Tuesday, April 29, 2008

“The Heartbeat of God”

John 14:15-21, Acts 17:22-31
Sermon by Carrie Eikler
Easter 6

Last weekend I joined other Celtic music aficionados for a concert here in our sanctuary. On that blustery, rainy evening our church was warmed by the music of Phil and Pam Boulding, a harp and hammered dulcimer duo who largely played a variety of Irish music. With the occasional appearance of a penny whistle and a child’s accordion, the sound of strings filled the sanctuary and spilled out into the street. And as I listened I thought, what a wonderful beckoning to the neighborhood.

Now, I don’t know if I would have felt the same way if we were listening to a brass band, or a tuba and trombone duet, or an electric guitar and drum set, or even an organ concert. I think any music spilling into the world outside of the church can be a warm invitation…depending on your taste in music. But there is something particular to my musical taste that is especially stirred by music of the British Isles, of Ireland and Scotland and England. It could be because the thickest branches of my family tree originate from those islands. But more likely it could just be my musical make-up, the receptiveness of my spirit to music that is at once rowdy and tender, as well as mysterious and joyful.

And as the music washed over me, and the stirring of my spirit continued, I found the music conveying a truth about God to me that I can’t explain. Perhaps in a sense this is what God is to me—rowdy and tender, mysterious and joyful. Have you ever been stirred by the Spirit? Perhaps by music? Something deep within you clicks, or feels a union with God? Well that’s what I felt that evening, as I have many times before when listening to this type of music. And I found myself thinking, I could never preach a sermon that speaks about the essence of God, as much as this music makes me feel the essence of God.

Now this isn’t to be a critique or reflection on my sermon writing skills. I imagine as time goes by I’ll find better and fuller ways to convey the stirrings of the Spirit in our lives and in our world, but, Hallelujah! God can work in ways other than sermons! Hallelujah, the boundaries of our potential for meeting God are wide, so we may search, and even grope for God…so we might find God, the invitation given us today by the apostle Paul .

Well of course I didn’t get out of the concert without buying a new release. But we know a CD is never the same as a live performance. A CD can’t convey that stirring. It can try to recreate it, but generally it just helps us remember it. It can’t send vibrations through the air that touch the vibrations in our bodies, somehow connecting us with the music. So I’ve been playing that CD, reminding myself of all the places God hides; the places where the Spirit squats ready to surprise you with her rowdy tenderness; the places where Christ is just waiting to be found.

And as I was looking at the back of the CD at the list of songs, I noticed something in the bottom corner. There was an indicator for music stores that would sell the CD to help them know where to file it amidst all their other CDs. It said “Celtic (slash) New Age,” meaning they could either put it under a Celtic section, or a New Age section, or perhaps in some stores they are one in the same. I thought “how interesting” that Celtic and new age in some regards are synonymous. Admittedly, streams of Irish music have been reincarnated in forms that people would consider new age, sort of “airy” and “flighty”—people may think more of crystals and incense rather than pubs and fiddles when they hear some types of Irish music.

But what is so interesting to me is that Celtic traditions are so very “not new” –in fact Celtic traditions are ancient, going as far back and beyond our own Christian traditions. So perhaps, when we revive ancient ways of seeing and being, we consider it “new age” as in “new for this age.” I imagine it also doesn’t help that the traditions of Celtic cultures have been earth-based and creation-centered, therefore deemed pagan. I have seen a humorous T-shirt picturing Stonehenge, and underneath it says “Give me that Old-Time Religion.” This is probably the understanding of Celtic spirituality that many Westerners hold.

But to know the history of Christianity in the Western Isles, is to capture a unique and beautiful collection of traditions, both pre-Christian and Christian. A Christianity that developed far from the seat of religious power in Rome around the forth century, sought not to find God in sacraments and buildings, but in creation, in daily life, in relationship. J. Phillip Newell, a Church of Scotland minister said that instead of listening for the word of God through institutions, as the Roman Church came to exemplify, the ancient Celtic Christians, “listened for the heartbeat of God” all around them.

Our scriptures for this week epitomize an early Celtic Christian spirituality: “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in the Father… and you in me…, and I in you (John 14);

And as Paul conveys in our text from Acts: “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands…For in him we live and move and have our being.

At the heart of Celtic spirituality rests the belief that God really is in all things. It can’t be overlooked. God’s goodness is a piece of everything that moves…and all that does not move. God is in all that is beautiful and good. And God’s presence can be seen, if every so dimly, in what we consider ugly and evil. And it is to that extent, with the belief that God dwells in everything, that a Celtic theology enters faith with the willingness to wrestle with both the goodness and the capacity for destruction in the world and the human spirit. Yet even with this dilemma, the early Celtic Christians had a deep connection with the gospel of John, which they believed to speak of great openness, a huge capacity for goodness, and worshiped a Christ full of grace.

An ancient Celtic prayer: “There is no plant in the ground/ But is full of His virtue,/ There is no form in the strand/ but is full of His blessing/ Jesu! Jesu! Jesu!/ Jesu who ought to be praised.// There is no life in the sea,/ There is no creature in the river,/ There is naught in the firmament,/ But proclaims His goodness./ Jesu! Jesu! Jesu!/ Jesu who ought to be praised.// There is no bird on the wing,/ There is no star in the sky,/ There is nothing beneath the sun,/ But proclaims His goodness./ Jesu! Jesu! Jesu!// Jesu who ought to be prayed.” (qtd in Newell, J Phillip. The Heartbeat of God)

These prayers, passed orally from generation to generation began to disappear as the larger Church now based in Rome became more and more established in the Western Isles. Looking to create a monolithic faith, the Roman Church discouraged the ancient forms of worship and prayer. Those who practiced this form of Christianity--who put God’s power in the world, rather than a hierarchy--were punished. Perhaps it seemed too much like praying to the unknown God’s that Paul speaks of. If we heard these prayers today, I think a part of us would think these prayers were to the elements, to nature, to many different gods.

But what, I wonder, is more present to us than our breath? What is more tangible than the presence of another person? What is more constant than the sun and the moon, its rising and setting, its waxing and waning? This type of spirituality doesn’t worship these things, rather, it sees that God is the being on which everything rests, God is the Light within all light, God is at the heart of all life.

I think this part of our gospel message, and the message of the early Church, has been lost to us. Paul speaks “tongue-in-cheek” to the Athenians, sarcastically referencing their idolatry and buildings as “extremely religious.” I sense here, as I often observe in our traditions, the tendency for institutional religion to become confining, static, bound by duty and containing God into the proper places. Even binding God up in religious rhetoric that is used only to push forward a particular political ideology—God as some sort of method, a means to an end that has more to do with political and economic power rather than any love or grace.

I wonder what the difference is between a life that is “extremely religious,” and one where we are rooted in our faith that “in him we live and move and have our being?”

We might find it affects the patience we have with one another. We might find that we can’t go the long stretches that we often do without being in awe and thanksgiving for the way God presents Godself in the minutiae of life. We might find that every moment presented to us is an opportunity to feel the vibration of the spirit in how we choose to love another person, care for a patch of earth, or recognize the truth in a piece of music. It might mean that we can’t approach the real issues of suffering and evil in this world, without asking the hard questions of God’s presence.

And we might realize that our connection with God goes deeper than the words we give to it, or the worship we create can honor it. Yet sometimes we might be tempted, the more deeply we sense God working in the world, that there is no reason for anyone or anything else to enter into our spiritual path. Sometimes when we try to dwell more deeply in a relationship with God we will find ourselves moving into a puritanical sort of piety, an “extremely religious” life that looks to some world beyond us. I have a hunch however, that the more we listen for the heartbeat of God in all life, to live with the movement and breath of God, we find ourselves called to look more deeply into life, rather than away from it.

