We Are All Right Here

John 14:15-21      “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

+++

The writer Louise Erdrich is drawn to bird’s nests. In one of her books she described some of the nests in her collection. There are different sizes and shapes for different birds – she is curious about the ways various birds construct their nests. She notes the types of materials they use, how loosely or densely they pack these materials. But the one thing that most captured my imagination is that bird’s nests aren’t just made out of natural materials, like mud and grass. Birds gather up all kinds of detritus that humans leave behind. Bits of plastic Christmas tinsel, strands of brightly colored knitting yarn, shreds of discarded Kleenex. All these things woven in with the twigs and moss and flower stems.

One winter she saved up the loose strands from when she brushed her daughters’ hair. She scattered them outside for the birds to find. The next fall she found the nest, woven with middle daughter’s blond hairs, eldest daughters rich brown, and the fine pale strands of the baby’s hair.

She took the nest, the home no longer needed, and brought it inside. Thinking about how this nest woven with her babies’ hair had cradled the baby birds, just as her arms had cradled her babies. The way life holds life, over and over again.

We have borrowed the term “nesting” from birds and other animals, to talk about some of the things women do to prepare for new life. A woman in the last weeks of her pregnancy might get a burst of energy for preparing a home for her new baby. Cleaning, organizing, making all things ready. When a new baby comes into the world there is a need to make a place for the newness of him. Nesting – this beautiful construction that wraps around life, holding it and protecting it and nurturing it.

It’s a good image for the way we move through the world – everything is continuous. Endings lead right into new beginnings. Life is not linear – it is circular. It can almost make you dizzy.

That’s the way I feel sometimes when I read Jesus’ words here in John, where he says to his disciples, “I am in my Father, and you are in me – and I am in you.” You know, linearly, I don’t think that is possible. But life is not really linear.

There is another, he says, who will be with you when I am no longer with you – the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth. This Spirit will abide with you, will be in you. And I will be in you, as you are in me.

You begin to get the sense that there is no real separation between Jesus and this Spirit. Or the Father either, for that matter. They are one.

But not only are they one all together, we are one with them somehow, too. Yes, we are a part of this mysterious circle with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

As Jesus speaks these words, we might remember where and when this is happening. This is the evening before he will be arrested. It is an evening when his disciples began to feel the ground shifting from under their feet. Soon he will be leaving them.

It is a time when they need some words of comfort, which he gives them. I am not leaving you orphaned, he says. Another Advocate will be with you. And, in a way, we will all be together – right here. And perhaps he would have said, it is not for you to understand, but simply for you to know.

Well, we are creeping up on Trinity Sunday and you can hear it in our texts from last week and this week. Two weeks from now will be Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church. The week after that is Trinity Sunday, when we pause to reflect on all the persons of the trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit – and the complex, mysterious nature of our triune God.

Western, logical minds always want to take a linear approach to it. We want to line these personalities up – Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We want to assign duties, a sort of job description, to each one, and then assume we fully comprehend it. The trinity we have created as a Limited Liability Company.

But Eastern minds see it differently. The Eastern Orthodox Church has long had a different model for the trinity, called the Perichoresis. It comes from two Greek words, meaning around, and making room; imagine the three persons of the trinity in a dance together circling round and round. This is who they are, and it is not possible to separate them from one another.

That actually sounds like what Jesus is describing to his disciples at their last dinner together. But, even more, Jesus includes the disciples in this circle.

He draws a picture of a circular relationship – Father, Son, Holy Spirit, You, Me. We are all right here. It seems important for him to say these things to his disciples on that night of all nights. Because he will be leaving them soon.

When he leaves them they will all scatter – for various reasons. Guilt. Fear. Grief. Confusion. Loss of purpose. But they won’t go far from each other. They will come back together to recreate what they had before. Or, create something new with the Advocate – the Spirit.

It’s a concept that continues to be meaningful for the church – although in ordinary times we might forget why. When things are just cruising along on autopilot, we don’t need mystery. We don’t need complex imagery about a complex God and where we fit into all of it. We’ve got our notches cut out.

