The Fall (Rev 21:1-6)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Apr 24, 2016, Easter V)

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To Fall Means to Get Back Up

Ever since I can remember, I have loved soccer. Growing up, the highlight of my week was soccer practice. It was the one time in the week when I truly felt free: no walls, no desks, no teachers, no tests. Just an open field of grass, dozens of soccer balls, and my friends. Freed from the shackles of social pressures and second guessing and critical thinking, I lived in the moment: running, sliding, kicking, playing without restraint. At soccer practice, I entered that hallowed zone of time and space where no life worry or problem could follow.

And yet soccer practice could also be the lowlight of my week. Because on the other side of the field was a group of girls. And sometimes we would scrimmage each other. Now you might think that this would be the dream of any adolescent boy. How could it go wrong? We would ask the opposite question: How could it not go wrong? It was a lose-lose. If you play hard, you look like the villain, tackling girls with no mercy. But if you play easy and lose out to a girl…well, you’d never hear the end of it. Especially if you ended up on the ground.

In the event that you fell under a girl’s challenge, your reaction had to be immediate. To fall meant to get back up, to climb to your feet. You would shake off the fall like it was nothing—no matter the cuts and bruises, no matter the wounded pride.

It’s a human tendency that goes back as far as the beginning of time. Ever since Adam and Eve—ever since “the Fall,” when humanity disobeyed God and fell from paradise—humanity has been trying to get back up. In theology as in life, to fall means to get back up, to climb to your feet. It’s no surprise that, shortly after “the Fall,” all of humanity joined together to build a big tower into the heavens. It was only natural. They had taken a fall. What else would come next, but to get back up?

“The Fall” and Theological Double Vision

While the story of “the Fall” seems simple enough, it has unfortunately contributed to a widespread case of what I would diagnose as theological diplopia—or “double vision.” In other words, the story of “the Fall” has led many believers to see double: they see an imperfect world, this earth to which we have fallen, but they also see its perfect counterpart, heaven, the place from which we fell. They see earthly bodies flawed from the fall and saintly souls flawlessly flitting about heaven.

One of the tragic symptoms of this “double vision” is the rejection of this life, the rejection of this earth and this body. Not too long ago, I shared conversation with a homeless man. Frustrated with his plight here, he said, “When this life is over, I’m leaving this earth. I’m going someplace much better.” I share my friend’s hope for a better future. A better future is the good news that Christ promises. A better future is the gospel of today’s scripture, which dreams of God personally wiping away every tear from our eyes, which imagines a world free of pain and weeping.

But neither Christ nor today’s scripture nor any other scripture in the Bible promises an escape from this earthly life—not now, not ever. On the contrary, we hear time and time again that the earth is good, bodies are good, that this life is not something to escape but something to be enjoyed. We hear it at the very beginning, where at the end of each day of creation, there is that familiar, dependable benediction, “And God saw that it was good,” where after the creation of our human bodies, “God saw everything…and indeed, it was very good.” We hear the goodness of this life in the prayer of Jesus, who desires not that we climb back up to heaven, but rather that the kingdom of God come down here on earth as it is in heaven. And we hear it in today’s scripture, where heaven comes down to earth, where God makes God’s home on earth.

The Bible is not a lecture on how to get into heaven. It is an epic ballad that weeps and croons and cries out about this earth of ours, these bodies of ours. The idea that we will one day leave behind our bodies and this wonderfully crumbly earth of ours, is not a biblical idea. It is a Greek idea, a Platonic idea, an idea that thoughts are better than things.[1] But as we remember especially in this season of Easter, the substance of our hope is not some immaterial world where we will float like ghosts. It is in the scarred body of the resurrected Christ. Which is to say, our hope is in skin that has been sanctified and dirt that has been dignified and rivers that have been purified, in all the goodness and beauty and truth that we taste, touch, smell, hear, and see on earth, even now.