J. Phillip Newell, says the heartbeat of God can be heard most clearly when we find a way of weaving our personal spiritual paths, with the lifeblood other people seeking faith:

“Most of us will have the experience of walking to Church in the light of the morning or evening” Newell says, “and feel reluctant to leave the freshness of the wind or the colours of the sky to enter an enclosed building, sometimes terribly stifling or unimaginative in design. Sometimes we need not the busyness of a church but the solitude of a hill […] to be still and attentive to God. On the other hand, most of us have also experienced in the words, silence and sacraments of Church liturgy an opening of our inner vision, so that on our return home we see the elements of creation around us with fresh eyes.”

He continues, “In times of trouble and loneliness, have we not all drawn comfort from singing hymns and saying prayers in a congregation of men and women who, like us, have known temptation, loss and emptiness?”

“Occasionally it is not the open air or the church we desire, but both.” Newell recalls what he thinks is probably a universal type of memory. One evening on the Isle of Wright, [of the shore of Scotland] “[t]owards sunset, I was out walking, with open fields on one side and trees lining the path. The air was clear and calm and I was hearing the birds’ closing song for the day. For a long time I stood under a great pine, looking at its height and feeling its ancient life, aware that all was being enfolded by the sun’s last light. I did not have to move; I was alone. I could have had another ten minutes, but I chose to move and a minute later was standing in the chapel of Quarr Abbey listening to the monks chanting and allowing my prayers to rise with the incense. I knew that in two different ways I had experienced one continuous act of worship.” (Newell, 98)

Listening for the heartbeat of God calls us to slow and perceive the rhythms of our lives and world that burst with the stirrings of the spirit. It invites us into one continuous act of worship. It leads us to claim that God dwells within us and in God we move and breathe and have our being, no matter how much darkness obscures it.

I was reminded sharply of that fact after our Easter Sunrise Service. I drug myself out of bed early in the morning, and went about the tasks of gathering hymnals and setting up chairs at the park in the biting cold. Those of us who gathered stamped our feet until the time that we figured no one else was coming. We sang, I said some words, we prayed…it was cold. And when it was done, I found myself, just as hurriedly as I set up, taking down the chairs, tossing the hymnals in the car to take back to the church and get my breakfast dish ready for the potluck.

And as I began to pull out of the parking lot, I realized that I was the only one leaving. Most everyone there had gathered in little clusters, talking, all watching the sun rise over the hill. I felt a little ashamed, but mostly humbled. I stopped the car, hoping people hadn’t noticed how quickly I was about to leave and I joined the small group gathered there, and watched the sun rise, our warm breath mingling together in the cold air. I could see that I shared Cindy’s breath, that Sue shared my breath, that Cindy shared Sue’s breath. And we shared the living breath of the risen one, in whom we move and breathe and have our being.

**
My prayer I close for us this day comes from George MacLeod, a 20th century Scottish social reformer and priest who founded the ecumenical community of Iona, an island off the shores of Scotland.

“Almighty God…/Sun behind all suns,/ Soul behind all souls,.. /show to us in everything we touch/ and in everyone we meet/ the continued assurance of thy presence round us,/ lest ever we should think thee absent./ In all created things thou art there./ In every friend we have/ the sunshine of thy presence is shown forth./ In every enemy that seems to cross our path,/ thou art there within the cloud to challenge us to love./ Show to us the glory in the grey./ Awake for us thy presence in the very storm/ till all our joys are see as thee/ and all our trivial tasks emerge as priestly sacraments/ in the universal temple of thy love.”

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Truth of the Way to Life?

April 20, 2008
John 14: 1-14, I Peter 2: 1-10
sermon by Torin Eikler
Eastertide 5

In her book, The Misunderstood Jew, Amy-Jill Levine shares her vision of arriving at the Pearly gates. After getting in, a man behind her, holding his read-letter Bible objects to her being allowed in. Peter summons Jesus, and the man quotes from John’s gospel: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Jesus replies: "John does have me saying this." And then, he goes on to remind the gentleman of some particularly telling imagery about sheep and goats from Matthew 25. “I,” says Jesus, “get to choose who gets in, not you.”

AJ is an Orthodox Jew and a New Testament scholar. So, I suppose she may be able to come to this text with a little more humor and light-heartedness than many of us. The truth is … most of us have a conflicted relationship with this verse, living as we do in a thoroughly pluralistic world. On the one hand, we sense that this is the clearest, strongest confession of faith in the divine atoning nature of Jesus Christ to be found in the gospel of John (and perhaps in the whole of the New Testament). Jesus is indeed, as we believe and profess, the way and the truth and the life. On the other hand, many of us struggle to come to terms with the seemingly absolute judgment we sense in the claim that no one comes to the father except through Christ.

What about all those who lived and died before Jesus came to walk among us? What about the non-Christian we know or have heard of whose lives exemplify the teachings and model the example of Christ so much better than our own? At the risk of sounding cliché, what about people like Ghandi or the Dali Lama or others who have struggled toward justice through loving, compassionate means? Are they all consigned to the dry, withering of Hades or the burning lake of fire? Every time I read this passage, a part of me cringes because I am loathe to pass such a sentence on others who live good and worthy lives, yet I cannot get away from the voice of judgment that I hear in the text.

And it’s not just in the text. That voice has been standing in pulpits and mission stations, walking the floors of congresses and parliaments, and charging forward in battle for centuries; shouting threats, imprecations, and condemnation at the world. It still sounds in the teachings and doctrine of many (if not most) Christian denominations today. And, it echoes in our country’s domestic and foreign policy despite all claims that we support liberty, democracy, and freedom of religion.

It’s not hard to understand where this claim comes from even if it is hard for some of us to stomach. It’s right there in the text and not just in the text, in the read letters – in the words of Jesus himself. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” There is no question that Jesus is speaking of the God of Israel here. He was, after all, Jewish himself, and as far as I know, there are no biblical examples of Jesus referring to God by any other name. Taken together with images of scattered chaff, fruitless branches thrown in the fire, and tasteless salt thrown in with the manure, it all seems to add up. Those who do not follow Jesus will be cast aside and perhaps – as stated in the Core Beliefs, Disciplines, and Practices of the West Marva District – “confined to hell, which will ultimately be cast into the lake of fire forever.”


It seems so straightforward and still I struggle, as so many others do, to accept that reading. It doesn’t have the feel of the love and compassion that seems to pervade the gospel – to direct the mission, guide the ministry, and overflow through the relationships of Christ. Where is the endless love and mercy of God – a force so strong that it provoked the incarnation in order that we could come to the Father and find true life? What about those other verses: “I have other sheep not of this fold” (John 10:16), “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40), “You judge by human standards; I judge no one” (John 8:15), and “For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved?”

For some, these verses read in the light of the love shown by Christ are enough to throw out this verse and its implications completely. More often, I think, people moderate the flavor of its absoluteness. They claim that there truly is only one God and that all religions (at least those that enshrine the values of self-giving love and have moral systems more or less in line with ours) actually worship that same God. If that’s true, they say, then it would be better to understand Jesus’ words as referring only to his followers. So, Jesus is the way and the truth and the life for Christians and no Christian can come to the Father except through him. Others may find other paths to God through their own faith traditions.

