Jesus Prays for Us

A sermon for my seminary class 

      "Preaching the Gospel of John: 

            Abundant Life as a Vision for Christian Community"

on Jesus' Farewell Prayer in John 17:6-19

I once read that having a child is like taking your heart…

     and putting it outside of your body

          and letting it walk around, out into the world…

               removed from the safe protection of being close, 

                    inside and part of you.

It is a beautiful and terrifying image of parenthood.

And as we have heard Jesus say

     all along this journey we’ve been on 

through the Gospel of John –

      he is so close to his Father.

He is in the Father and the Father is in him.

     It is as if he is the Father’s own heart.

And so what we have witnessed in these past 10 weeks

     is nothing less than what is closest to God’s heart.

          The Father’s heart is for healing.

               The Father’s heart is for abundant life.

                    The Father’s heart is for love of the world, 

                         of the whole cosmos…

                    the dangerous dark world 

                         where God’s heart walks around

                              away from God for a time…

                     The Father’s heart is for the unity of all things.

And today, in the seventeenth chapter of John,

     we hear a prayer of God’s very own heart,

          of God’s own Son,

               of Jesus.

And he prays for us…

     knowing that we are in the same dangerous world 

          he has been in…

     trusting that even when he goes away, 

           we will be protected in his Father…

Jesus prays for us, cares for us…

     In Jesus’ prayer, we are held in God’s heart, 

          wrapped so completely in love…

    like a baby wrapped up safe and tight to rest…

          or like a child securely enthroned 

               in the shade of a blanket fort,

                    whose strength is not in stone but in comfort.

Jesus knows he is leaving us soon…

     So he prays - asking God to protect us

          from a world that doesn’t love us like God does,

               doesn’t hold us as precious.

We know too well how true this is.

     We have all felt unsafe…unloved…in this world…

          We aren’t heard with grace 

               or held in love when we need to be.

We know what it is to need a listening ear and embrace,

          and instead to feel the cold stone indifference 

               of people or organizations

          that fail to see us as the fragile, but beautiful children we are.

We know what it is to need a gentle hand 

          to brush tears from our eyes

     and to cradle our head against a strong shoulder

          and instead to feel the empty ache of an empty room

               or only a thin voice too far away to truly embrace us.

We know what it is to fail to do our best,

     to fail to live lives above reproach,

          to fail to meet expectations set out for us…

     and we have thirsted for grace in the desert of our disappointment.

We have offered our own hearts in our work, 

     in our church, on so much paper…

          and felt them shredded and thrown away or even attacked.

We have been cast out of the very places 

     we yearn to live and love and serve.

And when the world has hurt us…even attacked us,

     God’s heart is with us into our need and frailty…

          he climbs over the walls of the world’s indifference

               and brings us healing

          instead of leaving us to fight for ourselves

               when we have no fight left in us,

like he did for the man who was paralyzed waiting by the pool.

Jesus comes into our grief

     when we have already given up and collapsed

          into the ache of loneliness and hopelessness

               and he feels our grief himself…

like he did for Mary and Martha…

          and he brings us through death to life…

like he did for Lazarus.

Jesus stands beside us when we have failed,

     as our accusers hurl their words of skepticism and scrutiny,

          their “concerns” about our worthiness

     or whether there is really a place for someone like us.

          And he waits right beside us, 

               until they put down their stones,

                   and then tells us that nothing we have done 

                        or failed to do

                             can put us beyond his love and redemption…

like he did for the woman caught in adultery.

Even when we have been cast out, trodden on, 

          thrown out like so much garbage…

     Jesus comes to the dumpster in the alley,

          outside the clean walls that were our safety…

              our community…

     and he tells us that no institution will stop him

          from endorsing, approving and assigning us a place

               as one of his own beloved friends… 

                    wherever we end up next…

just as he did for the man born blind.

And what can we say or do in the face of promises like these?

