Dylan's sermons

"Touching the Wounded Body of Christ in the World": Second Sunday of Easter, Year A

St. Martin's-in-the-Field Episcopal Church
Second Sunday of Easter, Year A; April 3, 2005
Genesis 8:6-16; 9:8-16; Psalm 111; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

There’s something that makes me want to chuckle whenever I hear John 20:24’s description of Thomas as the one “who was called ‘the twin,’” because let’s face it: who calls him that now? He’s got another nickname, by which he’s much better known among Christians today, and that’s “Doubting Thomas.”

I think that Thomas needs a better press agent, and I’m ready to apply for the job.

First off, I think the “Doubting” label is pretty unfair. Yes, Thomas wants to touch Jesus. But who wouldn’t? A lot of us feel that way. One of my favorite worship songs (the Wild Goose Worship Group's "Don't Tell Me of a Faith That Fears," from Love + Anger) has a chorus that goes like this:

I need to know that God is real
I need to know that Christ can feel
the need to touch and love and heal
the world including me

That experience of knowing – really knowing – that Christ is alive, still able to touch and love and heal, is something we want and need, especially when times are dark and uncertain. And for Jesus’ followers in this morning’s gospel, the times feel VERY uncertain.

They’ve had a terrifying series of experiences. They saw Jesus arrested and led away without resistance. The ones who were brave enough to watch saw him crucified. And then Peter and John saw that Jesus’ tomb was empty. This wouldn’t be a reassuring sight to someone living in the first-century Roman Empire. If anyone had seen them around the tomb, Jesus’ followers would have been suspected of grave robbery – a crime that carried a death sentence in first-century law.

Small wonder that, at the beginning of this morning’s gospel, Jesus’ followers are gathered secretly, behind locked doors, for fear of the Judean authorities. As possible grave robbers, they were suspected of a capital crime; as known followers of a man brazen enough to conduct a public demonstration in the Temple courts, in full view of the Roman garrison stationed there, the disciples would be considered highly dangerous to the peace of Rome, and to the Judean leaders Rome supported. So the question on the minds of Jesus’ followers is probably not so much “will we be next?” as it is, “how long do you think we can last?” So to reach them, breathe his spirit on them, and commission them to serve as agents of his forgiveness, Jesus has to come through the locked door behind which they’re all hiding.

Well, ALMOST all of them are hiding. One of them is not. Thomas is not with those cowering in the locked room when Jesus appears to them. And so Thomas doesn’t see Jesus, doesn’t experience Jesus’ breathing on his followers, doesn’t receive the commission the risen Jesus gives the others.

Does this mean that Thomas is less faithful than the other disciples? Not necessarily. In the appearance of the risen Jesus that Thomas misses, Jesus commissions his disciples to go out into the world, forgiving as he forgives. I like to think that Thomas wasn’t present to hear those words because he, unlike the others, was not locked inside in fear, but was already out there, in the world.

Thomas, the disciple who wants to touch Jesus, is onto something:

The path of discipleship isn’t a path of safety. Thomas gets that. Heck, he’s the guy who way back in chapter 11 of John says, “let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). Thomas knows that there are worse things than death – like maybe not ever really living at all. Because Thomas is not ruled by fear, he’s out there in the world, while the other disciples are hiding behind locked doors. Thomas doesn’t need to hear Jesus’ commission to the other disciples because he’s already out in the place where he can fulfill it. There’s a gorgeous passage in a short story by Sara Maitland ("Dragon Dreams," from Angel Maker) that I think of when I think of the kind of courage that I can almost imagine as Thomas’ words:

When [you] died I knew that there was no safety, anywhere, and I will not sacrifice to false gods. There is no safety, but there is wildness and joy, there is love and life within the danger. I love you. I want to be with you. ... I refuse to believe that we only get one chance. This letter is just a start. I am going to hunt you down now in all the lovely desolate places of the world. ... there I will be waiting for you. Please come. Please come soon.

