“The Work Has Just Begun”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Text: John 20: 19-23
This week someone sent me a wonderful cartoon. The cartoon depicted a minister meeting with the membership and church growth committee, and the minister says to the committee who are gathered there: “I am just wondering if anyone else has any ideas as to how we can grow our church and its attendance other than the suggestion of George, who recommended that we just simply call every Sunday Easter Sunday?” Isn't that great?
It really resonated with me on Monday morning, I can tell you! It is because there is a truth to what George supposedly said, namely that every Sunday is Easter Sunday. Think about it for a moment: we gather on the first day of the week, which is the day of the Resurrection to celebrate the presence of Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what time of the year it is. It doesn't matter the weather. It doesn't matter the occasion or the date. The first day of the week is the day that Christians who believe in Jesus gather to worship him. It is the day of the Resurrection every single Sunday.
I also realized that as a result of Easter we do have this tendency to have a rise and a fall when it comes to Easter and I will talk about that in a few moments' time. But, there is sort of a natural low. We call the Sunday after Easter “Low Sunday.” Can you imagine? We actually say it in many of the lectionary readings. Low Sunday! Let me tell you that this is the most important Sunday of the Christian year, because this is the Sunday that celebrates the Resurrection that we celebrated last week. This is the day when the faithful gather to remind themselves that Christ is still alive. This is the High Sunday in the Kingdom of God.
We also live in a world where there is still a degree of cynicism and scepticism about the Christian faith, as I mentioned last week. That hasn't changed. There are still those who will grant us one Sunday a year to celebrate the Risen Jesus, but think that we are deluding ourselves by continuing to do so each successive Sunday. There are those who question whether one shouldn't do something more productive than worship Jesus of Nazareth on a Sunday week-by-week.
I was thinking about that as I was reading another section from a book many of you know that I have always delighted in, Voltaire's Candide. At the end of it there is this moment where the discussion has reached such a point that faith and doctrine were deemed to be unnecessary appendages to life and that there was no room for silly optimism in a world where things go wrong, nor is it a world where one should become completely full of depression because things have gone wrong. Rather, there should be sort of a mild optimism, but one that is curtailed somewhat by reason.
In the end, the characters in Voltaire's Candide conclude the following with the final stanza: that what we need to do is just simply “cultivate the garden!” Voltaire himself was a lover of gardening as well as a lover of seclusion and thought and reason. So for Voltaire it was to get away from all the problems of the world and simply do something concrete: to physically do something, to make a contribution, to cultivate the garden, to make something beautiful. Therein lay the meaning of life.
Well, there is an element of truth to what Voltaire says; I do not make fun of him. But, on the other hand, Christians believe that there is something more and that faith and doctrine and history and the events of the Resurrection in fact transform the garden. In fact it is the very Resurrection and the presence of Jesus that gives life its meaning.
So what should we do then as we gather as an Easter people on the first Sunday that celebrates Easter? Well, there is a word in Latin that describes what we do this morning. The word is “liturgia,” and it means “common work.” When we have liturgies, when we pray, in other words, when we worship, we are doing “common work.” It means we are doing something together that is meaningful and powerful. It is not doing nothing to worship; it is doing something with one another.
I want to put these two things together and ask that as Christians this morning, how do we cultivate our garden, the garden of the kingdom of heaven? And what should we do concretely as believers to reinforce our faith in the meaning of Christ?
I think there are a few things we have to do, and, to use the gardening metaphor, I would begin by saying that we have to eliminate the weeds to prepare the ground. In many ways, we have already done that, have we not? Lent is a time of preparation, a time of prayer and reflection, a time to do without things, a time to give up sin, to analyze our own hearts and to see what is really moving us and what is inside us, a time of introspection, and time of deep personal spiritual analysis.
We have done some of that “weeding” with Lent. We have removed those barriers from obedience and following Jesus, and of course, it reached its highlight on Good Friday. It reached its apex with the Cross of Christ. It is through the sacrifice of Jesus that our sins are removed, our sins are forgiven, and the debt is cleared. The weeds are removed, the garden is prepared, and we are now ready to receive what God wants for us.
For those of us who have gone through Lent, for those of us who have celebrated Good Friday, for those of us who have cleared the decks as it were, the weeding has been done. Now what do we do? There is no question that the first thing we have to do is to plant the seeds of faith. Here I want to speak especially to those who maybe listening on the radio, those who often are not here on a regular basis, and want to say to you that I think you need to hear this because you are missing something.