As followers of Christ through the Gospel of John,

     after all this time,

          walking with Jesus maybe you have begun to feel,

               as I sometimes have…

     that it’s time for me to know what to do now, 

          how to respond…

I should know by now how to be a disciple.

    After all, it’s almost the end of the book.

And I think we’ve all read ahead…

     Jesus is about to leave…to die…to be glorified.

I need to know what to do.

But, as Jesus is speaking to us for the last time in his life,

     though he has counted us among his followers…his friends,

          I realize I still don’t know how to do it…

               how to be a disciple… 

especially without Jesus right in front of me.

And in his final words, he sets my fears to rest.

     Not because he answers the question…

         not because he tells me what to do…

but because he makes it as clear as it has ever been

     that the question I’m asking 

          is not the one he is concerned about.

I have been well-trained in my life…

     but I have been trained to ask the wrong question…

         because… Jesus is not my mother.

Let me explain…

     The second to last thing (right before “I love you”)

that my mother almost ALWAYS says before she goes anywhere,

     is almost ALWAYS an instruction.

“Don’t forget to feed the dogs.”

     “Drive safely.”

         “Remember to turn down the water heater.”

“Watch out for deer on the road.”

     “Drive safely!”

(Usually, it’s “drive safely.”)

Okay… so it’s not just my mother, is it?

     We all have family members like that.

          Okay… some of us ARE family members like that.

Maybe in your family someone leaves a list on the kitchen table… 

     always a list

Or post-it notes

     all over the individual Tupperware containers in the fridge…

         and on each one of the kids’ outfits in the closet.

But, Jesus is not leaving us with instructions,

     or lists on the table, or a house covered in post-its.

    

Where I would make a list,

     and my mother would say to “drive safely” 

          and “wash behind your ears,”

Jesus…prays.

He does not entrust our security in this hostile world to us.

     He still does not expect us to take the lead,

          to save ourselves or the world…

               or the church.

Jesus hands us over to God,

     because we are God’s already.

And as he prays, Jesus says that God gave us to him to begin with,

     and that he has taken care of us,

          and he is handing us back over to God’s care.

We are not orphaned, or abandoned, or alone… or in charge.

We are commended to God’s care.

     No list, no last minute instructions or rules…just prayer.

And Jesus is so good to us, that he makes sure we overhear him…

     “I revealed your name to the people 

          whom you gave to me out of the cosmos.

      They were yours, and you gave them to me…

               I, myself, am asking about them, not about the cosmos,

          but rather 

               I am asking about those whom you have given 

                    to me,

                         because they are yours…

      Holy Father, guard them in your name, 

          which you have given to me,

               so that they might be one just as we are.”

One more time…we are assured…

     We are God’s. We are safe. We are loved…

          We are held in God’s own heart, in Christ, 

               who prays for us, forever.

Amen.

Trying to Get Settled [May I take my coat off and stay awhile?]

I wish I was a creature driven by wanderlust and star shine and everything new and adventures and the dust of new and ancient roads.

I don’t really know why I wish this...or who taught me to...

not because I don’t love what is new, what is foreign, what is surprising…

[I do.]

The reason I don’t know why I wish this is because I love [even more deeply] that which is familiar, that which is home, that which seems just to have been forgotten and then remembered again [like déjà vu…or a faded dream].

I feel that I should want to venture beyond what I know, that to explore the unchartered maps [where monsters may lurk just as easily as gold] is somehow better [or more admirable…or evidence of some greater depth of character] than sitting wrapped in my pink prayer shawl on the porch [where I drink tea and sigh…and search and heal] with an eye to the cracks of the dry boards of the deck and an ear to the creak of the steps as the dogs tumble down to the grass below.

To explore and discover…to find frontiers of aching beauty…I do wish for these things. But I am learning that the most precipitous cliffs…the most yawning canyons…the darkest night and brightest starlight [the things that always seem to call me outward] are actually part of an inner landscape of myself more terrible and more beautiful [more terribly beautiful?] than anywhere I can lust to wander. And they are here on the porch, with me already, wrapped in my pink shawl.

