B Easter 2 BFC 2015
John 20:19-31
April 12, 2015
American
novelist and writer, Anne Lamott, is a prolific Facebook poster who turned 61
years old this past week. In reflecting
back on how she got from 47 to 61, she wrote down every single things she knows
as of today. In keeping with Lamott’s
style, much of her wisdom seems hard won, spoken with a sense of humor, and
laced with the language of faith. Here
are some of the things Anne Lamott knows of today:
o Almost
everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.
o There
is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of lasting way,
unless you are waiting for an organ. You
can’t buy, achieve, or date it. This is
the most horrible truth.
o Everyone
is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it
more or less together. They are much
more like you than you would believe. So
try not to compare your insides to their outsides. Also, you can’t save, fix, or rescue any of
them, or get any of them sober. But
radical self-care is quantum, and radiates out into the atmosphere, like a
little fresh air. It is a huge gift to
the world. When people respond by
saying, “Well, isn’t she full of herself,” smile obliquely, like Mona Lisa, and
make each of you a nice cup of tea.
o Faith:
Paul Tillich said the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. If I could
say one thing to our little Tea Party friends, it would be this.
Fundamentalism, in all its forms, is 90% of the reason the world is so
terrifying. 3% is the existence of snakes.
o Jesus;
Jesus would have even loved horrible, mealy-mouth self-obsessed you, as if you
were the only person on earth. But He would hope that you would perhaps pull
yourself together just the tiniest, tiniest bit--maybe have a little something
to eat, and a nap.
In
these words of Anne Lamott, we hear beautifully poetic ways of knowing that are
not about certainties and moralisms but a quality of life that is rich and full
and grace-filled. The character and
content of Jesus is non-judgmental and an offer for Sabbath rest in the midst
of a world that would have us working 24/7.
o Have
a little something to eat, and a nap.
o We
all find ourselves able to work again after we have been unplugged for a few
minutes.
In the same way, the resurrection
appearance we have from the Gospel of John this morning is more about affirming
a way of life than it is about asserting God’s power of life over death or
Christ’s authority over the grave. In
verses 30 and 31, there is a direct address to you, the reader, “But these
things (“these things” referencing the resurrection appearances of Jesus in the
Gospel of John) are written so that you may believe . . . . Now translating this as “believe” is what we
have heard forever and a day as the most important thing with Jesus. For too long we have translated the Greek
into the word “believe” as a way of saying that what is important is our
opinion about Jesus.
But
two things. First, the Greek word for “believe”
is better translated as “to be loyal to.”
In a world where John’s community, in the second and third century, is
being heavily persecuted by the Roman Emperor, this is not some otherworldly,
ethereal ask for intellectual belief.
This is the author of John relating resurrection appearances so that his
community might have loyalty to a way of life demonstrated by Jesus over and
against loyalty to a way of life sanctioned by Caesar.[1] The stakes are high. In the midst of tremendous persecution, the
author of the Gospel of John is trying to communicate courage to communities so
that they might keep on, keeping on with an alternative lifestyle that runs
counter to the principalities and powers.
The reader is being asked to make their everyday, ordinary life mean
something.
Secondly, in this context, the
resurrection appearance is being given to you, the reader, so that we might
continue to have loyalty to, might continue to have life. Using the traditional translation as
“belief”, the passage before us says, “through believing, you might have life
in his name.” Whatever the translation,
it is important that we know “belief” as not the be all, end all of the
passage. Even if we would translate
loyalty as belief, the author tells us that we are to know that through
believing we might have life in Christ’s name.[2] Life in Christ’s name is what matters.
Such stories pointedly ask then what
is the content and character of life as defined by Jesus. Within these stories is a certain statement
that life in Jesus’ name is something different, set apart from the wider
cultural narrative about life. As
Christians, I think that is the 64 million dollar question we have to ask
ourselves about our everyday, ordinary lives.
How is a life lived under the aegis of Jesus’ name all that different
from a life sponsored by Caesar?
