Second Sunday of Easter - April 19 - 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31

Christ is Risen!
Christ is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Okay. So now what?
We made it through Lent.
We made it through Holy Week.
We have been on the Three Day journey from death to life. Now what?
Easter began last week, and we have 50 days of the Easter season, springtime in our world, new life popping up all around us. It’s easy to be excited by that for a while. But what comes next? Pentecost. And then…Ordinary Time. The long season between seasons. The dog days of the church year. Summertime, when we are all given permission to “check out” of church. School is out. Vacations are happening. Sunday school is done for the year. Confirmation is over. Adult Forums are concluded. We can be…well… Ordinary. What has Easter to do with that?
Today’s readings are trying to tell us what Easter has to do with Ordinary time. With our ordinary lives. With our ordinary days as ordinary people. Today’s readings tell us about community. But this is a community that is by no means ordinary. At least not in the way that we usually think of ordinary. This is a community that is Ordinary – capital O Ordinary. A people that is living in the wake of Easter – unable to return to life as it once was, because of a story.
What is community living? Today, as in Christ’s time, here in America, as nearly everywhere in the world, living in community is often about presentation. Sometimes I’ve heard people talk about how in Asian societies, there is a huge concern with “saving face.” And I wonder, how is that different for us? We may go about it differently, but we are so often concerned with the face that we present to the world. When do we have the chance to be our authentic selves? How often in our lives are we able to show who we really are? To share our failings; our difference; our brokenness; pain; doubts. Even if we dare, for a moment, to expose our wounds, we are not allowed to feel okay with them. We can share them with our therapist or our friend or our support group, because we are ready to change. We are ready to lose weight, to turn our lives around, to put aside our vices and move forward toward perfection. Where are we able to be ourselves, just as we are, fully truthful, without shame? Where do we allow others to be who they are, to bring their worst along with their best, without fear of rejection?
According to the letter of John that we heard today, here. Right here. In this fellowship, in this community, in this Body, we are able to be completely and truthfully ourselves. John tells us, “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So often I have heard this as an indictment, as a finger pointing at my heart, showing me the lie that is there, the deceit, the sin. But today, on this side of Easter, I hear this as an invitation. Because of Christ, I am invited to open my heart and show all that I am, the shame, the pain, even the doubt. I do not have to hide that anymore. I can bring that out into the light – into Christ. As the risen Christ showed his wounds to Thomas and the other apostles, I, too, can show my wounds, and be seen for who I truly am. And John tells me these things, not so that I can be rejected for my sin, “but so that (I) may have fellowship…so that joy may be complete.”
Of course, the problem comes in when I realize that I don’t get to decide with whom I have fellowship. John tells us that we have an advocate, that Jesus is our Advocate with the Father, not only for us, but for the whole world. Unfortunately, that does mean everyone. So much of what we hear as the Christian message in the world today has to do with the individual, with Jesus as a personal savior. And so he is. But he is also the savior of the whole world, and we don’t get to decide who is included in that. Our fellowship, our salvation, our Body, is shared with all the world, including those we would rather not share it with.
When I was serving as the President of my congregation in Seattle, I occasionally had disagreements with other parishioners. There was one man in particular, Joe. One day during a presentation, as I was trying to encourage a new look at our governing structure, Joe, completely misunderstanding me, said something really hurtful. I couldn’t even finish giving my presentation. I sat down and cried. In fact I cried for the rest of the day. He apologized. Well, his wife made him apologize, after she apologized for him. He said his blood sugar was off and that had caused him to misunderstand me. Anyway, we moved awkwardly forward, and even managed to work together on some things after that, but I always felt uncomfortable, not sure how to deal with him. And then one day, I was asked to assisted in serving communion. An interim pastor was filling in while our pastor was on sabbatical. And this interim pastor was a quadriplegic. He spoke the words of the thanksgiving and institution, while I held the elements, the bread and the wine. And then I served the bread around the circle while another assistant followed along with the wine. When I came to Joe, I looked at him, and I spoke his name, “Joe, take and eat the Body of Christ, broken for you.” And something shifted. Just as Mary recognized Christ in the garden when he spoke her name, and the travelers to Emmaus recognized Christ in the breaking of the bread, I recognized Christ as I spoke Joe’s name and broke bread with him. Just as Thomas and the others in that room recognized Christ in his wounds, I saw Christ in the broken relationship between myself and Joe. And as we shared the meal together, the relationship changed. We were able to lay on the table all of ourselves, and move forward. Our breach wasn’t forgotten. Christ’s wounds weren’t healed in his resurrection – they were still there, able to be seen and, it seems, touched. But they no longer determined the future. Christ was raised to new life. As the Body of Christ, we may have wounds. Brokenness, division, even schism. But they do not have to determine our future. Our future is at the table, in the shared meal, in the new life that we receive at our baptisms. Our future is an Easter future.
This week, there were two funerals here at Christ Church. Two beloved women names Alice. Alice Tomhave, a member of this congregation for 80 years, and Alice Lindberg, the mother of Donna Lindberg. As the families and friends of these dear women gathered to mourn and remember them, these words of Paul in his letter to the Romans were read:
“When we were baptized in Christ Jesus,
we were baptized into his death.
We were buried therefore with him
by baptism into death,
so that as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might live a new life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his,
we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
This is our story.
The story did not end 2000 years ago, at the crucifixion. Or 3 days later, at the empty tomb. It did not end 1900 years ago when the last words of the Scriptures were written down. It did not end 1700 years ago when the books were gathered into a canon, or when the creeds were written. It did not end 500 years ago when Luther nailed his these to the door of the cathedral. It did not end last week at the celebration of Easter.
The story does not begin at our funerals. It is not a story that begins with our death. That story, as John says, “was from the beginning, what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we have looked at and touched with our hands.”
This story continues today. God is light, in God there is no darkness. We continue to be drawn into it even as we help to write the next chapter of it. We are free to receive the peace that Christ gives us, to receive one another as we are, wounds and all. As we gather together at the waters of baptism today, to welcome Zachary Lawrence Swanson into the story. As we gather together at the Table today, all of our brokenness laid bare on that table, this is the story that we hear and see and touch and taste and take right into our bodies. This is the story that holds us together, so that we can live Easter lives in Ordinary time.