Rabbi Sandy Sasso has written a children’s book called “In God’s Name” that shares this view in a fashion. (It seems that I keep turning to Jewish colleagues for wisdom this week!) Anyway, in this story, the people were caught up in a long-standing argument about the nature of God. Each of them gave God a name based on his or her own experience. So, the farmer calls God “Creator of Life,” the sculptor calls God “My Rock,” the father of a young child calls God “Father,” the lonely child calls God “Friend,” and so on.

Each time a new name was shared, everyone else began to argue, saying “Well, my name is better than your name. And my name is best, and your name is wrong." This went on for some time and the argument became bitter and divisive. Until… one day all the people had gathered at the edge of a lake that was as calm as a mirror. Each person who had a name for God looked at the others who had a different name. Then, they looked into God's mirror and saw their own faces and the faces of all the others. And they called out all their names for God - Source of Life, Creator of Light, Shepherd, Maker of Peace, My Rock, Healer, Redeemer, Ancient One, Comforter, Mother, Father, and Friend - all at the same time. At that moment, the people knew that all the names for God were good and no name was better than another. Then all at once, their voices came together and they called God One. Everyone listened, most of all God.

In some sense, I am more comfortable with this view. It fits with the ideas of personal freedom that I have grown up appreciating in our culture. And, it sits well with Christ’s teaching that we should not judge one another. And yet, there is something troubling in this too.

I believe that Jesus was the most truthful, complete revelation of God that humanity has ever known (at least since we stopped walking with God in the garden). I believe that the way Jesus lived and ministered – the way of living in the Realm of God – is the way that God wants us to follow. I believe that the new life to which we are invited and cajoled is the new life that Christ alone offers to humanity. So, how can there be other ways to the Father? … The part of me that wants to have all the loose ends tied up with a nice neat answer – that part of me struggles with the way this approach sort of leaves it all up in the air just as much as that other part chaffs at eternal and unequivocal condemnation.

And, perhaps that dualism is part of the problem. For me and for all of us who have been raised in Western cultures it is very easy to see things in absolutes. We also tend to focus on external facts and “scientific” answers. So, to our ears, it sounds like Jesus is talking about a marker – an absolute truth that we can use to judge people and divide them into two different groups. If this is the case, then we must either accept it or reject it. Either Jesus is the only litmus test for salvation and damnation – or – there is no real test at all. Even if we struggle to find some middle ground, we are still seeing two absolute poles and trying to put ourselves in a comfortable spot in between. Those from other cultural backgrounds do not necessarily come to the same conclusions.

Dr. A. B. Masilamini, a Baptist theologian of Indian descent, noted this difference in an address to a Missions conference at McMaster University in Canada. He said:

“One of the difficulties western Christians have with interpreting this scripture is that you hear words spoken to eastern ears with western sensibilities. Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.’ Your western ears hear Jesus saying that he is the only way to God, but that is not what he says. He is an eastern mind speaking to eastern minds. They hear the emphasis being on the Father (Abba). What Jesus is saying [as heard by eastern ears] is that he is the only way to come to know God in a personal relationship similar to that of a child to [his or her] “daddy.”

Dr. Masilamini went on to suggest that Christianity is the only religion that offers this particular view of God. Others that use the image of a father God are talking more about a position of power – God as the head of the household. Only Christianity understands our relationship with God as the intimate relationship of a daddy to child.

That is a new perspective for me. It is intriguing to think of Jesus coming as a human child so that humanity could come to know God as a loving and playful parent – be that a mommy or a daddy. And it fits with the Gail O’Day’s idea that the “I am” statements talk about how we know Jesus and God in our relationship with them as Carrie shared last week. Is it the answer? Is it the “right” interpretation of Jesus’ words? I don’t know. I’m not sure any of us can know the “right” answer since we only have a limited amount of understanding.

What I think we can say is that these words hold an important truth for us. Whether they are absolute or not, they tell us who and what Jesus is. He is the way and the truth and the life.

If I have lost you somewhere along the way in this sermon, that’s okay. But, hear the truth of these words. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, and that shapes who we are as Christians in every aspect of our being.

Our knowledge and image of God is molded by the teachings of Jesus as we come to understand them together in this community. The passion and compassion we feel for life is transformed by the living, loving water that Christ pours into our hearts, souls, and spirits. Our lives are shaped by the call to follow the way modeled by Jesus Christ as he walked and worked in the world.

As we embrace that truth – as it becomes more than just a statement faith for us – we begin to embody the way, the truth, and the life ourselves. Little by little we are shaped into the royal priesthood spoken of in First Peter. And, we become the father’s children – God’s own people chosen to follow lives of love in faithful obedience and to “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into [a] marvelous light.”


There is a lot of wisdom and understanding that can come from our conversations as we struggle together with difficult passages of scripture. Yet, we need to hold our convictions and each other lightly in the process because we do not have all the pieces of the puzzle. And, we must not let our disagreements, our frustrations, or our fascination with those challenging passages get in the way of growing in faith and love and following the life to which we have been called.

Sisters and brothers, let us strive to become the children of God, to embody more and more fully the way, the truth, and the life offered to all by Jesus, and to share the hope and joy we have found through the gracious promise fulfilled for us in the Christ who we follow.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Potlucking Alone

April 13, 2008
John 10:1-10, Acts 2:42-47
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Eastertide 4

Torin and I have a great picture from our honeymoon, when we meandered for a month around the hills and shores of Ireland. Before we entered the town of Doolin, a village that is well-known as the hub of traditional Irish music, we came across a car stopped at the side of the road. Its driver and passenger, as well as the occupants of an oncoming car which also stopped, were standing in the middle of the road taking pictures of three sheep, perched on a low stone fence. We rolled our eyes and scoffed: “tourists,” we muttered … as we ourselves got out of the car, to take a picture.

Now, if you would just look at the picture you would probably think it is one among many-- pictures of sheep in Ireland. But after I took the picture, I realized they weren’t just perched there for our viewing pleasure. They were anxious and agitated. And we realized why. On the other side of the road was the rest of the flock. We were blocking their reunion. The three sheep were huddled together, likely devising a plan on how to overcome this obstacle that has insinuated itself between them and the flock. When we realized what was going on, we herded ourselves into our cars to go on our way; our picture of the idyllic Irish pastoral scene secured. As Torin drove away I turned around to watch the sheep. When there was a safe distance between them and the offenders, the sheep bounded off the stone fence, one of them losing its footing and stumbling on its way down, quick to recover and reunite with the flock.

Two of our scriptures today focus on the image of sheep and the work of shepherding. The fourth Sunday of Easter is known throughout the church as Good Shepherd Sunday, with good reason. One of the earliest and favorite images painted by the first Christians was God as shepherd. It is also one of the most identifiable images of our faith. It’s appropriate during Eastertide, our season of celebration and welcoming, that we refamiliarize our relationship with our God, the Good Shepherd, the God of provision.

But lest we start getting too comfortable with the picturesque image of Jesus holding the sheep, John throws another image at us. Jesus is not just a shepherd. Jesus is a gate. “I tell you,” says Jesus, “I am the gate for the sheep…Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” Simultaneously, we are led, pushed, corralled by Jesus the shepherd, saying “Go that way, go that way, no not that way, this way” while also being beckoned by an open pathway telling us to “Come this way, come in here, come through this space I have created, here, I’ve marked it for you.”

Many of us forget that this imagery of John’s holds two distinct images. More often than not we focus on the image of Jesus the shepherd when we are looking to reconnect ourselves with the one who gives us provision…like on Good Shepherd Sunday. But we often overlook the image of the gate, it is often used as a sort of “open and shut” argument about Jesus and belief. But perhaps it is not so open and shut if we take the two of them together, and see what they tell us about Jesus.

