“Behind Locked Doors”

John 20:19-31

April 18, 2004

Saint Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

Susie, Annie Grace, and I ran into the sister-in-law of one of my good friends and former church members from Harmony Grove at the Super Wal-Mart in Conway on Easter evening. We were in Conway for a family Easter dinner and stopped at the super center on our way out of town. When we were finished shopping and back on the interstate, I reached for my cell phone and called my friend, Randy, to check in and to see how things were in lower Arkansas. I wanted to know how things were with his family and his job. And of course I wanted to know how things were going at the church where I once pastored. After a minute or two of that, I asked him about the men’s softball team that I was sure that he was still playing on. Once upon a time we were teammates on that team. I wanted to know what the talent looked like. I do not mind telling you that it took a minute or two to recover from his answer. This is what Randy said to me, “I hung up my shoes and packed away my softball glove.” When I asked him why, he simply said, “I am too old to play. I have taken up golf.” Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with golf. That is not the part that sent me reeling. What bothered me was his comment about being too old to play softball. Naturally the thought crossed my mind, “Randy is just seven months older than me. Am I too old to play softball?” You may already know that I am playing on this year’s team. We are three games into the season. My muscles are still stiff from our first game. I thought about our team. There is a good chance that I am one of our older players. When did that happen? How did that happen? And so, for a minute or two, I wondered if I should retire my jersey and offer a retirement package to my sore arm.

That was Easter evening. Monday morning I came across the story of a senior adult softball league that exists somewhere in Florida. The average age of the men on this team is eighty-five. The ninety year old men on this team consider the eighty year old men rookies and kids. Their league, of course, is a human interest story, and so a local television station interviewed the ninety year old center fielder from one of the teams. The reporter asked, “What have you done to live such a long life? And how is it that you are in such good shape?” The man thought for a minute. Then he smiled and said, “My mother makes me get out of bed every morning and then makes me get out of the house.” I would have loved to have seen the reaction of that reporter. But more than that, I would have liked to have met this ninety year old’s one hundred and ten year old mother.

Well, you do not have to be ninety years old to know that the center fielder’s mother’s advice is reliable. How is it for you? Are there some mornings when you would rather turn off your alarm clock, call the office to tell them you will not be in, and pull the covers back up to your chin. Whenever I am tempted to do that, Annie Grace calls to me from her bed. Her internal alarm clock goes off every morning before six thirty. She knows to call for her parents from her bed. Usually she will say, “Momma. I had a good nap.” She doesn’t quite understand the difference between going to bed at night and taking a nap in the afternoon. One thing is for sure. When she wakes up, all of us climb out of our beds. There are some mornings would I would rather have Susie take her to our child care center, so that I could turn off the phone, lock the door, pull the covers up to my chin, and take the day off to hide. I am sure that you have wanted to do the same thing. It is fine to do that occasionally, I guess. There are some mornings when the world seems a little too much for us. So a day off is fine. But hiding out for a longer period of time is not so fine. If it can be said of our personal lives, it can also be said of the church.

John paints us a wonderful picture using words this morning, in our gospel lesson of ten disciples who felt that staying inside was their best option. By this time Judas has betrayed Jesus. And Thomas, for some reason is not there when the resurrected Jesus appears. Some have guessed that maybe he went out for pizza. My guess is that he was tired of being cooped up in the upper room and needed a little air and so he left. It is Easter evening, the first evening of the week. The news had broken that Jesus was alive. So where are his disciples? Well, we know where Judas is. We know that Thomas isn’t in the Upper Room. I would love to tell you that the ten are out in the streets searching for Jesus and asking everyone that they meet, “Have you seen Jesus? You know he has risen from the dead!” But the ten are not out there doing that. I would love to tell you that they have made their way to the religious authorities, and are saying to them, “We knew that you couldn’t keep a good man down!” But they are not there either. I would like to tell you that they have made their way to the rooftops in Jerusalem, cupping their hands together for amplification purposes and shouting at the top of their lungs, “You crucified Jesus, but God raised him from the dead!” But they are not on the rooftops.

In fact, if you want to find these ten disciples, you will have to go to the house where they are staying. I noticed a line in our scripture lesson that may not be all that important, but it jumped off the page for me. John writes this, “...the doors of the house where the disciples had been meeting were locked or fear of the Jews...” What that means is that they are not meeting any more. Instead they are huddled together. The doors are locked and the shutters are closed. With each knock on the door and every sound in the street, the disciples tremble. John tells us that are afraid. While these ten may not be the smartest men in the history of the world, they are not the most foolish either. They know what happened to Jesus. They know about the nails in his hands and the sword that pierced his side. They know that his body was thrown into a tomb and then, who knows, possibly stolen. I think that the horror of the crucifixion is still in their minds and the possibility of their being crucified scares them. The rumor of the resurrection has only been whispered to them by one frail woman who claims to have seen Jesus. And so, as evening falls on that first Easter night, the disciples cautiously regroup behind locked doors. If I were one of them, I would have done a more sensible thing. I would have gathered my things and gone back to my previous life. Common sense would have told them to leave and to go in separate directions. But they do not do that. Instead, they are huddled together, and afraid to do anything. And one thing is certain, these disciples cannot do anything unless Jesus is with them.