But when things fall apart, it’s different. When pandemic sends us all scattered, separated from one another, it’s different. When all the normal systems break down, we have to start figuring out again what it means to be the church. Who we are in relation to one another and God.

And we have to find out if we will come back together to recreate what we had –

Or to create something new.

I think that Jesus’ disciples wanted, more than anything else in the world, for Jesus to come back to them in that upper room and just resume normal activity. For them to continue being his disciples in the same way they always had. But that couldn’t happen, because it was time now to move on to the next step. You don’t go back to where you were before. But you take what’s needed from before and go forward.

In the best possible outcome, that is what we will do. We will come back together again. But it will not be just like it was before. We will be changed. And the church will be changed.

If we go back to the image of a nest – a sort of container – we can think that this room, our sanctuary, was the container that held us together as a community, the body of Christ. But then we scattered, and we have developed new containers – electronic, telephonic, technological nests, to hold us as the body of Christ. Weird, yes. But true.

In the course of doing weird new things we are learning things about ourselves and about our relationship to the world. I know how painful it is to feel like we are in limbo. It is frightening to wonder what will become of us. But let us trust that God is, indeed, at work in this COVID chaos, and let us watch closely for signs of the Spirit’s work, creating new nests, with pieces of the old as well as pieces of the new things.

Robert Cording, a poet, writes:

More than we imagined,
visible now that we can see
through the leafless branches -
nests, in the lilacs, near
the trunk of a weeping cherry,
on a maple branch horizon.
In them, the past
summer: dead grasses,
milkweed and dandelion
down, our lost cat’s
white fur, line I cut
from a fishing reel, bits
of scattered fingernail-
sized eggshells – a robin’s
pale blue …

Even as the bird gathers up and uses what others discarded, she leaves bits of herself behind in the nest she makes, for others to find and, perhaps, use. In so many ways, life is circular.

Let us watch closely for the work of the Spirit, gathering us up in a nest of familiar things and weird things and creating something new. This circling, gathering, triune God will never let us go. God is here and we are all right here, too.

Photo: By Jerry Kiesewetter jerryinocmd - https://unsplash.com/photos/hgyjSUlEe40archive copy, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62181987

In Times of Trouble

John 14:1-14      

We have known for some time, you and I, that hardship can bring deep meaning to our lives. This is not to say that we enjoy hardship – not by any means. But we realize that some good can come out of it.

We like to recall our experience after 9/11, when so many Americans reconnected with their faith, and church sanctuaries were filled on Sunday mornings. In times of trouble we seek meaning.

Yet, we should also remember, that resurgence in church attendance after 9/11 was actually very brief. It was a blip on the timeline. Nothing worth bragging about or celebrating, really. In fact, it showed us just how fickle our tastes are, how shallow our passions can be.

Because not too long after 9/11 we were beginning to form a new passion. We fixed our attention on a clear enemy and went to war.

Finding meaning in our lives is essential to being human. But when it is colored by fear or anger, it can lead us down some dark and ugly paths. And now we are seeing it again.

It didn’t take very long for all kinds of conspiracy theories to emerge to explain the COVID-19 crisis. Very early on we heard suggestions that it was a biological weapon created in a lab in China and unleashed on the world. And no matter how many times this theory is debunked, it keeps bouncing back. Because it sounds like something that could be true.

There were other attempts – both subtle and not so subtle – to blame China for it. But if we’re looking for somewhere to place blame, we have other options, too. There’s the Bill Gates conspiracy theory, because anyone who cares as much as he does about getting people immunized must have ulterior motives.

The good Dr. Fauci is another candidate. The story here is that he knew about the supposed Chinese scheme and kept it secret. And then there’s the theory that hospitals are faking the numbers on COVID-19 diagnoses because the reimbursements are higher. And, tragically, there are more.

All of these stories have some aspect of believability, and so they spread. All of them sound like they could be true. And so they spread. More accurately, we spread them. Because they sound to us like they might be true.