There was danger out there, but the hope of seeing something else out there was stronger. So Thomas doesn’t need to hear Jesus’ commission to the other disciples because he’s already out in the place where he can fulfill it. He is ruled more by hope than by fear, and so he gets it. He knows that a disciple’s place is in the world.

And Thomas is onto something even more important:

The risen Jesus, the REAL Jesus, is the wounded Jesus. If you want to see the real Jesus, if you want to KNOW that Jesus is alive and at work in the world to touch and heal, look for the wounds. The wounds are the surest sign that this stranger is really the risen Christ. Seek them yourself, crying out with Thomas, “My lord and my God!” Thomas gets that. He gets that he’s going to know the risen Christ when he seeks to touch the wounded Christ. Maybe that truth also helps to ground him as he goes out into a dangerous world.

But there’s something about the report the other disciples give Thomas that seems to throw him off. Thomas starts with a presupposition that’s spot on: there is one Body of Christ. But he assumes that even in the life of the resurrection, there’s only one place or one way to see Jesus. If the other disciples saw Jesus, then Thomas missed his chance. If they received the Spirit in that encounter, then Thomas is left empty.

Not so. Thomas thinks that the unity of Christ’s body and the fact of Christ’s uniqueness means that the body he wants and needs to touch, the body of the risen Christ, is the body that had been nailed to the cross. But it’s not like that. Not any more. All of Christ’s followers can touch the wounded Body of Christ because Christ’s risen Body consists of every one of us – every baby, every grandmother, every teenager, every woman and man and child – who is in Christ has been baptized into the Body of Christ.

Every time we take someone’s hand as we exchange the Peace, we touch the risen, living Body of Christ.

A lot of us have had that experience here, at St. Martin’s. Around shared joys or tragedies, watching a row of women wearing goofy sunglasses on Joy Sunday to celebrate their surviving life-threatening illness, in a casserole in an hour of need from a friend or someone we barely know, in a moment of shared vulnerability in the Commit class or over a cup of coffee, we’ve seen and served the risen, wounded, triumphant Christ.

And the temptation, when we’ve seen Christ in one way, in one community, in one person or set of people, is to look for Christ only in those places. I think that’s why Jesus says, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Living things grow, and change. And the body of the risen Lord is changed and changing too. Discipleship is a moving target. Our mission in Christ is calling us out, into the world, to touch Christ’s wounds in brothers and sisters we haven’t yet met, but whose fellowship we share in the mystery of this table, and of the prayers of the saints.

But do you want to feel Christ’s presence even more deeply? Do you want to have an experience of God’s Spirit moving so deeply within you that every fiber and sinew inside wants to cry out, “My Lord and My God!”? Do you need to know that God is real? Do you need to know that Christ is alive, that sin and death itself are not the last word, but are passing away? Do you need to experience Christ’s presence? Do you want to touch Jesus, and KNOW that Jesus is really right there with you?

Then hear Jesus’ commission to those upon whom he breathes his spirit: you are being sent out, into the world, and specifically to the world’s brokenness. You are being sent to TOUCH those places, to proclaim and participate in the reconciliation and healing that is Christ’s work in the world. You are being sent because YOU -- each one of us about to gather at Jesus’ table here, and at every other table at which bread is being broken in remembrance of him -- are now the Body of Christ, Jesus’ presence at work in the world, called and empowered to do what he did, and more.

If we want to know that, if we want to experience that, we’ll have to leave the rooms we lock ourselves in because of fear. We need to do what Thomas did – step out from our locked rooms, our gated communities, into the world. We need to insist upon touching Christ’s wounds. When we try to sequester ourselves and our children away from the world’s pain, we are hiding them and ourselves from Christ’s wounds.

And the world is filled with wounded members of the Body of Christ. One million deaths every year, one child dead every thirty seconds, from MALARIA, a disease that can be prevented with a mosquito net costing two dollars and fifty cents. The life expectancy in Botswana is down to 30 years old. One in five people in the world survive – or don’t survive – on less than a dollar a day. One person in seven tries to stay alive without access to clean water. A child dies in extreme poverty every three seconds. 36.3% – over one third– of all the children in Baltimore City live below the poverty line.

