justice, but they’re not the same thing.  Revenge actually tastes better than justice.

Here is possibly where we see our own inherent sinful nature most clearly – when we would rather be angry than let it go and take some of that peace he offered in the upper room that night.  It would cost us nothing, but we resist making the trade anyway. 

I admit I have a whole closet full of resentments I don’t want to let go of.  I don’t do anything with them except pull one out every now and then, poke at it and remember how much it hurt when that person did that thing to me, and how angry it makes me still. 

I don’t fully understand why we resist the act of forgiveness the way we do.  But I think it is closely tied to another resistance we have: the resistance to being forgiven.

I heard an interesting comment at the sermon roundtable this week.  Even though we know Christ forgives our sins in general, we often doubt his ability to forgive our sins in particular.  Because, as in all things, when it comes down to the particular it gets messy.

For me to accept that Christ can forgive my very particular and ugly and hurtful sins, I have to face them myself.  To have my wounds healed they have to be addressed – each and every one.

In the old Star Trek TV show Bones, the ship’s doctor, had this hand-held device he could use to diagnose medical problems just by scanning the patient’s body.  No invasive procedures, no touching, even.  It was called the tricorder.  It was amazing.  I read that someone has invented a real life tricorder now, proving again that nothing is more fantastic than reality.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could have our spiritual ailments handled the same way?  The sin-sick soul receives the spiritual scan and the instant readout provides you with a list of your ailments.  All the sins you have been sitting on; all the resentment you have been holding tightly, and all the secrets you’ve been keeping for fear that your sins are actually too much for Jesus to forgive.

I wonder; would we be willing to submit ourselves to the spiritual tricorder scan for the sake of being healed? Or would we prefer to keep on holding onto these things – our secret resentments and sins – rather than risk being exposed? 

I marvel at the trade offs we humans are willing to make – to hold ourselves imprisoned in a net of sin and unforgiveness rather than trading it in for the peace he offered us.

When I worked in college ministry, the students liked to combine weekly worship with a topical discussion about all kinds of things that were meaningful to their lives.  Sometimes it was sex, sometimes it was drugs and alcohol, sometimes it was money management.  But there was one topic I found they couldn’t get enough of, and that was forgiveness.

The first time we ran a program on forgiveness we filled the room to overflow capacity.  19, 20, 21 year olds crowded in to listen and ask their questions about whether they were really forgiven; about whether they really had to forgive others (or if there was some obscure escape clause they might learn about); and then, having their suspicions confirmed that they is no escape clause, about how they could possibly forgive the ones who had hurt them.  That first time, and every time after that, there was a lot of pain in the room when forgiveness was on the table.

It doesn’t seem to matter how old you are, or how young you are; forgiveness is a hard thing.

You thought we were going to talk about Doubting Thomas, didn’t you?  There is a lot in this passage we haven’t even touched.  Forgiveness is mentioned in only 1 of the 13 verses.  And yet I think it might be the hinge on which this story turns.

It is Christ’s work on the cross that opens the door to forgiveness.  The wounds on his hands and feet and his side are the evidence of this: the evidence that there is another way.  Even though this world is full of sin – violence and anger and greed and hatred; and it is always possible to adopt the old “Eye for an eye … and then some” philosophy of life.  Even though the conventional wisdom says to live and die by the sword, to withhold love, and refuse the hand of peace to anyone who hasn’t first proved his or her worthiness to you. In spite of all this Jesus Christ, in the flesh, provides the proof that there is another way.

There is this other way, in which forgiveness is offered even before it is asked.  And that’s what his wounds signify.  So, do you believe?

Do you see the marks on his hands and side and do you believe he did it for you?  And that he did it so that you could do it too?  Christ forgives you all your particular sins, and asks you to forgive one another.  The power is in your hands.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.  If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

Do you believe that, because he did it first, you can do it too?

Just After Sunrise

Mark 16.1-8   When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”  But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

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You know, sometimes the aftermath of a horrible scene can be strangely quiet.  I think that’s how it was in the early morning, after the Sabbath, when the women walked to the tomb to tend to the body of Jesus.  It was just after dawn, earlier than it is now.  I’m sure there were other people up and working – fetching water, preparing food, caring for livestock and all the things that people had to do.  It was an ordinary day – yet it was anything but an ordinary day.