Commentator Gail O’Day, a biblical scholar who has been guiding my “muddled” walk through John these past months, says this about these two images: “The images of Jesus as the gate and the good shepherd are intensely relational;” she says. “they have no meaning without the presence of the sheep. These “I am” statements do not simply reveal who Jesus is, but more specifically reveal who Jesus is in relationship to those who follow him… The identity of the community is determined by the shepherd’s relationship to it and its relationship to the shepherd…the shepherd, and the gate, are nothing without the sheep.” She concludes that this imagery drastically affects the making of the community to follow, “The community that gathers around Jesus are the ones who share in the mutual knowledge of God and Jesus, whose relationship to Jesus is modeled on Jesus’ relationship to God…By taking Jesus as its point of access to God, the community receives abundant life.” ( "Acts/John," New Interpreter's Bible Commentary, Nashville: Abington Press, 1995. p. 672)

A community of abundant life. I bet that’s what those first Christian communities were going after. Actually to be correct, we can’t quite call them Christian communities at this point. They are still deeply rooted in the Judaic traditions, yet deeply affected by Jesus. These aren’t Christian communities—no “Christian” churches, no “Christian” mass media or bookstores, no “Christian” charities, or seminaries, or Political Action Groups. They probably wouldn’t know what to make of us if they saw us Christians today. These instead are “Christ” communities, those who modeled their relationships on Jesus’ relationship with God, his relationship to the outsiders, his relationship with everyone around him. These Christ communities took Jesus and his life as their point of access to God, and they received abundant life. We have the “first glimpse of the community for which Jesus gave his life.”

“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” This gives us an indication of the mutual knowledge these Christ-communities took from the presence of Jesus. This type of living is what Jesus inspired in these people.

Worshipping, praising, eating together in homes, enjoying fellowship…distribution of wealth. The practice of lectio divina is an approach to reading a passage of scripture meditatively, allowing your mind and heart to dwell on a particular word or phrase that jumps at you. I have a feeling that this last descriptor of the Christ community would likely be the one that gets many of us: “they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

No searching for change in pockets, or writing a check based on the meticulously calculated amount that we talked and argued and compromised on at the beginning of the year. If we did like the first Christ community, we would be handing over our paychecks, our investments, anything of monetary worth.

And we would know the need of our brothers and sisters. The walls that we hide behind in our individual houses would be transparent. The smiles that we force ourselves to wear when we come to church so no one knows what is really going on in our lives would make way for tears and anguish. “What’s mine is yours” would be real.

But this is probably a little too rosy for many of us. Probably why it jumps out at us is the outrageous optimism. Our capitalist cynicism and invidualistic tendencies stop us dead in our tracks. It doesn’t help that this mutual sharing sounds like the idealistic roots of tyrannical systems such as the Soviet Union and China. We think of communism and socialism. And dismiss it as either a ideal without any real teeth, or an ideology that produces fangs.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian instrumental in the formation of Christian resistance to the fascism of Nazi Germany. He was eventually killed by the Nazis. In his book Life Together he explored the complexity and the importance of knitting together a divinely inspired Christian community. But he also recognized that it is not something that can be forced on people. It’s not a five-point checklist of things to do: worship together (check), eat together (check), give my money away (check).

Bonhoeffer recognizes the folly in a person who tries to force such community: “The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and god Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren and acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds [humanity] together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.”

Is what we are reading about in Acts a political prescription for a nation state? This isn’t billions of people. This is one, small, Christ community. I dwelled on this community for a while, and I came to terms many of my own reactions. I first recognized the absence of any one leader directing their interactions. I then felt inspired and excited about what this means for us. I then scoffed at the superb outrageousness that this could ever be practiced in this century…in this society. So I dwelled further with this community, this flock, and I found myself asking “where does it come from?” If a Christ-community can’t be imposed, how does it spring out from those who profess to be followers of Christ?

I think it might have to do with the responsibility, and the joyful task, the followers of Christ were given. If, as Gail O’Day suggests, Jesus is the access to God for these people, then we should ask about their motivation.

Perhaps you remember one of the last conversations Jesus had with members of the Christ community as told in the gospel of John. When he asked Simon Peter “do you love me…? He said to him, ‘Yes Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’”

If this message is what Jesus left burning in the hearts of the first Christ-community, if this is how they understood access to God, then their relationship with one another—their economic, and physical, and emotional mutual care—was a simple bi-product of how they saw the Good Shepherd tend the flock. Love for Christ translates into love for Christ’s community.

In our year with you, I have seen the many ways we are a community that strives to witness Christ’s love and justice to the world. Like the first Christ communities we are a unique blend of individuals and families who have been touched by the Christ message. We join on Sundays to worship, sing, pray, connect, and even potluck. And then we go our separate ways. Maybe we’ll see each other at a blanket circle, or a board meeting, or choir practice. But mostly we, and I include myself in this, prefer to explore our faithfulness in our private lives.

But the Christ community of Acts inspires me to reconsider my understanding of faith—it’s not all about my private practice of faith. It is the tending, the feeding of our flock that all of us are called to. It’s not one person’s responsibility but a collective endeavor. It could be that how we treat and care for one another is one of the first practices of faith we engage in and how we keep Christ moving in the world today.

In the insightful book entitled Bowling Alone (Simon and Schuster, 2000), Robert Putnam explores the how American society is becoming more and more disconnected with each other: disconnected from family, friends, neighborhoods, and even democratic structures.

His title comes from a study on bowling statistics which shows a decrease in the number of people bowling with friends and leagues, and the increase numbers of people bowling by themselves. It makes me wonder if we don’t see a similar trend in our church communities. Perhaps, we are more and more disconnected from each other. Perhaps, we are “potlucking alone.”

Putnam concludes the introduction to his book with the following story: “Before October 29, 1997, John Lambert and Andy Boschma knew each other only through their local bowling league at the Ypsi-Arbor Lanes in Ypsilanti, Michigan. [John], a sixty-four-year-old retired employee of the University of Michigan hospital, had been on a kidney transplant waiting list for three years when [Andy], a thirty-three-year-old accountant, learned casually of [John]'s need and unexpectedly approached him to offer to donate one of his own kidneys.

"Andy saw something in me that others didn't," said John. "When we were in the hospital Andy said to me, 'John, I really like you and have a lot of respect for you. I wouldn't hesitate to do this all over again.' I got choked up." Andy returned the feeling: "I obviously feel a kinship [with John]. I cared about him before, but now I'm really rooting for him." This moving story speaks for itself, but the photograph that accompanied this report in the Ann Arbor News reveals that in addition to their differences in profession and generation, Andy is white and John is African American. That they bowled together made all the difference.” Putnam concludes “In small ways like this -- and in larger ways, too -- we Americans need to reconnect with one another. That is the simple argument of this book.”

We aren’t called to recreate the first Christ community. But I do pray that we feel the same responsibility for our flock that Christ encouraged in his followers. In small ways like eating together, in large ways like giving of ourselves and our vulnerabilities and relinquishing some of our individual pride, we need to reconnect with one another. Is that the simple argument of our reading for today? Why don’t we talk about it…over a potluck, perhaps?

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Pastor’s Bookshelf

Living Simply with Children by Marie Sherlock

Members of our congregation have joined together in a monthly Simplicity Study Circle to examine and support one another on the quest for living more “simpler,” or more intentional, lives. We have had two meetings that have been very well attended, ranging from 10-15 participants.

