You
are Not Dead, Either
First
UMC Fort Dodge
March
30, 2008
Mark
Haverland
John 20:19‑31
When
it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the
house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and
stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this,
he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they
saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father
has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them
and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of
any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are
retained." But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was
not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have
seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the
nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in
his side, I will not believe." A week later his disciples were again in
the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came
and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to
Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and
put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him,
"My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed
because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come
to believe." Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his
disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that
you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that
through believing you may have life in his name.
I
walked into Borders Book Store the other day to get a CD of Handel’s The
Messiah. “I’m looking for The Messiah,”
I asked the clerk. “Oh, he just
left. Lots of people are looking for
him,” the clerk dead panned, echoing, perhaps intentionally, the angels in the
empty tomb. I laughed. But the early disciples didn’t laugh when
they found an empty tomb. It was no joke
when the disciples lost their leader and began to wonder how to go on now that
Jesus was dead. An empty tomb is not
very encouraging. Only the one unnamed disciple
reached the conclusion that an empty tomb means victory. The rest, unconvinced apparently by Mary’s
account of meeting Jesus at the tomb, lock themselves up in fear, disarray and
confusion. Now what? It may be that they understood the
resurrection to mean that they too would have to be crucified as Jesus was
crucified if they wanted to be raised up like Jesus was raised up. Now this would be a good reason to be scared
The
struggle to recover from death is not confined to those early disciples huddled
into a locked room on the first day of the week following the death of Jesus. The
disciples had learned just that morning of the empty tomb so it is no surprise
that they thought their movement had died with Jesus. They had not yet caught on to the great
surprise of Easter. But churches
throughout the centuries have struggled with the very same challenge: “What do
we do to catch the spirit of Jesus released from the tomb?”
Someone
told me the other day that Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral said that
the most important attribute of a church was an accessible, large, fully
available parking lot, with easy and obvious access to the church
entrance. This is a bit of a challenge
here at First United Methodist Church Fort Dodge, I suppose. You have a fairly decent parking lot, but it
is a bit small and for much of the past four months it was pretty icy. But the disciples didn’t have a parking lot
at all. They had no choir, no praise band, no printed bulletins, no fancy
stained glass, no Christian education wing, no 300 seat sanctuary, no day care,
no service projects, no dinner groups, no coffee and cookies. They had none of the accoutrements of a
church as we know it, and yet Jesus showed up.
They thought they were dead and most observers agreed with them. But Jesus brought life back to them. He arrived unannounced, unexpected, and even
uninvited to say that he was no longer dead and neither were they.
First
United Methodist Church Fort Dodge is not exactly huddled behind locked doors
wondering if it is alive or dead, of course, but we are not without our
worries. We have more funerals than
baptisms, as I learned in spades over the past week. We have serious structural deficits in our
budget. In other words, we spend each
year more than we take in. We have a
lovely, old building which costs us a lot of money and doesn’t really meet out
needs. We have experienced declining
memberships for all of the last few decades.
Our membership no longer reflects the neighborhood around us. All too many people in Fort Dodge look at the
membership here and do not see themselves.
In these ways, we mirror many United Methodist churches around Iowa and
all over the country
But
we are not exactly huddled behind closed doors.
We have a long tradition of service to the community. Perhaps the best illustration of that is the
Lord’s Cupboard, which as you may know was started by this church over twenty
years ago. Incidentally, we now have a
new director of that program. Deb
Gardini has taken over for Marj and Glen Thompson and promises to take this
program to even greater heights of service to our community. And we have a wonderful outreach to the
community each summer with the Sidewalk Sunday School managed by our own
Jennifer Peterson. This program takes
the Gospel to dozens of children in our neighborhood who otherwise remain
untouched by any church. And we are an
enormously generous church to the missions of our denomination with monthly
mission coins and regular participation in the special offerings of our
denomination. And we maintain an active
ministry to the large number of retired and just plain tired among us with
monthly communion services and weekly Bible study at Friendship Haven. Your pastor keeps in regular contact with
those in the hospital and those confined to their homes with the frailties of
aging. And, as I have experienced of
late – more than at any time in my ministry, we provide a wonderfully welcoming
ministry to families who suffer the loss of a loved one. The women of our church provide great
hospitality with their culinary skills and the church provides a lovely setting
for funeral services. I’m very proud to
be a part of this church and its faithful ministry to its own members and to
the people in our community.
