the holy spirit breaks in: easter 7c

A reading from Acts (16:15-40).

¹⁵When Lydia and her household were baptized,

       she urged us, saying,

              “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord,

                     come and stay at my home.”

                            And she prevailed upon us.

¹⁶One day, as we were going to the place of prayer,

       we met a slave girl

              who had a spirit of divination

              and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling.

       ¹⁷While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out,

              “These men are slaves of the Most High God,

                     who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

       ¹⁸She kept doing this for many days.

       But Paul, very much annoyed,

              turned and said to the spirit,

                     “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

                     And it came out that very hour.

       ¹⁹But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone,

              they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace

                     before the authorities.

              ²⁰When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said,

                     “These men are disturbing our city;

                            they are Jewish

                            ²¹and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us

                                   as Romans to adopt or observe.”

              ²²The crowd joined in attacking them,

                     and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing

                     and ordered them to be beaten with rods.

                     ²³After they had given them a severe flogging,

                            they threw them into prison

                            and ordered the jailer to keep them securely.

                                   ²⁴Following these instructions,

                                          he put them in the innermost cell

                                          and fastened their feet in the stocks.

²⁵About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God,

       and the prisoners were listening to them.

       ²⁶Suddenly there was an earthquake,

              so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken;

              and immediately all the doors were opened

              and everyone’s chains were unfastened.

       ²⁷When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open,

              he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,

                     since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.

              ²⁸But Paul shouted in a loud voice,

                     “Do not harm yourself,

                            for we are all here.”

              ²⁹The jailer called for lights,

                     and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.

                     ³⁰Then he brought them outside and said,

                            “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

                     ³¹They answered,

                            “Believe on the Lord Jesus,

                                   and you will be saved,

                                          you and your household.”

                     ³²Paul and Silas spoke the word of the Lord to him

                            and to all who were in his house.

                     ³³At the same hour of the night he took them

                            and washed their wounds;

                                   then he and his entire family were baptized without delay.

                            ³⁴He brought them up into the house

                                   and set food before them;

                                   and he and his entire household rejoiced

                                          that he had become a believer in God.

³⁵When morning came,

       the magistrates sent the police, saying,

              “Let those men go.”

       ³⁶And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying,

              “The magistrates sent word to let you go;

                     therefore come out now and go in peace.”

       ³⁷But Paul replied,

              “They have beaten us in public,

                     uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens,

              and have thrown us into prison;

              and now are they going to discharge us in secret?

                     Certainly not!

                            Let them come and take us out themselves.”

       ³⁸The police reported these words to the magistrates,

              and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens;

                     ³⁹so they came and apologized to them.

                     And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.

                     ⁴⁰After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home;

                            and when they had seen

                            and encouraged the brothers and sisters there,

                                   they departed.

Word of God, word of life.

I also allude to Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21.

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In today’s reading from Acts, we pick up where last week’s reading left off.  Lydia, the first convert to Christianity in Europe, has responded out of her newfound faith, with: hospitality.  She welcomes Paul, Silas, and the others into her home.  With this offer of hospitality, the group sticks around and as they continue to pray in the area, a girl who is a slave sees them.

This girl, who, as a slave, has not known freedom and agency is both blessed and cursed by a spirit of divination.  Because of this spirit, she makes money for those who own her and is therefore deemed useful.  This, at least, means she is likely to have enough food and shelter to survive—to scrape by.  It is probably not enough to really live off of, to save, to enjoy, to really care for herself, but it is also more than nothing.  After all, her owners need her alive in order to make money off of her.

Then, as she proclaims the truth of Paul and Silas’ mission, day after day, Paul gets annoyed.  Perhaps Paul is annoyed because he thinks her reputation in fortune-telling will discredit the actual truth of what she is saying about them, which will then discredit them and their mission.  Or maybe the annoyance comes because as she names their situation as “slaves of the Most High God,” she is forcing Paul to consider her and her plight as a child slave to people who only want her for the fortune-telling profit she can make them.  She is forcing Paul to really see her.

Whatever Paul’s reason may be remains a mystery to us.  All we know is that he reaches the limit, and “very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.” 

The spirit of divination, the blessing and curse for this child, is gone.  She is left alone with herself for perhaps the first time in her whole young life.  She is left to figure out anew who she is and what her place will now be in the world.  She is no longer the moneymaker for her owners that she once was.  What does the future hold for her without the security of that spirit?  Will she face freedom or an even more dire situation than before?  As a child, does she even know how to care for herself?

