Sunday Service - 5/1/11 - Tom Long

38:56 and I pushed the scan button on my car radio, hoping to get a traffic report. The radio paused, however, on a Christian talk radio station. The host was taking calls from the listeners. A woman named Barbara had called in and Barbara was saying that she had problems. She had a lot of problems. She had problems with her boss at work. She was experiencing stress in her marriage. She was in conflict with her teenage children. She was experiencing bouts of depression. and as she unfolded her litany of woe, suddenly the talk show host interrupted her. Barbara, let me ask you something. Are you a believer?

39:50 If you're not a believer, you'll never solve any of these problems. Now, Barbara, are you a believer? Barbara hesitated a moment. I don't know, she said. Now Barbara, if you're a believer, you would know it. You're either a believer or you're not. Now Barbara, are you a believer?

40:13 I'd like to be, I think, she said. I guess I'm just more of an agnostic at this point in my life. The talk show host rose to that bait. Now Barbara, there's a book I've written that I'd like to send you. And in this book I have indisputable, irrefutable proof that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and he is who he says he is. Now if I send you this book, will you become a believer? I don't know, she said. I've had a lot of problems out of preachers. I'm not talking about preachers, said the host. I'm talking about proof. I've got irrefutable proof. Now if I send you this book, will you become a believer? I don't think you're listening to me, she said. I'm having trouble at this point in my life just basically trusting. Barbara, we're not talking about trust.

41:10 We're talking about truth. Now if I send you this book with proof, will you become a believer? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, if you send it to me, I'll become a believer. Now, it may sound strange coming from a pulpit, but I'm sort of sorry that old Barbara threw in the towel quite so quickly.

41:36 I, too, hope that she will become a believer, and I, too, believe that the Christian faith could be a deep comfort for her in her distress. but I also know that the talk show host was way out of bounds. There is no indisputable, irrefutable proof of the resurrection. We don't have a videotape of the empty tomb. We don't have a seismograph of the Easter earthquake. That's not the way God works in the world. In fact, in no case does any gospel writer, not Matthew, not Mark, not Luke, not John, none of them, actually describe the event of the resurrection. It is as if it happens outside of our sight into the mystery of God. We have no proof. All we have are these stories.

42:32 Told and believed. Told again and believed. And told again until they strike our ears. Now make no mistake about it, the reason we are gathered here this morning is because twenty centuries ago a young rabbi by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, who was dead as a doornail on Friday afternoon, was not found in his tomb on Sunday morning. By the power of God he shook off the chains of death and he stands even today in our midst, offering to all of us life, and life abundantly. That's why we're here. If you've come for the music, it's superb, but there are other venues. If you've come for the architecture, even if, God forbid, this building would one day be a museum, you could get a ticket and come see it.

43:28 The reason we are here is that standing among us is the living Christ, full of abundant life. But we don't get here, all of us, by the same path. There are many doorways in this building, and it's symbolic. We come to this event through different pathways, experiences, attitudes, and assumptions. We don't come in the same way, and that seems to be part of the vision of the writer of John. because in the 20th chapter, he doesn't give us just one Easter story, just one resurrection story. He gives us four, as if to say, look how many ways that people come to believe in the resurrection.

44:20 The first of these is about the other disciple, maybe old John himself. When the other disciple and Peter hear from Mary Magdalene that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, they run to see what has happened. And when they get to the cemetery, the other disciple bends down, looks into the tomb, and sees nothing. Just emptiness, darkness, a rolled up linen cloth. He sees nothing and believes everything. Some people are like that, you know.

45:09 They seem to believe almost intuitively. They've never known a day when the shadow fell across their faith. People like Kathleen, ever since she's five years old, Kathleen has known that God was making a call on her life. At first, she thought she was going to be a missionary, but life did not turn out that way. She ended up as a public health nurse in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

45:40 You know Asbury Park. In the 1940s, it was a fashionable seaside resort with wonderful hotels, shops, and restaurants, a boardwalk to rival Atlantic City. But then in the 60s, urban blight and poverty and corruption in government and the boardwalk rotted, The hotels became flophouses, the restaurants and shops closed. In one of those old hotels, there was what was in effect a nursing home, elderly, impoverished, and in many ways sick old people living in a flophouse. And the management of the hotel would not let the public health nurses go in. They didn't want them to see the squalor. The city government backed them up. So Kathleen went incognito down to the hotel and hired herself on as a chambermaid.

46:39 And every day she went from room to room, changing sheets, cleaning toilets, surreptitiously taking blood pressures and checking medications, and speaking a word of hope and encouragement. She said that she saw in the face of everyone in that hotel, the face of the risen Christ. She went from room to room to room, from empty tomb to empty tomb to empty tomb, where most of us see only darkness and death. And she saw the risen Christ. Some people are like that, but not everybody.

47:25 The second story that John tells us is about Mary Magdalene. She also went to the cemetery. Mary. She too saw the risen Christ, but she didn't recognize him. She thought he was the gardener. If you've taken away the body of my Lord, tell me where you've placed it. I want to take care of it. And then the risen Christ spoke the one word that changed her life forever. Mary. When she heard the risen Christ speak her own name, the sky opened and the light shone. Some people are like that. The Christian faith is remote, the apostles create an abstraction until somehow they hear the gospel speaking their own name. The novelist and essayist Frederick Buechner once spent a weekend on a vacation with a friend of his who is an Episcopal priest.