Years ago, the comedian Stephen Colbert made up a new word – truthiness. The definition of truthiness is that something seems true, therefore it is believable even in the absence of any evidence.

We latch on to these stories that have the quality of truthiness because we have a need to find meaning – preferably, a simple explanation of why things happen. And if the reason involves propping up some enemy that can be blamed for our trouble, all the better. You see, if all the trouble can be blamed on some “other,” some enemy, than nothing much is required of us, other than to get angry. And that’s easy.

In times of trouble we look for an enemy to blame. But that’s not the way Jesus showed us.

When he set out on his ministry, and began to call his first disciples, there was no map they were following. Jesus was leading them into uncharted territory. He knew where he was going, but all the disciples knew was that they were following him. And that seemed to be enough.

For the time being.

The problem, they gradually began to see, was what would happen if there ever came a time when he wasn’t with them.

In this story from John, Jesus is gathered with the disciples on the night before he was arrested. And he begins to speak in parables, telling them about the place he is going – a place where there will be room for them, a place to which they know the way.

But they don’t know what he is talking about. They don’t know where he is going, so how could they possibly know the way there? Up until now, he has been their way. Up until now, everything has worked simply because they followed him. But if he is no longer with them, how will they possibly know the way?

He says to them, let not your hearts be troubled. But clearly, their hearts are troubled. If their teacher leaves them, they will be lost and their lives will be utterly without meaning. They’ve left everything else behind.

They say to him, show us the Father. If Jesus is going to leave them, then he at least needs to give them a replacement to follow. Show us the Father so we have someone to follow. But then he says the strangest thing – something they surely don’t know how to interpret. That in essence, Jesus and the Father are the same. I am in him and he is in me. If you have seen me you have seen him. We are one and the same.

He is showing them a new way of seeing. Learning a new way of seeing is never easy.

His disciples will need to see Jesus even when he is no longer walking with them, leading their steps, setting an example, teaching them what to do. They will need to find their way, without actually seeing the way. Somehow, they will need to see Jesus – and the Father – without actually seeing them, but trusting that they are with them, empowering them and guiding them.

As the church, we proclaim the oneness of the Father and the Son, along with the Holy Spirit, which he will speak of further on in the chapter. And we profess our faith that this triune God is in our midst, working within us, between us, all around us. It is these beliefs that make us who we are, make us a community of faith. And it is these beliefs that guide us through life’s troubles.

So now I must ask: how do these beliefs guide us as we seek to make meaning in this particular time of trouble we are now in?

What will be the way forward? How will we navigate it? If Jesus is our way, then there are a few things we can, and should, know.

We can know that it is not easy. As much as his followers would have liked it, Jesus did not clear away all the obstacles before them. He made a way through hardship – but he did not eliminate hardship. The way, he said, is not easy. But take my yoke upon you, he said, and learn from me.

We can know that it is a way of accountability and forgiveness. On that night when he sat surrounded by his disciples, Jesus looked at them and held each one accountable for what they would do. For the ways they would fall short, the ways they would fail him. He didn’t pretend it was nothing. But he forgave them. As he forgives each one of us, too.

We can know that this way is essentially about where we are now and where we are going. It is not a backward way. The disciples did, fairly quickly, find their way forward. With the help of the Spirit, they began to figure out that knowing the way doesn’t mean having a map with the route all laid out, highlighted in yellow. They discovered that following the way meant trusting in God to show them the next step forward. And forward they went.

The church moved ever outward into the world. It spread like a virus, each person touching several others, and each of them touching even more.

The church moved in and through every kind of trouble. Always demonstrating that the way of Jesus Christ is the way of love and grace. The way of Jesus Christ pours beauty on everything.

What we know from the way of Christ is that love shows its strength in times of trouble. We know that faith grows stronger in times of trouble. We know that by following the way, we will follow a path of being woven together into an ever-widening fabric of community, founded on love and truth –

Not truthiness.