I carry the things I most desire, most love and most fear everywhere I go. And, by turns, I find this invigorating and terrifying.

I feel unsettled these days. My belongings are in boxes. My heart is in three places [at least]. Even my body feels like a foreign place to me. It is both exhilarating and horrifying to learn that even on this porch, even in my shawl, is a world I hardly know.

I feel so safe wrapped up in this shawl. You could have told me it was as strong as a fortress wall [a few weeks ago], and I would have believed you. I was comfortable in the illusion that I could draw a circle between what I know and where I am safe and out there [where I might not be].

But, of course…a shawl can’t keep out an army of invaders. A shawl and a porch and tea and sunlight are not amulets, elixirs nor any other sort of protective enchantment [nor would the world be better if they were]. Even my own skin [that fairly arbitrary boundary between me and everything else] is no insurance. What’s inside my skin is just as mysterious and ineffable...and fascinating and terrifying... as the rest…

So, for now, I explore inward and not outward…because to do so is to admit that I always carry what is unknown and  unchartered within me. Maybe I will settle down in this skin, in this apartment, wrapped in this shawl. Maybe I will, as a former co-worker of mine would say, manage to “take off my coat and stay awhile.” And maybe, at the same time, I will go on a fantastic adventure. Because... though I have learned that the monsters are here… so is the gold. 

Scars

Looking down at my hands I see two thin white lines…one below my second finger on the back of my left hand, the other a jagged “V” on the back of my right thumb. They are marks from brief moments in time, the mementos of hasty gestures that first were red and pulsing and now have faded white and numb.

The scars on my hands are not the dramatic kind. They just make me shake my head at my own clumsiness when I remember the shattering of a glass in the sink…or other such mishaps.

Other scars mean more than that. Some scars make us feel stronger, and we wear them like medals for bravery. Some are made on purpose to get underneath the surface to fix something more deeply wounded. These scars are reminders etched into our skin of how our bodies have failed or betrayed us…and that we are growing older. Some scars make us ashamed. Some we try to hide.

How do you wear your scars?

My most painful scar is one that I hide in plain sight.

On some days it is a badge of pride in my uniqueness and my ability to thrive. But on others, it feels like the brand of an outcast or a freak.

I wear this scar on my face for the whole world to see, even as it is partially hidden by cosmetics, by humor, by my hair, by clever prosthetics (which even I sometimes forget are a particular luxury of the wealthy and privileged).

I am blind in my left eye. In fact, I have no left eye. As gruesome as it is to imagine, the scarred tissue that remained of my eye at one and a half years old was cut out of my body. Thrown away like the useless thing it had become.

Sometimes days go by when I hardly think about how differently I see the world, and how differently the world may see me. On others, an chance encounter as brief as bumping into someone who I couldn’t see coming in the hallway leaves me feeling humiliated and diminished.

When people ask about my eye, or notice that the difference between the prosthetic and my good eye, I don’t mind talking about it. I know that people ask out of concern, and out of curiosity about a life experience beyond their own. But it can be hard to feel like an object of curiosity.

I suspect we all have  scars like these, whether perceptible to others or not. In thinking about this, I find that there is something profoundly comforting to me about the scars of Christ. After he so amazingly returned to them, his disciples poked and prodded his wounds. He had to endure questions and curiosity. He had to remember and relive the experience that marked him that way, even though his death was no longer the last word for him.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be partially blind in the resurrected life, whatever it may be. I don’t want to feel incomplete anymore. But the wounds of the resurrected Christ make me wonder if my lack of physical sight is really where my sense of incompleteness comes from.

Perhaps, Christ’s scarred hands will reach out to me some day, and I will truly, finally understand that I am complete…scars and all. And that is where freedom truly comes from.

A Sermon for "The Day After the World Didn't End"

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter 2011 - based on John 14:1-14.

