Title: Why I Go to Church

Text: John 20:19-31

Date: April 23, 2006

Place: St. Paul United Methodist Church of Little Rock

 

I try not to tell any jokes or to tell any stories or to make any comments on Easter Sunday about the number of people who crowd our worship spaces but who most likely won’t be back on the following Sunday.  There are enough jokes out there about that sort of thing and some preachers told them last Sunday somewhere in a worship service.

 

I don’t do that first of all because I don’t think that it’s very encouraging to those of us who are here week after week, taking our place in the worship service.  I also don’t do it because those stories, those comments, those jokes don’t get the people back in a pew, back in a worship service.  After all, you never know, Easter Sunday worshipers might hear something in the sermon that will have them saying, “I’d like to hear him preach again.” They might hear something angelic from the voices of the choir, praising God, that will have them wanting more.

 

Who knows, they might just receive such a warm welcome that this place that we call home will feel like home to them.  So I don’t tell the stories or the jokes or make the comments.

 

Some do.  On my desk for several years was a perpetual calendar that was given to me on the occasion of my graduation from seminary.  He was a classmate of mine.  The calendar is made up of 365 comic strips of funny things or not so funny things that happen in churches.  I’ve lost the calendar.  It made the first two moves with me, but when I moved to St. Paul, it was lost in the shuffle.  I remember, though, several of the comic strips.  One of them pictures a pastor shaking the hands of those who came  to the Easter worship service.  You know that it’s Easter for a couple of reasons.  First, in the background, there is a church sign that announces the preacher’s sermon title, something like “He is Risen.”  The comic strip is the second clue.  It has the preacher shaking one man’s hand.  The worshiper extends his hand and says to his pastor, “Preacher, I believe that you’re in a rut.  Every time I come to church, you preach about the resurrection of Jesus!”

 

Some do tell such stories.  I heard of a preacher just this past week who tried his very best not to do that very thing.  And he almost made it.  It was at the very end of the worship service.  It was at that point when the final hymn had been sung and the preacher was pronouncing a blessing.  He thought that he should take the chance to invite those who were there for Easter to come by.  So you see it all started out innocently.  These were his words of invitation, “I hope that you will be back here next week.”  He should have stopped there, but he didn’t; his mouth wouldn’t let him.  So his complete invitation was this one, “I hope that you will be back here next week; we do this every Sunday.”   What he said, of course, was true.

 

That is one of the lessons, that is one of the things that I think that John is trying to teach us in our gospel lesson for this morning.  I don’t know if you have noticed this or not, but the gospel lesson on the Sunday after Easter is always this one, the story of what happened on that first Easter evening when Jesus appeared to his disciples behind locked and closed doors, and then what happened a week later when Jesus appeared again, in what I believe was for the benefit of Thomas who wasn’t there that first Easter evening.

 

I’ve always wondered where Thomas was that night.  Some preachers have guessed where he might have been.  Some have guessed that he had stepped out to get a little fresh air, that he needed a breather, a little space, time to think about the things that had happened in Jerusalem.  I guess that that is possible.  A friend of mine guessed that Thomas had gone out to get the biblical equivalent of pizza.  After all, if they were locked in a room for fear, at some point someone had to go out and get some groceries.  The truth is that we don’t know where Thomas was, just that he wasn’t there on that first Easter evening.

 

While he was missing in action, Jesus appeared to the disciples who were huddled up in fear the first words that he offered were words of peace.  In this short passage, Jesus offers the disciples peace three different times.  He does more than offer peace.  Jesus also breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit.  This is John’s version of the day of Pentecost.  Jesus does more than give the Spirit, though.  He also commissions them to go out into the world.  He says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus even gives the disciples the power of forgiveness, the power to hold on to it, and the power to give it freely!

 

That is the first scene in this story that has two scenes but before we move on to Thomas, can I tell you that I think that what John has given us is a picture of the church, perhaps even the first church.  For sure this was the first worship service following the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Look at it.  The doors are closed (in their case also locked; are door’s aren’t locked).  It is the place where the disciples had met.  John gives us that detail.  Jesus comes into that, into a gathering of frightened disciples offering them peace, giving them a Spirit that will not be contained, empowering them to go out into the world, and even the power to forgive.