Perhaps God always works through trouble because times of trouble seem to give us tremendous motivation to find meaning and purpose. And Christ gives us a way.

If we follow the way that Jesus gave us, we will look for the ways to be church in these new times. If we trust in him to lead us, to be our way, we will look for the ways he gives us to serve and connect with and love one another.

His way is not a way of fear, nor anger, nor vengeance. So let us turn away from the ways of truthiness, blaming, conspiracy-theorizing. There is no real meaning in such things.

The meaning is to be found in the way of Christ – the way of love and grace, of gratitude and generosity. Let us get ourselves on this way, brothers and sisters. Because there is much need, there is much possibility, there is much for us to do. So –

What can we do?

In a time of new beginnings, we might look to the early church as a model. As the book of Acts tells us, they devoted themselves to prayer and scripture. That is just what we are trying to do. Every evening at 5:30 pm.

You can find me on Facebook Live with daily scripture readings and prayers. We stay close to the Word, and we lift up all the needs of the world that are on our hearts and minds. It is good to be together in prayer; it is like drops of water on a parched land.

But those who are not on Facebook can still pray, knowing they are adding their voice to a community at prayer.

God is at work showing us a way through this current trouble – about this there is no doubt. Let us use this moment faithfully. Let us devote ourselves to prayer and scripture, as the church did at the beginning. Let us look for the movement of the Spirit, showing us our next steps, connecting the Word of God with the Way of Jesus for the sake of the world.

Photo: daily choice of masks in Corona times.  By Islander61 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90093129

Someone to Watch Over You

Acts 2:42-47

John 10:1-10      

There wasn’t a lot of children’s programming on TV when I was young, but there were a few shows and we tended to love them indiscriminately. I mean, back in those days, anything that was made just for kids – that was special. But for a while when I was very small, the show I loved most was Romper Room. I planted myself on the floor in front of the TV every day to watch Miss Beverly and the lucky children who got to play with her in her TV classroom. I was so jealous of them. I adored Miss Beverly – she was pretty and kind. Her classroom was fun. I loved everything about Romper Room. But the moment Miss Beverly picked up her magic mirror at the end of the show was, without fail, a moment of preschool angst for me. Because here’s what would happen.

She would begin to name all the children watching at home whom she could see through her magic mirror: Bobby and Cathy and Barbara and Jimmy, Lucy and Davy and Billy and Nancy, and on and on. Every day I sat holding my breath waiting for her to see me, but she never saw me. Maggie. Every day I waited in hope. Every day I was tragically disappointed.

If Miss Beverly had said my name just once, I would have pledged myself to her for eternity. But, alas, she never saw me. She never knew me.

And that’s sad. It’s just nice when they know your name.

I think it’s fair to say that knowing someone, really knowing them, involves at the very least knowing their name.  That’s where we usually begin.  It means something to us, when someone remembers our name.

The shepherd, Jesus says, knows his sheep and calls them by their names.  And they follow him because they know the voice of their shepherd when he calls their names. He knows their names and they know his voice. Just as Mary Magdalene knew the voice of Jesus when she heard him call her name in the garden. 

He knows our names, too, and cares for us as his own. Whether it is as the shepherd, as he says further down in the chapter, or the sheepfold gate, as he says in verse 7, it is clear that Jesus is identifying himself as the one who watches over us. He is the one who is strong enough to protect, the one who cares enough to save us. Jesus can be trusted to guide us in and out of the sheepfold. In our coming and our going, we may rely on the one who would lay down his life for us.

This is the gospel message: we have a savior who knows us because he chooses to know us; he loves us enough to suffer on our behalf for the sin of the world so we may have life, and life abundant. He knows our names.

It gives us comfort to know that we have a good shepherd watching over us. But, just like the little boy who was frightened by a thunderstorm one night – his father reassured him saying Jesus is right beside you. But the boy said, “I know, but daddy, I need Jesus with skin on!” We need the warmth, the firmness, the tenderness of flesh and blood companions who care for us.