I start with this premise: when the disciples gathered together after the death and the Resurrection of Jesus it was their practice to gather in a room by themselves in one place. In some of the versions of the Bible the Gospels say it was their custom to worship. Others have simply said they went into a room. John says that they went into a room and locked the door for fear of oppression from the religious authorities.
Either way it is very clear that the disciples set themselves apart to do something after the Resurrection of Jesus. They gathered in an upper room and it was their custom to do that. It was part of what they believed. But what is astonishing is that when they gathered in that upper room what happened? Jesus, the Risen Christ, appears to them and says, “Peace be with you.” And He reiterates it, “Peace be with you.” In the midst of their fears, in the midst of their concerns, there was a word of peace and there was His presence.
If you follow on in the Gospel of John you will realize that something else happens. Namely that one of the disciples was not there, Thomas was missing. Because Thomas wasn't there, he doubted. He struggled with understanding who Jesus was. Why? He hadn't gathered with the disciples in that room. John gives us no explanation. He missed the appearance of Jesus. He missed the presence of the Lord.
It seems to me that one of the things about Easter that is so powerful is that it is a reminder to the gathered community every Sunday we plant the seeds of faith and we are encountered by the Risen Christ. We are encountered by the Risen Christ as the gathered community. Oh, I hear some people say, “Well, I can do this on my own. I can be on my own. I can have my own faith. I can come to church once a year and sing ”Hallelujah, He is risen!“ And that is fine!” No, it isn't!
Too many people celebrate the high of the Christian faith, like last Sunday, and they forget about the rest. I often feel like saying to some people and I am not a cynic so I don't, “It is lovely to see you this morning. I'll see you same time next year. ”What is wrong with this picture? Well, I will tell you what is wrong. It misses the whole reason why we worship.
We do not worship just once a year to sing “Hallelujah, He is risen!” We understand as believers that there is far more than just “Hallelujah, He is risen!” There is the whole cycle of the church's year that celebrates the entire life and ministry of Jesus Christ. To only celebrate Him on the high days and the holy days is to miss Him when He is there in the low days and the poor days and the hurting days and the days of suffering. It is to take Christianity and to make it into the ridiculous optimism that Voltaire was responding to: that all is happy and light and fluffy and beautiful and flowers.
To ignore the fact that Christ is also present in the dark moments of Good Friday, that He is there in the times of clearing the garden in Lent, that He is there in the message of the Incarnation as we prepare for Him at Christmas, that He is there with us in the bright, sunny days of the summer and the dark, snowy days of February - He is there. If perhaps you don't see Him on the high day and the day of “Hallelujah!” If you don't gather to worship, you miss Him on all the other days when He appears.
It seems to me that it is like going from winter to summer and never having spring. How rich is that kind of a life to go from one extreme to another but never to have the richness of what lies in between? Why is this worship important? It is because it is in worship that the seed of the Word is planted. The Word of God is not just “Hallelujah, He is risen!” The Word of God is correction and admonishment. It is words of praise and glory. It is words of encouragement in the midst of suffering.
I couldn't help but think of that on Easter Sunday morning. I don't know why it haunted me in the back of my mind. What haunted me was the Sunday when we gathered here after the earthquake in Japan. We prayed for the people of Japan, and we corresponded with the people in Japan. I thought, “Those are the days when the Risen Christ also hears our prayers. Those are the days when the Word of God, making sense of devastation, goes forward and gives richness to life. ”
When we hear the Word of God in the dark times as well as in the bright times, in times of sorrow and in times of joy - Oh, those who sing “Hallelujah, He is risen!” I am delighted they do that! I pray they will always do that. But to miss the Word of God all the other times of the season is to miss the richness of our faith. The disciples gathered in that room because they knew something would happen and He appeared to them.
We also have to plant the seeds of growth. By growth, I mean the fact that the Christian faith calls us out of ourselves as well as just to be amongst ourselves. It is fascinating that this is the term that is used in John to describe them in the Upper Room - they are now called Apostles. Before, they were called Disciples: they were followers. Now they are Apostles. They are the “sent” ones. Before they learned, now they proclaim. Everything has changed with the Resurrection, including being a follower of Jesus, and Jesus gives them this apostolic mission. He now sends them out to go and proclaim the news of what they have seen in the Resurrection.