So much death. Such deep wounds. And yet. And yet. AND YET.
This is Christ’s Body, given for the world. Christ is here among us, despite our locked doors and our security systems. And there is life, and peace, and POWER breathed upon us to do Christ’s work in the world, to carry Good News of resurrection throughout the world. In Christ and through Christ and with Christ, all of Creation is being redeemed, coming to new and abundant life.

What can one person do to heal the world’s wounds? I don’t know, if we’re talking about a hypothetical person, a stranger, nobody in particular. But I know what Jesus can do. We can read about the signs of Jesus’ power and how Jesus used that power in the Bible. But these signs were recorded not to provide us with something to read as we wait behind locked doors, but to inspire us to experience the life of the risen Christ by living as Christ’s Body in the world, touching, loving, healing, forgiving in Christ’s name and to Christ’s glory.

So let the gospel come alive
  in actions plain to see
  in imitation of the one
  whose love extends to me

 

I need to know that God is real
  I need to know that Christ can feel
  the need to touch and love and heal
  the world including me
-- "Don't Tell Me of a Faith That Fears"

The risen, living Body of Christ is in the world – breathing peace, bringing healing, and sending us forth, in love and in power. Thanks be to God!

"Fear Not, O Soil" - May 16, 2004

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C
Joel 2:21-27; Psalm 67; John 14:23-29

As you may remember, last week we had some excellent guest preachers, who chose as their subject Jesus' command to "love one another as I have loved you." What impressed me most about their sermon is how open they were in talking about the barriers and struggles they (and we) encounter trying to live into that command.

They're a tough act to follow, so I want to build on the important things -- the crucial things, the foundational things -- they said to us last week. Those things were crucial and foundational for those of us who want to follow Jesus because when Jesus says, "those who love me will keep my word," there’s a good chance that the word he is referring to specifically is the "new commandment" from last week's sermon, the commandment from John 13:34 to love others as Christ loves us. Last week's gospel told us that our love proclaims whose disciples we are; this week's gospel builds on that by saying that our love for others is how we experience God's love for us, and how we make where we live into God's house, God's home, the place where God's Spirit lives on earth.

Some of you have heard me talk about the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem. When Jesus was growing up, that was the place he was told was God's house, God's home, and he was told what made it possible for God's Spirit, God's holiness to be present there to an extent not possible any place else. Such a holy place had to be carefully guarded and protected. The conventional wisdom is that pure things are pure because they haven't come into contact with anything dirty. As soon as something dirty -- even something little -- penetrates into something that's clean, the dirtiness has spread, and the whole thing is dirty. For example, let's say I'm baking a cake for a special dinner. I've made the batter, and I pour it into the pan. Then I remember that I need to scoop out the catbox before the guests arrive, so I make my way to the bathroom where the catbox is, set down the cake pan next to the box, and start scooping the catbox. Just a little tiny piece of what I'm scooping from the catbox falls into the cake pan. Can I go ahead and bake the cake, and tell my guests that there's only one chunk from the catbox in the cake, so if they get the slice of cake with the cat-generated surprise in it, they can just pick it out, or let me know and they'll get a new slice? I don't think so; the minute the tiniest chunk from the catbox gets in the cake, the whole cake has to be thrown out. That's why not very many people would have the cake pan anywhere near the catbox. Pure things have to stay well away from dirty things to stay pure. If your hands are clean, you can't touch something dirty, or your hands will be dirty. So God's people guarded the purity of the Holy of Holies very carefully, because if the wrong sort of person, a dirty person, got in, the place wouldn't be clean. And God's house has to be clean, right? Conventional wisdom is that God's holiness, God's purity, means that God can't live in a place where impurity or sin dwells. Conventional religious wisdom in many quarters still says that if we take seriously that this is God’s house, if this is a place where God is to be at home, we must be very careful here to keep everything in its place – if we can’t keep the dirt outside where it belongs, at least we should make sure everyone knows just how dirty we think it is.