I know Jesus loves me and Jesus saves me. I have known it since I was very young. But sometimes I am more concerned about whether there are people who know me, love me, care for me, and are willing to protect me if need be. I know I have a friend in Jesus – I have always known this. But sometimes I am more concerned about how many true friends I have in Jesus’ church. And what’s more, I am concerned about whether my love is great enough to be a faithful friend in Christ’s name – a friend to my brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as those who are outside the sheepfold.

I am concerned that we may rest too comfortably in the knowledge of Christ’s saving love and let it go at that. The hard truth is that there is nothing Christ did for us that he does not also ask us to do for others.

As followers of Christ we must ask ourselves how well we are doing at providing this kind of love and care to others. Do we know one another’s names? and their needs? Jesus assured his followers and even those who didn’t follow him that he will know them and care for them individually. But Jesus needs us to do that.

How are we doing at the shepherding? And just as much, how are we managing the sheepfold gate? Jesus says I am the gate and whoever enters by me will be saved. Are we opening the gate to those who need comfort, who are seeking pasture?

Everybody in this world needs that – comfort, belonging. Every one of us needs to have that feeling that we are all in this together, living the life we have been given, taking turns holding one another up when we need to borrow some strength. Everyone in this world needs to have a place of safety, a sheepfold where somebody knows their name and cares about who they are.

Everybody needs somebody to trust. Are we willing to be that somebody? to earn their trust? Are we willing to love them unconditionally, showing them the grace of God and the care of the Good Shepherd? Do we care enough about them to learn their names and their stories? Are we willing to watch over them and protect them from harm?

You know, in the story from Acts we heard that the earliest disciples devoted themselves to learning and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer. How are we doing at that? the basic acts of being church?

These days, our forced quarantine makes it harder – to be church in the ways we know. But I read an interesting bit of information last week. The Pew Research Center finds that people are saying that since this pandemic began, their faith is growing. So how are we living that stronger, deeper faith? And how will that make it different when we come back together again?

And when we come back together again, will we manage the sheepfold gate with generosity and love?

Christ offers himself as the good shepherd and the gate. He lays down his life for us and everyone else. He calls us by name, and he expects us to be able to do the same. Let us follow in Christ’s example for this world, to know one another by name and watch over one another in his name.

That Moment You Know

Luke 24:13-35   

Something we often say to one another now is that every day feels the same. We forget what day it is, even what time it is, because we have abandoned our normal routines. It happens in my house, too – although I need to be extra careful to remember when Sunday comes around. Other than that, it’s easy to forget what day it is. Time is almost meaningless.

So, maybe it won’t surprise anyone when I point out that, in the biblical texts for this Easter season, it has been the same day for three weeks. Really. From the perspective of our reading for today, it was only this morning that Mary found the tomb empty. And they still don’t really know what’s going on.

Now, on that same day, we have two of these disciples – one named Cleopas and the other unnamed – who are walking a seven-mile journey to a village called Emmaus. As far as I can see, no one knows anything about this place called Emmaus. People have proposed that it is a place about seven miles northwest of the city of Jerusalem, known as el-Khubeibeh. Others have suggested it is a place about eight miles southwest of Jerusalem, known as Khurbet Khamasa. Just to name a couple of theories. Clearly, we have no idea about the place called Emmaus. But that’s okay, because the destination is unimportant. What matters is the journey.

Cleopas and the other disciple are walking toward Emmaus for reasons that are not mentioned. Perhaps there is something in Emmaus that matters to them. Perhaps there is something in Jerusalem they want to get away from. Perhaps they only need to walk. It doesn’t really matter why they left Jerusalem, or why they are headed toward Emmaus. What matters is the journey.

Sometimes, you just have to journey.

Bear in mind that things had been pretty chaotic in Jerusalem for the disciples of Jesus. He was arrested, then everything fell apart. The disciples scattered. Confusion and fear reigned.

And on this day, the third day, from the moment early in the morning when they found the tomb empty, it has been the peak of craziness. They are afraid. They are grieving. And they are suddenly without direction or purpose. They frantically want to know what is going on.