How Hope Takes Root in This Earth: The Fall

But even as I say this, I can almost hear my friend responding—and he has a very good point: How can we possibly hope in this world—in this earth and in these bodies? How can our hope take root in an earth as broken as ours, where some people sleep in houses you could get lost in while others sleep under a bridge or in the woods, where a body endures so much pain? Forget what God said at creation, what Jesus prayed in his prayer, what John envisioned in Revelation: maybe this life isn’t so good. Maybe this earth and these bodies are irredeemable. Maybe those Babelites had it right when they tried to build a tower into heaven, when they forsook this earth in favor of something higher.

The tragic irony is that this approach to life is precisely the one that makes this earth and these bodies so broken. In other words, when we take it upon ourselves to get back up, to climb back up, to rise up again, we have a tendency to make things worse. We try to achieve our goals through brunt force, through sheer power. Like the Babelites, we set upon our plan single-mindedly and demand that everyone do what we do. But in the process, we scratch and cut and hurt each other.

Our scripture today, though, suggests a startling alternative. The writer, John, knows just as well as anyone how broken our earth and our bodies are. But he nonetheless has hope—not for an escape from earth but rather for a redemption of the earth. Because he’s had a vision, he says, of “a new earth” (21:1). And it’s not new because of anything we’ve done to it. The change ultimately comes from somewhere else. Listen to his vision: “I saw the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (21:2).

As I hear these words, I cannot help but think of the folk tale of Chicken Little, who is hit on the head by an acorn and runs around, crying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” In his own way, Chicken Little is proclaiming the same revelation that John is, for John says that the heavenly city of Jerusalem will come down—or literally in the Greek, “fall”—out of heaven. In other words, heaven will fall onto earth.

Open to the Fall

Chances are, if you pulled a stranger off the street and asked him or her about “the Fall,” they’d tell you how sinful we are, how we messed up in the garden and as punishment are walking in these mortal bodies on this ruined earth. While there’s a kernel of truth in this—we are sinful, which is to say, we’re full of mistakes and brokenness—it’s mostly a bucket of theological hogwash, if I could be so facetiously bold. Genesis never mentions “the Fall.” The Bible never says that the earth is bad, that this life is punishment, that real life will happen later, at a time and place to be announced. The only “fall” worth talking about is the fall of heaven onto earth. The only “fall” worth our time as Christ-followers is the time when, as John says delightfully in the Greek, God will set up God’s “tent” among us (21:3).[2]

Which shouldn’t mean that all we do is twiddle our thumbs and wait patiently. It’s revealing that when heaven falls to earth, it’s not in the shape of a garden but rather a city. Remember that when God created the world and saw that it was good, very good, there were no cities. Paradise was a garden. Cities, which were a human creation, only showed how broken humanity had become. Just think of the first cities: Babel, Sodom, Gomorrah. And yet heaven falls to earth in the shape of the city, which suggests that like a parent who tenderly involves herself in a child’s work, helping to put right any error, God “adopts the work of humanity” and redeems it.[3]

Which is to say, we should not just kill time until heaven falls out of the sky. God isn’t going to just reboot, to hit the restart button. God will work through our work, play in our play, and if we live lives that are open to the fall of heaven—if we don’t enclose ourselves in bunkers that shut out the light of God’s new day—then our bodies might just experience what God so desires to give us: heaven on earth.

Prayer

God of gardens and tents and cities,
Of scarred bodies and tear-stained faces—
Come and make your home among us,
Healing us through our scars, wiping away our tears.
Help us to let go of our willful ways,
That we might welcome heaven on earth, even today.
Amen.

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[1] My thought and understanding of the conventional “two-worlds” thinking that has infiltrated theological thinking is indebted to John D. Caputo. See, e.g., his discussion of two-worlds thinking in his chapter, “Two Types of Continental Philosophy” in The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 87-116.

[2] One could more literally translate the beginning of this verse: “See, the tent of God is among mortals. He will dwell in a tent with them as their God.”

[3] Richard A. Davis, “The Politics of the City and the Sea—Revelation 21:1-6,” http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-the-city-and-the-sea-revelation-211-6/, accessed April 19, 2016. Much of Davis’ reflection derives from the thought of French philosopher and lay theologian, Jacques Ellul, as expressed in Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation (trans. George W. Schreiner; New York: Seabury, 1977).

