Sermon John 20 Jesus appears to disciples April 8, 2018 Sermon Title: In Remembering, Possibility John 20:19-31 19When 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. 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 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. 26A 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. 27 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. 28 Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God! 29 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. 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 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. For Reflection: Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith
One of the small joys of my childhood, like many of my generation, was Saturday morning cartoons. And for a short time I watched this odd cartoon simply called COPS your regular villain and good-guy kind of show, but set in the future the tag-line, fighting crime in a future time. I remember almost nothing about this show except for when they would use the phone, their phone calls in this futuristic age were video calls they would go into a phone booth and make a video call. I distinctly remember this because as a kid I thought, how amazing would that be to make a phone call where you can see the person talking to you! But, I never thought that would happen just cartoon science fiction. Or some of you might better remember the much more famous cartoon Inspector Gadget, where Gadget s niece Penny had a watch phone that she could use to call her dog Brain. Talk about some crazy science-fiction spy-stuff! But never did we imagine we would be able to do something like this! But of course, we have seen versions of both of these probably most of us here have even used at least one of these technologies that once were simply science fiction. Things that many of us never would have imagined possible in our lifetimes, not until we saw them.
" This is, of course the case for Jesus friends after his resurrection that even though they have heard from Mary that Jesus is risen even though a couple of them have seen the empty grave with their own two eyes they still can t quite believe it. To be fair, I think that someone being raised after three days is harder to believe possible than phone watches or video calls. And as the story goes, Jesus appears to them through that locked door showing them the meaning of the words his mother spoke at his conception, nothing will be impossible with God. Jesus shows the disciples the wounds of his hands and his side, that they might comprehend the impossible reality that is standing before them. The risen Christ stands among them, that they might come to believe what their Hebrew scriptures had been trying to tell them, that the promise of God over time cannot be defeated. And then my favorite line in the gospel of John, Jesus breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
They are no longer living in the same world the world they woke up in that Sunday morning was a different reality than the one they were living in after Jesus appeared among them. It is like I felt as we were driving home after Vera was born, we drove through downtown seeing everyone going about their normal lives, and I said to two-day old Vera, all these people are just going about their lives as if nothing has changed, they don t know the whole world has changed! The reality of the world the disciples woke up in was a world in which death had the final word a world where, if you messed with the Empire, you were sure to meet your end a reality where if you sought to transform the world, peacefully or not, you would find yourself in an early grave. But the world they were living in after the Risen Christ appeared to them, after they had touched his wounds and felt his warm breath on their necks well, that was a world which they had never dreamed of or imagined. It was a reality where apparently death did not have the final world and if death did not need to be feared, than the possibilities were endless. Of course the world was the same in many ways: Rome still occupied and controlled Palestine; Cesar still ruled the known world and demanded outrageous taxes; the vast majority of people were still poor peasants working for a wealthy few. And at the same time, the reality was completely different a world they never would have believed possible, not in their wildest dreams. It made me start to wonder, I wonder if my great-grandmother, who would have only known ministers/pastors who looked like this
" I wonder she ever imagined that in her lifetime there would be women pastors in the Mennonite church? It did happen in her lifetime, Emma Richards was ordained by Lombard Mennonite Church in Illinois in 1973, the first Mennonite woman ordained. Though, it was another ten years until her conference opened up ordination to all women not until 1982 (my great Grandma was still alive then). I wonder if even Emma Richards, this pioneer, imagined the reality of today where now women make up over half of all students in divinity school. An impossible reality, seen. I wonder if those of you who lived through some of the worst pollution and smog of the late 1960s and 70s imagined that things could change, or if that would just be your new reality filthy air, asthma, lung disease the cost of progress. I am sure many who were breathing that air across the country did not believe that there could be the political will to reverse the damage that had been done.
1 But with increased protections for the air, with the establishment of the EPA, changes to types of technology and regulations things dramatically changed in cities all across the country and the world. An impossible reality, breathed. I wonder if those who marched to end segregation and integrate schools, I wonder if they ever imagined that they would have the chance to vote for a black president of these United States of America. Not only did some who marched and advocated for change get a chance to vote for a black candidate, they got to see a Black President serve two terms in their lifetime. A reality that I am sure many never dreamed possible, at least not in their lifetimes. An impossible reality, lived. 1 A picture of Los Angels then and now.
