“So That You May Have Life in His Name” — John 20:31

a sermon by Rev. Sonja Dalglish, M.Div. for Weslaco First Presbyterian Church

May 1, 2011, Second Sunday in Easter

Acts 2:14a, 22-32, Psalm 16:1-11, 1 Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31

 

Focus statement (What does the text say?): God’s way leads to life.

 

Function statement (How does the text affect its listeners?): In all of our hopes and dreams, in all of our failures, frustrations, and doubts, God remains the only giver of life.

Introduction

This has been an exciting week with Easter worship last Sunday, combined with our wonderful potluck breakfast & Easter Egg Hunt.  Unfortunately, more extreme weather brought tornadoes and deaths across the South.  Some of those hygiene kits we made may be put into use for these areas.  Then, on Friday, we had the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in Westminster Abbey.

During the wedding ceremony, the Rt. Rev. Richard Chartes began by calling the wedding day a day of hope, as every wedding day should be.  Then, he continued with several passages that caught my ear, particularly – “As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the west, there has been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life.”

Has that happened to you?

Is God less real to you now than when you were young, or less real to you than to your parents or grandparents?

Perhaps doubts and questions about how to be a person of faith and a person of who understands modern technology, germ theory, modern science and comparative religion have you feeling distant from God, or doubtful about much of what you were taught as you grew up.

Today’s appearance of Jesus in the upper room may speak to you.  Peter’s sermon in Acts may speak to you.  Or perhaps the beautiful faith statement from David crafted into the Psalms may make your heart sing.  We struggle to understand, but we cannot expect to understand everything about God.  We cannot fit the infinite into our small heads.

Even Peter, who was on the scene, does not understand how it is that Jesus was dead and then was alive.  Yet, he knows it is true and sees God’s power in it.  God’s power is poured out creating life.  King David knew this amazing life-giving power and wrote about it in the Psalms.  The writer of the Gospel of John said that all these things that Jesus did, including appearing after he had died and raised again, were written so that you and I might have life in Jesus’ name.  And, what would that life look like?  Let’s look again at the gospel text and see what Jesus does and says when he appears to the ones in the upper room.

Gospel Text

The disciples are huddling in the upper room with the door shut and locked because they were afraid.  They were in hiding.  They did not want to be flogged and crucified.

Into, this room, somehow Jesus comes and appears to them, saying “Peace be with you.”  This is similar to the angels who would say, “Do not fear.”  It was meant as reassurance that nothing bad was going to happen to them.  They were already afraid.  The sudden appearance of someone they knew was dead might have given some of them heart attacks.

Peace be with you — Shalom be with you.  Today in response to the benediction, we will sing a song of peace.  Next week, we will learn to sing it in Hebrew which will bring us even closer to Jesus, being able to sing in the language of the Hebrew scriptures.  For today, we will sing it in English and become comfortable with the melody.  Shalom.  Shalom is a deep and wide peace when relationships with God, people, and the earth and all life on it are their very best.  Shalom.

He showed them his hands and his side, as if somehow his appearance was so altered in his new body that he needed those marks to identify himself to them.  I do not think this means that you and I will have scarred bodies when we are resurrected.  These marks were specially preserved so that his disciples would know him.

He again says, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  They will be sent out into the world to tell the stories so that others will know who God is and who Jesus is.  They are not to keep this knowledge for themselves.

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.”

This life they are given is to be shared.  It will be characterized by forgiveness.  Forgiveness can be very difficult – Jesus gives them the Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a difficult issue but one central to the Christian faith.  It is hard to imagine having peace and the fuller concept of Shalom without forgiveness.

When I worked at hospice, I had some cards I would give out to families that had four steps for relationship completion at the end of life.

They had five things to say before you die – and I think they are also good things to say a long time before that.  It begins with “Please, forgive me.”  Then, continues, “I forgive you.  I’m sorry.  I love you.  Goodbye – or if you’re doing this today, you might even substitute, good night.”  I have joked that after we’ve been in relationship with someone for thirty minutes or an hour, we might have done something to offend them.

Now, when I talk and think about forgiveness, my mind immediately jumps to the absolutely most difficult cases, and perhaps yours does as well, cases of child abuse or spousal abuse, rape or murder.  Those are cases that need a lot more than what I can talk about in two or three minutes.  Many things of monumental importance need forgiveness, but need much more than that.

When we forgive someone for hurting us, it does not excuse their behavior or take away the consequences of their actions.  There are prisons and fines and debts to pay.  There are real consequences to sin.  But forgiveness can see beyond the actions to the person that God created and acknowledge that person, forgive that person.

I am a lover of mystery stories.  I love Tony Hillerman and his mysteries set in Navaho communities.  In that culture, as I understand it, people are valued and worked back into society after a transgression.  Just as I understand that we should do as God’s people.  It takes time and effort.

And, yet many of us have a hard time forgiving someone who forgets our birthday – or turns away and does not say hello when enter a room – or forgets our favorite color or dessert.  If we cannot begin by forgiving each other from being just human, how can we hope to forgive larger debts?  Forgiveness is a huge part of being a Christian.  Jesus calls us to forgive over and over again.

Imagine that each of us is given a sack when we enter the world.  And, for each thing that we resent, we put a stone in the bag.  With each slight, each wound, we add another stone to the bag.  Then, we take the stones out at night, and begin to build a wall.  Sometimes, this wall is between us and one other person.  But, as we accumulate stones, we have to put them down someplace.  Some people put them down as a barrier between themselves and God – or extend the wall all around them so that they are completely isolated.  They live behind a stone barricade.