That’s conventional wisdom. But you know what's coming, don't you? How much does Jesus teach conventional wisdom? St. Paul puts it well: Christ's wisdom is foolishness to the world. The world says that you make a place clean by separating out the dirt, by keeping dirt in its place, in the flower beds outside. And I think some of our anxiety about dirt and what to do with it springs from our knowledge that we are dirt. We see others as dirty because they remind us of something in ourselves that we don't want to face. We have to make our boundaries between us and them, pure and impure, clear because we don't want others to think we're like those people, the ones who do those awful things. Those people are dirt; our hands are clean.

But God formed each and every one of us from the dirt; we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Each and every one of us –rich and poor, gay and heterosexual, black and brown and white, torturers and tortured, the virtuous and the wicked – all six of the people worldwide who might actually fall into either of those categories – and the vast teeming billions of us who are not virtuous or wicked, but neither and both of them at once – each and every one of us was formed of the same dirt. The same rain falls on each of us, and the same sun shines above us in the same sky. The same God blesses us with that sun and rain.

If the pew Bibles I’ve ordered were here, I’d ask you to open them right now to the end of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, so we could take a look at the demand Jesus makes there of those of us who presume to call ourselves Jesus’ followers. It’s one that sounds impossible: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Perfect? Doesn’t God know that we’re creatures of earth, that we’re dirt? But here’s how Jesus defines being perfect like God is perfect: it’s loving like God loves. Specifically, it’s about being every bit as indiscriminate as God is, in sending the same rain, the same sun, the same love and the same blessing on each and every one of us – and lest we start thinking that means, “each and every one of us good people,” Jesus specifically says, in Matthew 5:45, “on the righteous and the unrighteous.” If you want a “biblical morality,” that’s it.

But surely God doesn’t expect us not to discriminate between bad people, dirty people, and good people – people like us? God doesn’t, but if that’s not enough to tell us that such indiscriminate love and blessing is God’s will, then maybe we should take a moment to remember that in the biblical story, in our story as God’s people, we are not only all formed of the same dirt, but as humans we are all given life by the same Spirit, by God’s spirit breathed into the dust we are. That’s what Genesis tells us.

God's Spirit does not dwell in spotless temples of white marble, but in earthen vessels. The temple where God's Spirit dwells, the place where Christ and God the Father make their home on earth, is in the dirt. It's the Body of Christ. We don't need to get rid of the dirt to make Christ's home, to be Christ's Body, to build the temple; we need to love the dirt. Get rid of the dirt, and we’re not cleaning house; we’re driving God’s temple out of our church – the church we call ours when we forget that it’s God’s. The church we call ours when we forget that it is Christ’s Body, where our Baptismal Covenant obligates us to seek and serve Christ in all others.

This is in no way saying that we should take God's presence among us lightly, or that we can experience the fullness God wants for us without hard work done intentionally over a lifetime. But it's not the sort of work we might think. It's not trying to get rid of what's dirty, or trying to be different from those dirty people out there. It's the work of seeking out those we're tempted to think of as dirt, whoever that is, and loving them as Christ loves us. If we want to experience God's purity, we need to go out and make some mud pies. Because as we learn to love those who stretch our ability to love, we see the face of God. As we learn to love dirty people, we can recognize that we too are people of earth, of dirt, and we experience what we can't understand with worldly wisdom: God's holiness, God's purity does not flee from dirt, but requires it, as God's purity is pure love and forgiveness.

So Jesus’ word to us in today’s gospel is “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Don’t be afraid of getting dirty, of experiencing our shared human identity as creatures of earth. Or as our Old Testament reading says, "do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice!" Don’t worry about what will happen when we bestow our blessing as freely as God blesses us with sun and rain and the breath of life, of God’s Spirit. Open the doors of God's house WIDE. If we’re going to call this God’s house, we should invite every creature of earth to come in and join the feast. Don't fret about whether they'll track in the dirt from outside. And don't look for ways – especially not on the Lord’s Day – to make people ashamed of dirt. That’s not the Word Jesus asks us to keep. We are called as God’s people to proclaim God's word that God is in the midst of God's earthy people, and God's people shall never be put to shame.

Thanks be to God!