move from unbelief to belief

2nd Sunday of Easter

            When we look at Jesus’ disciples in the gospels they seem to us comical, sometimes fearful.  Peter caves in to fear and denies his Lord.  Thomas makes a bold declaration of his willingness to die with his Lord, but refuses to believe that this same Lord was raised from the dead, unless he sees that for himself.  Jesus’ disciples seem clueless at times.  Even so, when the writer of John has us look at the disciples, he means for us to see ourselves.  He means for us to see the faith community, the church.  We see the disciples in today’s gospel lesson, but we are, from that picture, to recognize ourselves.

            Look.  Where do we find the faith community?  Behind locked doors.  They are huddled up in their hideout.  They cower in their safe house.  I seem to remember the old animated movie Peter Pan.  Peter Pan’s archenemy was a pirate named Captain Hook.  He was the one who had to replace his right hand with an iron hook, for Peter Pan had sliced off that hand, and it became crocodile food.  The crocodile that had tasted Hook’s hand always wanted another tasty morsel, so it constantly followed Captain Hook.  Constantly.  Relentlessly.  And, I also remember, this same crocodile had swallowed a clock, the ticking sound of which provided Hook with a kind of early-warning system to alert him of the nearness of his dreaded pursuer.  Tick.  Tock.  Tick.  Tock.  And with every sound, I seem to remember, the captain’s face would grimace and twitch and contort.  Tick.  Tock.  Tick.  Tock.  The huddled disciples are just like that.  What is that sound?  Clop.  Clop.  Clop.  Clop.  Could that be Roman soldiers?  Maybe it’s the sound of the temple guards coming.  Clop.  Clop.  Clop.  Clop.  “Shhhhh.  Don’t make a sound.  They could be coming for us, just as they came for Jesus.  They could crucify us, just as they did the Master.”  Knock.  Knock.  “Shhh.  Don’t answer that!  Maybe they’ll go away.”  These are the disciples of the risen Lord Jesus.  But they are afraid of the religious leaders.  They are afraid of the government.  They are afraid to be spotted by someone in the city.  They are afraid to go out into the dangerous open.  This is the faith community, the followers of the risen Lord Jesus.  But they are afraid.

            Well, most of us would admit that it is safer behind closed doors.  It is safer to let people come into the church than for us to go out to gather them in.  The faith community isn’t enthusiastic about going out into danger.  Oh, we probably won’t get arrested for being recognized as part of Jesus’ faith community.  But we do have a fear of going out into the open.  It’s the fear, I think, of appearing foolish.  No, this is not a pastor scolding a congregation.  This is simply one Christian admitting other Christians that is feels far safer to develop sermons and worship services and classes and concerts that draw people into the church.  There’s nothing wrong with those activities; they are necessary.  What I’m admitting to you is that it is easier for me to proclaim the risen Lord behind these closed doors than to take it out to the community.  No, I don’t think it would do the cause much good if I were to stand in the Town Square on a soapbox and preach sermons at Second Saturday on the Square.  I’m just admitting that I’m in my comfort zone in the pulpit and in the classroom.  Taking the good news of a risen Lord out into the open—that’s dangerous.  Something could happen out there that’s unpleasant, fearful even.  It’s safer behind our closed doors here.

            And yet, how odd!  What is strange about the faith community huddling behind closed doors is that we are the very group that recognizes the risen Lord.  Jesus’ followers are the very ones who know the peace of Christ.  We’re the very group of people that has Christ’s commission to serve him as the ones he has sent.  The faith community is the very group that has the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  We’re the very ones who have new life as a result of our faith in God’s gracious activity in Jesus Christ.

            So take a good look at who we are.  We are the ones who are to speak for the risen Lord.  God sent Jesus to reveal God to the world.  Jesus came to earth to be the light of the world.  Jesus came to reveal God to humanity.  By his life, teaching, death, and resurrection, Jesus came to show all people the profound love of God for them.  He came that people might know that God is a loving God, and that God is pouring out that love on everyone.  And what did Jesus say to the faith community?  He said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  We are Jesus’ sent ones.  We are his spokespersons.  As Jesus’ mission was to reveal God through his life, death, and resurrection, so we are to reveal God by declaring the good news of God’s love to the world.  As the community of faith that follows Jesus, his mission is now our own.  We are to speak the good news to the world.