Come On, Jesus (John 10:22-30)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Apr 17, 2016, Easter IV)

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The Parable of the Anonymous Music

Once upon a time, in a city that was famous for its music, there was discovered on the steps of the city concert hall a composition of a beautiful symphony. It had been left there anonymously. But the city organized to have it played as soon as possible. An orchestra was assembled. They practiced day and night. And then the city declared a public holiday, and everyone went to the concert hall to hear the music. They were enraptured. It brought smiles of wonder to everyone’s face. Never before had they heard something so…divine. And that’s what people started saying: whoever composed this music must have been sent from God.

Not long later, a stranger with a violin appeared on the city streets, playing wherever she walked. Her playing enchanted whoever stood within hearing distance, drawing smiles from the depths of their otherwise serious faces. Soon people began to speculate: perhaps this stranger was the composer of the divine music. Perhaps she was sent from God.

Now some of the speculators became consumed with this question. They argued—“Yes, she is the divine composer!” “No, she isn’t!” Their smiles gave way to locked jaws and heavy brows. This was a most serious matter. If they could prove that she was indeed the divine composer, then their city could legitimately claim its musical superiority. Her power would become theirs. So when she played in the streets, they interrupted her music: “Are you the composer sent from God?” Her response was always the same. Meeting the question with a gracious smile and a bemused blink of the eye, she picked up her violin and resumed her music from the point of interruption.

There were others, however, whose delight in her music prevailed over their curiosity in her identity. Instead of seeking to establish her musical prowess, and through it their own, instead of interrupting her with questions—they only listened and smiled. And when a song ended, they would cry with all their hearts, “Encore!”

“Tell Us Plainly…”

Today we find a similar story in our gospel, where Jesus is walking in the temple during the festival of the Dedication—or what we today call Hanukkah. The air in that temple would have been heavy with memory and pride. Hanukkah was Independence Day for the Jews of Jesus’ time. People would have been remembering the way their ancestors fought for the freedom of Jerusalem and the temple. They would have been singing songs of power and triumph over their old enemies, the Seleucids. Of course, at that time they had a new enemy: Rome. And so the air would also have been thick with hope for a future king who would grab power in his hands, stand up to Rome, and bring them victory once more.

We can read between the lines, then, when the crowd demands Jesus to tell them “plainly” if he is the Messiah or not (10:24). They’re really asking, “Are you the leader who will defeat the Romans? Are you the king who will lead us to victory? Are you the real thing, Jesus?”

From “Was That the Real Thing?” to “Encore!”

This question—“Are you the real thing?”—is no stranger to us today. We are just as preoccupied with verifying the identity of things. To us, a name carries power. A name assigns value. Whether a painting is a “real” Picasso or not is the difference between millions of dollars. Whether a concert stars the “real” Bob Dylan or just a cover artist is the difference between thousands of attendants. Whether a race is NASCAR or just a local shindig is the difference between national coverage or not.

And yet…Jesus’ frustrated response to his inquisitors suggest that this kind of attitude—this “are-you-the-real-thing” outlook on life—is somehow mistaken.

When I was in England, my good friend Stephen, a born-and-bred Liverpudlian, once showed me around his city. In the evening, he took me to the Cavern—an underground cellar that was turned into a club in the 1950s. Before the Beatles became an international success, they played hundreds of shows at the Cavern. Stephen told me when we entered that there would probably be a Beatles cover band playing. To be honest, I was less than excited. Who wants to hear a bunch of knock-offs?

And yet…that night ended up becoming one of my favorite concert experiences. The four guys on stage looked nothing like the Beatles. In fact, they weren’t even English. But that didn’t matter. What mattered is that they captured the spirit of the music, that they played with real energy and swagger. What mattered is the smiles they brought to our faces, the songs they brought to our lips.

When they finished their set, no one cared about whether they were the real Beatles or not. To have asked, “Was that the real thing?” would have been to miss the point. All we cared about was hearing more. All we could say was “Encore!”

