John 20:19-31
May 1, 2011: Second Sunday of Easter
The doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked out of fear.
What do you do when you are afraid? Psychologists, sociologists and scientists of various sorts tell us that the two most common reactions are fight or flight. Depending upon the situation, your personality or your upbringing, you may be more inclined toward one of those than the other.
Today’s Gospel reading from John tells us about the response of the disciples to their own fear. On the third night following the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples were so afraid that they had locked themselves up in the house where they had met. They had chosen flight over fight. Actually, at the time of Jesus arrest, some of them had wanted to fight. Simon Peter had drawn his sword cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Jesus commanded Peter to put his sword away. Jesus had chosen another way. At various points, the disciples had also encouraged Jesus to choose flight as the best option.
But now, his followers had chosen flight. They were locked up at home, trying to play it safe. Even though Mary Magdalene had told them that she had seen the risen Jesus, they were apparently still afraid and probably disbelieving. The reading tells us that they were locked up for fear of the Jews. At this point, we need to remind ourselves of a couple of things: Biblical scholars tell us that it wasn’t only the disciples who feared persecution but the community to whom the gospel was written was persecuted by the ruling religious authorities in their community. These religious authorities were also Jewish. John’s community hadn’t entirely cut off from their own Jewish roots, but they perceived the Jews who did not follow Jesus to be pushing them out of the synagogue and persecuting them for the direction their faith had taken.
Most of us do not know what it is like to be persecuted for our faith in this way, although interestingly enough, there are many Jews these days who know what it is like to be persecuted by Christians which is certainly an abuse of our religious tradition. It actually seems a bit ironic that on this day when we are reminded of a Christian minority persecuted by other larger religious traditions, this is the day which commemorates Holocaust Memorial Day which honors the six million Jews who were systematically exterminated by the Nazis in 35 countries, and with them an additional three to four million people whom the Nazis deemed undesirable and inferior "enemies of the state.” gays, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, Slavic people, the physically and mentally disabled, and political dissidents of every sort. Today is called Yom Hashoah.
On a day like this, Yom Hasoah, we are reminded that persecuted minorities have always had reasons to be afraid, and on this day so many years ago, 3 days after the crucifixion, it was those first followers of Jesus who were locked up with fear when the risen Jesus came and stood among them. There are many marvelous things about this reading: First off is the fact that the risen Jesus comes bringing peace. They heard his voice saying, “Peace be with you.” They saw his hands and his side, the reminders of the pain he had endured through capital punishment for his unwillingness to stop his active witness to God’s love at work through his life. Seeing that he was alive, his followers began to rejoice as he spoke those words again, “Peace be with you.” Three times in this reading, the voice of the risen Jesus breaks forth saying, “Peace be with you.” Having been killed by one of the most violent methods, how is it possible that one of the first things that Jesus chose to do with his resurrected life was to come back to his friends bearing his wounds and witnessing to peace. He had certainly been persecuted, but chose neither fight nor flight. And for Jesus, this third way, was the essence of peace…peace in the midst of despair, peace in the midst of persecution, peace in the midst of fear.
Another amazing thing revealed to us through this reading is that the risen Jesus comes to the disciples in the context of community. If you go to the end of each of the Gospel stories from the Bible and look at the resurrection appearances, this rather frequent theme emerges which we in our individualistic culture often fail to notice. True, there is a very occasional reference to a story such as that of Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus while she was seemingly alone in the garden, but in the vast majority of cases, the risen Jesus meets people in the context of community. Just as Jesus says in Matthew 18, “Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am with them.”
The risen Jesus appears here to the 10 without Thomas present, and then a week later to the ten with Thomas present. In other gospels, Jesus appears to a group of the disciples by Lake Tiberius, to a group of women including Mary Magdalene, to two disciples on the road to Emmaus who only finally recognized him when he broke bread with them, and to the eleven apostles on a mountain in Galilee. Over and over, the risen Jesus appears to two or more gathered together and, for the most part, he is then not seen by them in the same way any more. It seems that wherever two or more gathered in the name of Christ, they are far more likely to encounter the one who brings the message: Peace be with you.
A woman named Wendy Wright gives an example of what it meant for her to learn to receive the peace of Christ when gathered in a surprising twosome. She was sitting on a bench reading a book while visiting Seattle when she was confronted by a man on the street with unkempt hair, missing teeth, disheveled clothing and a body clearly under the influence of some substance or another. She had made the mistake of leaving her purse sitting on the ground. She knew he had not approached to ask for the time of day. After realizing that she could not flee and that fighting was not a good idea, she said, “Somehow I summoned the presence to reach down into the depths of my heart and call up a reserve of love the likes of which I had never felt before. And when I finally looked into this man’s eyes, I truly felt him to be myself.”
Following her encounter with the man she met on the street, somebody whose life was so different than her own and yet who suddenly didn’t seem so different, Wendy Wright put it this way, “It was not until much later that I was able to articulate what had happened to me, and to the man I met, on that Seattle sidewalk on a weekday summer afternoon. We had been on holy ground. I had encountered the heart of another person in a way that was unimaginable to me before. We had been in the presence of a love that transformed us both and dissolved the glaring distance between our very different lives. I think I have never been as close to another person, at least for those few moments when this man unwittingly lifted the heavy trappings that obscured his heart and let me, and himself, see the bare and beautiful personhood that was still aching there…. If I could stand there again, I would know the peace of Christ that passes all understanding. I would be able to live God’s shalom….But just for an instant I was privileged to walk firmly in the middle of the path of peace that the tiny babe in Bethlehem came to bring to us so long ago.”
Jesus knew that his followers were so often caught up in the fear-filled voices screaming fight or flight. But he showed up in the midst of the community gathered in fear, he didn’t criticize them for their fear or their flight. Instead, Jesus simply extended his own wounded flesh for them to touch, bearing bodily witness that there is a third way that is possible for communities of two or more gathered in his name and it is a possibility beyond fight or flight. For his part, when he would have had every cultural justification to fight or flee, Jesus resisted evil and did not succumb to either of these voices, still so compelling today.
Perhaps we will have a better idea about how to make peace on an international basis when we learn to heed God’s voice of peace in every one to one relationship in which we find ourselves, whether at home or at church or at work. The risen Jesus shows up saying, “Peace be with you,” reminding us that we do not have to be tormented by the voices of fear, by our own anger lashing out, or by the voice of somebody else’s anger lashing out at us. Neither do we need to allow the voices of flight to convince us that we are weaker than we are when we feel afraid. The third way of peace isn’t only about the way Jesus was willing to enter into our pain and die out of love for us. It is also the way that he lived his life and the way in which the Spirit God has given to us empowers us to live our lives. It is possible because God has already entered into those fear-filled, locked up places of our lives to weep with us, the forgive us and to heal us that we might realize that we can live the peace of Christ with one another.
During the next 5 weeks of the Easter season, I will be talking about “Easter people.” These are people who I think manifest Christ-like qualities and live faithfully. But this morning, I wanted to start with those first Easter people – the ones who were there. It reminds us that Easter people often begin locked in a room, afraid and just waiting for everything to pass over. Easter people are only Easter people because they have met the one who offers a peace which surpasses all understanding. Easter people are not super-human…they are not necessarily stars. In fact, they are like most of us; they began huddled in fear, locked in a room, just hoping and praying Jesus doesn’t come through the door and send them out. But Jesus does…and Easter people are ones who go in spite of the fear. They are the ones who choose neither fight nor flight, but rather believe in Jesus’ words, in Jesus’ way: Peace be with you. The peace of Christ is with you all. Amen.