Friends, I have to preface these words by saying that I, like many of you, I’m sure, am frequently frustrated by the way “religious” people – particularly Christians in this country – appear in the news media. We look judgmental, single-minded, preoccupied mostly with sex and the afterlife, and generally irrational. I resent this…and sometimes I worry about its implications.

And this week has been no exception…Christians appear in the news, and I want nothing less than to be associated with them and their billboards and talk radio shows. 


And yet…there is a funny sort of synchronicity between recent events (or the lack thereof) and the story we hear proclaimed from John today.           

What a perfect gospel for The Day After the World Didn’t End.

After this week, it is quite clear that the misunderstanding and anxiety of Jesus’ disciples given voice by Thomas and Philip are still alive and at work among religious folk today. The certainty we still crave in the face of great doubt is hard to shake– the desire to know a date or a destination where our journey of faith will be complete.

So, to back up… just in case anyone was lucky enough to miss the “religion” news of the past week or so…A Christian radio broadcaster did some calculations, and predicted (after a failed first attempt to do so in 1994) that yesterday was the day that Christ would come and whisk true believers away from earth and leave everyone else to burn…at 6 p.m….time zone by time zone across the globe…

And as easy as it might be today to use him as the butt of a series of jokes… I don’t bring him up to distance our views from his… or to gloat… or to make us look like mature and reasonable believers when compared to him and his listeners.

Rather, I would like to talk about how we are similar… how we, like Harold Camping, so often miss the richness of the gospel because we think it would be preferable, or at least more comfortable, if we could just find a nice math solution to our existential angst.

Camping’s complete misunderstanding of Jesus’ message is actually uncannily like Thomas’s…and like our own.

Jesus says, “‘I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ [And] Thomas said to him,  ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’”

It is like Thomas says…“But…but…wait a minute… I need an address. Google maps won’t give me directions unless I can type in a destination…”

We want to take the Numinous…the Great Mystery…the Ground of Being…and make it concrete, tangible...predictable. We want to take Christ’s expansively metaphorical words  and turn them into formulas for salvation.We want to take Christ’s invitation into a way of living and turn it into a roadmap to a heavenly destination. We want to set aside the promise that the end will come like a thief in the night and instead pretend that there is a hidden code, a secret knowledge that we can decipher, to pacify our fear of an unknown future.

But Jesus is not focusing on formula, date or destination. For, though we have heard the promise that Jesus has gone ‘to prepare a place’ for us used to paint a picture of a heavenly mansion far away, Jesus is far more concerned with a journey…now…and a relationship….here. In the end, his promise is – “Where I am, there you will be also.”

If you’ve ever asked a child boarding an airplane where they are going, I suspect it is less likely that you have been told: Miami…or Chicago…or Sioux Falls…and much more likely that you heard: Grandma and Grandpa’s…or Aunt Susie’s…or even, to see Mickey Mouse!

Journeys are to people, not so much to places, in the wisdom of childhood.

And, our journey is to God…and it is with God. And there lies a great mystery: we journey even as our destination is with us. For Christ is The Way…and he is also our home…our dwelling place. And we do not need to be whisked away from here to be with him…because he comes to be with us. We do not need a green line on the ground to follow to get to a safe future. We don’t need a divine GPS unit to find him…as if heaven were a geo-cache or an X on a treasure map. We do not need a mathematical equation for when God will save us.

We already have what we need for the journey because we are in Christ and he is in us… already and always in our midst… yet leading us forward in the transforming work of God.

But it is hard to trust something so abstract. The map, the directions…the equations…are security blankets we crave in lives full of betrayed trust and wrong turns. It is just as hard for us to embrace this mysterious way of journeying in God as it was for Thomas, Philip and the rest of the disciples… and as it is for Harold Camping.

Yet, today, Jesus says that he and the Father and we…We all dwell within one another already…right now…and that we can trust this without a maps or formulas or timelines.

Perhaps you already know a bit about the early Christian community, and the first name (as far as we know) that they gave themselves. We find it in the book of Acts.

And the name was just: The Way.