Then it happened. It happened in an instant, in a breath, in the blink of an eye and in the beat of a heart. Out of nowhere comes Jesus. Suddenly he is with them. The first words out of his mouth in all of the gospels with the exception of Luke, are these words, “Peace be with you.” I am glad that Jesus said that. I think that I can understand why he said that. After all, what would it be like for you if someone that you knew died and then suddenly appeared. What would happen if he came through a locked door, tapped you on the shoulder and said, “Hey, how’s it going?” I do not know about you, but I think such a thing would cause me to join them on the other side of death! But this is no ordinary person. This is Jesus. This is the man who performed miracles, healed the sick, and raised Lazarus from the dead. This is the Jesus who said that he would be arrested and killed. This is the one who said that after three days, he would rise from the dead. But still, these ten disciples are surprised. It seems that it does not matter how many miracles Jesus works among us, we are still surprised when there is another one. Are we slow learners when it comes to trusting God?

Maybe there is something else. You have heard it said that there are two things that we can be sure of, death and taxes. But now that Jesus has conquered death and not allowed it to have the last word, maybe there is something else to fear. I heard a counselor say this once, “There are only two real fears in our world, living and dying.” So if Jesus has conquered death, not our fear of it, but death itself, then all bets are off and we are at his mercy. Who knows what demands he might now make of us. Who knows what crosses he will ask us to bear? Who knows what changes he would have us to make in our lives? And how could we say no to this Jesus. Sometimes it is easier to huddle up in the Upper Room where the hardest decision is who is in charge of the next meal. Could it be that we need a bigger vision of God. If Christ really is risen and God is greater than the authorities, mightier than the Roman armies, bigger than death itself, then it means that God will give us the power to fulfill the dream that God has put inside all of us. I know. I know. It is scary. Maybe we should keep all of the doors locked. Doing that, by the way, won’t keep Jesus out. Jesus comes in anyway, scattering our fears, renewing our faith, and showing us his greatness.

But here is what I think. I think that life often scares us and overwhelms us. When it does, we forget about these great and wonderful promises of God. And so we need this place, this church, these friends to remind us that every Sunday is Easter Sunday and resurrected and abundant lives are what we are supposed to be living. We cannot do it all by ourselves. Try to go it alone and you will discover it. I wish that I had a dollar for the times that people have said to me, “I do not know what I would do without my church family.” So we come here on the first day of the week, wounded with the struggles of last week still fresh in our minds. Sometimes we are weary of doing the right thing. Sometimes we are paralyzed with fear and doubt. And every time, every time, Jesus comes through the closed doors and says, “Peace be with you.” That is why we come Sunday after Sunday. We come to hear that we are not alone and that Christ is always with us. If you are close to it, then you can feel it. It is a powerful feeling. Sometimes it happens. I wish that it did not, but sometimes something horrible happens in someone’s life. It is a tragedy. Perhaps it is something very hard. What sometimes happens in these instances is that the person for whom this has happened separates themselves from the church for a time. I understand it, but I wish that it was not this way. I wish that it were more like the woman whose husband suddenly died. One minute he was fine and the next he was not. He died on his way to the hospital when his heart stopped. His funeral was at the church on a Saturday. The church was full. All of their friends were there, and when the service was over, this widow went home. The next day was Sunday. The pastor of her church was in the sanctuary putting his notes on the pulpit when he saw her walk in and take a seat near the back. It wasn’t her regular seat, but she was there. He went up to her, hugged her, and said, “I didn’t expect to see you here this morning.” With determination in her eyes she said, “Where else could I be this morning. This morning I need my church more than ever!” I wish that it were that way. Christ calls us to be together, to love one another and He comes among us for a good reason. We all need it and we need Jesus.

So worship is a transforming experience for us. It is an encounter with the living Lord. But as hard as it is for me to say this, I must. Coming here on Sunday morning is not the goal of our spiritual lives. Us preachers sometimes forget that coming here on Sunday is not the main thing and that most of God’s work is done out there. A preacher helped me see this by comparing our church lives to a gardener who decided that he wanted to grow juicy tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, zucchini and hot peppers. Since his garden was going to be a large one, he decided to gather up some workers to help him with the task. Every morning they got together at the tool shed. Everything that they needed was there. There was a hoe, a tiller, a rake, a shovel, and a hose, among other thing. He offered classes on how to garden and occasionally, a master gardener would come to the shed to inspire the workers. Throughout the growing season they gathered in the shed. After a while, they began to eat meals together there and soon a kitchen was built. They even put up a sign that read, “St. Paul United Methodist Garden Club. Members Welcome.” But when they went out into the garden, they just couldn’t understand why the tomatoes were growing. Listen to this, church, you can’t grow tomatoes if you stay in the shed. What does Jesus say to us, “Go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

Jesus comes to the disciples, where they are huddled together in fear, and he says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” This is John’s version of Pentecost. It is not as dramatic as the account in Acts, but it is here for us to understand that it is all right for us to get out of the house. We won’t accomplish anything by hiding behind closed doors or in sitting in our pews.

Our job as church folks is to get what we need here, to be equipped, to have the tools, to be surrounded in prayer, to study our Bible, to work on our spiritual lives and then to go out there. Out there, beyond the doors, in the streets, in our homes, in our classrooms, where we work, in the hospitals. We are to go wherever hurting people are, and to offer them a piece of good news.

I saw it again the other night when a few of us were putting the altar back together for Easter Sunday morning. We were almost done when I saw the reflection of the church beyond the new window. It looked as if there was another sanctuary beyond the one that we have. This image keeps hitting me in the face. Listen again to Jesus’ resurrected words, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Let us pray.