Apr 10 | “Through Locked Doors,” (Easter 2 sermon, April 8th 2018)

This sermon was preached at St. John’s, Port Moody.

 

“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.’ 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.’

24 But 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.’

26 A 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.’

30 Now 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

 

Good morning, St. John’s. I’m so glad to be with you.

My name is Clare, and I’m the community director of Hineni House, a ministry of St. Margaret’s Cedar Cottage in East Vancouver. It’s an intentional community of five youngish singles living in the former rectory, having made a commitment to deepen their spiritual lives while going to school or working and hopefully becoming an active member of a faith community – not necessarily St. Margaret’s.

When I’m not there, I serve as chaplain at St. Jude’s Anglican Home, a care home for elders living with dementia.

I would call the ministry I practice in both “cross-roads chaplaincy.”

At Hineni House, we have young people trying to make sense of their lives, to find deeper meaning. Some of them are trying to find their place in the world; some of them have come through significant trials and need a soft place to regain themselves. They are searching for a presence beyond themselves that both knows them intimately and yet is ultimately unknowable to them.

At St. Jude’s, we have elders who are beginning to transition not just from one stage of life to another, but are indeed beginning to dance closer to death than to life. And in a way, in their dementia, they are beginning to exist in multiple layers of time at once – their bodies, say, sitting in a chair next to me, but their minds elsewhere, in other decades. One could almost say that they, like Jesus, are beginning to pass through locked doors. But they too are searching for a presence beyond themselves that both knows them intimately, and yet is calling them into a new state of being that is incomprehensible to those of us still on earth.

What I have learned serving both communities has made me feel especially close to the disciples on this day – and particularly to Thomas.

It is difficult enough to live through the earthquake of sudden and violent loss. But when the violence is not accidental, when it is at the hands of the Empire, the pressure in the fault is all the more severe, and the resulting split and its chasm all the deeper.

And as if that weren’t shocking enough, the poor broken body suddenly disappears without a trace, leaving behind only linen and the lunacy of resurrection – or at least it would have seemed that way when Mary came with her impossible proclamation.

Here is a strange thing, though. A week after this nonsense, they have decided to meet again in a locked room. We are not told why – only that Thomas is not with them.

Poor Thomas.

He gets such a bum rap. It is so unfair the way he is treated in our day – some kind of negative nancy who doesn’t have the stamina to believe the way the disciples do, as if men locking themselves in a room together demonstrate a great and steadfast faith in resurrection.

Why wasn’t he there? Maybe he was out searching.

We know little about Thomas, but he does have a couple other scenes. When Jesus proclaims that he is going back to see to Lazarus, Thomas is the only one who truly understands the risk. In either great passion or sarcasm, he says, “Let us go so that we may die with him.”

Later, as Jesus gives his final farewell to his friends in the upper room, he says “And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

He’s got a keen mind, doesn’t he? And all he wants to do is use it, to God’s glory and in service to his teacher and friend.

So after Jesus is gone, maybe Thomas decided to try to find the way, not remembering in his grief that Jesus had explained that he was the way. It was a pretty cryptic answer; we can cut Thomas some slack.

I think we can cut him some slack too for wanting to see Jesus. We children of the 21st century should be the last ones to judge the desire for a close, physical encounter with the divine. Everyone knew that crucifixion was a gruesome business. The body doesn’t come back from that unbroken. And even if it could…why would Jesus return to these men who had scattered?

What kind of awesome, world-breaking love brings the Beloved not only back from death, but speaking peace?

What about a love that brings the Beloved back not only speaking peace, but inviting them, without judgement, to explore with fingers and hands in such a frightfully intimate manner?

Because there is no judgement here. Jesus invites Thomas to do exactly as he wished to do.

It’s not clear, because our English text is flawed in three ways.

First, Jesus says, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Three sentences. The breaks make it sound kind of harsh. But in Greek, it is not three sentences. It is one sentence, separated only by a series of “ands.” And that final clause is, “And not be unbelieving, but believing.” This is an invitation. Thomas said, “I will not believe unless I can do these things.” Jesus says, “I want you to believe, so do them.”

Second, in response to Thomas’s beautiful proclamation of faith, Jesus says in English, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”

Again, the question sounds a bit accusatory. And again, in Greek, it is not a question. It’s a statement: “You have believed because you have seen me.” This is a neutral statement of fact. No judgement.

But third, and most significant for us, the Greek connects us to the disciples in a way that the English doesn’t.

You see, the tense in the English passage is always past. But in the Greek, we shift back and forth between past and present.

When the author refers to the disciples and their actions, they are referred to in past tense. When the author refers to Jesus’ physical actions, those too are past tense.

But when the author refers to what Jesus says, that, for the most part, is present tense.

“Jesus came and stood in the midst of them and says, ‘Peace be with you.’”

“When he had said this, he breathed into them and says, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”

“Jesus says to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands.’”

“Jesus says, ‘You have believed because you have seen me.”

This is not a mistake.

This is a transcendence of time and space. We are in the room with the disciples. Like the elders that I sit with on the edge of time, we are invited to dance to the edge of time to listen to the words of the teacher. And we too are invited, like Thomas, to explore Jesus with fingers and hands.

And if you’re thinking, “How is that possible?” well, you do it every time you come here. Every time we gather, we are invited to commune with Jesus in a manner just as frightfully intimate as Thomas. We come forward with questing hands held out, and are given holy flesh, and holy blood.

Not out of guilt or fear, but out of desire for deeper intimacy.

There will be times where this is easy to remember. And there will be other times where, like Thomas, we will be searching, outside and inside the locked rooms of uncertainty.

And then, in the slightly adapted words of the Welsh poet R.S. Thomas,

“There [will be] times
when, after long on [our] knees
in a cold chancel, a stone [will roll]
from [our] mind, and [we will] look
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.
”

So do not let doubt be fearful. Doubt should be a friend, a most desired guest. For it is in the moments of doubt, of seeking, that we are in fact invited into deeper relationship; indeed, into moments outside time, held gently in the cupped hands of the Beloved.

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