March 30, 2008 Second Sunday of Easter Acts 2:14a, 22-26 John 20:19-31 Unlocked 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. John 20:19 Life-giving God, Unlock our hearts that we may feel the presence of the Christ. Unclench our fists that we might touch one another with kindness Open our mouths that we may drink in the delight of life. Unstop our ears that we may hear your agony in our inhumanity. Open our eyes that we may see the risen Christ in all of our life together. Amen i Lockdown. It s where we go when we are afraid. Lock the doors; cover the windows. Get a stone, a really big stone and seal the entrance to the tomb. Lock the windows; lower the blinds. Stay low, out of sight. Store up water and canned goods; buy a gun. Lockdown. It s where you go when you are under threat, or think you are. John paints a picture of the church on Easter evening in lockdown. They are terrified. There have been reports that Jesus body is not in the tomb. Peter and John have been there. They ve seen the abandoned grave clothes. Mary Magdalene even claimed to have seen the Lord and talked with him. Nobody knows what to make of that. They are scared to death afraid of what they ve gotten themselves into. Afraid of the Jews, simply means afraid of the authorities. Were the same people who had taken Jesus going to come after them as well? It s why Peter had denied knowing him. What good would he be to the James, John, Mary and the others if he were crucified too?
Fear does that to us. A mind in terror can create all kind of unreasonable scenarios. Hiding for fear of the Jews? It works as well as any excuse, I suppose. If you want a reason to run and hide, you can find one. Excuses are easy to come by. Anna Carter Florence isn t buying them. She says that, John [claims] that the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, but I wonder about that. I wonder if the doors were locked for fear of the resurrection. Which to you think messes with our heads more: predictable bad guys or unpredictable divine intervention? Exactly. What would it take, Anna wonders, to unlock those doors, and let go of those fears? ii 2 Sitting in my study, all by myself, late one night last week, I was laughing out loud. Tawes thought I had finally flipped under all the pressure of Easter, Holy Week. Actually I was reading something Tom Long wrote, imagining what kind of newspaper ad this church in Jerusalem this little band of frightened disciples -- might place to attract newcomers to their church: First Church of Jerusalem The church of the open door, where all are welcome A church with a warm heart and a bold mission Not really. It would go more like: First Church of Jerusalem Locked doors, no welcome The church of the sweaty palms and shaky knees The church of the firmly bolted door iii That is funny in a sad sack kind of way. What would it take to get the church to let go of those fears and unlock the doors? I wish I could say that they were the last church ever to cower behind locked doors. There are many churches in the world today that need to be afraid. They live under very real threat, churches who have been bombed and burned and all but destroyed, because of the world s association between Christianity and America s foreign policy. Christians, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, have to worship this morning in secret. There are black churches burned in the U.S., house churches raided in China. There are splendid churches built to seat 1000 who now house 20 or 30 worshippers who insist on doing it the old way, culturally relevant churches who are afraid to be Christian because they will be labeled out of touch, too religious or uncool. There are pastors afraid to preach
3 the Gospel from their own pulpits for fear of retribution and teachers who can t say the name of Jesus at school without being dragged into the principal s office. We can come up with several very good excuses, reasons, to hide our faith behind locked doors. Did we ever need an excuse? Presbyterians like other mainline Christians are so private about our faith that our neighbors may not even know we are believers. Do you know what you get when you cross a Mormon and a Presbyterian? Someone who rings the doorbell and doesn t say anything. When it comes to talking about Jesus, or anything else regarding our faith outside these walls, most of us are locked up tighter than the first disciples. Lynna Williams wrote a hilarious short story called Personal Testimony about a teenage old preacher s daughter at summer church camp who earns hundreds of dollars running a ghost writing service for Jesus. She composes the other campers personal testimonies of conversion and repentance, the ones they are supposed to give, are expected to give, amid tears and hallelujahs, at evening worship at camp. The story is funny because is so true, most of us run like crazy the other way when asked to speak about our faith. iv In fact, I m not all that comfortable talking about it right now. Remember Edgar Guest s famous quote: I d rather see a sermon than hear one any day? We figure that lets us off the hook. Flip Wilson, the comedian, was asked about his faith. He claimed to be a Jehovah s Bystander. They wanted him to be a Jehovah s Witness but he didn t want to get involved. v We re not so different from the first disciples when it comes to hiding our faith, hiding for fear of (you fill in the blank.). So what changed for them? What made the difference? It s been said that the Christian faith is always only one generation from extinction. There s never been a more important time to remember that than right now. Obviously the first disciples must have found a way to overcome their fear, to share the Gospel. If they hadn t unlocked their faith we wouldn t be here. We would never have heard the story of Jesus. The Good News would have died with them. So what happened? In a word: Jesus. John s gospel says that Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace, be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you. And then he breathed on them, his Spirit. That s the Spirit he still gives, his power, his peace. Did you catch that? He said, Peace be with you," then just in case we missed it he said it two more times: Peace be with you. Did you think of it that way? When you signed up to be his disciple, a member of his church, a member of this church? Did you see yourself as standing in his place, bringing peace to the world? (We have a fine group of new members who will meet with the Session and join the
4 church this morning. I should make sure they know that.) We never do this by our selves; we never rely on our own power. It is Jesus Spirit that gives us the courage we need and the words to speak. The peace, the forgiveness, the grace he gives us, these are his gifts, not our own. Singer/songwriter David LaMotte was here a few weeks ago to talk with us about peacemaking. He said something that really stuck with me. He said: Courage and fear are not opposites. You have to be afraid in order to be courageous. I believe that s true; we are all afraid, every one of us. David noted that, the choice is not between doing something drastic to make peace in the world, and doing nothing. The choice is between doing small things and doing nothing. vi Back in the 1980s, when there was still a lot of saber-rattling going on between the nations, and the nuclear threat loomed large, the United Reformed Church had an international task force on peacemaking. At one of its meetings John Johanssen-Berg suggested that the church needed to establish communities of peace. Lesslie Newbigin, the great missionary to India and leader in the ecumenical movement, was astonished at that suggestion. We have them already, he said. They are called congregations. Johanssen-Berg countered that the Christians were not really interested in peace. Newbigin responded, Then we must make them so! vii In one sense Johanssen-Berg was right. We can become cowards pretty quickly trembling behind whatever problem we happen to be facing at the moment. We go about wrapped in our own concerns, as the old Book of Common Worship used to say. All too often we are willing to do battle with anyone who disagrees or gets in our way. We also have a remarkable ability to heal and to care that begins with the peace of Christ, the breath of the Spirit. That remarkable love can unlock the doors of fear and pain. This has been an intense week for our congregation. Jack Mouncey, the remarkable Englishman I told you about last Sunday, went home to the Lord on Friday. At the same time we are celebrating the birth of little Nicole Fuchs, Carol Johnson, a beloved member of this congregation is near death. Through it all I watched our congregation, the church of the open door, love and support these families in extraordinary ways. This is the peace of Christ. Now, I think we need to get that act together and take it on the road. He has no other plan. We are it; the church is his one chosen instrument of peace. It s his one and only plan to bring reconciliation and grace to his world. It s Jesus work. We are simply his ambassadors. So whether we are handing our groceries at Caritas or teaching VBS on the Navajo Nation, we are the community of peace. Ann Weems is a remarkable Christian poet and a Presbyterian. In a book called, Searching for Shalom, she includes these free verses: I see your pain and want to banish it with the wave of a star, but have no star.
I see your tears and want to dry them with the hem of an angel s gown, but have no angel. 5 God sends to sit beside you Until the stars come out And the angels dry your tears And your heart is back in place. viii I see your heart fallen to the ground and want to return it wrapped in cloths woven of rainbow, but have no rainbow. God is the One Who has stars, and angels and rainbows, And I am the one Peace be with you. The Rev. Dr. Susan DeWyngaert First Presbyterian Church Sarasota, Florida i Based on a prayer by Sally Harris, United Church of Canada ii Anna Carter Florence, Lectionary Homiletics, February-March 2008, 77. iii Tom Long, from a sermon by Will Willimon preached at Duke University, Chapel April 6, 1997, www.chapel.duke.edu/worship/sunday/viewsermon.aspx?id=15 retreived March 27,2008. iv Lynna Williams by Tom Long, Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, Jossey-Bass, 2004, 4. v Long vi David LaMotte, World Changing 101 a program presented at First Presbyterian Church of Sarasota on February 23, 2008. vii Tom Tate from a sermon preached at Plaza Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, NC, Tom attributes this story to Pete Peery www.plazapresbyterian.org/sermons.dsp retreived, March 24,2008 viii Ann Weems, Searching for Shalom (Westminster John Knox Press, 1991) 23.