For the owners’ part, they get mad—and quickly.  They had been making money off of this girl and we learn that “when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.”  The little girl was useless to them, so they went after Paul and Silas, dragging them before the authorities.

The charges they bring, however, don’t even mention the girl who will no longer make them money, whose future is uncertain.  As frequently happens, economic and cultural accusations get mixed up and swapped.  An economic complaint becomes a cultural one.  The owners decide that Paul and Silas’ jewishness is to blame. 

Their difference is threatening the status quo.  Their culture is too different, their religion too dangerous, and they will harm the established Roman culture.  These owners face a new economic challenge without the easy money of slave labor, and instead of questioning the economic system that lets some make money at the expense and poverty of others, they blame cultural differences. 

As the story continues, the girl, whose identity as a fortune-teller is lost, is herself now lost, leaving us with questions and wonderings about her own future and fortune.

The focus zeros in on Paul and Silas, who are Jewish and therefore “less than” the Romans, making it an easy decision to beat them and throw them into jail.  If they are not considered full citizens, they are also not considered full humans, and so abuse is deemed ok.

The story so far is unsurprising.  Cultural and economic abuse and exploitation are not new to us today.  Violence against unarmed men and child slavery are still realities throughout this country and the world.  Yet this story is not over.   

As Paul and Silas sit shackled in jail, they praise God.  In her reflections, our early mother in the faith whom we commemorate today, Julian of Norwich shared that no matter how dire the situation, “all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”  In this spirit of confidence and trust in God, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”

Then an earthquake literally rocks the foundation as chains and locks are broken open.  The captives are set free!            …            And yet, they remain.

The jailer, whose terror runs deeper than the earthquake, to failure at his job and the prospect of economic devastation, loses himself to despair.  In the midst of the utter despair, the jailer draws his sword to kill himself and the grace of God breaks in, as Paul shouts out, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”  All hope is not yet gone.  Paul and Silas and the other prisoners could have easily escaped to freedom, but out of compassion for even this one who is keeping them bound (and maybe out of a little shock), they remain.

It is in this profoundly countercultural move of love and care for the one who is oppressing them                        that the jailer comes to new faith, asking “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  Because for Paul and Silas, as followers of Jesus, their liberation is not complete without the liberation that has been holding even this jailer in bondage.  

 The jailer, who is enforcing the rules and directives given to him, serves to keep the people “in line,” especially those Jewish outsiders, stirring up trouble, disrespecting the Roman customs and culture.  The jailer serves the occupying Romans, caught up in the system of oppression, whether or not he even realizes it.

And that is where God breaks in.

Beginning with Lydia and sharing their faith in words and in actions, Paul and Silas and the growing community of believers in Macedonia know            that to follow Christ is to love others. 

It is to risk remaining captive for the sake of the one who would take his own life. 

It is to choose love over self-preservation, safety, or security. 

It is to challenge economic systems that rely on the enslavement and exploitation of adults and children. 

It is to speak out and even use their own power, as they did in the end, as full citizens, to challenge and change the unjust culture and practices. 

And, as Lydia and the jailer demonstrate,

      it is to open their home in hospitality, providing shelter and food for those in need, protecting the vulnerable, even at the risk of their own place in society.

And it is in those moments where the Holy Spirit works so powerfully, proclaiming Paul and Silas as “slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation” and staying the jailer’s sword with the command “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”

That is how the Holy Spirit comes—in the midst of even crisis and despair            with words of hope and assurance.  Promising God’s love from “the first [to] the last, the beginning [to] the end.” 

Because God is living and Christ is risen!   Christ is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

god dreams bigger: easter 6c

A reading from Acts 16:9-15

⁹During the night Paul had a vision:

       there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying,

              “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

¹⁰When he had seen the vision,

       we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia,

              being convinced that God had called us

                     to proclaim the good news to them.

       ¹¹We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace,

              the following day to Neapolis,

              ¹²and from there to Philippi,

              which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony.

                     We remained in this city for some days.

¹³On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river,

       where we supposed there was a place of prayer;

       and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

       ¹⁴A certain woman named Lydia,

              a worshiper of God,

                     was listening to us;

              she was from the city of Thyatira

                     and a dealer in purple cloth.

              The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.