Guiding our initial discussions is a unique book that may sound limited to certain people, but has wonderful activities for all families and individuals. Living Simply with Children is “A voluntary simplicity guide for moms, dads, and kids who want to reclaim the bliss of childhood and the joy of parenting.”

So why did I choose this book, when many of the participants don’t have children in the home anymore? Well, for one thing, the lessons they explore are applicable to anyone seeking to reprioritize their lives. Each person/family in our group is encouraged to create a list of Values and Visions. We live in a society that has contradictory values, notes Sherlock: “We drive around in gas-guzzling SUVs with ‘Save the Earth’ bumperstickers on them. We implore our kindergartners to share with others, yet the US ranks an abysmal twenty-first among the industrialized nations in the percentage of our national income earmarked for foreign assistance. We tell ourselves ‘beauty is only skin deep,’ that ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover,’ that it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Yet we buy showcase homes and cars and ensure that our families have the trendiest fashions and hairdos, the latest gadgets and toys. Our paradoxical nature is a recurring theme.”

Sherlock elaborates that the reasons we live such contradictory lifestyles is two-fold. First, we haven’t actually taken time to articulate what living a “full life” actually entails (or perhaps in terms of the faith community, a “faithful life”). Second, the values of our consumer culture are often diametrically opposed from our own.

Rabbi Harold Kushner notes, in his best seller When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough: “Ask the average person which is more important to him, making money or being devoted to his family, and virtually everyone will answer family without hesitation. But watch how the average person actually lives out his life. See where he really invests his time and energy, and he will give away the fact that he does not really live by what he says he believes.”

Through brainstorming our Values in order to create a Vision Statement for what is truly important to our families, we are striving to more clearly see what we put in our lives that clutter, complicate, and disconnect us from each other, as well as our God. If our lives are lived with intentionality--pursuing those things that value most to us--we can find that we can judge the extraneous elements with faithful and empowered discernment.

Wild Onions and Bluebells

A Pastoral Letter from Torin

Spring has sprung! The flowers are up and beautiful. Gardeners are dreaming of summer and autumn as they draw maps, prepare the soil, and sprout seeds. The disciplined have already mown the yard at least once while the rest of us watch the wild onions compete with the grass to see who can grow tallest. The birds are back in the trees singing us into mornings once again bright with the rising sun. All of life has woken up and is bright with the vigor of new growth.

I don’t know if it’s just the spring rush or if having been through one whole turning of the year in Morgantown has us feeling more settled, but I recently noticed that my life is filling up with things to do and people to meet. At the same time, the call of budding trees and blooming blue bells beckons me to spend more time out and about, admiring the beauty and appreciating the freshness of the air. All in all, time seems to be slipping away under the cover of everything that
“needs” to be done. And I wonder how it gets by me so quickly.

What happened to the space that I struggled so hard to carve out throughout the season of Lent? I know that in some ways we are past all of that and the somber meditation on repentance and sacrifice have been replaced by the joyful celebration of surprising new life. Still, I find that I am missing the time of quiet searching that was such an important part of my life during the past couple of months. And, I wonder why I have let it go.

I spoke about the Lenten fast in a sermon several weeks ago (months, perhaps), and I remember saying that it is not so much about self-denial as it is about carving out a hole in the day-to-day habits of our living so that we can find God. If that’s true, shouldn’t we hold onto that space instead filling it up with all of spring’s busy-ness which will become summer’s crazy schedule followed by everything that’s involved with a new school year, Thanksgiving, and Christmas? It is our habit to be busy. We have learned since we were little that busy-ness is our way of life. What else is the “Protestant work ethic” if not our heritage reminding us to keep busy? And, I wonder ….

I wonder if our habits, our culture, our heritage, and everything else that pushes us to keep going-going-going are actually excuses to retreat from God. It’s a bit scary to turn, meet God, and let ourselves be transformed by God’s touch. It’s not easy to stay before the one who made us wondering what will happen next. It’s hard, and it’s important. It’s how we keep in touch with God’s plan for the world and our part in it. It’s scary, and it’s wonder-full. Who knows what we will see, what we will be able to do if we stay there. And I wonder … what would happen if we did it? What would happen to us, and what would happen to the world through us?

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Go in Love

April 6, 2008
Matthew 18:10-22, Leviticus 19:13-18
Sermon by Torin Eikler
Eastertide 3

The 18th chapter of Matthew is an incredibly rich section of the gospel, and there are many sermons that could come from it. I probably wouldn’t be wrong to say that most of us have heard several on each one of the sections read today. And, it’s pretty unusual for us to hear them all together – partly because the lectionary guide that many pastors use separates them onto different weeks and partly because there is just so much to say about each of them. I think that is unfortunate, though, because when we read them together we find that they each inform each other. Looking at the whole, we can learn more about ourselves and about the way of loving relationship that is so important. Jesus taught this way of forgiveness and modeled it even as he died on the cross. And, as Children of God brought together in Christ, we are called to struggle toward that vision of caring unity even in the face of the disagreement and pain that grows out of our lives together.


Forgiveness …. That’s at the heart of it. We all know Jesus’ response to Peter’s question. How many times should we forgive another who sins against us? Seventy times seven. If you are a person who likes to have solid figures and clear goals – or if you just happen to be someone who likes to play with numbers, you will probably have done the math on this already. I’m sure that Mike Eisenstatt has already rechecked the work of earlier years as he listened to my conversation with the young people and could tell you that it always comes out the same – 490.

That’s the answer we first look for. When we are youngsters and first begin to listen to the scripture reading in church and pay attention to the sermon, it seems almost inevitable that we will figure that out. We pull out a pencil from the back of the pew in front of us and write the numbers on our bulletin or maybe the visitors’ card if we’ve already used our bulletins for something else. Let’s see, drop the zero down … now what was 7 x 7? 49. Wow… 490 times! I have to forgive my brother or sister 490 times. Let’s see…, how many times have I used up? There was that time last week … and there was yesterday … and this morning he teased me about my hair … and there was just a few minutes ago when she elbowed me when we came back to the pews. If we could actually remember all those little slights that we forgive, we would probably work through all 490 times pretty quickly even though it seems like such a big number. But that’s not really the point is it?

We know enough about the way Jesus lived and taught to know that he was not such a black-and-white person. He didn’t stick to the letter of the law and while he might have been a math person, his was an arithmetic of abundance – five loaves and two fishes in his mind was more than enough to feed thousands with a feast left over. No, when Jesus heard the youngster in Peter thinking in black and white and asking for permission to set up running totals for each of his brothers and sisters, he said, “No, Peter. Forgiveness is not about the numbers. It goes deeper than that.”

Forgiveness, of course, does go deeper than the numbers. It even goes deeper than accepting an apology or looking past all the little slights, the impoliteness, the lack of consideration. Those acts aren’t really forgiveness, or perhaps they are in some small way and they’re practice for the really big and really difficult times. Forgiveness goes all the way down to the pain and the brokenness of sin. It reaches for reconciliation and wholeness both between people and within each of us. And it’s work, hard work.

It’s a struggle to bridge the gap we create between and within ourselves when we are hurt by the sin of another or by our own. What do we do when we have been hurt so deeply? I can’t speak for any of you, but I run away. I curl up around the pain and hide. I wait … I wait behind the hard spines of the strongest defenses I can muster until that other person comes under a white flag to apologize. Sometimes I wait even longer because how can I trust that this is a genuine truce and not some trick.

But that is not the way of Christ. It makes sense. It makes sense with everything that I have been taught by history, by war movies, by games like Risk where only one person can win and my enemy is only my friend until our common enemy is beaten. It makes sense with everything I learned from life with my brothers and playground machinations. It makes sense strategically and it makes sense viscerally. But it is not the way of Christ.