Or if those of you who grew up doing duck and cover drills, living through the threats of nuclear war, the height of tensions of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War if they truly thought they would live to see a day when leaders from the two remaining Super Powers would embrace? Or that they would agree to nuclear arms reduction? An impossible reality, standing among us. And then there is Thomas. He was not there when Jesus appeared to the disciples that first evening. And no matter what his fellow disciples report to him about this appearance of Jesus even as they all tell the same story and describe in vivid detail the look of his scars and the smell of his breath he cannot believe. It is too hard to imagine. This is not a reality he ever dreamed of or imagined in the world that is, in the world he knows, this simply cannot be so. He must see it to believe it. For those of you who, like me, struggle to see beyond some of the painful realities that exist in our world for those times when we wonder if our work will really make any difference at all, that the dominant reality is just too strong to be changed Thomas stands in for us. He says what we all sometimes feel, until I see it, until I touch it, I just can t believe, until I see the change happening, I can t believe it is possible. We too did not see. And we know, like Thomas, sometimes it is so hard to believe in resurrection when we only hear the headlines of death; it is hard to believe in transformation when we can only see what is.
Of the contemporary American church, Walter Brueggemann has said that we are so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that we have little power to believe or to act. 2 We have come to believe only in the possibility of what is: that things are as they will be; that systems are too big to change. We have forgotten some of who we are a people who were taken out of Egypt and reformed into a people free from Empire and its demands of production; a people who were taken out of the rigidity of the law and the violent ways of Rome and reformed by the God of resurrection love. We have lost our memory of the ways that the kingdom of God has broken into our world and changed things forever. We have neglected the stories of our sisters and brothers who have been prophets of God s ways in the world. And we have even at times, ridiculed those who imagine with hope new possibilities, by saying things like, they are too young, too idealistic, too unstructured So let us remember, because memory, it allows for possibility. 3 In the remembering some of the impossible things that have become a reality in our own lifetimes some we never could have even dreamed of we remember that the promises of God, over time cannot be defeated. Or, as Dr. King said, The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. 2 From his book, Prophetic Imagination. 3 From Walter Brueggeman s books, Hopeful Imagination.
When the disciples are shown Jesus hands and his side, when they see and touch his scars, they come to believe that the promise of God, over time cannot be defeated. When Thomas thrusts his hand into Jesus side and feels that three-day old wound, he comes to believe that the impossibility of resurrection is now his to live. And so when we struggle to hope that more of God s kingdom might break-in, let us remember where we have experienced resurrection, for in memory there is possibility. When you hear ourselves says, the lobbyists are too strong, the sides are too entrenched for change to happen let us remember where change has happened, no matter entrenched the sides or how long the conflict. " " When we feel history repeating itself let us remember where peace prevailed.
" " When we feel that the political will just isn t strong enough let us remember that there are many, many ways for change to happen. " " When we see the world surrounded by only hatred and destruction let us remember where a ways has been found
" " " When it seems that so little has changed let us remember how much has changed, how very much has changed " "
When it feels that there are not enough of us to make a difference let us remember it only takes two or three of us gathered in Christ s name " " When we feel there is too much apathy let us remember the people who are attending to the work every single day " " When we reduce what is possible to what is available let us remember that we are resurrection people
" " Let us remember where we have seen, where we have touched, where we have experienced resurrection where we have felt it breathing on our neck for resurrection makes us rethink what is possible with God. In our remembering of some of the impossible realities that we are living today, let us have hope that the promises of God over time cannot be defeated. It may not happen in our lifetime. As Reinhold Niebuhr said, Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. May we be people who live by the impossibly reality of resurrection. 4 In all these memories of impossibilities becoming realities, let us be renewed in our hope by the God of resurrection; let us remember the story of our ancient scripture, which tells us again and again, that the promises of God over the historical process cannot be defeated. 4 Before this, we took a few moments and shared changes that have happened in our lifetimes that we never thought we would see. Some of the things the congregation shared included: fall of the Berlin wall, using feminine language for God, end of apartheid in South Africa, electric cars.
Join with me in the Prayer of Oscar Romero, on half sheet that came with your bulletin. It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
Let us continue to our piece of resurrection work to which we have been called. Amen & amen.