                     ¹⁵When she and her household were baptized,

                            she urged us, saying,

                                   “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord,

                                          come and stay at my home.”

                                                 And she prevailed upon us.

Word of God, word of life.

I also refer to John 14:23-29.

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Throughout Easter, we have been following the apostles and the early witnesses of the resurrection throughout the book of Acts.  This is particularly fitting, despite our current gospel readings from John, as we are in the year of Luke and Acts is commonly understood to be the sequel to Luke—part 2, if you will.

Last week God broke down barriers of clean and unclean, expanding which bodies and which people belong in the body of Christ.  This week Paul and those he was with prepared for a trip to Asia, which was pretty close by as far as their traveling was concerned.  That was the plan, at least.  Until God intervened.  Then things really started to rock ‘n’ roll.

After a few rebuffs of their attempts to make it over to Asia today’s reading begins.  A Macedonian pleads with Paul for help and so off they go.  They set sail and travel through many cities and towns until they arrive in Philippi, a Roman colony.  This is Paul’s first venture into what is now known as Europe, so they tread lightly.  They are outside their comfort zone and beyond the geographic boundaries they had envisioned for their work and evangelism.

Before this trip they had been retracing the steps of their first journey and planning to reach out a bit inland, but with no mind to set sail and head all the way over to Macedonia.[1]  That was just too big and too far.

Don’t get me wrong.  They loved Jesus and everything, but Macedonia was more than God, or maybe just this movement, could handle.  They needed to keep it small right now and just stick to local concerns.  They had forgotten that God’s yes is bigger than any no.  They were thinking and planning small, not expecting too much, even though, as people learned of Jesus and experienced God’s love, they were responding.

Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit. 

Literally.

Paul and Silas and their group are convinced by Paul’s vision from God that Macedonia is the place to be.  So it is that they end up in Philippi.  They hang out for a few days, getting their feet under themselves, maybe a bit unsure of where to begin in this new place.

The Sabbath eventually rolls around and they know what to do: find a place to pray.  So they head to the water.  What better place to pray and worship our God who promises to be with us through it all? Our God who starts by coming to us in the waters of baptism and showering us with love.

After all, in beginning, the Holy Spirit, the breath and wind of God sweeps over the face of the waters (Gen 1:2) and God begins creating, giving birth to the whole cosmos—all of creation, which we also celebrate, right here in our sanctuary.

I love that our old baptismal font continues its roll, carrying and nurturing creation, by supporting one of our many plants, reminders of God’s goodness in creation.  In Easter, especially, we give thanks for our baptisms.  We celebrate the water and rivers that give us life.  We gather with Lydia, the other women, Paul, and his group.  We gather each week for prayer and, like Lydia, Paul, and the others, we are transformed.

Lydia becomes the first European convert.  Long before Emperor Constantine not only legalizes, but enforces Christianity throughout the Empire, Lydia, our mother in the faith, is captivated by stories shared by the waters of a loving God.  And her response, the heart of what it means to her to follow Jesus, is to open her home in hospitality for what will be only the first of many times to come.

This rare woman—head of household, dealer in purple cloth (the color for royalty), follows Jesus, whose words in the gospel remind us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” 

Lydia opens her heart to this different kind of peace and opens her home; and she will never be the same and neither will the world.  For those of us who trace our faith and our ancestry back to Europe, Lydia is the one we can ultimately give thanks for.  Without Lydia, there might not have been any European converts.  Paul and the group he was with might never have branched out into Macedonia and eventually Rome itself.

In their encounter with Lydia, Paul and the apostles’ small vision of what could be possible goes up in flames.  Lydia has received the spark of faith and the Holy Spirit kindles the flame in her.  That flame continues to grow and spread throughout Europe, despite the persecution to come, and eventually it connects with our own ancestors and with us.

Paul’s vision was too small for God, but it felt manageable.  It was doable.  Maybe that’s how we need ministries to begin in the body of Christ.

“Of course we’ll let the Lutherans come worship with us!”

“The Presbyterians seem open enough.” 
“A couple old t-shirts would be good material for some diapers and maybe a few quilts.”

“I wonder if people would buy our pies if we sold them for mission support.”

“What would happen if we had a picnic and made flyers for it in Spanish?”