Imagine for a moment, if this life of faith is about journeying within the love of God… What does it look like to be a part of The Way? Does it look like a group of travelers talking, laughing together… breaking bread and sharing stories… helping one another up when we stumble… perhaps carrying those who are tired or sick? Even stopping together along the road, when some of us need to rest or to wait.

I know I have felt what it is to be on The Way this year at First English Lutheran Church: Certainly in worship each week, especially at those moments of passage in individual lives as we have gathered for baptisms, weddings, funerals…the milestones in our individuals journeys… and as we have come to the altar and font, where God meets us in the sacraments and pour grace into our lives and sends us out into mission. I’ve been on The Way with this community preparing meals for street youth on freezing nights… collecting donations of food for the food pantry and money for mosquito nets…in learning about the lives and work and relationships of this family of faith over beers at Octoberfest…and reflecting together in midweek worship services during Advent and Lent.

We are here encourage each other and welcome others into this journey, because we know that the journey is so rich… and we also know that there are days when things are hard and we are tired, and we will need each other…

And it is a sacred task we have: to be present for one another and to our community… to honor the joys and fears and needs and questions of one another… and to accept the love and care of others as the very love and care of God.

Knowing we are on The Way frees us from looking for boundaries… because you really can’t draw a line around a journey. Knowing we are on The Way frees us from the need for a destination, because we know that the journey is the most sacred part. Knowing we are on The Way frees us from the fear that we haven’t got it right, because – of course we haven’t! But that’s not the point. Knowing we are on The Way is knowing that God’s presence is not something we predict or wait for but something we live in. And, the journey will never take us beyond the bounds of love.

Timelines and destinations are out of our hands. But Christ promises us his presence…so, we are free to keep doing the kingdom’s work without fearing the future…

We can, like Martin Luther is thought to have said, plant an apple tree today, even if the world might end tomorrow…and we can leave the math to God.

We are safe, today, in the one who is the Way, Truth and Life...even as our journey moves forward from here…into an uncertain but promise-filled future.                                   

Amen.

The Lord be with you.

A sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, based on Luke 24:13-35. 

I wrote this sermon a year ago, at a time of transition for myself and many whom I love. It was a time when a story about being 'on the road' resonated deeply in our experience. Still journeying that road one year later, I find myself similarly excited, exhausted and apprehensive and offer these words to any fellow travelers who feel the same.

Jesus, himself, came near…and went with them.

And when they didn’t realize who he was…he walked with them. When the anxious, grieving, perplexed, and weary disciples couldn’t recognize their friend and teacher…their Messiah, who they had been told was raised…who was standing right beside them…Jesus walked with them.

When they didn’t understand his eloquent interpretation of the deuteronomistic history, of the prophets…when their minds and hearts were too distracted or too tired…he still walked with them.

Jesus lovingly walked with his disciples through their wilderness of grief and ignorance…with the same patience he showed during his ministry when, time and again, they missed the point, lost their faith or were too preoccupied with other concerns to recognize the coming kingdom.

Jesus walked faithfully with his fickle disciples…just as God walked faithfully with fickle Israel. Though they abandoned the covenant time and again…God stayed with them, and embraced them when they returned. After betraying their Deliverer to worship a more convenient idol of their own creation, God walked with them in their wilderness, leading them and feeding them. Even once they arrived in the Promised Land, when they abandoned the law, God stayed with them, sending them leaders and prophets…time and again…to help guide them back to faith.

And this same faithful and patient God, this same risen Lord Jesus, walks with us today when we are anxious, grieving, perplexed or weary…when we are preoccupied or miss the point...even when we are unfaithful. Jesus draws near to us time and again in water and word, bread and wine. Whatever road we are on…whether it leads to Emmaus, Chicago, El Paso, Detroit or a place that is still unknown…Jesus comes near to us wherever we are and walks with us…even when we can’t recognize him.