Listening beyond the Name

When the crowd in the temple ask Jesus if he is the Messiah, they completely miss the point. When they press him to just tell them “plainly,” they’re dreaming of power and prestige more than they are the kingdom of God. They’re dreaming the dream of this-beats-that, this-trumps-that, this-is-better-than-that. By their logic, if Jesus is indeed the Messiah, then his power is theirs. It’s the logic of entitlement. Which ultimately is a logic of violence, a logic that leads to one name taking up arms against another.

Which is why, when Jesus responds to the crowd, he says he wishes that they heard not his name but his way of life. As he says, his way speaks for itself (10:25). What he desires is that people focus not on him but on the kingdom of God that he lives and proclaims. What he desires is that his love speak for itself, that his spirit catch on in others. He doesn’t want mobs who worship him as we do pop idols and world leaders, as we do the brand names that are the most popular or expensive. Jesus only desires that we at marvel his music and join in the dance, that we follow in the way of abundant life.

How to Respond to the Messiah

If the crowds that demanded Jesus’ identity were mistaken in their line of questioning, then it’s only natural to wonder: What should they have said?

I’ve already offered one suggestion. They could simply have wondered at the works he had done and said with gusto, “Encore!”

An old Jewish tale offers another suggestion. According to one rabbi, the appropriate question to ask the Messiah when he or she comes, is, “When are you coming?” On the face of it, such a question seems foolish. If the Messiah has already come, then why in the world would you ask, “When are you coming?”

As it happens, the seventeen-month-old daughter of a couple close friends has helped me to see the wisdom in this foolishness. Not long ago, my friends began reading their daughter a Pride and Prejudice book of numbers: one manor, two carriages, three horses, four butlers, and so on. And as befits the book, they read in a British accent. To their delight, their daughter has responded in kind. Lately, whenever she sees one of them enter the room, she lights up and says in a British singsong, “Come on, Dada! Come on, Mommy!”

On the face of it, you might say her expression is redundant. Dada and Mommy are already there in the room. Why call for them to “come”? But of course, that’s not what she’s really saying. She’s not saying “Come here” as though they aren’t already there. She’s calling for repeat performances: she’s inviting them to keep doing what Dada does, what Mommy does.

And that, I believe, is what the old rabbi was getting at. The point is not that the Messiah will come with a powerful name that will settle all claims once and for all, so that life is finished and done, so that there’s nothing left to say. The point is that the Messiah eternally comes bringing life, more life—so that it’s always appropriate to ask “When are you coming?” or even better, just to say, “Come on!”

An Easter Prayer

I can think of no better prayer for this Easter season. When we listen closely to our world and hear the divine symphony of resurrection and redemption in all things, what better to say than, “When will we hear it again?” What better to say than, “Come on, Jesus, again, again!” The point of Easter is to get caught up—not in names and identities and claims to power, but simply in life itself, in the divine symphony we hear.

There is no reason to demand of one thing or another, “Is this the real thing? Tell us plainly, God!” Deep in our bodies, we know the real thing. Beyond all names, we know the real thing. That’s what our smiles say. That’s what our laughter says. That’s even what our tears say, when they speak to us of the goodness that is missing in our lives, the goodness we so desire. We know the real thing. Daily we hear the divine music of our Messiah. And every breath that we take, every gasp for more life, proclaims, “Encore!”

Or perhaps, like a child, “Come on, Jesus!”

Prayer

God whose music fills our hearts with joy,
Whose goodness plays in all things
And makes us smile.
Come on!
Encore!
May we join in your song:
Not because of a name of power,
But because of its strains of goodness, truth, and beauty—
Which we believe are even now redeeming our world.
In the name of our Shepherd, whose voice we strain to hear everywhere.
Amen.

the parable of the beating hearts

One day, religion finally died. It had long been coming. People just couldn’t believe in stories that were so far from reality.

And so it happened that millions of churches—and mosques and temples and synagogues—were transformed into other things: supermarkets, shopping malls, apartments, banks, business offices, and so on. But there were no more churches.

You may think that everyone fell into despair. But for many people, it was quite the opposite—for when you no longer believe in anything, there is no longer anything to miss, yearn for, desire. The pure absence of faith means the pure presence of certainty. And certainty is deaf to the beat of the heart.

And yet…there did remain hearts that were beating. And desiring. And despairing. For what and by what, God only knows.