Oftentimes our vision is small and simple, and God kindles the flames of faith and before we know it, our faith, our world, and our mission are wider than we could have imagined.  We start small for many reasons.  We start small because we can only do so much, because we’re nervous about what we’re doing, because we want to test the waters before diving right in.  We start small all the time, but God rarely leaves us that way. What would happen if we weren’t quite so afraid or unsure, or maybe even just a bit more open to the Holy Spirit’s nudging?

Throughout Luke and Acts, God is about busting us out into life, wholeness, and resurrection TODAY.  God is about the ministry and mission in this world and for this world.  God is about the sparks ignited in us and used to kindle the flame of faith in others.

Marianne Williamson spoke for God when she said,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking

so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.”

That is the heart of Jesus.  Big dreams for even the smallest of situations.  Big dreams for the hardest and the worst of situations.  It starts small in the waters of baptism, claiming us as beloved, fanning the flame of faith into a whole world of beloved children.  It starts with the bread and cup of communion, feeding us here today and kindling the flame to feed the world.  God dreams big.  God’s dreams are big for a persecutor of the church named Saul, who became Paul.  God’s dreams are big for a dealer in royal cloth named Lydia, who brought Christianity to Europe. God’s dreams are big even for God’s own son.  Jesus knew the life to which God had called him. 

Jesus knew the cross was coming. 

And Jesus knows God is bigger. 

God’s dreams are big for you and for me and the ministry we share.

And we know that God is bigger.

Because we know in this Easter season that Christ is risen!
Christ is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  

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[1] http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/featured/easter6cn/#comment-146863

God loves our whole, embodied selves

I also reference Revelation 21:1-6 and John 13:31-35.

 

A reading from Acts 11:1-18

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard

       that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God.

²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem,

       the circumcised believers criticized him, ³saying,

              “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

⁴Then Peter began to explain it to them,

       step by step, saying,

              ⁵“I was in the city of Joppa praying,

                     and in a trance I saw a vision.

                     There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven,

                            being lowered by its four corners;

                            and it came close to me.

                                   ⁶As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals,

                                          beasts of prey,

                                          reptiles,

                                          and birds of the air.

                     ⁷I also heard a voice saying to me,

                            ‘Get up, Peter;

                                   kill and eat.’

                     ⁸But I replied,

                            ‘By no means, Lord;

                                   for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

                     ⁹But a second time the voice answered from heaven,

                            ‘What God has made clean,

                                   you must not call profane.’

                     ¹⁰This happened three times;

                            then everything was pulled up again to heaven.

              ¹¹At that very moment three men,

                     sent to me from Caesarea,

                            arrived at the house where we were.

                     ¹²The Spirit told me to go with them

                     and not to make a distinction between them and us.

              These six brothers also accompanied me,

                     and we entered the man’s house.

                     ¹³He told us how he had seen the angel

                            standing in his house and saying,

                                   ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon,

                                          who is called Peter;

                                          ¹⁴he will give you a message

                                                 by which you 

                                                        and your entire household 

                                                               will be saved.’

                     ¹⁵And as I began to speak,

                            the Holy Spirit fell upon them

                                   just as it had upon us at the beginning.

                                   ¹⁶And I remembered the word of the Lord,

                                   how Jesus had said,

                                          ‘John baptized with water,

                                                 but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

              ¹⁷If then God gave them the same gift

                     that God gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,                                                                 who was I that I could hinder God?”

¹⁸When the apostles and believers heard this,

       they were silenced.

              And they praised God, saying,

                     “Then God has given even to the Gentiles

                            the repentance that leads to life.”

Word of God, word of life.

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It is good to be back with you all.  The last two weeks of vacation and continuing education were good and yet it is good to be back here.  As my continuing ed while I was gone, I attended the yearly Proclaim Gathering.  Proclaim is a professional community that I am a part of for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Lutheran leaders in the church. 

This community not only proclaims the gospel to me, but also embodies the gospel with me.  As part of our opening Eucharist this year, we took our calling as members of Christ’s body to heart.  We read through the names of those gathered and as each person’s name was called, that person would stand or raise their hand and call out, “this is my body,” echoing Jesus’ words at the Last Supper. 

As people were named into the space, we tossed or passed balls of red yarn—I like to think of it as our Holy Spirit yarn—to each other, making a messy, interwoven mass of red as we sat together.  As LGBTQ people of faith, we claimed the very bodied space—our embodied place—in the body of Christ, a space that has, in recent history, been denied to us.