This is the opposite of ‘shalom.’  This wall building keeps us from life, keeps us from relationship with others and with God.  Shalom is like wildflowers and clear streams, blue skies and beauty all around you.  These walls keep you from seeing and enjoying that life.

Just as you have built those walls in your lives, you can begin to take them down.  You can start in secret, at night, just as you began to build them.  Take down the walls, one stone at a time.  Beginning by praying for God’s help.  Ask for God’s help and don’t worry if you have your doubts about prayer working – pray anyway.  Do an experiment and ask for the ability to forgive.  Ask for a loving heart.

Doubting

Doubting is not a sin, thank goodness.  Even the disciples doubted.  In one gospel, Jesus eats some fish so that the disciples will know that he is not a ghost.  In this gospel, Thomas is allowed to voice his doubts which are met with a second visit by Jesus.  Notice that Jesus is not angry with Thomas, but supplies what he needs in order to believe.  Then, Thomas, proclaims his faith very decisively.

This whole story is for you and me so that we might believe and have life.  What does that mean for you and me?

We don’t have to hide our doubts.  Doubting is normal, even while believing.  We do not need to worry that God will punish us for doubts.  Instead, we should pause and pray and be open to God revealing something to us.  We have been called to this life of discipleship to Jesus.  And, what does that look like?

For Our Lives Together

First, we can see that in this life we are given peace and invited into a relationship with God, people, and the whole world that is healthy and wholesome – Shalom.

Second, we are not to just to keep this wonderful secret of a loving and generous God to ourselves.  We, like those eleven before us, are sent out into the world to live and because we live, we bring life and possibilities to others.

Doug and I watched a wonderful movie Friday night, Blind Side.  In this movie, a young black man was admitted to a Christian School because it was the right thing to do.  Then, learning that he had no place to live, one of the families at the school took him in and gave him a bed, food, and a family.  This made all the difference in the world to him.  He is now a star tackle for the Baltimore Ravens.  His adoptive parents have co-written a book, In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving.  For them, their actions flowed from their Christian faith.

At one point in the film, an investigator comes and asks Michael if he was only brought in to his adoptive parents’ house because they wanted a player for their alma mater, Ole Miss.  She said, “What if white people all across the south started picking up homeless blacks so that their schools could have better players?”

What if we could find ways of giving all homeless youth of any color good homes and find their talents and encourage them?  What is right with that?

I’ve never done anything so dramatic – and may never, but I can live my life to encourage others, to love and cherish them, as can you.  Every day you meet people who need hope.  Sometimes, those people are at your workplace, in your classrooms, or even in your families.  Could you be living with someone who needs the love and encouragement, the forgiveness and the kindness that only you can give?

The way of Christ is the Way of Life.  You have been given the gift of life – How can you share that?

The Bishop of London, the Rt. Rev. Chartes talked about two people in a marriage moving toward each other in love in Christ.  The Holy Spirit will empower you, in marriage, as parents or as children, as teachers, or as neighbors, to generously love others so that they may live into the people they were meant to be.  We all need generous, faithful love and mutual forgiveness.  That is the life that is before us.  That life is yours, by the power of the Holy Spirit, yours, but not for you alone.  It is yours to give to the world.  You are being sent.

You will meet the Lord again today when you eat at his table and drink from his cup.  God gives you what you need to share your life with others.  All these things we do, we do so that you know you have life in Christ, a life to share.

Let us pray.
Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, May 1, 2011, the Second Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Gospel 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 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.”

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.

 

First Reading Acts 2:14a, 22-32

^14aBut Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them,

²²“You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know — ²³this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. ²⁴But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. ²⁵For David says concerning him,

‘I saw the Lord always before me,

for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken;

²⁶ therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;

moreover my flesh will live in hope.

²⁷ For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,

or let your Holy One experience corruption.

²⁸ You have made known to me the ways of life;

you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’

²⁹“Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. ³⁰Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. ³¹Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying,

‘He was not abandoned to Hades,

nor did his flesh experience corruption.’

³²This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.

Psalm Psalm 16:1-11

¹ Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

² I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;

I have no good apart from you.”

³ As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,

in whom is all my delight.

⁴ Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;

their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out

or take their names upon my lips.

⁵ The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;

you hold my lot.

⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

I have a goodly heritage.

⁷ I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;

in the night also my heart instructs me.

⁸ I keep the LORD always before me;

because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;

my body also rests secure.

¹⁰ For you do not give me up to Sheol,

or let your faithful one see the Pit.

¹¹ You show me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy;

in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Second Reading 1 Peter 1:3-9

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.⁶In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials,⁷so that the genuineness of your faith — being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.⁸Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,⁹for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

 

Notes:

Acts – Peter says  this Jesus that you crucified (we) You are unfaithful, God is faithful

If you are not culpable, then God’s grace is not for you.

If you separate yourself from sin, you separate yourself from God

Psalm 16 – almost a prosperity psalm – but crucial part was that David was not praying for what he wanted but what God has given;  the boundary lines have fallen in good places.  thankfulness and peace with whatever God has given us.

orientation, disorientation, reorientation

I Peter – Peter’s sermon proclaiming Christ is risen.

John – Jesus appears when Thomas not present; in Greek – doubt not used.  Don’t be unbelieving but believe.  You can doubt small things, but still be a believing person;  wounds still in Jesus – even in new body;

In C S Lewis, Screw Tape letters – dwell sins of the past.