48:31 On Sunday the priest had to preside at worship and so Buechner went. And when it came time for the Lord's Supper, Buechner, like everyone else, came forward and knelt at the communion rail. The priest came down the rail saying, the body of Christ, the body of Christ, the body of Christ. But when he got to Buechner, he said, this is the body of Christ for you, Freddie. Buechner said, there's nothing unusual about my being at communion. There's nothing unusual about my friend knowing my name, even my nickname. But when he said, this is the body of Christ for you, Freddie. It spoke to me like it had never spoken before, that this grace of God was for me. Some people come because they hear the risen Christ speaking their name, but not everybody.

49:32 The third story that John tells is about the disciples locked in a room, terrified for their lives, when suddenly the risen Christ appears. Peace be with you. He shows them his hands and his side. Peace be with you, he says again, as the Father has sent me, so I send you. He breathes on them. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they will be forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they will be retained. What in the world does that jumble of phrases mean? Well, the early readers of the Gospel of John would have known every single one of them is a sign of the ordinary worship and life and mission of the church. Peace be with you. We've already spoken it to each other this morning. It's the way worship begins.

50:26 He showed them his hands and his side. this is my body for you. He breathes on them the experience of baptism, receive the Holy Spirit. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. This is the life and discipline of the church. Some people actually come to belief in the resurrection through the ordinary worship and work and mission of the church. No mountaintop experience. they just joined the church softball team. They begin to sing in the choir. They come to a Bible study and suddenly they find in the gathered assembly the power of the one who is gathered, and they encounter the risen Christ. Many years ago now, when I was a seminary student, I spent a summer in Statesville, North Carolina, serving as a student pastor on the staff of a church. 30 years later, they had a homecoming at that church, and they invited me to be a part of the service.

51:34 After the service, there was a dinner in the fellowship hall, and I was seated next to a woman who had been a teenager when I was a student pastor in that church, and we were catching up. And I said to her, how's your dad? I loved your dad. Tell me news of your dad. She said, thank you for asking. We lost my dad two summers ago. But the most amazing thing happened on the afternoon that he died. My brother and sister and I were in his hospital room. He had had some small strokes and had, in the last week of his life, lost his ability to speak. You remember my dad. You can imagine how frustrating it was. He loved to talk. and suddenly he could think things, but he couldn't get them out. The afternoon he died, there seemed to be something very urgent. He was trying to say to us, but he couldn't get the words to come.

52:35 Finally, he motioned toward the sink and then pointed at his mouth, and my brother said, he wants a drink of water. So he went over and got a glass of water and brought it to my father. But when he put it to his lips, my father waved him off and made a motion, Give it to your sister.

52:59 He handed the glass to his sister, Drink. And she drank. Hand it to your brother. She handed it to drink. Suddenly my sister gasped. he's serving communion. He had been to the Lord's table hundreds of times. It's an ordinary part of the life of the church. And there in a hospital room where everyone was expecting death, he was serving communion as an announcement that the room was filled with the life of Christ and with hope. Some people come to believe in the ordinary worship of the church. but not everyone. The last story is about old Thomas. Everybody else can believe but not me. I need to see for myself unless I put my... We don't know exactly what was going on with Thomas but we recognize the attitude. It's the attitude of Barbara and many other people.

54:09 It's a hard mountain to get over, this mountain of belief. The amazing thing, according to biblical scholar Gail O'Day, is not that Thomas ever really got to put his hands in Jesus' side. It's that Jesus came to him in a way that he could receive. Here Thomas, do not be unbelieving. I'm available to you. Touch my side. here see my hands. A friend of mine named Heidi Newmark is a Lutheran pastor and for a while she was the pastor of a tiny little church in the poorest section of the Bronx. In her congregation were undocumented workers, former cocaine and heroin addicts, women who had shaken loose from prostitution, and those, she said, were the officers of her church. One Easter season, they were trying to figure out how they, a tiny little congregation, could show their joy in the resurrection to the whole neighborhood, and they decided to enact the Palm Sunday Easter story, the whole thing in front of the neighborhood. Somebody knew a farmer who had a donkey, and so he borrowed the donkey.

55:34 A member of the congregation played the part of Jesus and rode on the donkey in the neighborhood around the block of the church. Palm branches waving, people shouting Hosanna, neighbors came out of tenements and began to follow. The plan was to come back around to the entrance of the church for the procession to go into the church where they would reenact the rest of the story. Jesus would be tried and then crucified, then taken to the tomb, and the women would go out to the tomb. But as they came around to the entrance of the church, something unexpected happened. There was an impromptu political protest going on in the street. Some of the neighbors were protesting police brutality. and suddenly the Palm Sunday Easter procession and the political protests got all mingled up together and everybody went inside the church.

56:37 And there they saw an innocent man tried on trumped-up charges and the sanctuary was filled with cries with, that's the way it is, that's the way it is. and then he was put to death, capital punishment. That's the way it is. That's the way it is. And then he was taken to the tomb. And then on the third day, three women went out to the tomb and the script called for them, a former prostitute, a former addict, an undocumented worker, these three women to come back and say to the congregation, he is alive, I know he is alive, he is alive in me. Then when they had said that, an Easter hymn would be sung and the service was over.

57:33 But when the third woman had said, I know he is alive, he's alive in me, someone unscripted stood up in the congregation, I know he is alive too, he's alive in me. and then another, I know he is alive, he is alive in me, and then another, and they hardly ever stopped praising God that Easter.

57:57 Sometimes people believe because it comes to them in ways that they can imagine. Standing among us this day is the risen Christ full of life and abundant joy. Let me ask you something. Are you a believer?