 

Some time later, Thomas returns.  The disciples are all excited about  what had happened.  There was excitement in their voices when they told Thomas about it.  Maybe it was Andrew who said, “Thomas, you missed it.  You should have been here.  It was the experience of a lifetime.  Jesus was just here!”  I have been there, haven’t you?  I have heard such words when for one reason or another, I wasn’t there to be a part of something powerful.  I only heard about it later.  This is no ordinary event.  This, after all, is the bringing back to life someone who had died.  And not just someone, this is Jesus.  Thomas had seen that with his death with his own two eyes. And so I can understand why he was a little skeptical.  I can understand why he said, “Unless I see..... I will not believe.”

 

You will remember that it was a week later, exactly a week later, when the second scene of this story is set.  The disciples once again gather behind closed and locked doors.  Jesus comes once again to be with them.  And here is what I think.  I think that this time he came for Thomas alone.  Once again he suddenly appears, offers peace, and reached out his wounded hands to heal Thomas’ wounded spirit.  Thomas stands in for all of us who want to see something for ourselves and until we do, won’t believe it.  “Unless I see....I will not believe.”

 

It is an understandable attitude.  And John understood it, otherwise why would he have told us about Thomas?  And what Jesus said to Thomas in that Upper Room and words that still ring in our ears some two thousand years later, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  And, that, of course, is us.

 

Here we find ourselves on the Sunday after Easter, hearing and preaching the story of what happened on that Easter evening and admitting to ourselves, if we are honest with ourselves, that sometimes we have to hold back the taste of doubt in our mouths, as it comes up from our hearts, all while we are sitting here in our place in the worship service.  One of the things about the church is that we sit among people both with faith and with doubt.  Many have a combination of both faith and doubt.

 

I have a confession to make this morning.  It is not juicy.  Sorry for that.  It is not something the preachers in our conference will talk about tomorrow morning at coffee groups.  My confession is that there have been very few, if any, times in my life when I have not believed.  I am virtually unscathed by things that demand faith.  I have grown up, going to church, and believing that Jesus is with me everyday.  Even when my sister died, my faith stayed strong and I knew that God was with me.  Not everyone has my situation; maybe that is what made preparing this sermon so difficult.  What do we do with the experiences of our lives?

 

I heard of a woman in a church, a young woman who shared in a small group her fears and her frightening encounter with cancer, a battle, you might say that she won.  Before she knew that, there were anxious days.  She and her husband had two young children at home.  She wondered, “If I die, what will happen to my children?”  Her Sunday School class had prayer meetings.  And looking back at it, she said, “I gained a lot of perspective those days.”  She also made a promise to be available to any who were going through any kind of cancer, but particularly breast cancer.  It became her ministry.

 

Robert Browning Hamilton wrote these words, “I walked a mile with pleasure, she chatted all the way; but left me none the wiser for all she had to say.  I walked a mile with Sorrow and ne’er a word said she; but oh the things I learned from her, when Sorrow walked with me.”

 

The greatest stories that we tell are about the things that we have been through. People are mildly interested in how you started a business or how you raised your three kids or how you have maintained your health over the years.  If you want to get their attention, tell them honestly about your struggles and your heartbreaks.  If you doctor says, “Yes, it’s cancer” people want to know how you handled that.  If you spouse says, “I’m sorry.  I don’t think that I love you anymore” people want to know how you stood it.  When you discovered that your teenager was in real trouble, perhaps with alcohol or drugs, people want to know what you did, where you turned.

 

The great theologian C.S. Lewis put it this way, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our consciences, but shouts to us in our pain.”  And it is the church, a community of believers, who helps us in times such as these.

 

I love the writings of Anne Lamont.  In one of her books, she talks about why she makes her son, Sam, go to church.  These are her words, “I want to give him what I have found in the world, which is to say a path and a little light to see by.  Most of the people I know who have what I want, purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy, are people who live in community, who pray and who practice their faith....They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle; they are a part of something beautiful...”  And writing about her own church experience, Anne wrote, “When I was at the end of my rope, the people at St. Andrew tied a know in it for me and helped me to hold on.”  That is the kind of church that we have here.  This is who we are supposed to be for one another.  Let us pray.