Shalom

Sermon preached by The Rev'd Nicholas Lang

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The Second Sunday of Easter – March 30, 2008

An older lady was pulled over for speeding. “Is there a problem, Officer?” she asked. “Ma'am, you were speeding,” “Oh, I see.” “Can I see your license please?” The older woman replied, “I'd give it to you but I don't have one.” “Don't have one?” said the officer. “Nope, lost it, 4 years ago for drunk driving.” Surprised by this detail, he asked to see her vehicle registration papers. “I can't do that.” “Why not?” he asked. “Because I stole this car.” “Stole it?” “Yes—shot the owner and dumped him in the trunk. You want to see?” The Officer looked at the woman and slowly backed away to call for back up. Within minutes 5 police cars circled the car. A senior officer slowly approached the woman’s car, clasping his half drawn gun, and says, “Ma'am, could you step out of your vehicle please!” “Is there a problem sir?” she asks. “One of my officers told me that you stole this car and murdered the owner.” “Murdered the owner?” “Yes, said the officer, “could you please open the trunk of your car.” The woman opened the trunk: empty. “Is this your car, ma'am?” “Yes, and here are the registration papers. The officer is stunned. “One of my officers claims that you do not have a driving license. The woman digs into her handbag and pulls out a clutch purse and hands it to the officer. He examined the license. Now he looks real puzzled. “Ma'am, one of my officers told me you didn't have a license, that you stole this car, and that you murdered and hacked up the owner. The older woman snaps back, “Bet the liar told you I was speeding, too!!!!”

Some stories are really hard to believe. Every year on this Second Sunday of Easter we find an example of that truth. We hear the account of a resurrected Jesus coming on the evening of that Easter Day through locked doors into the midst of his frightened disciples. One of them is missing—Thomas who will question the authenticity of this visit and demand proof that it was Jesus who was there with them. Thomas wants to touch and feel resurrection. He can’t just take the word of the others. For seven days after he will struggle with his doubt, his inability to believe his closest friends when they tell him that they have, indeed, seen the risen Jesus.

What is so remarkable about this incident on that Easter evening is what is tells us about God and about God in Christ. We would not be surprised, I think, if Jesus had some harsh words for them. “Where were you when I needed you most?” “How could you betray me like that?” “With friends like you who needs enemies?” Instead, Jesus blesses them with peace. He gives them a gift they neither expected or thought they deserved: the gift of acceptance just as they are, who they are, and in spite of what they had done.

The word Jesus would have used is “Shalom,” which our Presiding Bishop Katharine Schori describes as a “vision of the city of God on earth, a community where people are at peace with each other because each one has enough to eat, adequate shelter, medical care, and meaningful work. Shalom is a city where justice is the rule of the rule of the day, where prejudice has vanished, where the diverse gifts with which we have been so abundantly blessed are equally valued.” That is the kind of peace that Jesus breathes into the room that Easter evening and the kind of peace he breathes into our lives today.

When Jesus returns the following Sunday evening and enters again through the sealed doors, Thomas is with them. Here we find again an amazing lesson about God’s willingness to meet us where we are. Jesus recognizes Thomas’ need, not just to see, but to touch, to feel, in order to believe and he gives him exactly what he needs. Needing is essential to being human. Every aspect of life needs something—air, water, something to eat—and rather than chastise Thomas for his failure in faith, Jesus honors his neediness and supplies what was lacking for him to come to a place of trust and faith.

This week, as I was leaving a restaurant where I had dinner, a young man who was standing at the next table engaging in conversation with some women who were also dining there, turned to me and said, “Good night, Father. I’ll see you in church.” I did not know him from Adam and I was not in clerical attire. “How did you know I am a priest,” I asked. “Oh, I just knew,” he answered, “and I’ll be in church because I need to confess.”

It was crowded and noisy in the restaurant and I decided that it was not a good place to pursue the conversation but as I played the tape of this brief encounter in my head I thought how unfortunate that many people think that the primary reason they need to go to church or seek out the presence of God is to confess—to acknowledge that they have done bad things or are a bad person or are ashamed of themselves.

That is so not what the church is for and so not what God wants for us. The good news we hear in the Gospel today is that God wants to bless us with peace—to offer us acceptance just as we are and in spite of what we have done. The better news is that God recognizes our neediness and wants to give us whatever it takes to help us discover the way to believing, no matter how strong our doubts, no matter how many or enormous our questions.

But perhaps the best news that Easter brings is that God will walk right through locked doors and will intrude in our lives to bring us that blessing of peace and acceptance and to respond to our needs. We can all identify with those locked doors behind which we may be hiding—our difficulty in believing, our fears about war, about the economy, uncertainty about our security, our failure to be faithful followers of Jesus, our poor self-esteem, our desperation, our profound human vulnerability and neediness.

What the Easter appearance of the risen Jesus to his friends guarantees is that there is no door in our life secure enough, bolted sturdily enough, that will prevent God’s walking right through it and bringing us Shalom, the blessing of peace, of acceptance, and whatever else it is we need to make believing more than making believe.

And God does that because God loves us exactly as we are, although too much to allow us to stay that way. God wants to grow our faith, to broaden our horizons, to expand our perspective, and to lead us to a richer, fuller life.

The image of closed doors is especially salient today. This is the last celebration of the Eucharist over which I will preside until my sabbatical is over. We are all about to walk through a door not knowing what the experience on the other side will be like. It will be very different for me not being in my office each day and not being here every Sunday. It will be different for you as well.

It is my hope that all of us will find some wonderful and unexpected experiences behind those closed doors. God is a God of surprises and I am counting on all of us rediscovering that truth by the time we meet up with each other again in mid-summer.

Pray for me as I will for you. Be good to your priest-in-charge, Mother Donna. Bless one another with the gift of God’s radical welcome and hospitality. Welcome and entertain strangers as you would the angels. Love one another as Jesus has first loved us.

Robert Farrar Capon writes in his novel Between Noon and Three: “Grace is the gift unearned, the wonderful unanticipated presence, the blessing underserved. It is sunshine in a place where only the darkness can be explained. It is a bursting presence of love at a time when we have the right only to expect condemnation or emptiness and aloneness.”

Jesus breathed that Easter grace into a room two thousand years ago, where twelve, frightened disciples cowered behind locked doors. Jesus breathes that same Easter grace into our midst this very morning. Receive it. Claim it. Celebrate it. And, most of all, share it—just as we will share it with my great nephew, Dantae, whom we will soon welcome as a member of Christ’s holy, catholic, church.

St. Paul’s is truly a resurrection community, one that lives in the now, looking toward the future, rather than living in the past, a community that lives in hope for the new thing God is doing here. Creation is by no means over and done with. God is still speaking to the church. There is much, much more to come and many, many more doors to walk through together. As I begin this time of renewal, refreshment, and learning, I wish you all the blessing of God’s peace, acceptance, and care for your every need. Shalom!