And it was these beating hearts that kept alive a sense of coming and going, of a past and a future, of the beautiful and good and true. It was these hearts that preserved the fragile, failing flame of life.

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Generations passed, until all the bodies died. Now it happened that when the bodies of the beating hearts died, their hearts continued to beat. Underground. In the dead bodies. Until one day a great earthquake opened up the ground, and the bodies wondrously arose, surprised to find themselves upright and alive once more.

A beggar wandered among them. She greeted them. “Come,” she said, “live some more. For you are blessed with life.”

The beating hearts asked the beggar, “How can this be? What are you saying?”

The beggar smiled and responded, “You are the church. You are the life of the world.” (Although I cannot confirm this, it is rumored that she said to others, “You are the mosque,” and “temple,” and “synagogue,” and other such words, I know not what.)

But the beating hearts said, “There is no church. It disappeared years ago when religion died.”

The beggar replied: “Really? Among you, I was welcomed to a table. Among you, I set foot on the way. Among you, I saw goodness where before I had seen none. Among you, I looked into the eyes of others and saw an invitation. Among you, I marveled at mysteries. Among you, I heard a promise and made one of my own. Among you, I practiced surrender. Among you, I learned how to play. Among you, I heard a call.

“Among you,” and here her smile eclipsed the dawn, “my heart beat again.”

The beggar could see the confusion of the beating hearts, and so she continued: “Together you desired and despaired. Especially when religion died. But surely you’ve heard about what happens when even a single grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies? Or about the wineskins into which new wine is put?

“A name, like ‘church,’ is always already too late for what it names. What is happening inside the name ‘church,’ before the name ‘church’ is ever spoken, before certainty closes the church doors, is a mystery of beating hearts. It was happening at your tables, gatherings, games, clinics, wherever your hearts were beating together.”

The beating hearts leapt—as beating hearts do in moments of excitement!—and asked, “Who, kind beggar, are you?”

The beggar responded, “Who do you say that I am? A beggar like me has no name that will stay.” She smiled, “Now come, I beg you, live some more!”

More Life (John 21:1-19)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Apr 10, 2016, Easter III)

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Life at a Standstill

We’ve all been there, where Peter and the disciples are at the beginning of today’s story. It’s a familiar setting, one that the children among us—and the child within each of us—know all too well. So rewind with me, if you will, back to the days of your childhood. (For some of us, this may take an awful lot of rewinding!) And revisit, if you can, the hazy days of summer vacation: No school. Few responsibilities. Just a whole lot of free time in front of you. And yet, it’s not very long before time comes to a stagnant standstill. It’s not very long before you and your friends are sitting on the curb, bored to death, trying to figure out what to do.

In my own experience, it would go like this. One friend would halfheartedly say, “Well, I’m gonna go play whiffleball.” And with nothing better to suggest, the rest of us would say like the disciples, “We’ll go with you.” Or someone would say, “Let’s play Monopoly.” And with no better alternative, we’d waste the next 72 hours of our life buying and selling hotels.

If those summer days are too long gone, then perhaps you can make it as far back as another era of freedom: college. Perhaps you can remember the dorm life, when time would commonly come to a standstill. Everyone would put off assignments until the last minute and in the meantime would mill about like sloths with nothing to do. Until someone would speak up, “I’m going to the 7/11.” Shrugs all around. What else is there to do? So there’s that familiar refrain again, “We’ll go with you,” and the whole dorm traipses like zombies to a half-stocked convenience store.

If the heady days of college are too long gone to remember, then I’m guessing that you might be in another celebrated era of freedom right now: retirement. I can’t speak from experience, but I’ve seen enough of my own parents to know that from time to time life comes to a standstill in retirement. Having both accomplished their self-determined tasks for the day, they’ll sit absently at the kitchen table, idly playing Words with Friends on their phones. And then my mom will voice an idea, as though she’s trying it on: “Well, I haven’t gone for a walk today.” To which my dad will reply, with that familiar refrain, “I’ll go with you.”