Haven’t we just heard that? Isn’t that what sparks Peter’s question? Doesn’t the gospel writer tell us that Jesus teaches that when another sins against us, we should go to them – not wait for them to come to us. We should go to them and point out the fault. And we should do that by ourselves. There is no waiting until the other comes to us. Jesus teaches a different way – a way of vulnerability. And to follow that way, we have to leave behind the protective walls we have thrown up. We have to put away the weapons we have sharpened so that we can return the favor when next we see the offender. We have to go, despite our injury, and seek out the friend, the lover, the brother or sister who seems now to be the enemy. We have to find them and lay open our pain before them in the hope that they will listen to us, that they will see the wound – see it and recognize that it is also their wound and their pain.

When it works, it is wonderful. We find the wound healing in a way that strengthens both of us and the love that hold us together. But what about when it doesn’t work? What if they refuse to listen – refuse to see? Then we get to run and hide, right? Nope. You know the process. You’ve heard it many times before and if you haven’t, you heard it once today already. If they don’t listen to you, you take two or three people who witnessed the sin. Not to take your side or to protect you, mind. But to witness. To tell what they saw, to watch what happens, and perhaps to bring a greater level of awareness and restraint by their presence. If that doesn’t work, you bring the whole church. And, if that doesn’t work, you treat them as you would a tax collector or a gentile.

Finally, we get a break. Finally, we are allowed to shun the offender. To let go of them. We have done our best – gone beyond what anyone would say is the call of duty. It’s time to kick them out so that they don’t become a bad influence or a stumbling block to those who would follow the way of Christ. They have well and truly made themselves the enemies of the faithful.

Now you all probably know what’s coming, right? Let me just confirm your suspicions with a few questions. How did Jesus treat gentiles and tax collectors? Wasn’t Matthew, himself, a tax collector? For whom did Christ ask forgiveness on the cross?


Forgiveness goes beyond the numbers, remember?


Some of you may know the name of Suezann Bosler and perhaps even know her story, but it is worth repeating.

Suezann’s father Billy was a Church of the Brethren pastor serving in the Miami First Church. In 1986, he and Suezann were in the church parsonage when a 20-year old man came rang the doorbell. Billy answered the door and without any conversation, the man – James Campbell – began to stab him repeatedly – 24 times in all. During the attack, Suezann came to the door and was also stabbed six times in the head and in the back before leaving them both for dead.

Billy died of his injuries, but Suezann survived. With her help, the man was convicted and sentenced to death. But that was not what Suezann wanted. Despite the pain of her own injuries and the greater suffering she felt at the loss of her father, she chose the path of peace, forgiving Mr. Campbell and working to have the death sentence overturned.

Ten years later, she finally had the chance to testify before a jury that would decide the ultimate fate of the man who had killed her father, and she shared her belief in the sanctity of life and her desire that the cycle of violence end with that day in 1986. The jury decided - largely on the strength of her testimony and the power of her story of forgiveness – to commute the death sentence, giving James a third life sentence instead.

Suezann has spoken many times about the joy, peace, and freedom she felt both when she was able to forgive James Campbell and when his life was spared. She has gone on to found an organization called Journey of Hope that supports others who struggle to find the way of forgiveness in the wake of similar experiences.


I hope that none of us will ever find ourselves in a position as difficult and painful as that. But, I think we all have faced or will face situations in which there seems to be no hope of reconciliation. When a brother or sister will not hear us despite our very best efforts, what are we to do? Perhaps this is what forgiveness is really about. Perhaps, it is about finding a way to create wholeness and reconciliation in the face of callousness or even in the face of continued hostility. That is hard to do. It may be the hardest thing to do that I know of. How can we hold ourselves open to others so deeply when it promises so much pain?


I think the answer – the only thing that I can think of that can give us the strength and the desire to struggle with forgiveness on that level – is love. And it's love that respects and cherishes the other person for who and what they are, for the potential they hold in the very uniqueness that may have led the pain and brokenness we have experienced.

When that one lamb is lost and the shepherd leaves the others behind to find it and restore it to the flock, she goes because she cherishes that lamb. And, she doesn’t try to force it to become just like the others because she knows and loves each one in all its particularity. If that sheep wandered off the next day, she would search for it again. She would bring it back to the flock so that the flock would be whole again, for without each one of the hundred, something is missing. And she would not change it because on with the unique presence of each of those particular sheep can the flock be complete and whole.

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin….
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people,
but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

That is the commandment. It’s not about the numbers. It’s not about bringing everyone else around to our point of view – or even getting one person to agree with the rest of the congregation. It’s about love. Forgiveness and reconciliation are about loving our neighbors – all our brothers and sisters in the family of God – for who and what they are. And that love prompts us to go to the other when we feel pain and brokenness and seek reconciliation. It compels us to reach out to the one we are separated from with the weakness and the power of forgiveness. We must go because without reconciliation we cannot be whole and without forgiveness we cannot find peace.

We must go, and we must go in love.

Season of Open Doors

March 30, 2008
John 20:18-31, Acts 2: 14, 22-32
Sermon by Carrie Eikler
Eastertide 2

As many of you know earlier this month we welcomed Mary Beth Lind as a speaker at our second Just Foods Potluck. We had a wonderful turn out of about fifty people, half of whom were community members, and not in any real way affiliated with our congregation. I’m sure that what drew them most intensely to our little shin dig was the promise of fantastic food that our congregation is known to provide, the quality of potluck that is unsurpassed by any church. But I’m sure it also had to do with the fact that we had one of the authors of a very popular cookbook stopping by to talk with us.

Mary Beth and the Simply in Season cookbook has made a big splash, and not just in Mennonite and Brethren circles, but in the wider world as well. In the face of global food crises and in a society that is more and more disconnected with our food and the earth which provides it, this cookbook brings us back to the joys, and perhaps extreme importance, of eating what is in available to us in season. Seasonal eating, as it is called, is one more step towards a more sustainable way of living and consuming. When we recognize what is available to us in each season, the bounty of the earth tastes fresher, sweeter, and more like home. It’s the difference between a sweet as sunshine strawberry picked by your own hands at the Yoder’s Farm, and one that is trucked in from Mexico in the middle of winter.

In the past few years I have been very much interested in incorporating the rhythms of the season into my life. And I’ve found that this affects me beyond simply the foods I eat. Spiritually, I have found a fulfilling practice in allowing the seasons of our Christian year move me through the calendar year with a renewed and heightened sense of participation in our faith story.

Now, Anabaptist congregations such as COB and Mennonites aren’t the best at observing the seasons of the Christian calendar. Sure, we have Christmas and Easter, but other than that, the idea of the liturgical calendar has generally been seen as “high” church talk, something we leave to the Catholics and Episcopalians, and yes, even the Methodists are high church compared to us. But if you are like me, I find it way too easy to go by, year after year, Sunday after Sunday, sermon after sermon (whether giving the sermon or listening to one), with no real coherence to my spiritual path. It’s easy to get excited about Christmas…to be surprised by Easter when it comes early, and then go on with the hum drum life of my Christian walk—applying Christ-like social justice ethics here, dabbling in a little forgiveness there, being earnest in prayer (for a while), finding inspiration in a certain book or speaker and being really motivated… until the reality of what true discipleship might really mean and I decide I’d rather take a nap.

In response to my all-too-embraceable spiritual laziness, I found that dwelling on the seasons of the Christian calendar—the liturgical calendar—as a way to help me look more deeply at the themes and realities of our faith and lay them alongside the deeper yearnings of my heart, and themes of my life.