This
is not to say that we are without challenges.
We still have mostly the same sorts of people who have always been a
part of our congregation. We have not
changed with the times in this regard.
Do you know, for instance that the fastest growing type of residence in
the United States is the mobile home?
After prisons, that is. Imagine,
the fastest growing types of home for Americans are prisons and mobile homes. Do we have anyone in our church who lives in
these types of abodes? Do we have an
active ministry to, of and for such people?
This could be an area of growth for us.
Do
you realize that less than 25% of American households consist of married parents
with children? More than 50% of American
households consist on one or more adults not married to each other. The rest of the American households are made
up of married people with no children.
Do we have an active ministry to, of and for such people? Does it make
sense to continue to say that for us to grow we need more young families? This could be an area of growth for us, as
well.
I
have no doubt that as we look to our future, this church will build on its
proud traditions of active ministry to expand its base to include the new ways
in which people live and work in Fort Dodge.
No doubt, we have lots of work to do to get ready to embrace the new
challenges which face us; but we have only to build and innovate on the
strengths which have sustained us thus far.
We are light years ahead of that frightened band of cowering, timid
disciples who locked themselves in their rooms lest anyone notice they were
still around.
Look
at them! For long, painstaking chapters
in John’s Gospel, Jesus has been preparing his disciples for his
departure. He has gone over and over his
commandments to love one another, to be bold, to trust him, to be ready to
follow him at all costs. The crucifixion
and return were no secret from the disciples.
They just didn’t believe it.
Either that or they weren’t paying attention. No sooner had Jesus been killed and they
retreated like frightened rabbits behind closed, bolted doors.
They
were supposed to be the ones walking confidently out into the world, full of
the Holy Spirit, announcing the Easter triumph of God. But they held their first worship after
Easter hunkered down, cowering, hoping that nobody in town would know that they
existed. “Here is the church at it worst:
scared, disheartened, and defensive.[i]
What
kind of advertisement might this church put in the Saturday papers to attract
members? “The friendly church where all
are welcome?” Hardly. Locked doors are not a sign of
hospitality. “The church with a warm
heart and a bold mission?” “Open hearts,
Open minds, Open doors.” Forget about it! The first church was a church of sweaty palms
and shaky knees.[ii]
Could
this even be called a church? Not only
is there no sanctuary, no pulpit, no choir, no parking lot, more significantly
it had no plan, no mission, no conviction, no nothing.
When
we ask ourselves what we want and value in a church, we say things like “friendliness;
bold, interesting preaching; spirit filled worship; enthusiastic outreach.” Or as our motto says, to provide people with opportunities
for spiritual growth, real friendships, and giving of themselves.”! Pretty impressive stuff. We certainly do not have in mind locked doors
and frightened members.
The
first church of early Christians had absolutely nothing going for it except for
one thing: Jesus shows up. When this church
gathered, in spite of its best efforts, the risen Christ pushed through the
locked door, threw back the bolt, and stood among them. Jesus appeared even to the most pitiful
church imaginable. In spite of itself,
Jesus comes to them and blesses them. Jesus
has a powerful message for this little struggling church: “You are not dead, either!” These people thought their hopes died with
Jesus. But Jesus appears to them, as he
appears to us, to say, “No, you may think you’re dead. The world may think you’re dead. But they couldn’t kill me and they can’t kill
you either.”
Maybe
that’s every church. Even First Church
of the Big City with its orchestra, huge choir, electronic visual effects, or even
this church with its world class pipe organ, lovely music program and talented organist,
dedicated outreach and spiritual development ministries, not to mention our somewhat
exhausted congregation with its committed straggle of well-intentioned but
over-whelmed volunteers and interim minister:
left to our own devices, all of us are nothing, nothing more than a
huddle of confused, timid, cowering failures to follow Jesus. When Jesus enters the room, however, the
lights go on, we sit up straight, our eyes clear, our brains function. I have always loved the dinner prayer which
starts out “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest…”
We really are blest with Jesus as our guest. Jesus brings us back to life when he is in
the room. I hear this over and over from
people who have lost their way. Jesus
finds them and brings them home.