Whichever of these experiences resonates most with you, I’m nearly certain that we’ve all been with Peter by the Sea of Tiberias. Because as I imagine it, when Peter says, “I am going fishing,” he says it absently, idly. And I imagine that when the others respond, “We’ll go with you,” they say it with a shrug. What else is there to do? For Peter and the disciples, life has come to a standstill that mirrors the gently lapping sea in front of them. The disciples are some seventy miles away from Jerusalem, where Jesus had last appeared to them, and so I can only guess that they hadn’t seen Jesus for some time and had resigned themselves to the possibility that he would not appear again. In my imagination, they’re a bit unmotivated, as we all are from time to time. They’re just killing time, doing what they know, all the while, asking: What now? What next?

The Promise of More Life

After a night of fishing, they’re still at a standstill. Not a single fish caught in the night. But as the sun rises, there’s a stranger on the beach—ever notice how God nearly always steals onto the scene as a stranger? (I wonder sometimes if the new life of the resurrected Christ isn’t right under my nose, but I don’t recognize it, because all I can see is a stranger.) Anyway, this stranger tells them to try the other side of the boat. And then, suddenly, all heaven breaks loose. A massive catch. An exclamation, “It’s the Lord!” And then my favorite bit of the story, the kind of detail that could only come from an intensely personal memory, a picture engraved on the mind of the storyteller: Peter, we’re told, is naked. We’re not told why—that’s not important. What’s important is his eagerness to see Jesus, his sudden energy, the sudden feeling that life is not at a standstill, that there is more life. What’s important is the comical image of Peter “throwing himself” into the water with abandon, like a dog on a hot summer day—but not before he throws on a robe—and in my mind’s eye, he gets his arms confused as he fumbles for the right sleeves. He reminds me a bit of Scrooge on Christmas morning, throwing clothes on as quickly as possible so he can rush into the promise of more life.

I’m nearly certain that we’ve all felt what Peter felt, that sudden rush of more life, that sudden sensation of something new and wonderful on the horizon, that sense of joyful abandon. Anyone who’s had a tumor or a serious health concern has felt this, I’d guess. You expect the worst. And you wait and wait, while time stands still. And finally word comes back, and it’s nothing serious. And the good prognosis feels like a new lease on life. You want to throw yourself into life once more. Or anyone who’s been on either side of a favorable marriage proposal has felt this rush of new life, I’d imagine. The engagement is not only a promise of marriage but the promise of more life—or as Aladdin and Jasmine memorably put it, “a whole new world.”

From Casting Nets to Casting Ourselves

If Peter’s experience is anything to go by, then to receive the promise of more life is to see a stranger on the horizon. And to receive the gift of more life is to leap into the sea with joyful abandon, to cannonball into the chaotic currents of the world. Literally, in the Greek, Peter “casts” himself into the sea. His whole life he has been “casting” nets, but now he “casts” himself into the water. What a curious, revolutionary change.

I must confess that before today I never liked the image that Jesus used earlier in his ministry, when he told the disciples they would be fishers of people (Matt 4:19).[1] Taken uncritically, it suggested to me an imperialistic and presumptuous approach to faith, one that turns relationships into conquests and the love of God into a business of souls. It suggested to me that we are in the unassailable position of power and knowledge, while others are simply mindless fish we trap in our nets.

But I think today’s story enhances this metaphor of fishing, for the example of faith here is not someone in control of the nets but someone whose new lease on life leads him to renounce control, to “cast” not the nets but himself into the sea. According to this image, being “fishers” of people means being not the fisher controlling the nets, but the nets themselves. It means renouncing control, throwing ourselves into the uncontrollable, unforeseeable currents of life.

“Feed My Sheep”:

From Nets to Worms?

When Peter gets to the shore, there’s a charcoal fire. The last time there was a charcoal fire in the book of John, Peter was beside it, denying Jesus. At that point, he was afraid of the tides of life, not yet ready to cast himself into the chancy currents of what other people would think and do. But now he has “cast” himself into the chaotic tides of more life. And Jesus lets him know just what this means. Three times—once for each denial—Jesus urges Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Which, if we are to take Jesus’ example seriously when he says he is the bread of life, means perhaps not simply to hand the sheep their food but to be their food. In other words, maybe casting ourselves into the sea doesn’t mean simply that we are the nets. Maybe, if we can allow the image of fishing to metamorphose from nets to hooks and worms, maybe we are the worms.