But they don’t know yet. As these two disciples are walking along they are talking it all through – rehashing everything, the way we do. Repeating things over and over, sharing their reactions, their confusion, their theories. It’s both an important emotional and intellectual process they are engaged in. But they still don’t know what is going on, and they won’t figure it out this way.

They say to the stranger who approaches them, “We had hoped that he was the one.” As far as they can see now, that hope is lost.

And I guess there’s no reason why they should think otherwise. Because they have seen the evidence of his death. So far, they have seen no evidence that he is alive.

We all need some kind of evidence. You know, the disciple Thomas often gets disparaged because that evening he was late getting to the upper room. And all the disciples were like, “Ah, Thomas, you just missed him! Jesus was here. Showed us his wounds and everything. It was awesome.” Thomas felt cheated. And disbelieving. He needed some kind of evidence too.

It isn’t enough for someone to tell you, “Jesus is alive.” It isn’t enough for someone to tell you, “Jesus is Lord.” We need other ways of knowing.

And sometimes we seem to forget that. We get all judgmental about Thomas, who doesn’t believe. We get sort of judgmental about the men who refuse to believe the women when they say, “I have seen the Lord,” and we are sort of amused and perplexed by these two disciples on the road to Emmaus who just don’t get it.

In the Thomas story, we feel entitled to judge him because of the way Jesus seems to judge him – in a subtle way. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” The presumption is that very few will actually have the opportunity to see the risen Christ. But there is a need to believe anyway – without seeing.

And some will say this is what faith is all about. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Still, we need some reason for believing.

Others will say it is all about listening and hearing. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans that faith comes from what is heard. Indeed, the gospel has been shared and has taken root all over the world by word of mouth. By one person telling other people the good news of Jesus Christ. Truly, hearing the word is essential. But we hear a lot of things we don’t believe. Just because we hear it doesn’t mean we know it. What makes this different?

National Public Radio used to have a weekly feature called This I Believe, where anyone could share their core beliefs that guide their lives. What you would hear again and again from all kinds of people, were the things they believe, the things they know to be true, because they have experienced it. The things we believe, the things we really, truly know, are the things we know deep in our bones because we have experienced them.

It takes real lived experience to really know something.

When Thomas was invited to touch the wounds. When Mary heard him say her name. These were the moments when they knew.

And for these two disciples on the road to Emmaus? There was a special moment when they, too, knew.

They discussed all these things all through that long walk; they listened to the stranger who joined up with them and pointed out to them things they had not considered – things that were in the scriptures they all knew, but were now invited to know in a new way.

The time flew past as they walked and talked. And when they arrived at Emmaus, they weren’t yet finished. The two disciples invited the stranger to join them for supper. And they sat down at table together. The stranger took the bread. he blessed it and broke it. And then they knew.

In the breaking and the blessing, the taking and the sharing, they knew.

Perhaps, as he took, blessed, broke, and gave the bread – they suddenly remembered another day when, surrounded by thousands of people, with nothing but a few loaves and some fish, Jesus did the same thing. He took, blessed, broke, and gave the bread.

Something that became the pattern of a life-changing, community-defining ritual. Still today we gather around the table and do the same: take and bless, break and give, in his name. It is something that feeds our bodies and souls, it triggers our memories and opens our hearts. It is the way that he has promised to be with us.

And we can be assured that he is with us whenever and wherever we share bread in his name. Whether it be at our table in this sanctuary or the tables in our kitchens. At the tables in our fellowship hall or the tables at the local soup kitchen. At the tables in the Langeler Building when we host the homeless shelter or the table that was set up in our parking lot to provide bag lunches to hungry children. At the tables where backpacks are filled with food for kids to take home for the weekend, so there will be enough to eat – wherever we take and bless, break and share bread in Christ’s name he is there too.

And this is one of those moments when you know.

Because the truth is, just seeing is not enough. Just hearing is not enough. It takes something more, and that is real experience – experience that involves our senses and also our hearts.