Unexpected, unannounced and uninvited, Jesus shows up and leads us back
to life.
You
are well aware that Christians are asked to give a welcome to the
stranger. No stranger in this church
goes unwelcomed, I’m sure. This is
because, as the Bible tells us, often the guest, the stranger is God in
disguise. Indeed, Jesus said that when
we welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the imprisoned
– that we do these things for him: He is
that stranger, knocking at our door. When
I was in Germany as a young person, I came to know and enjoy the friendship of
the monks at a Benedictine monastery in Trier, Germany. The monks of Benedictine monasteries are required
to welcome strangers who knock on their doors, giving them food and
lodging. I was such a stranger and I can
attest to their generous hospitality.
The monk is instructed to open the door to a stranger with the greeting,
“May I have your blessing please.” When
we welcome a stranger into our midst, we are the ones who receive the blessing,
for God is in that stranger.
You
know, I’m sure, that I agonize over the worship services here at First United
Methodist Church Fort Dodge. I want the
worship to flow easily and naturally so that we can more easily sense God’s
presence. I try hard to choose hymns that
are inspiring and uplifting. I want the
prayers and responses to speak to us of timeless truths; the sermons and
meditations to invite the Holy Spirit to touch our hearts. Fortunately, I am blessed to be part of a
church where I have a lot of help. The
choir never ceases to be a blessing.
Diane’s playing always inspires.
Jennifer inevitably entrances the children, and many others, with a
sweet yet poignant message for the kids.
I know that I am the least of those who contribute to our worship. But together we build each other up and
invite God to join us. All of us know,
however, that unless Jesus chooses to show up, our efforts are in vain. If you need to pray, you most need God for
God is the one who gives you the prayer you need. And my prayer before each worship service is
this one: Come, Lord Jesus, and be our
guest – let this worship be more than we expect and deserve. Or, as one pastor I heard about puts it: “Please,
blessed Jesus, this Sunday let something happen to us that is not in the
printed bulletin. May we be surprised by
your startling presence as we huddle here!”
Sometimes,
by the grace of a living God, the Holy Spirit slips through our closed doors,
our meager attempts to craft a Sunday morning service, and actual worship takes
place, worship not of our own creation but worship as a gift. Sometimes Jesus walks through the walls and
allows us to touch him and receive the assurance that though dead, he is not
gone; though he is no longer physically present, we are not leaderless; though
the tomb is empty, the savior is alive, though we think ourselves moribund, we
are not dead, either. The crowning
evidence that Jesus was alive is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled
fellowship. Not a rolled away stone, but a carried-away church. (Clarence
Jordan)
The
truth is that it was to a church which was hardly a church at all, just a
pitiful huddle of timid souls hanging on to one another behind locked doors
that the living, risen Christ came saying just this: “Look at me. I’m not dead, after all, and neither are you.” The early disciples could not hide from Jesus
for very long. Neither can we. Neither can anyone.
Loving God come into our midst this morning
and bring us back to life with you. We
struggle also with a cross which weighs us down and holds us back. We know that when you enter the room, we come
alive and restored to wholeness. Enter
the world again and bring us peace as you brought your disciples peace 2000
years ago. We pray for the leaders of
the Middle East especially this morning.
There representatives of both great faiths struggle hard to resist the
temptation to hate and seek revenge.
Bring peace to them too, for they are in the room with us and sit at the
table with us. Come, Lord Jesus, be our
guest and by the gift of life you bring may we be blest. Amen.
God of promise, Easter gives us confidence
and hope that you are changing us and the world into a new creation with Christ. We make this
offering to symbolize our commitment to participate in your intention for our
lives, the church, and the world. Bless these gifts and use them for your
transformative purposes, we pray. Amen