March 30, 2008

2nd Sunday of Easter
John 20:19-31

LOCKED IN A ROOM WITH OPEN DOORS

History books tell about a minor character named Raynald III, a duke in 14th century Belgium. Incredibly overweight, even for those days, he was usually called by his nickname, Crassus, which in Latin means simply, "fat." He quarreled violently with his brother Edward who then led a successful rebellion and captured Crassus. But instead of executing him, Edward simply built a room around his brother and promised that as soon as he was able to leave the room, Fats could be duke again and regain his lands and wealth.

Which wouldn't have been difficult for most of us, since the room had several windows and a normal sized door, and nothing was barred or locked. The problem, of course, was the duke's size. In order to be free, Fats had to lose weight. But each day Edward sent him a banquet of luxurious and irresistible foods. Instead of dieting his way out of prison, Crassus only grew fatter. [1]

Locked in a room with open doors, imprisoned, in his case, by character flaw, like most of us, really - or if locked into other patterns or behaviors that regulate our attitude or relationships - or even our faith. If it's up to us we cannot believe Easter and we cannot change. Seemingly, like Crassus, locked in a room with open doors. And yet...

Every year on the weekend after Easter we read the story of St Thomas the believer - at least in Lutheran circles; other churches may be different, but they might read one of the other Easter season stories. But universally in America, though, this Sunday is called Low Sunday. Look around and you can guess why.

This year our local school district has even compounded the tendency for people to stay home and recover after struggling to church last weekend. So I congratulate anyone who went away for spring break and today you're here in church anyway. Many of your fellow travelers are so fatigued after vacation that they have to use this hour to recover. But good for you!

So: Low Sunday. Also because, now that we've had time to reconsider the emotional high of Easter and its startling claims, the pragmatic, sensible side of us is quietly nodding when Thomas replies to his excitable friends, "No way," he says. "I gotta see him first!"

That's why this story is important. Seeing and believing was a problem for the first Christian believers and a problem ever since. Once the first fifty days had passed - the weeks immediately after Easter when Jesus appeared to his people - after that it was just word of mouth, not visual evidence. You could call it "the Thomas problem." [2] How can we believe if we haven't seen? We assume, based on experience, we believe, that the doors between us and the Risen Jesus out there somewhere, long, long ago, the doors are not only sealed shut and locked but impenetrable, solid, and unbreakable.

This is not a modern American problem; it's always been a problem. It's never been easy to believe the resurrection, and the New Testament doesn't pretend that it is. Right from the start there were people who didn't believe it. None of the four gospels offer infallible evidence of resurrection. Almost the opposite; they even wrote into the record that there were no eyewitnesses to it.

In fact there were documents circulating in the 1st century AD claiming to be eyewitnesses, but the church would have none of that. Those writings didn't get into the New Testament, only the documents that said no one saw the resurrection itself, just the women and the others who saw an empty tomb. And even that, the empty tomb, didn't bring them to faith; it proved nothing, really. They didn't see the resurrection or a vacant burial plot and believe; they saw the resurrected Christ and believed.

And all of those reports are different. Some of them even conflict with each other. Some say Jesus appeared in bodily form; others say he appeared in spirit. Some report that he appeared as a stranger and others say Jesus could be recognized. Every testimony is a little different. You realize why seeing itself can't be proof positive? And each gospel says that among those who were there those fifty days, there were some who still doubted. The Bible doesn't make it easy for us; it wants us to take the risk of faith, to step through the open doors even as we believe they're locked and impassable.

Which is why we have the story of Thomas. He's one of us. He wasn't there at first. We weren't there, and the original days of Easter are gone. For about seven weeks faith came through seeing, but from that point on, faith comes through hearing.

But that can be enough, as both the two disciples and the beggar on the curb outside the temple discovered. He needed their money, not their best wishes. In those days they didn't have rehab centers for the handicapped; panhandling was the only option. But the two disciples were broke. "We'll give you what we have," they said.

I like to think that not only was the panhandler surprised at what happened next but so were Peter and John. They probably thought they'd simply tell the man about Easter and hope he'd feel better, if still crippled. But before they knew what they were saying they were ordering him to stand - and he did! They spoke of what they believed, and he heard resurrection in their words and literally walked out of his impairment and disability.

Thomas thought he never would believe unless it was proved by touch, and then there Jesus was, inviting him to touch. And that itself was enough. Invitation. We actually don't know if Thomas did touch Jesus. The Bible doesn't say he did, so it's open to interpretation, but how Thomas reacted is pretty clear. That confession of his - obviously a word of faith. But Jesus said, from now on faith comes by hearing.

I think these stories are telling us that God both takes us at our word and doesn't hold us to our word. In other words, we may be skeptical of Easter, or we don't know quite what to do with it in a world like ours, or we can't sustain the high emotion or maintain a blind, uncritical faith. But the risen Christ respectfully takes us where we are and overcomes our limitations (whatever they may be) and sometimes to our own surprise raises faith within us.

He doesn't first wait for our fears to go away or wait for us to open up and let him in. I know we sometimes picture Christ, standing at the door and knocking, but these Easter stories tell us that he doesn't always wait until we feel safe, or receptive to him, or ready to believe. In fact, the man that John and Peter healed was expecting something quite different. It never occurred to him that he could walk. But Jesus approaches first and enters our closely guarded hearts because he wants to and he can. [A child's baptism is one such way that he enters without knocking first. In spite of little James Bader's age, here's Jesus, unhindered by infancy, a baby's intellectual limitation in these early weeks of life - here in word and water Christ comes to put both his cross and the promise of his resurrection on this little boy, and faith takes hold.]

It's the paradox of faith. Faith seems so very much like a decision or an action that we take on our own initiative, and yet it's not. We're, all of us, Crassus, trapped inside unlocked cells by our addictions and appetites, whatever they may be, personal fears and inabilities, doubts of faith, emotional impairments, Crassus-like or simply crass flaws of character, dependencies and co-dependencies, circumstances of birth or bad luck that dogs our every move. It's Christ who unlocks the doors and then, set free in faith, we learn to walk in spite of handicaps.

Now, the freedom of the resurrection doesn't work perfectly just yet, that's true. Our imprisonments aren't magically erased because someone says "The Lord is risen," and we say "Alleluia" and believe it. We and our words, our shared faith and our shared community of faith, these things are only doors and windows. It takes a full-scale resurrection to knock down all the walls. But that will come. It will come. Easter was the first resurrection but it will not be the last. Until then, though, the doors are wider open than you think!

Nate Castens
Chanhassen, Minnesota

[1] I don't remember where I got this story. Last used it 15 years ago. 'S good, huh?

[2] Mark Trotter in various sermons on John 20 does a nice summary of this.