And in spite of the activity, it seemed very quiet – in contrast to the violence of the Friday before.  Some of his followers had fled, some of them were in hiding.  All of them feared for their lives.

It was the women who were out, unlike the others, because first of all, it was women’s work to tend the bodies of loved ones who died, but also, because they were women and not men they were in less danger.

The men knew that, as followers of Jesus – a convicted, crucified criminal – their own lives were in danger too.  Were they not accomplices to whatever crime he had committed?  There was reason for them to be afraid.

But as the women walked toward the tomb, fretting about how they would get the stone moved out of the way, and as the men who were still laying low discussed what their next moves might be, none of them knew how everything they anticipated, everything they feared, everything they grieved was about to change.

The teacher they had followed and loved, but hadn’t fully comprehended, was not there in the tomb where they had laid him on Friday.  The strange young man who was there waiting for the women when they arrived, an angel, told them he had risen from the dead and would be waiting for them in Galilee – the place where it had all begun.  Go, tell the others, the angel said to the women.  Then go to Galilee and see Jesus.

Putting ourselves in their place, and all that they had been through, can you imagine?  We went through Maundy Thursday last week; we shared the remembrance of his last meal with his disciples and we told the story of his betrayal and arrest, his crucifixion and death – it was all heart-wrenchingly terrifying and sad, wasn’t it?  But imagine the way it was for Mary, for Peter, for James, for John?

Is it any wonder, really, that the women turned and fled in terror, and spoke to no one?

Have you ever been so terrified you couldn’t speak?

We know that they didn’t remain mute for too long.  We know that the word of Christ’s resurrection spread pretty quickly, that they did see him again on more than one occasion, and that the number of those who believed and followed Christ grew like wildfire.  We know these things, and they are the reason we are here today.  After the terror and the death there would come a time when people could say Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  He is the risen Lord.  Hallelujah!  Amen!

But in that early morning quiet, just after dawn, there was uncertainty and fear.  And silence. 

And there still is.

We have our moments of uncertainty, when we are not sure that the strength Jesus gives is enough for our weakness.  We have our moments of fear, when in spite of the assurances we have been taught from the church that nothing can separate us from Christ and his love, we still feel very much alone.  We have our moments of silence, when instead of proclaiming Christ, crucified and risen, with our words and our actions, our hearts and our eyes, we withhold this good news.  And not sharing it is the same as not having it.

The words the angel said to the women are words for us as well.  We must tell the others.  We must go out into the world and follow Jesus, who has gone ahead of us.  We must follow and obey him and then we will see him.

Mark leaves the story open … unfinished.  He leaves room for us to enter into it.  Hear the angel saying to you – He is risen!  Go and tell the others, and all of you – all of us – let us follow him!

#prosper

A day begins with anxiety and fear when who knows? how it will end – because even though the last lines seem clearly written, there is still hope for something different. 

So we begin our Friday journey.

We follow him to his arrest, to his interview with Pilate, to the judgment of the people: he should die.

We follow him up the hill, a man bent under the weight of the cross on his beaten bloodied back, and thorns pushed into his head. We follow the scorn, the jeers, the cold decisions about what is best for all.  He must die.  A necessary sacrifice.

Our eyes follow as the cross is raised, our ears follow his cries, his prayers, and the sound of him giving up his spirit – the silence.

Even in the residual noise of the day, in the waning afternoon, there is the empty silence – his spirit has left this world.

We follow to the tomb where his body is laid to rest, and the stone is rolled in.  It is done.

W.H. Auden said it well.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.[1]

Who, then, could walk away from this saying, “All in all, a good day; a prosperous day”?

Only one, perhaps, who earned his pocketful of silver with a quick kiss – easy money!

…but hangs now in the potter’s field, lifeless, defeated, tragically condemned; a loss in the end.  No – not this one.

Yet the world waits, in the emptiness of this day, suspended in midair.  Static.

We leapt off the edge when we cried “crucify him!” and watched him die.  Now we hover over the dark abyss – too hard today to see the other side.

We, who know not what we do, say:  Lord, have mercy.

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[1] Stop All the Clocks (Funeral Blues)