Gifts

Robert E. Hall Tarrytown United Methodist Church

April 11, 2010

Text: John 20: 19-31

It all happens on Easter, in John: appearance, the giving of the Spirit, the commissioning of the disciples.

GIFT OF PEACE

According to John, the Risen Christ said to them “Peace be with you.”

Not, “Where were you when the going got tough?”

Or, “What are you doing here with the doors locked?”

He said, “Shalom Alekem.

On the one hand, this greeting was commonly used by the Jews.  But here, in Jesus’ first words to the disciples after resurrection, it is more than “Good morning” or “Have a good one.”

Hearing these words, the disciples may have remembered Jesus’ long teaching session with them before he was crucified. It was the time he said to them, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts (your willing selves) be troubles, neither let them be afraid.” “Let them not…..” an interesting way of putting it.

What kind of peace does the world give?

At its best, peace can mean a cease fire. Or a good night’s sleep.  Or watching a sunset, or a sunrise. Nothing wrong with these. But peace as Christ meant it, was more than the absence of conflict, or a respite from the hurried life. It meant the heart, mind and soul content, at rest in the love of God.

“God will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus said. “

God will not abandon you, and neither will I: for the Father and I are one.

Live with confidence and inward courage as those who have been chosen for a special purpose: to embody in your life the love of God. Be peaceful as one who knows who they are. 

Be at peace because none of you are alone in this world: God has given you friends who are as close as blood kin, a team of fellow disciples who need you just as much as you need them.

It is this kind of peace that Jesus gives them.

One can imagine the disciples’ sighs of relief.  There is nothing for them to fear from Christ. Just the opposite: They, through the Holy Spirit (the Advocate, Counselor), are given the“enduring presence of Jesus:” This is the “well” of peace from which they drink.

It is a gift, this peace which passes understanding. When Jesus said “Peace be with you,” it was not like he said “I wish for you, that you are peaceful.” “It was a statement of fact, a declaration.” (Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John)

We present-day disciples have a hard time believing that peace is a gift. We want to make peace happen, for we mistakenly take peace to be something we can create by our own efforts. How many times have I heard would-be prophets say that the church will simply disappear if we don’t do this or that thing. Anxiety reigns supreme in the UMC.

Of course, some courses of action may be wiser than others, and we always want to use our ingenuity, our best hunches about what works, etc. But any organization that is caught up in worry about survival surely cannot be the kind of community anyone would want to join or support for long. Who wants to board a ship where the officers believe that the ship is going to sink?

To change the metaphor, “Play your game,” our coach would say to us. “You know how to break this full-court press. Do what you know. Don’t forget who you are. Play your game.” I know now that he was saying something much like Jesus told his disciples when he said “Peace be with you.”

Remember who you are and what I have taught you. Peace is a gift. Lasting community is a gift. If there is any action we should take, it is to position ourselves, prepare ourselves, put our lives the places where we can---- receive new inrushes of grace----grace which come to those who wait on the Lord. We shall, then, as Isaiah sang, “run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint.”

THE GIFT OF PURPOSE

But the Risen Lord is not giving peace to his disciples so that could, in his beloved world, merely “rest from their labors.” He commissions them---- gives them a common mission.

Their mission: to continue the Son’s mission. “Whoever sees me,” Jesus says, “sees the One who sent me.” And, “whoever sees you all, sees me.”The church is commissioned to make manifest the presence of Jesus.

He “breathes” on them!

(John’s is an earthy gospel, even though he can also fly high with metaphysical concepts such as “In the beginning was the Word….” Remember how he speaks of “living water,” and “light.” And “houses not made with hands?”)

As in the creation stories in Genesis, God in Christ Jesus forms up human beings (what beautiful poetics truth!) and then animates them by breathing life into them:

Jesus brings new life to the as-good-as-dead disciples. Specifically, the disciples are told to embody Christ’s mission of forgiveness.