Jesus is walking with us now, in this Easter season, at the end of this academic year for some, near the end of an internship year for others…when many of us are weary or anxious…or both…

The Lord of the universe has come near to us now.

The Lord is with us. The Lord is with you. The Lord be with you.

The Lord be with you.

We hear these familiar words in worship every week, and we need to…I think because we can be so much like the disciples – oblivious to Christ’s presence among us… even though God comes near to us now just like God has been coming near for centuries…for millennia…for… forever. We should know to expect it by now, but we still need to be awoken, reminded and prepared to recognize our Lord walking among us. So we speak and hear these words.

But I think we also speak these words because we have been like the disciples in another way – startled when we have recognized Christ among us, amazed when we have seen the miraculous things that God has done. The Creator of the universe has broken in to time and space and met us…small as we are…and…sometimes…we notice. In those moments: when the words of a hymn or the creed catch in our throat, when we learn again how much we are loved in the embrace of a friend, when surprising violets by the sidewalk bring an unexpected smile to our lips…and when bread is placed in our hand and for a moment, we feel and taste what it means to receive the eternal One, who offers himself to us in love, time and again. In those moments, we want never to forget…never to return again to the cold loneliness of anxiety, distraction, and oblivion.

Even the disciples on the road felt this yearning…from within their clouded consciousness…They urged Jesus, the stranger, to stay with them that evening. And then they were caught by surprise, when Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it…and they saw him for who he was.

We are like the disciples, yearning to be awake to the presence of God, even when we don’t realize it. And these words of the greeting in worship call us to attention and proclaim God’s promised presence. The assembly gathers…time and again, and when we gather the presider speaks the words of the apostle Paul, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” And the assembly responds, “And also with you.”

These words are not a just an antiquated way to say hello or the rehearsal of some distant hope. They are a statement of faith, a statement of fact, a recitation of our community’s memory – spoken one to another because we deeply desire to be awake from our ignorance…to recognize our Lord.

So eager are we, that we echo this declaration again when we approach the table and font…we say “The Lord be with you.” “And also with you.” These words are a tap on the shoulder…a further reminder of what God has already done…time and again…so we might be astonished once more to find God walking among us today.

How, then, might we respond to these words – believing them to proclaim the very presence of Christ here and now? We might receive them with a gracious bow of reverence and gratitude, as if we know our Lord and King is here. We might receive them with just a gentle or eager smile, as we anticipate meeting Christ our beloved teacher and Savior. We might turn our attention to the table and the font, where God has promised to come to us in the sacraments. Or maybe we might even respond to these words by scanning the whole room…as if God might be in here anywhere…in anyone.

If we did this, perhaps we would find other times to exchange this greeting with one another beyond when we are gathered for worship. We can say these words at other times of gathering, like the beginning of classes and meetings. For isn’t God with us there? We could say them at other meals, remembering how we have been fed at God’s table and how we are invited to see God at the other tables in our lives. We might even say these words and remember our baptism and God’s presence in water…while we wash the dishes with a spouse or friend, as we water the vegetable garden, or when we start a water fight when we are out canoeing. We might say them anytime we are startled into seeing the Lord among us.

How amazing to have such a God...an Immanuel…a God with us…whose tent is pitched among us…who dwells with us…and walks with us…who walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, who journeyed with the Israelites in the pillar of cloud and flame…who walked with Shadrach, Meshack and Abednigo through the fiery furnace…who comes and dwells deeply with us, as one of us, in Christ…who continues to walk among us now.

The Lord walks with you. And the Lord walks with me. And we are all on different journeys, to be sure. And as each year comes and goes…separates us or brings us together again…as we are spread across the country…sometimes on new and as yet unknown roads…and sometimes on well-worn and familiar paths…

Yet these words are a dialogue, declared one to another…and this is not just to remind each one of us of God’s presence in our individual journeys…

When we say these words we are reminded not only that God walks with each of us, but that we walk with each other. The very shape of this proclamation is a covenant of community…If the Lord is with me and also with you, then we are together in the Lord…When we say these words we agree to be with one another, as God is with us. We are called into relationship with one another – bound together by sharing in the presence of God.