This does not mean that there is a cookie-cutter rubber stamp for all of those who were there. They had very different ministries. Some were good at some things; some not so good. Some were able to be martyrs, others were not. Some had great intellect, others did not. Some were great teachers, others were not. But all of them had a mission. All of them were Apostles and as the gathered community we are Apostles. We are the priesthood of all believers and we carry on that tradition. It requires the community of faith to enact that and embody that precisely because not all of us have the gifts or the abilities others have but we have our own.
I was reading a fascinating story about a man who desperately wanted to be the conductor of an orchestra. He was a very, very, very powerful character. Eventually he was given the opportunity to be a conductor but he was rather eccentric. When the music went soft he would almost get down on his hands and knees in front of the orchestra to get them to play softly. And then he would jump up and raise his arms in the air when there was to be a loud piece. There were times he would lose his memory and he would forget that there was a piece that was supposed to be repeated, and so, when they did repeat it, he was pleased and then when they repeated it again he was angry and he would actually stop the performance and castigate the First Violinist for having done the very things he had asked them to do.
This is a nightmare, isn't it? Then he would sit down at the piano but he was getting so absent-minded and couldn't see very well that at times he would knock over the candelabra on the piano and cause the piano to be set on fire because he wasn't able to handle things. Every now and again, he would just forget to show up for the performances completely. Finally they said to him, “Sorry, sir, but there is no circumstance under which you can continue to be our conductor.” And so, this gentleman agreed. Ludwig van Beethoven simply continued to compose music!
Not everyone has every gift or ability. But everyone is called to be an Apostle. And if you are not in the gathered community, you don't hear that and you don't share that and you are not encouraged to be that. A simple “Hallelujah, He is risen!” is not enough!
Finally, you need to plant seeds that bear fruit. You don't put something in the ground and say, “Well, I planted the seed, so that's it!” Without air and water and sun there would be no results. Jesus knew that. When He called the Apostles together and met them in that Upper Room, He did so with one expectation: that He would breathe on them and bestow on them the Holy Spirit. He knew that their power, even in faith, was not enough. Witnessing his risen presence was not enough. Having lived with him for three years was not enough, witnessing the Crucifixion, not enough, having learned from him was not enough.
They needed the Holy Spirit. They needed the ruach, the wind, the breath of the Spirit. They needed to be empowered. Why? It is as Jesus says, “When you forgive sins from now on, they will be forgiven. When you bear witness, your witness will bear fruit.” He understood that what they were going do mattered. How they act and carry themselves forward mattered. What He was saying was that the Church, the gathered community, mattered. When we forgive someone as Christians, as part of the Church, it is a powerful thing. When we support the weak and love the afflicted and mend the broken, it is powerful. We never know what witness we bring to bear.
I was thinking about that not long ago when I had an experience that most ministers have had at some point in their life. I am not unique - by any means. I went to a hospital and I visited a patient, and often when you visit a patient, there is one of two responses: either when you enter the room all of a sudden the curtains get closed, or else they are opened wide and you are greeted. It is one or the other usually. It is either “Please don't bother me now” or “Please come and spend time with me.” One or the other.
In this case, the curtains were drawn wide open, and the person that I was visiting asked me to have a word of prayer with him. My back was turned to the gentleman in the other bed in the room, who I did not know and had never seen, and who I just acknowledged with a nod when I entered. As is my custom, I kneeled at the side of the bed of the person that I was visiting and I said a word of prayer, and at the end of the word of prayer, the man behind me said, “Ah-men! Ah-men!” I turned around and realized that the gentleman behind had been praying along with me even though I wasn't praying for him at all.
You never know who is watching, who is listening, what influence you have, what witness you bring, what great message you give. Jesus was right. He understood that the Apostles would have a great witness, and that it would go forward. And so do you! And so do we as a community of faith! And that is why I am convinced that this Sunday is a High Sunday. There are no Low Sundays. All Sundays celebrate the Resurrection. All Sundays are the gathering of the Apostles in a room. All of them are the cultivating of the garden of the Kingdom of God. And here we are to sing “Hallelujah, He is risen!” And we know it! Amen.