RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - April 19, 2009

“Peace Be With You”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
John 20:19-31

The large wooden cross that adorned our sanctuary last Sunday is gone, disassembled and laid to rest on the floor of the Pastor’s office for yet another year. A fair number of the lilies and daffodils, hyacinths and tulips have been taken home or given to those who needed a bit of springtime cheer. Today we are back to where we were before – with only the organ and our regular choir – no Youth Singers and no trumpeter.

In short, Easter is over and done with. The resurrection is past history, and so we move on – or rather back - into the same hostile and fearsome world we left behind for a joyful while last Sunday. In that sense, we are not all that different from the disciples whom we find hiding this morning in the upstairs room of a house in a back alley in Jerusalem.

In the Gospel writer, John’s, version of the story, Mary Magdalene had already come breathless to Peter and the others and told them the Good News she had encountered in the Garden early that morning – the empty tomb and her visceral encounter with Jesus himself, he who had somehow left death behind and returned to life once more.

Perhaps there was some initial joy and celebration among the ones she told, but, if so, it was short-lived and quickly channeled into a kind of nameless dread expressed by their own fear and trembling, secret whereabouts, and locked doors.

Why were the disciples so afraid that they would seal themselves away in this the holiest of all Jewish cities? Could they have feared the same Jewish mob that had been whipped into a frenzy on Thursday night and Friday? Yet there is no evidence that anyone was on a witch hunt for Jesus’ followers now that the Rabbi himself was safely in the tomb.

Was it the Romans they were hiding from? That notion is hardly believable either since fear of the imperial soldiers clearly did not stop Peter and a couple of the others from running flat out through the city streets at dawn to verify Mary’s empty tomb story – or, at the least, to confirm a grave robbery.

Or could it be that the disciples were afraid that Mary’s resurrection ramblings might be true? Might they fear that they would actually run into Jesus?

When he thought back over the past week, certainly Peter had nothing to be proud of. The awful memories came flooding back as he remembered lurking about in the shadows of the judgment hall, first pledging his undying allegiance and then turning his back on Jesus. The others too felt the same deep and gnawing shame, for they had fled as well – each and every one of them. When the going got tough, well, we know what happened – and it was not a pretty sight.

All this might easily have provoked them to wonder. What if Jesus had indeed returned – and was bearing a grudge? What if the first order of Jesus’ post-resurrection business was settling old scores? What would happen to them then?

Why did the disciples not go looking for Jesus? Maybe they were afraid they would find him. Of course, we know that the men did not have to go seeking Jesus - nor could they have avoided him when push came to shove - because he found them.

And the first words out of his mouth were not – “Why did you leave me high and dry, you worthless bunch of fishermen? I’ll get you back some day.” No, Jesus was not the shaming, vindictive type.

And his initial words were not even - “You are forgiven” - because maybe Jesus understood that Peter and the others were only human and so needed something even more basic than forgiveness to start off with.

And so his first words to them were – “Peace be with you. Shalom. May God’s peace be with you, so that together we can mend what is broken, and you can be whole once more. God’s peace be with you, so that your hollow hearts can come unlocked. Shalom. Peace be with you.”

You know, if you remember nothing else from this sermon today, maybe that in and of itself is enough – that in spite of all the ways we might hide from God, Jesus is out there looking for us too – and will find us even behind the locked doors of our hearts – and will come to us and offer us peace. Shalom.

Of course, Thomas missed the whole appearance experience. Perhaps Thomas the Twin was sneaking about laying in groceries for what could possibly end up being a long siege. Maybe Thomas the Pragmatist was getting a jumpstart on putting his own life back together again.

Thomas was the practical one, you know. He was the one who, when in earlier times Jesus spoke mysteriously about going to prepare a place for all of them, reminded the Rabbi that if they did not know the way (which they didn’t), they would never get there (wherever “there” was). Thomas was also the one who later in John’s Gospel told Jesus point blank that going into Jerusalem for Passover would mean certain death – which, of course, is exactly what happened.

Thomas was a realist, and so it should not surprise to us that he thought he needed proof – tangible, real, sensory proof – of the resurrection. He wanted the same sort of verification that Mary found at the tomb itself, and the others experienced when Jesus had appeared to them in the locked upper room. After all, that would only be fair.

As David Lose wrote, “Thomas' reaction to the news of the risen Christ should not be surprising. He had been hardened and tempered by his experience in the world…And for Thomas reality had come as never before just days earlier in the form of a cross, when his master and friend had been crucified; when he had fled and deserted Jesus; when he realized that the hopes and expectations of the last three years were as dead as his beloved Lord.

Thomas had lost his Lord; he had witnessed the crucifixion of his savior!...No wonder, then, that when his friends share their joyous news, "We have seen the Lord," he reacts skeptically…So he demands proof: "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe."

Oddly, when the time came, Thomas never did touch the wounds, even though Jesus invited him to. No….When Thomas is confronted by the risen Christ, when he is greeted by the grace embodied in the words "Peace be with you," he instantly believes and proclaims perhaps the most bold and personal confession in all of the New Testament: "My Lord and my God!"

When confronted with the reality of the Risen Christ, when confronted with the invitation to experience the peace of God, whatever doubts Thomas had and whatever need for sensory proof he might have demanded went out the window even as he was filled with the Spirit – the breath – of the Risen Christ.

I believe that what was important for Thomas was not the fact of seeing Jesus, but rather it was the fact of experiencing him through the grace-filled offer of peace.

That, for me personally, is especially good news because I can not envision myself seeing Jesus in some bodily form come through a key hole of my house. Thomas’ story helps me to trust that I too can be filled by Jesus’ spirit at those precious moments when I am open to hearing (and perhaps on occasion speaking) those grace-filled words – “Peace be with you.”

As Charles Hoffacker wrote, “Jesus returns to promise us our resurrection. He comes back to reconcile us with God, and make us instruments for reconciliation in the world. He comes to break the chains of fear.”

Where will we – you and I - find the Risen Christ? Or, perhaps better put, where will he find us? Surely it will be in startling places - where we least expect him. Wasn’t that the experience of Thomas and the other disciples? Hiding behind locked doors, they were hardly prepared for his coming among them.

And when we do experience him, he will send us out – even as he sent the disciples out – with that same message of grace – “Peace be with you.”

As Kate Huey wrote, “Jesus sends us out into the world, to put our hands on the marks of its suffering, to bring good news and hope to all of God's children. Isn't that the mission of your church: to love the world, as Parker Palmer says, "not to enlarge [your] membership, not to bring outsiders to accept [your] terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way--to love the world as God did and does"?

And when we love – when we graciously offer our hands and hearts to the world in peace - then surely he will be among us – at a sewing party, over a cup of coffee. He will come again and again – over and over – sharing the gift of God’s peace, so that we might share it with one another.

He will show us, as Gail Day notes, "that Easter is real, not simply in the trumpet celebrations of the week before, but as it unfolds in the lives and stories of (those like us) who are regularly tempted by fear and despair," (but continue to) offer the world "parables of grace."

In the end, the Easter message is not about seeing. It is not about believing without question. It is about experiencing. It is about the world of Shalom and wholeness that we are called to create and every now and then find ourselves in the midst of.

It is about believing that the Risen Christ will find us – wherever we may hide. It is about trusting that the words spoken gently to Thomas have also been spoken to us, so we may speak them to one another. Peace be with you.

Sermon - April 19, 2009

“Peace Be With You”

By Rev. Nancy Foran John 20:19-31

By Rev. Nancy Foran
John 20:19-31