You know he is alive when you receive his love through others who know him and love him. You show others he is alive when you share his love with them. We share his love by sharing our bread, and our shelter, and our care. When we give of ourselves to others, out of our love for Jesus, then we share the good news with them. and when they receive these gifts of the heart, then

That is the moment they too may know. Christ is alive.  

And at that moment, you know that this is what life is all about: it’s about the giving and the receiving – of food and drink, of our stories, of shelter and comfort, of a healing touch. and this, of course, is the journey.

Photo: By Tahsin Shah - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87568953

The Power of Forgiveness

John 20:19-31    

If you have ever seen the film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” maybe you remember the baptism scene. A group of people all dressed in white, singing, as they slowly walk in single file into the river. One by one they get dunked in the water and come out cleansed, forgiven, renewed. 

Delmar, an escaped convict, gets swept up in the beauty of it and runs in to the water to get baptized too.  He comes back to his two buddies 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. Including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.”  One of the others 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.”

After that episode Delmar 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 is aware that he needs forgiveness.

I appreciate that, because too often we act as though we have evolved beyond the need for forgiveness.  We find it too quaint for the world in which we live.  We believe it’s 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, and that’s fine.  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. This is worth saying something about. You might have noticed in several of our recent readings from John’s gospel, there is some snide remark about the Jews. That is John’s bias coming through. He wrote the gospel more than half a century later, after a difficult split, at a time when Christianity and Judaism had gone in different directions.  It was a different world John was living in than the one he was writing about. It is misleading to say the disciples feared the Jews; they were all Jews. 

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, aside from the fear, 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 before them, in the flesh, alive.  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. It’s up to us. But we don’t want to.

We 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.

This might be 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. 

Photo: Baptism scene from O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I don’t know why we resist letting go of our resentments. 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.

A friend once put it to me like this:  Even though we know Christ forgives our sins in general, we often doubt his ability to forgive our sins in particular.  Because, 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 had this hand-held device he used 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.  Even more amazing is that, apparently, someone has invented a real 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, of course, how they could possibly forgive the ones who had hurt them. We returned to the topic again and again. There was always 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” philosophy of life.  Even though the conventional wisdom says to live and die by the sword, to withhold love from anyone who doesn’t give love first, and refuse the hand of peace to anyone who hasn’t first proved his or her worthiness to you. In spite of all this conventional wisdom, 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?

I understand that our lives are usually too busy to think much about these things, to go through an inventory of sins afflicted on us, sins committed by us. It takes time we don’t have. But, not now. Right?

Those of us who are sheltering at home – we have time.

Who in your life, close or far away, do you need to forgive?

Who, of the people you know very well and those you barely know at all?

Who, of those who are alive and those who are dead?

Who needs your forgiveness? The power is in your hands. Believe, You can do it.

Heart to Heart Talks, Part 6: While Mary Stood Weeping

John 20:1-18      

Preachers often say that Easter is the hardest day to preach. Because what can you say about this story that hasn’t already been said a million times before? Well, let’s see if we can look at the story this morning with fresh eyes.

Mary came to the tomb so early on Sunday morning it was still dark. But when she got near she could see that something was amiss. The stone that was covering the tomb had been moved aside.

If it looked like anything, it looked like foul play. It looked like somebody had broken into the grave and taken the body away. Mary didn’t go any nearer to investigate. Mary was smart – not like some character in a scary movie who walks into the dark, empty house with the broken windows. Mary was smart; she turned and ran the other way.

She ran directly to the disciples to let them know what she saw. Peter and another disciple, probably John, ran back to the tomb to see for themselves. Cautiously, each one of the men entered the tomb to have a better look. All that was left were the graveclothes. No indication what Peter was thinking, but of the other disciple we are told, “he saw and believed.”

But just what he believed is not clear, because the sentence continues, “for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” Was he beginning to get an inkling about this good news? Or did he only believe what Mary had said, that the body of Jesus had been taken away?

All they could know was that his body was gone. All they could assume was that it had been taken away.