We may be like the disciples, yes, occasionally too preoccupied weary to recognize the God who comes among us day after day, year after year. But, just as God has come to us throughout history in astonishing ways and brought us to astonishing places – dry on the floor of the sea, fed in a barren desert, safe in a blazing fire, held in the very embrace of God in Christ  – so God continues to surprise us and walk with us to places we would never imagine. God comes among us - bathing and drowning us into new life in Baptism, reforming us as Christ’s body in the Meal…and sending us back on the road and into mission. And we have been given words to proclaim to one another…time and again…so we might be ever awake and aware...astonished to recognize that we have a God who walks with us along the road.

The Lord is with us.

The Lord is with you.

The Lord be with you.

Amen.

Peace be with you.

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, Year A – based on John 20:19-31.

“Peace be with you.”

Jesus appears among us today to say these very familiar words: “Peace be with you.” But what does this greeting from the risen Christ mean? It certainly stands in contrast to the mood of the scene Jesus enters: his disciples locked in their house and afraid.

We are all told, time and time again, from childhood onward, it seems – by the ones who love us… by parents or friends, and in our faith story by angels and by Jesus himself  – “Don’t be afraid.” Because we are so like the disciples so much of the time…trapped in fear and mistrust.

The most famous character of our gospel today has become the icon of mistrust… of faltering faith…of doubt. Poor Thomas gets a pretty bad rap.

But I’m not going to talk too much about Thomas – partly because pretty much every other character in this resurrection journey has their own doubts and their own need for proof…which makes me inclined to cut him some slack.  But, more than that, I think Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples in that locked-up house bears powerful implications for our life as followers of the risen Christ today… So, I think we’ll keep our focus on that room of fearful followers and on Jesus’ greeting of peace and what it appears to mean.

Most of us know what it is to try to build a barricade between ourselves and something we fear. When I thirteen, I was a big fan of the television program The X-Files (still am, actually). It was a smart and creepy kind of show with all sorts of monsters and mutants and conspiracies and mysteries. One episode featured a villain that could contort his body and fit into tiny spaces, making him able to enter and escape places without detection.

Now, I like to think I was a brave thirteen year old…but after that episode, when I got ready for bed…I admit… I locked my bedroom door. Then, I locked my windows…Then, I blockaded my closet door with my desk chair…closed the heating vents…and I opened every drawer in my dresser, desk and nightstand…before I crawled into bed.

Granted, that’s only funny because what I was scared of wasn’t real. What the disciples were afraid was all too real. The threat to their safety could, indeed, have been lurking just outside their locked door.

So, too, for us. There are things we fear, things we hide from…or wish we could hide from…and those things…well, they aren’t funny.

But, in the gospel today, we hear how our risen Lord and Savior walks right through the barricades we’ve put up, and appears in our places of fear and hiding: like a father who crawls all the way under the bed and empties out the closet to show his son that there are no monsters…and then sits with him until his breathing slows and he is safely sleeping; or, like a friend who comes over after a frantic 2 a.m. phone call…to keep heart-pounding sleeplessness at bay…and sit vigil through an anxious night. And, with Jesus, we don’t even need to cry out in fear or pick up the phone for him to come rushing to us. He just appears.

The appearance of Jesus in the disciples’ locked house makes me think of those pretty pastoral paintings…maybe you’ve seen or even owned one…It’s of a country cottage with a big wooden door, lit by lamplight in the dark of night…with Jesus gently knocking, just waiting to be let in…

Well, today…Jesus isn’t waiting for anyone to let him in. He just busts right through the door when we’re too afraid open up. And thank God he does.

It seems like Jesus is constantly meeting his friends and followers in their fear and doubt and distress in these chapters of John – and not just Thomas, for sure. He met Mary, weeping in the garden that morning…and when she didn’t recognize him, he called her by name.  He comes to the disciples, locked away in fear – apparently not comforted by Mary’s claim that she had just seen Jesus, back from the dead. And, when Thomas is late to enter the scene, yes…Jesus continues to show up and answer fear and doubt with his presence and peace.

