Sermon for Easter II Year A 2017 Locked In; Locked Out

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Joleen Stanley
5 years ago
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1 Sermon for Easter II Year A 2017 Locked In; Locked Out On the very same night that Mary Magdalene claimed to have seen the risen Jesus and to have talked with him, the frightened and anxious disciples were holed up in a room behind locked doors. No one could get in not even the crowd of religious leaders or their supporters who, afraid of the people and the way the crowds loved Jesus, had executed this troublesome prophet and teacher. What if they were not satisfied with just executing the ring-leader? What if, they wanted to come after them, too? Not only were the disciples grieved and desolate at the death of Jesus and. perhaps, at their own failure to stand with him to the end, but now this woman was making the most incredible claim that would undo, would overturn their turmoil, their sense of failure and inadequacy, their loss of hope. Now, I m not judging them. They had a lot to be afraid of. They could be accused of stealing his body. They could be punished for guilt by association with his movement. It's a dark world out there. Who are we to blame them for locking themselves in? Have you ever met anyone who is locked in? One of my seminary professors, Gordan Lathrop, used to say, "You don't have to knock very hard on any door in your parish to find some sort of agony behind that door." You could also say that we wouldn t have to knock on many doors in any neighborhood to find some sort of agony behind those locked doors. And I m sure that some of us have had days or weeks or months when it was we who were locked in by some sorrow or suffering, or anger or fear. Author Katherine Pershey describes what it s like to be locked into a prison of fear in her book Any Day a Beautiful Change: Fear is a physiological response to tomorrow. It is almost always about death. Fear causes us to live in a perpetual state of anxiety. Fear is exhausting and depressing. Generally, the calamities I expect do not come to pass. So I replace them with new ones. Time and energy that could be used constructively, for prayer, dishwashing, learning to quilt, I sacrifice to cultivate apprehension. When we are locked, our condition is self-perpetuating. 1

2 Sometimes I think we have more faith in our fears than we do in God, in the Risen Christ. Have you ever been locked in by your fears? Of course, when someone or something is locked in, someone else has to be locked out. Have you ever been locked out? I m sure we all know the helpless feeling of being locked out of our house or our car. I remember the time I accidently locked our daughter in the car on a warm summer evening while I was helping my mother-in-law get her groceries in. I had dropped the car keys inside and the doors just locked. Part of me just wanted to bust out the car window to get Katie to safety and to be honest I would have if a police officer had not come quickly to release the lock and open the door. But we can feel locked out in other ways too. Locked out is how we feel when we know someone is trapped in an addiction or job situation and you can't break through to make it all better, to make them want help. Locked out is how we feel when someone we care about is filled with guilt and selfloathing. We keep assuring them they are forgiven and they are loved, but they just aren't buying the fact that this good news is for them. Locked out is how we feel when we read poverty statistics and wonder how things will ever change, especially if we continue with the same old ways of doing things. Locked out is how those being discriminated against feel when they look at the worlds that are open only to others. Have you or anyone you know ever been locked out? I ve been reading the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks which is also an HBO film which debuted last evening. It is a nonfiction book by Rebecca Skloot, which has been on the NY Times bestseller list for the past six years. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five living in Baltimore. A poor African-American woman descended from slaves, she died from a ruthlessly aggressive cancer in 1951 at the age of 31. While being treated at Johns-Hopkins Hospital, before she died, a sample was taken from her tumor, without her knowledge or consent, and used for medical research. The cells in Henrietta s tissue sample, known as HeLa were the first human cells to survive in culture they not only survived, but thrived and multiplied, quickly. 2