Both men left, probably to share this news with the other disciples. Maybe they were going to tell them, “they’ve stolen the body of our teacher!” But Mary now stayed behind. Perhaps Mary needed some time alone for all the things she grieved. They had crucified her Lord, and now, as if that wasn’t enough, they couldn’t even let his body rest in peace.

She stood outside the tomb weeping. But then she saw she was not alone. Two angels appeared in the tomb; they asked Mary why she wept.

You know, usually when angels make an appearance, they have to start with, “Fear not!” But maybe Mary wasn’t afraid – not now. With everything that had happened already, there was no more room for fear. Just grief. Grief filled her entire being. She said to the angels, “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”

She turns and sees there is someone else there. A man. He asks Mary the same question: Why are you weeping?

I don’t know why Mary had to suffer this question – twice. Why are you weeping? It brings to mind a memory of when I was a child being hurt by another child on the playground. My teacher saw me and asked if I was okay. I was embarrassed to be caught crying. She asked me, “Something get in your eye?” I nodded hard, like, “Yeah that’s it.” She said, “Tears?” I nodded again.

Why do we weep? There are all kinds of reasons, but they are usually not simple. We weep because we are human, we are mortal beings. And there are moments in life when we become starkly aware of our mortality.

We weep now because the reality of death has come closer to us all. Every day we watch the counts rise – the numbers of the afflicted, the numbers of deaths. Every day now, death is a close companion, and the reality of our finite nature becomes very clear to us. And so we weep.

We weep because we are cut off from the ones we love at the time we really need them, and from the work that makes our lives seem purposeful at a time when we really need that sense of purpose.

The coronavirus pandemic has left us alone with our powerlessness over the realities of life and death. It has left us alone, facing our own fragility.

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return – we say these words on Ash Wednesday. The end of our lives will come and our material bodies will fade away to dust.

And so we weep. For the loss of control, the loss of life, and the knowledge of our own mortality.

And into the midst of our weeping comes Easter. In the midst of our weeping, there is rebirth, there is new life, there is hope.

A silver lining, perhaps – a phrase I have heard many people use recently, to speak of the surprising gifts we are finding in this weird time.

But I will tell you, I have been feeling sad this past week. More than usual. Maundy Thursday always makes me feel sad, Good Friday feels like a heavy weight we carry. But this year there has been a sadness, a weight, that has stuck to me all the way to Easter. Because of all the ways we can’t celebrate this year.

I have felt sad that we can’t fill the sanctuary with our bodies and sing loudly together, Jesus Christ Is Risen Today, Alleluia! I feel sad that we can’t be together and make a joyful noise. I come into this first day of the week still feeling sad, weeping for all that we have lost. It doesn’t even feel like Easter.

But, you know, it didn’t feel like Easter to Mary, either.

Christ came to her in the depth of her sadness, at the moment she needed him. As Mary stood weeping, he called her name.

Hearing him say her name broke through her distress, and she could see him, Jesus, and she was filled with joy. But then – did you catch what he said to her?

Don’t touch me. Stay away from me. Social distancing.

We are where Mary was. We can feel this story this year, perhaps more than we ever have before. In the midst of a dark and fearful time, in a place of death, comes Easter. Because this is exactly where Easter is needed.

Easter doesn’t come in the midst of pastel parades and baskets full of bunnies. Easter comes in hospitals overfull with patients and short on protective masks. Easter comes in cities using refrigerated trucks to hold the dead because the morgues are full. Easter comes in the temporary tent hospitals.

Easter comes in the nursing homes where residents are confined to their rooms for fear of an uncontrollable outbreak. Easter even comes in an all but empty sanctuary, where my voice echoes off the walls as though I am standing in an empty tomb.

And maybe, in these places, without all the usual festivity, we can see it when Easter comes – Christ resurrected, defeating the power of death out of God’s love for the world. Easter comes to us when we need it.

In the midst of a broken and fearful world,

In the midst of death,

In the midst of our despair, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.