His peace. Now, this is the really fun part…What is this peace about?

Jesus shows up in the middle of the cowering crowd of disciples…and says “Peace be with you.” He shows them his wounds, and they rejoice to see that it is really him… truly alive and with them again…

But then…Jesus does something a bit curious. He repeats himself. “Peace be with you,” and he this time elaborates: “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you...”

Read a certain way, I think it sounds like Jesus is repeating himself because he’s not sure the disciples heard him correctly the first time. It’s almost as if he wonders what they’re all still standing around for: “I said, ‘peace be with you’…I am sending you to keep doing the work the Father sent me to do…Do you get it?  ‘Peace be with you’ means ‘Go!’ Get out of here! I’m alive. You don’t have to be afraid…So, get on with it!” (I owe this interpretation to Vitor Westhelle, professor of Systematic Theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.)

Jesus comes to us where we are…when we fear, when we doubt, when we mistrust.  Locked doors and hearts don’t keep him out. Yes, he is patient with our slowness to catch on…but he shows up with the purpose of calling us out into the journey of faith and mission.

He breathes on the disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit, but this greeting of peace and gift of Spirit have a motion and direction. They are not meant to stay locked inside the doors of safety. They are not meant to be confined to what is comfortable.

Jesus has walked the way of the cross, has returned from death, has shown us his wounds. His peace and spirit meet us in our wounded-ness and fear now to heal and transform us, so that the wounded-ness and fear of the world might also be healed and transformed…and so we might be a part of it. We are Holy Spirit bearers now, too. We are not meant to stay locked up in fear or paralyzed in our wounds. Christ comes to us where we fear so we don’t have to stay there anymore!

And we hear echoes of this promise and this missional movement in worship every week. Soon, we will share the peace together, share Christ’s very words with one another, so we can come to Christ’s feast as a reconciled community. And once we have shared that meal, and been strengthened and made courageous by Christ’s presence with us and for us today, we will hear a word of peace again, but with a charge: “Go in peace. Serve the risen Lord”

One pastor I worked with jokingly said he preferred the idea of sending the assembly from worship by saying, “Go in peace. But GO!”

The going is key, you see. The serving is key, as well, of course…I mean, wouldn’t it be something if we were all so charged up about the work of the kingdom, that once we heard the words, “Go in peace,” we just bolted for the door…to get out there and start doing it?

So, as we hear Christ’s greeting of peace in that locked-up room and look on his wounds today, what might “Peace be with you” mean for us now? What are Christ’s peace and the Holy Spirit urging us to go and do?

Perhaps it is something as simple as writing a card to a friend or family member we haven’t seen for a long time. Or something a little less comfortable for some of us, like greeting someone begging on the street with a kind word and the offer of a shared meal instead of turning our eyes away. Perhaps it means donating ten dollars, or whatever amount we can afford, to the Lutheran Malaria Initiative for mosquito nets to help end malaria in Africa. As a congregation, can we be called beyond our comfort as a community…to keep discerning more and more how we can be Christ’s body in this city, even if it might mean doing something new or letting go of something old?

It is no small shift to move from a fear-filled locked-up room to such a courageous mission as this. But, that is what freedom in Christ allows us to do – be a part of the transformation we and this world need so desperately. Christ send us to others, just as surely as Christ comes to us and sends others to us.

More than anything, though, one thing is clear: Christ’s peace and the Holy Spirit are not about sitting still or staying put. They are on the move, and so are we.

So, as we have been gathered and nourished with God’s Word, let’s go now to be fed and encouraged at God’s table by the very presence of our risen Lord among us.

And then, in the peace of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit…Let’s get out of here! Let’s go in peace and serve our risen Lord!

Peace be with you!

Thanks be to God. Amen.