While there are many ways that we all embody our faith, physically living into and living out our member-ship in the body of Christ, for me as a queer pastor, Proclaim brings my whole self into ministry and faith.  I don’t need to parse out which parts of me belong—to church, to home, to friends.  My whole being belongs and is celebrated as part of the body of Christ.

In today’s reading from Acts, Peter and the apostles and believers in Judea are confronted with a challenge, a new embodiment of their community of faith.  Up until that point, Gentiles—those who were Greek and didn’t identify as Jewish—had to be circumcised and convert to Judaism before they were considered members of the community of faith.  Their own culture and their unique differences didn’t fit within the community’s understanding of themselves and so they were forced to assimilate, to adapt to the dominant culture of the group, leaving part of who they were at the door.

But that is not God’s will for any of us.  Just as it was for the Gentiles in Acts, our own Presbyterian-ness, our Lutheran-ness, our Christian-ness, is not rooted in our cultural heritages, in how much lefse we eat or when bagpipes are present, how we make tamales, organize our congregation, or even how many pies we bake.  What unites us, the thing that roots our faith, is God, made known through Jesus Christ.   And it is God who loves our whole beings, our whole selves, even when we struggle.

As with the early church in Acts, it takes time to figure out as a community what it means for different groups or types of people to truly be a part of us.  We have to wrestle with how our culture and our identities impact the group.  Does the language we speak force others to leave a part of who they are at the door?  Is our grief or loneliness, still present after so many years, out of place here?

We each have unique gifts, identities, and perspectives, some of which clearly fit, no questions asked, in this part of the body of Christ.  And I imagine many of us have passions or interests or parts of our identity that we haven’t shared with others.  We’re unsure if they make us unfit or too different for the community of faith.   

Maybe we keep things on the surface during fellowship so we don’t have to risk the pain and hurt of opening up and being vulnerable only to have our community abandon or denounce us.  Maybe we just ask and share about the weather and the busy-ness of life instead of asking and sharing what we’re most passionate about.  Maybe we’re afraid of the vulnerability in naming our continuing grief over a loved one’s death, or loneliness without them here.

The community of believers in Judea start out unsure of these uncircumcised believers that Peter baptized—unsure if they really belong, since they are so different.  Even Peter was unsure at the beginning!  He thought he knew the rules.  He thought he knew which food and which people were in and which were out—until God came and shook things up.

Peter says, “the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning.” And as the Holy Spirit fell, it turned Peter’s understanding upside down.  His faith remained.  He still trusted in the loving God made known to him in Jesus, but now his understanding of God’s expansive, radical love had to change, because “If then God gave [the Gentiles] the same gift that God gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

Ultimately Peter realized that he couldn’t hinder God, but he could embrace God’s expansive love, and share his experience of transformation with others.

When we come together to worship or serve or learn, we too get to ask “who am I that I could hinder God?”  and we are given the opportunity to embrace God’s expansive love, beginning even with ourselves.  Being with other LGBTQ Lutheran church leaders helps me live into God’s expansive love.  And being able to share stories from that time with you all also helps me live into it.

What helps you embrace God’s expansive love for you? and for others? and for all of creation?  What do you risk in bringing your whole self into this part of the body of Christ?  Do you know—do you trust—God’s expansive, radical love for you?  Do you know that the Holy Spirit falls upon you just as it did upon Peter and the other apostles at the beginning?  I do.  I know it because I see it in each of you.

God is always coming to us in love for our whole flawed and perfectly loved selves. 

Our whole bodies and our whole lived experiences are the body of Christ, together with the great cloud of witnesses, spanning all of time and space.  The things that make us different and the things that can make us question whether we or another person can really bring our whole selves into the body of Christ                        are also the things that make us more truly the body of Christ together.  Our grief and our loneliness, our differences, are all signs of God’s love for us and God’s love at work through us.

God’s home is among mortals.  Jesus declares, “This is my body.”  God comes to you just as you are.  And just as you are, you are a part of the body of Christ.   

Because love wins.   

Because grace triumphs.   

Because Christ is risen!   

Christ is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

Jesus meets us where we're at: Easter 2c

The other reading I reference is Revelation 1:4-8.

The holy gospel according to 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 Judeans,

      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 Jesus’ 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 said to Jesus,

                  “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.

The gospel of the Lord.

