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.