            But not speak only.  We are also to adopt the kind of lifestyle in the community of faith that communicates love and forgiveness.  When people enter the community of faith, they should know that they are forgiven by the God who forms us, calls us, and claims us as his own.  When people come into contact with the church, both gathered and scattered, they should be able to know from our countenances and relationships that we are a people who help people realize the love of God for them, God’s mercy for them, God’s offer of new life to them.  People should be able to recognize the community of faith as a place that communicates forgiveness through word and deed.  Scott Peck tells a wonderful story about the transformation of a community.  There was a monastery that was in decline.  There were only five monks left, the abbot and four others, and they were all over seventy years of age.  It was a dying order.  One day, the abbot decided to ask a rabbi staying in the woods if he might have any advice that could save the monastery.  The abbot told the sad story, and both men wept together.  Did the rabbi have any advice to give?  “No, I am sorry,” the rabbi said.  “I have no advice to give.  The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”  The abbot returned to the monastery, and he told his fellow monks about his visit with the rabbi.  “He couldn’t help,” the abbot said.  “The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving, was that the Messiah is one of us.  I don’t know what he meant.”  Well, the monks all began to ponder this mysterious declaration of the rabbi.  As they considered this, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect.  They even treated themselves the same way.  People who visited the monastery began to sense an aura of extraordinary respect that was now deep within the fabric of this faith community.  The effect of this was that people were drawn toward this community.  They came more frequently to picnic, to play, and to pray.  They brought their friends, too.  Some of the younger men who came to visit started to have conversations with the old monks.  Then one asked if he could join them.  Then others.  Then more.  Within a few years, the monastery had once again become a thriving order.  That’s how Jesus says it is to be for the faith community, isn’t it?  Yes!  You see, our actions communicate to outsiders the atmosphere within the community of faith.  Indeed, we communicate it to each other within the community of faith, that God loves each one of us and that God continually offers us his grace and forgiveness.  The more that forgiveness is embodied within the community of faith, the more that becomes our aura.  The more that aura is experienced by those around us, the more they are aware of God’s grace and forgiveness.  The more they are aware of God’s grace and forgiveness, the more they can experience that for themselves and become a part of the community of faith that has this aura.

            Of course, it all begins with a choice we make.  We make the choice as individual disciples.  We make the choice as a faith community.  This fundamental choice affects all of our other choices.  Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, was faced with the same choice.  He was absent from the faith community on a critical day, the day the risen Lord appeared to his disciples.  They all got to see him, but he didn’t.  He decided not to believe that the Lord had appeared to them unless he had the same experience.  The problem for Thomas was not doubt.  Doubt is not the opposite of faith, understand; it is rather an expression of it.  Doubt is not a choice.  You don’t choose to doubt, you just have it or not.  No.  The problem for Thomas was the choice he made.  He chose unbelief.  Unbelief is refusing to see the light that has come into the world.  Jesus came as light, as God’s self-revelation.  Some choose darkness, unbelief.  That’s a choice.  That was Thomas’s choice.  If we don’t trust Jesus as God’s self-revelation—and Easter was God’s declaration that Jesus was that light—if we don’t trust Jesus as God’s self-revelation, we’ll just stay behind the doors of this church and not declare the message we’ve been commissioned to speak.

            Imagine that we did trust Jesus.  Imagine that we said together—and believed it—“My Lord and my God!”  Imagine we recognized God’s breathed-in Spirit empowering us.  What might we do?  We’d get out more often!  We’d go outside these doors and tell people that God loves and forgives them.  We’d radiate that good news through the aura of forgiveness lived within this community.  We’d attract people who want to know the love of God through Jesus Christ.  “But all this is unnatural,” you say.  And yet, there are political campaigns being carried out in this city.  You hand out information to your friends about the ones you support.  You might even put out yard signs to show your support and encourage others to vote for your candidates.  This might be a time when you get very outspoken, so passionate are your views.  Imagine that we took the good news into our community with just that kind of passion.  Imagine that we communicated that we are a community of the forgiven and the forgiving.