Easter 2
by Andy Oren

Last Sunday we celebrated Easter, the day of resurrection! We
heard first hand from Mary Magdalene of how she had encountered the
risen savior and how she had ran to tell the disciples who then followed
her to the empty tomb. And the disciples didn't really know what to make
of it for they did not encounter Jesus. All they had to go on was the
obvious fact that Jesus' body was gone and the word of a woman. In
essence, the disciples experienced not so much a resurrection as an
absence and just what it meant.well, they had no idea.

They had all scattered that night. Fled in fear for their lives
and rightly so having seen what had happened to Jesus. But now here is
Mary telling them that she had met Jesus. Was she that distraught? Had
she been hallucinating? Or.could it possibly be true? Did they dare hope
that it was true?

We talked about "Hope" last week in the sense that it may well
be what the world desires more than anything else. But there is a
downside to "hope", isn't there? When we hope, we open ourselves to
being hurt again.and some of us just can't bear the pain of another
hurt, another hope that melts away like last week's snowfall. 

Awhile ago one of my all-time favorite movies showed up on TV.
And yes, it's a black and white movie from the 1950s but hear me out.
It's called "Marty" and it stars Ernest Borgnine. Some of you might
remember him from the old "McHale's Navy" TV show or from his many
appearances as a clown in the Milwaukee circus parades over the years.
And if you can picture Ernest Borgnine in your mind you know that he is
not exactly leading man material. Now if you don't know who he is, just
picture a gorilla but with less hair!

Borgnine plays "Marty", a 34-year old butcher who lives with his
mother in New York City. He knows that he is far from handsome and he
has pretty much resigned himself to the fact that he is never going to
get married but will live out his days as a bachelor. There is a
powerful scene where Marty's mother is trying to persuade him to get
dressed up and go to the Stardust Ballroom in hopes of meeting a girl.
Marty angrily tells his mother that he has been hurt too many times and
he can't stand to go and be hurt anymore.

But Marty does get dressed up and he does go to the Stardust
Ballroom and there he meets Clara. Clara is a school teacher who herself
would never be mistaken for a beauty queen but they hit it off and you
just know that they really are going to live happily ever after.

But sometimes we can get so beaten up by life that we just don't
have any hope left in us. I read this week about Virginia. Virginia was
19 years old and pregnant when she went to live with her fifteenth set
of foster parents. Her case file read like a textbook example of
neglect, abuse and bureaucratic failure. She sat silently in a chair,
hands neatly folded, staring into her lap. The new foster parents had
been appraised of Virginia's "situation" and had been assured that the
placement would only be "temporary".

No one spoke until finally the foster mother said, "Are you
frightened, Virginia?" "Kinda," she replied without looking up. "I've
been in lots of homes." The sympathetic woman tried to reassure this
bewildered young mother-to-be saying, "Well, Let's hope this time it
turns out for the best." Virginia didn't even look up but her words will
go right to your heart for she replied, "It hurts too much to hope."

I don't know if we can imagine that kind of hopelessness. My
fear is that some of you can. I'm guessing this is a pretty good example
of the hopelessness that those disciples felt in the first days after
Jesus' death. This morning we heard again that wonderful story of Jesus'
return to the disciples in the locked upper room and also of his
subsequent encounter with Thomas.

Jackie Baumgart likes to say that "you never want to miss a
Sunday here at Faith because you never know what you will be missing!" I
like that way of thinking and some would say that Thomas is the patron
saint of people who miss worship only to learn later that they had
missed something wonderful. I don't know if that is true but we do know
that Thomas was not with the disciples the first time Jesus appeared to
them. 

We don't know where Thomas was. Maybe he had been late in
rejoining the group which seems to have slowly come back together,
meeting in the very room where they had shared a last meal with Jesus
just days ago. I imagine that one by one they had made their way there,
probably for lack of anywhere else to go. I also imagine there was much
rejoicing as each disciple made an appearance for they probably didn't
even know if anyone else had been arrested and killed by the Romans. 

I tend to picture Thomas as sort of a rough and tumble guy who
displayed less fear than some of the others. I'm guessing he might have
gone out to gather food for the group. Regardless, he wasn't with them
when suddenly Jesus appeared in their midst with the words, "Peace be
with you." You can only imagine the shock and fear that must have
gripped the disciples in this moment. But maybe Jesus' presence acted as
a sort of "peace" which flowed over those who were gathered there that
day. 

Jesus did not come with a simple greeting, which is what "Peace
be with you" really is. He came also with words of commissioning for he
said, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And then we are told
that Jesus breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you
forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins
of any, they are retained." And then he was gone.

Finally, Thomas does return and is told that he missed Jesus.
Well, he will have none of that and so a week later Jesus returns again
to this upper room and this time Thomas is there and we are privy to one
of the most powerful and moving scenes of all scripture. And it is a
scene where we could easily stand in for Thomas. Poor Thomas gets a bad
rap here for he seems to be forever linked as the quintessential
"doubter" yet I think we all know we would all have been of the same
mind as Thomas.

