En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.
The Second Sunday of Easter is such a lovely day for the lectionary. Our readings today show us the beginning of and the means by which life in the spirit of Jesus moved from his original followers to the whole world including us today.
The psalm affirms that people who live together in unity are richly blessed with life - words of comfort to the newly emerging church as it experienced increases in numbers so huge, in the tens of thousands, that they struggled to keep up with incorporating all of the new converts. A problem any church today would love, right?
But all of this happened because of the faithfulness of those first disciples who were afraid, confused, and doubted, but they stayed together as a community, and as a community moved from their unbelief to belief, each in their own time and in their own way.
This story of Jesus' appearance to his followers in the locked room is important because it reminds us that unbelief is part of the life of the church. Think about it, Jesus had been telling his disciples (go back through the reading of the passion) over and over again that he would be killed and would rise again on the third day, and that this was part of an overall plan by God for the redemption of the world.
So the time comes, the trial happens, and not one of them remembered; not one believed - at first. So, God met them where they were and led each one gently, lovingly into wholeness.
Remember how tenderly Jesus called Mary's name at that tomb opening her eyes and her heart to the truth. And in today's story, Thomas, poor Thomas, spends a whole week with his friends saying 'I don't believe it,' and Jesus appears and doesn't get mad at him or scold him or embarrass him, but goes up to him and gently offers him what he said he needed in order to believe.
This is our model for witnessing today: to meet people where they are and build bonds of community because this is where Jesus comes, to the body of Christ, and meets us, and gently and lovingly leads us to where we need to be - to our wholeness and to truth.
In this resurrection appearance to his followers Jesus gives the members of this new community the grace to live harmoniously, and he did it by breathing on them.
In the same way that God breathed life into the first humans in the story in Genesis, The Christ breathed new life into his followers saying, "Peace be with you." This isn't just a word of comfort to them, it's a gift of wholeness, the word is shalom. Shalom is being given to them. Because this new life wasn't just a new way of being or living or behaving - it's the very substance of the Jesus' own Spirit covering them, filling them, uniting them, making them one body, one spirit in himself.
This was their moment of reconciliation to God in Christ and it's a synergistic moment: they are the exactly same as they were, only completely different now. Their humanity has been united to Christ's divinity and now they have to learn and get used to how that changes everything.
So as Jesus sends them off into the world they have locked themselves away from, he warns them that whatever they forgive is forgiven in the unity of God - on earth as it is in heaven - and what they hold unforgiven is held unforgiven. In other words, they now have the power to create unity or division, to be partners in redemption - in the reconciling work of Christ in the world - or to be instruments of death.
As one commentator says, "if members of the community forgive one another their sins, those sins are forgiven and the community is living from and in the Spirit of Jesus; but if members of the community harbor grudges and resentment toward other members who have sinned against them, then those sins remain to spoil the bond of unity, and the Spirit of Jesus is no longer resident in the community." (Williamson, 283. Source: lectionary.org)
It's up to each one in the community to do their share building the bond of love. When one member of the community struggles the others rally around to support them so that the bond of unity in the community isn't spoiled and the spirit of Jesus continues to live in them.
It's a choice. It's our choice, and in the community of Christ we call the church the choice of every individual affects the whole community. In the early church, the members lived together as family. Now remember, for many of these people, becoming a follower of The Way meant being cast out from their temple community and probably the company of their blood-families. The church became the only family they had, so preserving harmonious relationships in this new family was paramount.
As a commentator says, "These new Christians are living as brothers and sisters - as family. They are taking care of each other - making personal sacrifices to help each other considering the well-being of Christian brothers and sisters above their own personal welfare in many cases. To live in that kind of harmonious community makes it possible to drop one's defenses - to assume the best of one's neighbor instead of the worst - to resolve differences without rancor - to live without fear of physical danger or financial catastrophe or personal rejection. It is a level of graceful living that humans seldom achieve. When they do achieve it, it is usually because of a common commitment to a higher ideal - or by the grace… of God." (Rev. Richard N. Donovan, ret.)
Sound familiar? This has to be one of St. David's greatest strengths: a harmonious community… graceful living. Whatever the source of it, this parish is truly blessed. You have practiced how to live in the spirit of Jesus as a harmonious community for years. It's a gift of your life together with Michael+, and now you are being sent from the safety of this home into the to the world, which has apparently lost the ability to live in harmonious community, small or large.
That means finding the way to transition life at St. David's as it has been to life as it will be now in Christ which will present its own challenges to this community. But I'm not worried. I see your gifts. I hope you see them too.
This is why you'll hear me continually say: never (ever) underestimate the power of the small church. What is lived here so easily, so naturally is the very thing God seeks to use to transform the darkness of the world into the light of Christ: graceful living.
I say that because, as we saw in today's gospel, God has a history of doing just that: sending the transformed members of the small community out from the safety of their home into the world to show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.
Our impact today could be no less astonishing than was the impact of those first disciples.
Let us pray: Fill us, Triune God, with love that flows so abundantly that the world is drenched by it everywhere one of us goes. Give our small community the grace to recognize and let loose your great power within us: the power of graceful living, living in the spirit of Christ as a harmonious community. We trust you to show us the way and commit to go where you lead, in Jesus' holy name. Amen.
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