The Gospel of John offers an
interesting paradox as to how we are to know Jesus. One writer in the Gospel of John, in keeping
with the Jewish story of the Exodus, says that we know, believe, have faith in,
have reason to give loyalty to Jesus through the signs and wonders he does. Just as Jews were to know, believe, have faith
in, have reason to give loyalty to God in the many signs and wonders did in
liberating them from Egypt, so Jesus, as the God-revealer, merited the same
devotion for his many signs and wonders.
At the same time, there is another writer in the Gospel of John who
basically says, “Do you really need all the signs and wonders to know, believe,
have faith in, give your loyalty to life in the name of Jesus? That is what we see in the story of doubting
Thomas. The disciples, with Thomas away,
have an experience of the Resurrected Christ.
Thomas seems to need the signs and wonders.
As I shared in last week’s Easter
Sunday sermon, resurrection was a common occurrence in 1st Century
Rome. Particularly for the Jewish
people, proclaiming that someone was resurrected was a way of saying that a
just and righteous Jew had suffered and died in an unjust world. So proclaiming resurrection was a way of
proclaiming that a person’s life, teaching, and ministry were just and righteous
in the ordinary, everyday world.
Hear in the story of “doubting Thomas”
the paradox of two traditions, three ways of knowing, all included in Scripture
to suggest that there is more than one way to know Jesus. Some of us need the signs and wonders. Others, like Thomas, need the empirical
evidence for the signs and wonders. But
there are still others who, for whatever reason the Scripture suggests, are
blessed to know Jesus without the signs and wonders or the empirical
evidence. “Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Do you
have loyalty to me because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet have come to have loyalty to me.’”
Now in the Gospel of John, the program
and message of Jesus is known by how he confronts the Domination System,
reveals the saving power of God through signs and wonders, and, in the end, how
he is culturally different from the Domination System by being on his knees
washing the disciples’ feet. But the
Scripture passage before us today makes it clear that there is more than one
way to know the content and character of Jesus.
That
seems to fly in the face of how Christianity is presented today. Today it would seem that the only way you can
know Jesus and honor his name is by believing in him and his signs and wonders. Showing loyalty to the program and practice
of Jesus in an everyday, ordinary way seems to run counter to the Christianity
that demands we believe in the signs and wonders. And I don’t want to totally dismiss the signs
and wonders. New Testament scholars,
Richard Rohrbaugh and Bruce Malina make it clear that ecstatic experiences or
alternate states of consciousness, like ones experienced by the disciples in
Jesus’ resurrection appearances are commonly accepted in 90% of the world. Rohrbaugh and Malina point out that people in
the U.S. who reference these experiences as irrational are in a very small
minority. And as long as I have been a
local church pastor, though I have not personally had such an experience, some
of the most lucid, healthy parishioners have related an experience they have
had with the presence of a deceased relative.
All
of this is to say that Scripture acknowledges multiple ways of knowing, the
paradox of knowing through signs and wonders, but also through empirical
evidence or sensory experience, as Thomas does, or through just knowing,
intuiting. Faith knowing allows for all
of these ways and probably several more.
Sometimes, we, as Christians, do not show ourselves to be all that
faithful when we insist that others come to know as we have known.
I
began this message with talking about the things that novelist and prolific
Facebook writer, Anne Lamott absolutely knew as she turned 61 this week. I end with another one of those things she
absolutely knows.
o All
truth is a paradox. Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift; and it is
impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It has been a very bad
match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It is so hard and
weird that we wonder if we are being punked. And it filled with heartbreaking
sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled
together.
o All
truth is a paradox. Grief, friends, time and tears will heal you. Tears will
bathe and baptize and hydrate you and the ground on which you walk. The first
thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy
ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know.
I
agree with Lamott in the sense that for people of faith the project with Jesus
is often not
knowing
with absolute certainty, but with a sense of wonder, taking off our shoes to
gaze at the world and know that we are standing on holy ground. Whether we gaze at the night sky and see the
signs and wonders of the Northern Lights, with our hands touch the deep pain
and grief of another, do the hard work of curiosity and intellectual investigation
through our brains, or simply intuiting or know down deep in our bones, they
are all legitimate ways to give our loyalty to a life lived in the risen
Christ.
It may be a paradox to know there are
so many different paths. But as Anne
Lamott reminds us, truth is often found in the paradox. In the end, it is about having the courage to
give your heart to life in Christ. Amen.
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