So it is to each of us that we hear Jesus say, "Do not doubt but
believe." Some of us who have come to faith later in our lives than
others might remember the exact moment when it all made sense and when
we realized that we truly did believe. It may have been the moment when
our own thoughts mirrored the words of Thomas."My Lord and my God!"

Jesus speaks again and again his words come right to us, "Have
you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet have come to believe."

Believe, believe what? What is it that we are supposed to
"believe"? What is it we are to take with us from this whole Easter
story? Jesus raised from the dead.good for Jesus.so what? What
difference does it make? What difference did it make for the disciples
and what difference does it make for us?

Well, obviously it made all the difference for the disciples for
we know that they left that upper room and seemingly left their fears
behind as well for they went out into that hostile world and preached
the good news and spread the teachings of Jesus to all who would listen.
Legend has it that Thomas was so transformed and inspired that he
literally took the gospel as far as India. We have the wonderful story
of Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian who then took the gospel to his
native land. But probably the scariest place to share the good news was
right there in Jerusalem which is exactly where Peter and John began to
preach. 

They quickly earned the wrath of the religious authorities and
were arrested and beaten and told to keep quiet but they persisted and
so they were arrested again and eventually brought before the same
Council that had condemned Jesus. Listen carefully to the words of the
Council's high priest; "We gave you strict orders not to teach in this
name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are
determined to bring this man's blood on us."

The content of what Peter and John were preaching was really of
far less concern to the Council than the possibility that these two
might turn the people against them and that they might somehow have
Jesus' murder pinned on them. It would seem that Pontius Pilate was not
the only one with a desire to wash his hands clean.

I can't help but draw a bit of a parallel between these
high-ranking religious authorities and the top executives at MSNBC and
CBS this past week who were "shocked.shocked I tell you" at the antics
of their own Don Imus. Some stains just can't be washed away that
simply.

But you want to talk about transformation? Listen to the
response of Peter and John as they face this Council."We must obey God
rather than any human authority." 

Today is "Tax Day", right? April 15th? Consider for a moment
those people, you hear about them every so often, those people who
refuse to pay that portion of their income tax that they believe is used
for military purposes. Now whether you agree with them or not, you have
to admire their courage in being willing to take a stand for what they
believe.     

What does it mean to obey God rather than any human authority?
Back in the news this past week was the late Pope Pius XII who led the
Catholic Church during World War II. There has always been controversy
about how much or how little he was willing to confront Adolph Hitler
and Nazi Germany. 

I think about people right here in Milwaukee who have been
arrested time and time again because of their peaceful protests at the
School of the Americas. What does it mean to obey God rather than any
human authority? Consider the powerful example of forgiveness that the
Amish community offered us in the aftermath of the horrific shootings in
Pennsylvania a little over a year ago.

This past week I received a packet of information from the
District Attorney's office having to do with the robbery that Jeanne and
I were victims of awhile ago. It seems that a young woman has been
charged as being the "getaway driver" and I have been invited to share
how this crime has affected me, not only monetary but emotionally and I
have also been given the opportunity to offer an opinion on what the
conditions of her sentence might be should she be convicted.

Would you consider me an idealistic fool if I asked the court to
be lenient and to do everything possible not to incarcerate this young
woman? I don't know.maybe that is foolish.or maybe it is offering the
possibility or another chance. That's sort of what Jesus gave
Thomas.another chance to believe. What does it mean to obey God rather
than any human authority?

As we ponder all these things we might remember a letter from
another John which we have to come to know as the Book of Revelation. We
heard its opening words earlier this morning. It's not a letter that we
quote from very often in the church these days but we'll hear more from
it in the weeks ahead. If you know anything about this letter you know
that it was written to seven churches who were all dealing with some
sort of struggle, some external and some internal. I always identify
with the church in Laodicea which John accuses of being "lukewarm" in
their faith. 

I say that because of the words directed at Peter and John by
the high Council, "You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching." We
have to, I believe, ask ourselves the question, what, if anything, have
we filled with our teaching? How are we witnesses to the resurrection
that we claim to believe in? How does the Holy Spirit live and move
within each one of us? 

No answers today folks. Just questions.so take those questions
out with you and consider what how you might respond to them. Notice
that I didn't say how you answer them. How we respond is what is most
important. Amen.

Let's pray,

O Great God who is and who was and who is to come, we bow before you
this day in awe of those disciples who even today life their faith in
visible and sometimes very dangerous ways. We ask your help, O God, as
we attempt in our own way to be faithful with what we've been given and
to be faithful with who we are and faithful to what we claim as our
beliefs. Guide us as we strive to witness our faith in an oftentimes
unbelieving and uncaring world. But never let us lose hope that Christ
will indeed come again for if we have eyes to see we would see him all
around us. Open our eyes Lord to see you. Amen.   

(Comments to Andy at aoren@wi.rr.com.)