So in Advent we explore how we watch and wait in anticipation for the coming of the promised one, and dwelling with the places in our lives that we see, or we desire, for Emmanuel—for God with us. We have just come out of the season of Lent—a season of confession and preparation. For forty days we look at the temptations, the weakness, the wounded parts of our lives and hold them out to God, to ask for transformation, and to have the Hallelujahs on our lips as we recognize that the power of Christ is “greater than all our sins.”

But the seasons don’t just end with Easter. With the joyful, and let’s face it, terrifying reality that the tomb is empty, we enter into the season of Eastertide. From now until Pentecost, a fifty-day whirlwind of adventure, we enter into the charge of the messenger sitting at the empty tomb to “go and tell!” It’s a celebratory time: a time of telling stories; of celebrating life over death; of inviting new members into the church family; of exploring together, like the first Christian community did 2,000 years ago the joyful mystery that comes when our lives encounter the risen Christ.

In essence, this next fifty days is a season of welcoming and wondering. And while we always welcome, and we always wonder about our faith, perhaps this is the ripest time of the year to engage the mystery. Mystery is to Eastertide like that sweet-as-sunshine strawberry is to spring.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m giving a rosy complexion to a season that is just beginning. And let’s face it, it probably felt a lot different being there and letting the story unfold to you…with you…than it is for us to hear it, again, for the umpteenth time. This story, the story of the community’s encounter with the risen Christ, started not with celebratory whoops and hollers, as we might make it seem to be on Easter morning. Rather it started as a group huddled in a room, behind locked doors, terrified.

We see the followers of Jesus hiding out, fearful that what happened to Jesus might just happen to them. Perhaps, they were even a bit scared that Jesus who had been stone cold dead, was now walking around, not dead, but…was he really alive? If these followers had access to the zombie type movies we have today, I can just imagine what they might be thinking of the possibility of this “undead” savior they had been following. But then, they had been witnesses to the dead rising into life through the power of Jesus’ healing. Is this what was going one? Is this another Lazarus?

And in their pain and fear and probably in their disbelief that Jesus had died or risen for the dead—both were probably unthinkable to them—they have been kicking themselves for investing so much in this messiah that died and left them. And yet, even in this pain, Jesus opened the door to that room and came to them. In fact, we don’t know if Jesus even opened the door, but as we read, it appears as if he just bypassed the door, appearing among them in spite of locks and heavy wood.

But poor Thomas, he wasn’t there with all the others when they felt a bit skeptical. After all, Jesus showed them his hands and feet, the blood, the marks. We’re told that Mary Magdalene told the disciples about meeting Jesus, but they don’t seem convinced. It took a little convincing on Jesus’ part for them to believe. Thomas was just a little behind and somehow gets the brunt of all our criticism.

And knowing what Thomas needs for faith, Jesus grants it to him generously, saying ‘here are my hands. Here is my flesh. Go ahead touch it, reach out in your wonderings and touch the living body. If you need more, I can give you more.’ Somehow we take these words as Jesus trying to shame Thomas, and we make this entire story about him, his doubting… poor “Doubting Thomas.”

I appreciated reading commentator Gail O’Day’s take on this scripture. She says: ‘At the heart of this story is Jesus’ generous offer of himself to Thomas….To focus so negatively on Thomas’s doubt…is to miss the point of this story. The center of this story is Jesus, not Thomas….Thomas had established the conditions for his faith: He must be allowed to touch Jesus’ wounds. The [Jesus that is in the gospel of John] does not censure Thomas for these conditions, but instead makes available to him exactly what he needs for faith….Thomas’s faith is more important than the grounds of his faith.” In other words, Jesus will give what is needed in order to restore Thomas’s faith, no matter how that happens. Even if it has to go through the rocky terrain of unbelief. Even if it means there is doubt. Even if it takes a little convincing.

But what really tugs at me with this scripture, thinking about standing at the beginning of this season of welcoming and wondering, this season of opening doors to the risen Christ, is that Jesus came through the door into a room full of pain. Pain is the greatest instigator for protection that I have ever experienced, and protecting oneself from even more pain seems to be a universal trait of humanity. I can imagine that Thomas likely had pain. I have to wonder, would I be so quick to believe that Jesus was really alive? We know the truth in this. We have all had experiences where we have loved and “lost” whether through death, or a break-up with a romantic partner, or a friendship gone sour. No doubt we want to protect ourselves from being hurt again.

And often it might be the knock on the door we fear. The knock that brings the police officer saying there has been an accident. The knock that brings a sober messenger saying a roadside bomb has taken the life of your son or daughter. The knock that brings the representative from the bank saying your house will be foreclosed. The knock that brings someone, anyone, saying “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but…” Never answer that door. Bar it up, lock it tight, turn the radio up so you don’t hear the doorbell. It seems only natural, doesn’t it?

I was deeply moved the other week as I listened to one of my favorite Public Radio programs, called “Speaking of Faith.” On this particular week, the show’s host Krista Tippett sat down with an Israeli woman named Robi Damelin, and a Palestinian man named Ali Abu Awaad. Robi was described as in her “early 60s, beautiful and tough.” Ali, a “young man in his 30s, wry, and slightly on guard.” At first glance it seems like these two would have nothing in common. In fact, given their demographics, we would likely pit them against one another as inherent enemies. But that is far from the case.

Robi and Ali have spent a good deal of time together and have forged a deep relationship because they have both been victims of deep pain. Robi lost her son David to a Palestinian sniper; Ali’s brother, Yousef, was killed by an Israeli soldier. Together they are part of a citizen-led movement called “Parent Forum—Bereaved Families Circle” a group of people who've lost loved ones on each side of violence in the Holy Land. Through their interaction they came to know each other's humanity and they find that by knowing the other’s humanity allows for empathy to dwell with the each other’s situation--not only personal situation dealing with the death of their family members, but the historical and political situations of being an Israeli and Palestinian. It is in this creation of empathy that Robi and Ali believe a different way forward is manifest

Part of the work of these two, as Robi puts it, is to take away the stigma that each side has about the other, a force that is fueled by media, not by the personal relationships between the two sides. She said: “You know, it's much more sexy to have an extremist screaming at the top of a mountain about a greater Israel or to have the mother of a suicide bomber saying she's proud to have given her child…. But I can tell you that all of these mothers who've lost children — I don't care what they say to the media, I know what happens to them at night when they go to bed. We all share the same pain. If I can give any kind of clarity about what we're doing and why we do that, the personal narrative of a human being is the way to create empathy on the other side.”

Ali shared his perspective on the power of approaching the pain of another person: “Sometimes I've been stopped at the checkpoint for three or four hours, and I'm asking myself, 'How can I hold in that?' But there is something pushing you after you know the other side. You don't have to love the Israelis to make peace with them… And I think…we share each other pain — there is two way, you know, to deal with the pain. Either to throw it to the other side by joining the [in the violence], or to give it to the other side. We are giving of our part in our pain, and asking from them justice… If you want to be right, it's very easy. I'm right. I live under occupation, I have the right to react back and I have the right to join the revolution, and so on, so…” ”But to be honest, it's very difficult.” he continues “Nobody want[s] to be honest. Everybody want[s] to be right, and this is the problem. Being honest, it means not [giving] up. Being honest, it means to being a human….”