 But they can do this only as Jesus’ life is breathed into them----which is to say,  only as they “receive the Holy Spirit,” which empowers them with wisdom, energy, humility, stick-to-itiveness, security, confidence, groundedness.

The power given is, literally, to loosen persons from captivity to self- and other destruction, so that they may know the life abundant, which Christ came to give to the whole earth.   Jesus also gives them the power to retain sins, a troublesome concept which has been cruelly applied through the centuries.

Translations differ. For example, Eugene Peterson translates this passage:

"If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?"

Whatever it means, it is a stretch to believe that it is the priest who has the power to offer forgiveness or to withhold forgiveness in the name of Christ.

It may have more to do with the community of faith living so close to each other that they can practice forgiveness----and they will know when forgiveness is not yet the loving response because the sister of brother does not seem to be ready to change at all.

We watch popular personalities get caught in sins and they confess, as then the pundits decide whether they are sincere and repentant enough---whether they said the right things and did they mean them.

Maybe also Jesus was saying that Christ’s followers cannot be thorough-going relativists.

We have to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.Jesus according to John, though he loved the world, had no illusions about darkness in people who would eagerly snuff out the light of hope.

There are practices in our world which the church must oppose, about which we must take our stand.

John Wesley made a list of evil practices which Methodist must not do----and there was a weekly check list, we now must have the courage to name and resist “evil, oppression and injustice in whatever forms they present themselves.” You have your list, which may not be the same as mine.

Surely these may make the list today:cruelty to people on the basis of religion or race or ethnicity, gender, age or any other difference; the exploitation of people for private gain;playing fast and loose with other people’s money; the destruction of innocent life; living in selfish isolation from and indifference to the common good; the recruitment of children into lives of trivial pursuits; our preoccupation with weaponry;our habit of being entertained by images of mayhem; ad hominem arguments by which the truth at hand is dismissed because someone has disqualified the speaker, demogougery posing as journalism or news;living lives irresponsibly with regard to our environment;these make my list of evils that must be opposed.

And surely the people of God cannot, in Christ’s name, be the agents of terrorism or violence against people. We follow a Master Teacher who not once took up the sword against those who opposed and mis-treated him. Our inner peace must result into peace-making lives.

One scholar’s reading of the power of retaining sins says that it is the “power and obligation to isolate, repel and negate evil and sin, a power given to Jesus and through him to the disciples.” (Brown)

But the dominant accent for the church, as it was for Jesus, is on telling the news that God is like

 the waiting father,  the good shepherd, the woman who searches the house for the lost coin.

The fact that some will turn away from this gift, will reject it outright, and Jesus, and the church----well, that is the mystery of to what is best for us.

Only let us not be a stumbling block to God’s bounteous love.

We can us love as Jesus taught us to do, without coercion, and respect the resistance to this love----and patiently laboring to communicate our truth. Thomas was not there the first time. He could not believe his fellow disciples’ news of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus invites him to touch his crucifixion wounds. (This Gospel is not for the squeamish!)

Jesus exhorts him: “Don't be unbelieving. Believe."  To which Thomas cries out, "My Master! My God!" Jesus turns to future disciples and says,  "So, you believe because you've seen with your own eyes. Even better blessings are in store for those who believe without seeing." (Peterson)

However we read John’s account of his appearance to his disciples, the truth conveyed is timeless: God through Christ breathes new life into us when we are hiding behind closed doors cowering in fear for our safety,  hiding from those who would destroy us. Lacking enduring peace, we are astonished when Christ breaks through to us.

This happens not just once in our lives but over and over again. We are given a heart-peace which passes understanding because it is not determined by external circumstances. Nothing can separate. And we are sent to be the agents of God’s peace in real, everyday life situations. Will we believe this instead this or be un-believing? Touching the wounds is not an option for us.

Maybe the only wounds which might convince us are the often invisible wounds of the Christians around us who have fought the good fight, finished the race, and bear in their bodies the marks of crucifixion. The risen crucified One lives on in people, and if we can believe it, peace can become the foundation on which we build our lives.

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