What would this even mean? What would it look like? I think it looks like what we see here at church each Sunday, when in and around these buildings we welcome a host of children, some of whom see and understand and process the world differently than we do. We do not reel them into our way of thinking, into our formulation of faith. We let them be who they are. We cast ourselves with joyful abandon into their tides, doing our best to share God’s love with them, inviting them to step into that love in their own, unique way. We give ourselves to them as food, as nourishment. We throw ourselves into the unknowable currents of their lives, and we hope that in us they may taste the bread of life.

And this example is just the tip of the iceberg, just one fish among a haul of 153. For there are always new ways to feed others, new others to feed; Jesus is always calling us as he called Peter to cast ourselves out into the unpredictable currents of the world,[2] hoping against hope that somehow others may taste in us the love of God, the joy of life.

The gospel of more life is the good news that fills us with the same joy that filled Peter on that morning—not a selfish joy that tries to impose itself on others, that aims to preserve itself, but an uncontainable joy, a joy that cannonballs with abandon into the chaos of life. The gospel of more life is the kind of news that hits us when life is at a standstill, that fills us with the future, that overcomes us so that we cannot help but cast ourselves into the currents of life, making ourselves food for others, allowing ourselves to become the life of the world. To truly receive more life is also to become more life for others. It is to inspire them with the same joyful abandon we feel, to fill them with the laughter of resurrection, so that they too want to cast themselves into the water, to cannonball into life.

More life. It is never something we have or possess. It is something that happens to us, something that becomes us, something that we become for others.

Prayer

God who interrupts our standstill lives with more life,
Cast us into the world
Where we might be food for others,
Where we might become more life for them. Amen.

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[1] This story does not appear in the gospel of John. Nevertheless, its resonance with the scene at the end of John suggests the worth of comparing the two scenes: one a commissioning, the other a recommissioning.

[2] Jesus’ foreshadowing of Peter’s death in 21:18 indicates just how dangerous and unforeseeable the currents of this world are.

Trusting the Scars (John 20:19-31)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Apr 3, 2016, Easter II)

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Security vs. Scars

Today’s story is really two stories: a story of the disciples and a story of Thomas. And in a way, the two stories are the same story. They are both stories that depict an inner conflict, a spiritual skirmish, an emotional encounter. In the one corner, security. In the other, scars. Security is the defending champion, what reigns in the hearts of the disciples and Thomas. The scars of Christ are the contender, what challenges the hearts of the disciples and Thomas.

The Disciples and the Security of Locked Doors

In the first story, we find the disciples huddled fearfully behind locked doors. They are afraid for their lives, frightened that the authorities who put Jesus to death will come after them next. They cut sympathetic figures because their survival instinct is natural. When the weather gets rough, we batten down the hatch. When conflict looms on the horizon, we circle the wagons, raise our fists, patrol the border.

The irony, of course, is that while security fears for its life, it actually forfeits life. In an effort to secure life, it suffocates it. What is life behind locked doors, life that knows nothing but the same, nothing but what already has been? It becomes like a snow globe, where however much you shake it, what is inside remains the same. It becomes like a rerun television show; however good the episode may be, it becomes boring, tedious, drained of the life that once made it interesting.

And so suddenly the resurrected Jesus, the Jesus who defies death—this Jesus defies the securely locked doors. He comes and stands among the disciples. And he proclaims not a message of security but a message of peace and scars. “Peace be with you,” he says, and he shows them his scars. “Peace be with you,” he says a second time, and then he challenges the security of their lock-up lifestyle: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”

In our world, people mistake security for peace all the time. Our world thinks peace needs protecting, by weapons and walls and warnings. But Jesus leaves no room for this confusion. He shows them his scars, which are what true peace can get you in this world. And he tells them: Get out of this room and back into the world. “As the Father sent me, so I’m sending you.” I’m sending you as peacemakers into a world of violence, as lovers into a world that demands calculations and a bottom line, as dreamers into a world that fears the future.