The consensus of these two unlikely friends, is that to be human is to feel pain, and through that pain, you can touch the places and the people that you would never expect, even your enemy. Especially your enemy. Maybe even the enemy that you are protecting yourself from, huddled behind locked doors, waiting for the knock, or waiting for the door to get kicked in. And somehow, without the turning of the knob, the mysterious presence of Christ comes into your room, your deepest fears—not breaking in or crashing through the door, by bypassing your strongest fortress against pain, saying “Peace be with you.”

Perhaps what is most difficult to think about is that we are not asked to be right. We are only asked to be honest. Honest about the doors that stand between us and the world. Honest about the doors that are locked between us and accepting the difficult path of discipleship. In our pain, I pray we might be honest enough—at the expense of being right--to accept Christ’s peace. What might it look like if, no matter how solid our faith is, we are honest enough to touch, explore, wonder, believe in and doubt, even the Christ we have not seen in body? In our pain and our humanity, we can touch like Thomas, and believe like Thomas. It’s not all about Thomas’s unbelief, but Jesus giving what is needed. It’s not all about our pain, but the presence of Christ that comes in touching the humanity of another’s pain.

In this season of celebration, we take it for granted that the tomb was not strong enough to hold Jesus. In this season of mystery, what is even more unbelievable is that Christ can walk through the thickest and strongest doors of our fear and pain. I pray that we will find the ways to be honest when that happens.

The Abundant Gift of Life

March 23, 2008
Matthew 28:1-10, Jeremiah 31:1-6
Sermon by Torin Eikler
Easter Morning Service

What a wonderful day! The sun is out … well most of the time. Spring is here – officially if not in the feel of the air. Flowers are blooming with more on the way. Trees are budding – though I hope I can still trim back some of our bushes before it’s too late to have leaves this year. We have seedlings all over our house and a few peas even starting to peak their timid heads out of the garden soil. And on top of all of that, it’s Easter. The long stretch of Lent and the darkness of Good Friday have passed away before the light coming from the tomb just as the morning sun has begun to shine into the winter darkness of our waking. What time could be more full of joy?!

And yet, it is not all smiles and happiness for everyone. Millions of people around the world are still trapped in the darkness of violence. Our neighbors in the Midwest continue to struggle with rivers overflowing their banks and home ruined by rushing waters – particularly hard to deal with in this time of uneasy credit. Here in our own community, many people are finding it hard to pay their bills as the cost of everyday life rises on the back of gas prices. And into this struggle the good news of Easter speaks.

The disciples, I think, found themselves in a similar place all those years ago. The man they had called master and teacher was gone – forever swallowed up by death and resting in a tomb. It’s hard for us to imagine since we know the end of the story, but try to put yourselves in their shoes. We have heard how they followed Jesus back to Jerusalem against their better judgment, knowing that it was risky to go back to the place where the authorities had so recently tried to stone their leader. And yet, things seemed to be going well.

Many new people had come to listen to and follow Jesus after he raised Lazarus from the dead. They had seen an amazing crowd lining the road, hailing the rabbi as a new king when they all entered Jerusalem just a week before. Jesus had tossed out the money lenders in the temple and crowds had come to listen to him teach – all without any real threat from the priests. What could the authorities do, after all, when so many people were behind them? There were even Greeks – people who knew nothing of God’s promise to the nation of Israel – who were coming to learn from the rabbi. And, at their arrival, Jesus had said that the time was coming when he would be glorified, and angelic voices speaking from the heavens had confirmed that glorious destiny. Yes, it was all coming together quite nicely.

And then it happened.

I suppose they could have seen it coming. There were probably rumors that the high priests were planning something to get rid of the threat to their power. Jesus himself told them more than once that he was headed to his death rather than some grand coronation ceremony. But, it was still quite a surprise when the soldiers of the chief priests came and arrested him in the middle of a quiet night. And to hear all about how he stood silent, offering no defense at his trial. To know how he was beaten and taunted. And, then, to watch him walk to his own execution – bloody and tired – so weak that some poor man was forced to carry the cross for him. To see him hanging there, dying slowly and be able to do nothing at all.

On top of everything else, it was one of their own who betrayed Jesus, and none of them were safe. After all, everyone knows that you can’t really stop a movement just by killing the leader. With Jesus gone – and all the protection his fame afforded – what was to stop the priests from coming to get the rest of them? Certainly, they must have felt trapped in the depths of despair.

And even more so – Mary. Mary who sat at Jesus’ feet. Mary who had run to the man she knew to be the Messiah, her grief bringing tears to his eyes. Mary who, six days before, had lavished a year’s worth of wages and all her love on Jesus when she poured perfume over his feet and dried them with her hair. She had hosted her teacher and his closest followers several times, and they were staying with her the night Jesus was taken. Certainly she was caught up in despair and fear as well.

Yet Mary needed more. She needed to see the tomb one last time. Dead in the depths of her grief, went to the tomb while the others hid. And there, life surprised her.

An angel appeared … rolled the stone away from the door to the tomb … spoke to her impossible words. “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised.”

Mary looked and saw that Jesus was not there. With joy and confusion milling about together in her heart, she turned to share the news with the others,

and life surprised her again.

Jesus appeared before her. He was alive and she saw him with her own eyes. She took hold of his feet and worshipped him. And speaking words of comfort and peace, he sent her on ahead to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee.

And, I imagine, as she went on her way with tears of joy on her face, she found herself surprised again. Surprised to feel life and hope surging in her heart and soul. And so she hurried…. She hurried to bring the news … to let the others know that the door to the tomb of their grief and fear stood open.… She hurried to bring them out again into life and hope.

New life was there for them … and it was more than they needed. They had already received the living water. The second birth – the birth from above was already theirs. It was there in the teaching they had received. It was there in the life they had witnessed. Teachings and examples that had opened their blind eyes to a new world and a new way of living love. The door to the Realm of God was open to them, and they had already been invited – already been welcomed into that new reality by their rabbi and their Lord.

The promises of the prophets had been fulfilled. The suffering servant, the Messiah had come and freed them from the binding of the world. He had brought them once again to Mount Zion and shown them how to worship God. And then … and then, he had given them more.

And Easter comes to us in the same way. It is enough for us that Christ taught us how to live. It is enough that Christ showed us how to love. It is enough that Christ loved us enough to die on the cross – carrying our sin there to die with him – healing our broken relationship with God and with each other through the balm of his own life pour out. All of this was enough for our salvation from the powers of this world and our rebirth into our new lives as Children of God.

And then … and then, we are surprised by grace. With all the promises fulfilled … with our souls’ needs met … with the doorway open and the banquet prepared for us, God gives us yet another gift. Christ – our teacher, our model, our lord – rises from the tomb and hands us life and hope, unwrapped … shiny and new.

The gifts of God to us in Christ are
not just teaching and knowledge
but wisdom that is folly to the world,
not just a good example
but a guide and companion along the paths of life,
not just salvation washing life clean
but new life,
And not just life,
but abundant life eternally made new by the presence –
the voice, the touch, and the love – of the Risen One.

And we receive this gift just as the disciples did. Coming into the darkness of our lives every year, the angel speaks of hope and life beyond hope. Mary comes and tells us the good news. Christ has risen. Look and see the light shining to guide you out of the tomb that daily life has built around you. The Spirit whispers the invitation, “Follow the voice of Christ. Rise, come forth, and enter into the true life that is now and forever open before you.”


Today – on this wonderful day of celebration – we receive that gift anew.

Look and see the empty tomb with its sentinel stone thrown aside.
Experience again the voice of the angel offering hope.
Feel, once more, surprise and joy at Mary’s revelation.

All over again, hear the Spirit’s invitation …

(whispered) Rise, come forth, and enter into true life, the abundant life in Christ.”