3 Consequently, HeLa cells have since been used in scientific research all over the world, and have played a fundamental role in numerous medical advances and developments. In fact, one of the first life-saving developments made possible through Henrietta s cells was the polio vaccination. (How many of you have had the polio vaccination? You were saved from a terrible disease, in a way, by Henrietta s cancer cells which took her life, but saved yours.) But for over two decades, Henrietta s identity was unknown and her family knew nothing about the immortal HeLa cells and the role their mother unknowingly played in medical research. However, twenty five years later, in the 1970s, her name was publically revealed and her family found out. The author heard about the HeLa cells in her college biology class and Rebecca Skloot became determined to give a voice to Henrietta, this unsung, accidental hero of modern medicine. The resulting book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, combines the story of the story of the development of the HeLa cells with the story of Henrietta and her family. Ms. Skloot, the author has to work hard to gain the trust of the Lacks family, who were angry and distressed about HeLa and the way in which they had been treated. They are suspicious of anyone and everyone, often with very good reason. No one had ever explained to them what HeLa was and what it was used for; they struggled to reconcile the immortal existence of their mother s cells with their own religious beliefs, and with her actual death. They were often misled and patronized by scientists, the medical community, and other people trying to exploit them. Some members of the family, who live in poverty and cannot afford health insurance, feel they are entitled to a share of the vast profits that HeLa has made not by Johns-Hopkins Hospital but by various biomedical research corporations. (The profits from selling HeLa cells worldwide is estimated to be well over $1 billion.) Adding to the tragedy of the Lacks family, Henrietta s children suffered terrible abuse after the death of their mother, especially her two youngest children who were only toddlers when she died. You could say that her youngest son and youngest daughter were locked in by anger and fear and mourning. But then they were also locked out from knowing what happened to their mother and knowing about how a part of their own mother had saved the lives of many people around the world and is still doing so. Henrietta s daughter Deborah, in particular, desperately wanted to learn everything she could about her mother and about what these HeLa cells are. 3

4 Deborah was both locked in and locked out by her fears and her anger over what was done to her mother and the uncooperative and unsympathetic medical professionals. She distrusts Rebecca even at the same time that she wants and needs Rebecca to help her discover and tell her mother s story. She fights and resists, staying shut in sometimes quite literally behind windows that are covered in dark sheets and doors that are firmly locked for fear of reporters or fear that Johns Hopkins will come and take her cells. Deborah refuses to hand over her mother s medical records so that Rebecca can begin the work of helping her to understand them and use them for the book. At one point, Deborah becomes so anxious and full of fear, she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She charges into her uncle s home in a highly manic state, with Rebecca following bewildered behind her. While Deborah is ranting frantically about his home to no one in particular, her uncle calmly breaks through, holding her tightly while praying, saying Lord, you are welcome here, you are welcome to come in this place, and take this burden off Deborah. And as he prays, not letting her go, Deborah begins to breathe more quietly, she lets go, saying yes, Lord, I want you to take this burden from me. Deborah is no longer locked in; and Rebecca is no longer locked out. Healing begins not only for Deborah, but through her for her brothers as well. Thanks be to God, there are no locked doors that can block the risen Christ from entering into the inner sanctum, the safe room the disciples had created at the center of their fears. The resurrected Christ who passes through locked doors is the same one who then shows the disciples his hands and his side the wounds that ended his life but saves ours, so we might have life abundantly. He has a body, and he has come into our locked rooms, not just to visit, but bearing gifts that can heal a hurting, hostile world. The first gift Jesus offers is peace. He promised to give his followers peace before he is crucified, and now, as the Risen Lord, he does so. Three times in this passage he says, "Peace be with you." It is at the same time both an ordinary greeting and an extraordinary greeting. Because the second gift Jesus brings is purpose. As one NT scholar has put it: Christ's peace is not a passive contentment. He gives the disciples a second gift, a mission. Believers now becomes apostles because Christ sends them into the world. God's sending Christ is the pattern for Christ's sending the disciples. They are sent out of God's love for the world and for the world's redemption. 4

5 The third gift Jesus gives us is power. John's Pentecost involves no rowdy crowd and no tongues of fire which we will hear about from Acts in about six weeks time. No, John's Pentecost is just the risen Christ, the raised Savior, who can pass through walls breathing the Spirit into our tired, fearful bodies. "He breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" When does Jesus come with this peace, purpose and power? When people are locked in grief like Mary Magdalene; locked in fear like the disciples; and locked in darkness like the world. I believe that Henrietta s daughter Deborah experienced this peace, purpose and power that the risen Christ brings when we are open and welcoming to his presence. William Sloane Coffin, a great prophet of the 20th century church, who died several years ago, once said: "As I see it, the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight... You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind." Knock on any door in our communities, and you ll find some kind of agony. But we, the body of Christ, are called to leave the rooms we've locked ourselves in and go out emboldened by the knowledge that we bear the peace, purpose, and power of the Risen One who bears the scars of his own pain, and can pass through any walls that lock us in or lock us out. Thanks be to God! Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! 5

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