Thomas and the Security of Certainty

In the next story, which is but a variation of the first, “same song—second verse,” we find that security is still wearing the title belt, that it has not yet yielded to the scars of Jesus. For one thing, it’s a week later, and the disciples are still behind closed doors. But more importantly, we find Thomas seeking the security of certainty. He doubts the news of the resurrected Jesus. Thomas cuts a sympathetic figure because his seeing-is-believing attitude, his scientific stance is natural. It is our attitude too. Why settle for curiosity and conjecture instead of certainty? Why trust in the truths of the heart instead of cold, hard facts?

The irony, of course, is that while certainty desires to secure life, to make life secure in the knowledge of something, it actually freezes life, frames it as a still-life never to move again. The certainty and security that Thomas so desires, is the kind that would substitute knowledge for experience. It’s the kind that trumpets, “Jesus lives!” without ever thinking to ask, “Does he live in me?”

And so suddenly the resurrected Jesus, the Jesus who defies death—this Jesus defies the freezing, fixing, finalizing certainty of Thomas. He proclaims instead a message of peace and scars. “Peace be with you,” he says, and he shows him his scars. Now the traditional interpretation is that Jesus is simply satisfying Thomas’ doubts and securing his belief. But I believe there is something deeper going on here. Indeed, Jesus says that it’s a blessed thing not to have seen, not to have certainty, and I think what he’s getting at is the idea that certainty can get in the way of the peace he proclaims.

In our world, people confuse certainty for peace all the time. Certainty, we say, gives us “peace of mind.” But Jesus leaves no room for confusion. Peace, his scarred hands and body say, is not certainty. If God were in the business of certainty, of establishing facts, then God would have sent down a host of angels and established the kingdom of God through force and any other means necessary. The scars say something different, that peace operates not in the certainty of its outcome but in uncertainty. Peace is the vulnerable way of love, a love that loves come-what-may.

Trust in These Scars

In both of today’s stories, Jesus introduces himself by doing the same two things: saying “Peace be with you” and showing his scars. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that these scars are a crucial part of the peace Christ proclaims. Resurrection does not erase the scars, as though they’re no longer necessary. And Jesus doesn’t hide them. Rather he bears them as an important witness to the radical way of peace. These scars, he seems to say, are how new life happens.

So what Jesus says to the disciples, what Jesus says to Thomas, is what Jesus says to us today: Don’t trust these securely locked doors. Don’t trust the certainty of what you can already see, what you can already touch. These things will only get you what you already have. Trust in my peace, as uncertain and insecure as it is, [1] as scarred as it is. Only in its powerless power will you find new life.

Make no mistake, the message of Christ is madness, or as Paul would later say, “foolishness.” To us, scars are a sign that the world is hurt, broken, messed-up. Indeed, in their heart of hearts, Thomas and the disciples may have doubted Jesus even as he stood among them. For if they had looked around them, they would have seen that things were just as hurt, broken, and messed-up as before. The lion was not yet lying with the lamb. The swords hadn’t yet been beaten into plowshares. There still was not that great reconciliation and peace that the prophets of old had promised. And if anything, the scars of Jesus were a testimony to this; they were a witness to the brokenness of the world.

But in today’s scripture, Jesus seems to say that the scars are more than a sign of brokenness. They are also a sign of the peace that redeems that brokenness.

Our world has it all mixed-up. Locked doors and cold, hard facts do not secure life but rather sacrifice it. Locked doors and cold, hard facts are death. It is only in the uncertain and insecure scars of Christ—and the peace that they proclaim—that we find a life beyond where we are.

Prayer

God of peace and scars—
Defy us where we would close the door
For fear of losing what we have,
Confront us where our certainty
Stops your kingdom in its tracks,
And breathe among us
The new life of your holy Spirit.
As you sent Christ into the world,
So send us,
Trusting and proclaiming and living out
The good news of your scarred love.
In the name of our life and resurrection, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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[1] Dorothee Soelle, The Window of Vulnerability: A Political Spirituality (trans. Linda M. Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 10-11, claims that “the conversion from security to peace is the most important religious event” in her world.