Second Sunday of Easter
April 8, 2018
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. 33With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. 35They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. – Acts 4:32-35
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 Judean authorities, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So 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.” 27Then 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.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But 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. – John 20:19-31
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Teams can do wonderful, incredible things. A well-assembled team that has learned to think and move together can win a World Cup championship. It was a whole mass of people trained in nonviolent resistance who worked to set aside differences in pursuit of a common goal that helped galvanize the civil rights movement in the United States, and elsewhere around the world. Teams of architects and builders and workers can build skyscrapers and art museums and cathedrals.
However, teams of people working together can also do terrible things, as represented by the tag line about meetings from Demotivators poster series: “None of us is as dumb as all of us.” Teams of people have efficiently started wars and destroyed whole peoples. Teams of people have colonized lands with complete disregard for those who inhabited the land already. Anyone who has ever written a document by committee knows how terribly that can go in certain circumstances.
My question this morning is what kind of team the church is. I see both represented in our texts this morning. In Acts, this one corner of the early church was of one heart and soul. Everything was held in common (by which we might imagine not only the sharing of goods but also the sharing of burdens and the sharing of joys and the sharing of ideas and projects). There was not a needy one among them. When the church comes together in that way we can solve problems in ways we couldn’t have imagined possible. But the church didn’t start out that way.
John’s story of the disciples locked away behind closed doors reminds us that the veryfirstdays of the church are ones marked not by generosity but by fear. And while their fear is entirely justified – their friend, leader, rabbi has been arrested, captured, killed, and maybe now his body has gone missing. Their fear is not paranoia, but a realistic assessment of where they stand in relationship to the community around them. And yet, just a few nights ago they were all so confident they could handle whatever came their way. They were patiently taking notes aa Jesus gave them his final instructions. Love one another. Abide in me. Testify on my behalf. Whatever has happened to Jesus aside, they have been given clear instructions to go and be Jesus’ disciples in the world. But instead they are locked away in a room by themselves, afraid.
One can imagine how they reinforced one another’s fear. One of them, maybe impetuous Peter, wonders out loud whether they should try to go out and do something, to begin serving in the way that Jesus did, to proclaim the arrival of God’s dominion. And first one and then another reminds them all of the reasons not to go out. Before long they are rewriting Jesus’ last words to them to keep them from having to step forward in faith and trust into something frightening and uncertain.
What is it that moves this early church locked away reinforcing one another’s fear into the early church described in Acts where people reinforced one another’s generosity and commitment to shared hopes and dreams and if need be to share each other’s failures and losses? The transformation from a team of people reinforcing fear to a team of people reinforcing generosity is the resurrected body of Christ and the breath of God’s Spirit. It’s Jesus breaking in to their locked room.
Jesus doesn’t give them a motivational speech or tell them to get themselves together. He stands among them, he offers peace, he shares God’s Spirit with them and slowly they become the church that Acts so beautifully describes. They become the church because Christ is risen among them. Because God has shown them resurrection living in a way that changes them not only individually, but as a whole group.
But anyone who is paying attention has noticed that the church did not stay in that ideal form with everyone sharing everything. In fact, it only takes a handful of verses for us to discover things started to fall apart almost as quickly as it came together. It only takes a look around us to see that we as the church aren’t always getting it right. But the thing about the church is that the risen Christ keeps coming back to us. Things start to fall apart and we start ramping up each other’s fear. We start talking each other out of living the radical way of Jesus. And then Jesus shows up in our locked rooms. And meets us where we are in fear and in doubt and calls us again to an Easter way of life. Christ meets us here in bread and wine and in scripture and in messy human community and calls us again to be the church for the sake of the world.
We rarely manage the kind of perfect harmony that Acts appears to describe. We have only in rare moments, and for short periods of time, in certain communities ever managed to live in such a way that no one had need. But through the constant inbreaking of the risen Christ we are infused with God’s Spirit to be the kind of community that sets aside fear and lives with generosity.
Just in the last weeks two more immigrants have taken sanctuary in the Pioneer Valley. In addition to Lucio at First Church, Irida has taken refuge in Northampton and Gisella along with her children in Springfield. The risen Christ showing up to turn our hearts outward in love. ELCA clergy, including our presiding bishop, and lay leaders were visibly present at the Act to End Racism rally in DC this past week on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. In his stead, churches today are rising up to speak uncomfortable truths about the power structure in America, not just around race, but, as Martin Luther King, Jr., himself did, around violence and greed and so much more.
Here, too, in this congregation we seek to follow boldly in the generous way of the risen Christ. We try to break down the walls in our own community, to stand with the oppressed, to support the weak and bind up the brokenhearted. To love as Jesus loves, to proclaim the truth of the risen one, to grow in generosity for the sake of the whole community. We are not perfect. We sometimes resemble the church of the first Easter – locked away in fear, doubting what we have seen. But the risen Christ keeps coming into our midst to remind us who we are and to remind us that death is defeated and God’s love has already won the day. Here today we gather around the table bringing our fear and doubt and are met with the body of the risen Christ. And with that we are sent forth to live that truth in the world.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
-Pastor Steven Wilco
Stewarding the Word 