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Thomas is one of my favorite disciples.  One of the things I love about Thomas comes from a paper I wrote in seminary.  I was writing a paper using disability theology, which is theology specifically from the perspective of folks who our dominant culture considers disabled.  I went in looking at Jesus as disabled, with his wounds from the cross as part of the whole resurrected Christ and what I found was that Thomas is blind!  I think that Thomas was blind and that this is a bigger deal for us today than it seemed to be for Thomas and the other disciples back then.

You see, Thomas, who is called the twin—perhaps because he is usually accompanied by someone to help him navigate busy, bustling streets—is the disciple who is: a-braver than all the rest, b-more foolhardy than all the rest, or c-unlucky enough to draw the short stick when the disciples ran out of their supply of food.  Whatever the case, on that first day of the week Thomas was the one disciple not inside the doors, which were “locked for fear of the Judeans.”

In this resurrection account in John, Peter and the Beloved Disciple have already returned from scoping out the tomb that morning when Mary announced the body was missing, and now they believe… without understanding.  Mary has returned again since then to announce that she has “seen the Lord.”  And yet the disciples remain locked up and fearful. 

Except Thomas who, even if he is afraid, goes out into the world anyway.  And while Thomas is out, Jesus comes into the disciples’ locked room, sneaking through the cracks and crevices of their fear-filled, locked up “no” to breathe on them “Peace be with you.” 

The disciples have locked the doors, shut themselves in against a scary and dangerous world out there.  Yet, through the cracks in the walls, under the door, even the cracks in the disciples’ clear “no,” Jesus meets them where they’re at.  Even in their fear and lack of understanding Jesus shows them the wounds that make Jesus whole.  And then the disciples recognize their Lord.

When Thomas returns, it is finally the disciples’ turn to proclaim the resurrection.  “We have seen the Lord” they teasingly announce to the one whose eyes do not see, the one who was not there, the one who faced his own fear outside their safely locked room.  Thomas responds with their language.  Stating his own, similar need, Thomas says “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.”  Thomas also needs to “see”—which is for him, to touch and feel, in order to believe.

So the next week, with the doors still closed, Jesus comes again.  This time Thomas is with the other disciples and it would be easy to believe that Jesus comes just for Thomas.  It would be easy to believe, that is,          if the disciples weren’t still in the same room with the doors shut up against the fearful outside world. Because the truth is: the disciples probably still need this just as much or more than Thomas.  And they need Thomas with them to venture out into the world.

And so Jesus comes again breathing his “Peace be with you” to them.  Jesus comes to Thomas and gives him the woundedness still present in the resurrected Christ, saying “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Because for Thomas who is blind, to touch is to see.  To touch is to know, that this is “the Alpha and the Omega”—this is the everything—from Alpha to Omega, from before the beginning of all time to past the end of it.  Jesus is “the Almighty.”

And from those moments of clarity—of deep, soul-shattering clarity—comes the ultimate confession as Thomas replies “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus comes to the disciples again and again.  Jesus meets Thomas and all the others where they are, meeting them in the struggle for faith, in the struggle with grief.

The resurrection comes with new life and hope, certainly, and it also comes in the midst of grief—over a leader lost and of a leader who is not who they thought—one who leads differently.  They grieve the unmet expectations, of a mighty and powerful overthrow, expectations the disciples hadn’t realized existed until those expectations died on the cross.

The resurrection comes with new life and Jesus breaks in through the cracks and crevices of our fear and our “no”s to breathe Jesus’ “Peace be with you.”  The one who covers all time: present, past, and future comes with the slow quiet breath of “Peace be with you.” 

Jesus meets Mary at the tomb, calling her “Mary!” and naming her into the resurrection. 

                                   

Jesus meets the disbelieving disciples, locked in their fear, breathing “Peace be with you” and forgiveness of sins. 

And Jesus meets them again when nothing seems to have changed except that Thomas is with them this time.  And Jesus again breathes “Peace be with you” and reaches out to Thomas, joining Thomas in physical sight, so that Thomas, feeling Jesus’ broken body—the physical reality of the crucifixion as a part of this whole Resurrected one, Thomas can then make the great confession “My Lord and my God!”

And Jesus comes again and again to us today.  Jesus’ broken body feeds us, Jesus’ blood of the new covenant, the cup of salvation, fills us with joy.  Today Jesus comes to us and we taste and feel the goodness of our Lord and our God.  Again and again Jesus meets us where we are at, in our hunger and thirst, in our doubts and disbeliefs.  Jesus joins us.

Because Christ is risen!  Christ is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!