Change Lives? Easter Can Do That (Easter 2, April 12 2015)

Homily:  Yr B Easter 2, April 15 2012, St. Albans

Readings:  Acts 4:32-35; Ps 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31

Last week, on Easter Sunday, our reading from the Gospel of Mark ended at the empty tomb in terror and silence.  The women at the tomb were terrified and they fled and said nothing to anyone.  And yet we know that that wasn’t the end of the story.  It couldn’t be.  Somebody must have said something to someone!   And in fact the other three gospels, Matthew, Luke and John all attest to the fact that somehow these women, Mary Magdalene and the others, somehow they overcame their initial fear, and went and announced to the other disciples what they had seen.  John’s gospel tells us that as Mary Magdalene was turning away from the tomb, she heard Jesus call her name. Something happened.  She had what we might call an Easter experience, and that changes everything.  

Today in our gospel reading, we get a glimpse of the Easter experience of the disciples on the evening of that first Easter Sunday.  When we first see them they are huddled behind locked doors, fearful.  Moments later, they rejoice when they see the Lord, and we know that they then go on to turn the world upside down.  Then, a week later on the second Sunday, it’s Thomas’s turn to experience Easter.  You just heard his story.

The common theme running through all these stories is that some sort of transformation occurs.  Lives are changed as a result of Easter.

Our scripture and traditions are full of images of that transformation.  With our children we’ve used the image of the caterpillar that becomes a butterfly.  In our gospel John gives us another image, the image of Jesus breathing into his disciples.  Now that might seem a bit odd at first, but John is making deliberate reference all the way back to the creation story of Genesis, evoking the image of God forming humans from the dust of the earth and breathing life into them.   He’s also reminding us of Ezekiel’s great vision of dry bones in the desert, bones as dry as dust, but when the breath of God comes into them, they are ignited and brought back to life.  Both of these are powerful images of transformation.  And of course the most powerful image of them all is the resurrection of Jesus, the passage from death to new life.

But in today’s gospel, Thomas is having a bit of trouble with the resurrection.  Having missed Jesus appearance on the first Easter evening, Thomas flatly states that “unless I put my finger in the mark of the nails, I will not believe.”  Now traditionally, Thomas has gotten a bit of a bad rap for this.  Often he’s called ‘Doubting Thomas’.   But to me, Thomas is a realist.  It’s hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.  In fact I would be willing to bet that each one of us here either has doubts about the resurrection, or has had doubts in the past, or will have doubts at some point in the future.

And we’re not alone in that.  Did you notice that every single person in the gospel stories also has doubts?  Not one person says to the risen Christ when he appears, “welcome back, we were expecting you, what took so long?”  No, they all have doubts.  They were all taken by surprise.  Doubt is in fact, an essential part of faith.

Maybe the important question for us about the resurrection of Jesus is not whether we’ve ever had any doubts, but rather, what do we need to experience to know that it’s real?

Mary Magdalene needed to hear Jesus call her name.

Thomas needed to put his hand in Jesus wound.

Our dilemma is that those options aren’t open to those of us who live 2000 years later.

Jesus seems to recognize our dilemma.  Turning his attention from Thomas to those of us who come later, he does a surprising thing.  He blesses us.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

John the gospel writer, he too seems to have us in mind.  “All these things are written,” he says, “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

There’s that “life” thing again.  There’s that claim that Easter has the power to give life, to renew lives, to change lives. 

Mary is transformed from a sorrowful, fearful woman trying to cling to a dead body to a joyful, purposeful apostle of the Lord.

Thomas is transformed from a disappointed doubter to one who travels far and wide to proclaim what he has seen and heard.

The disciples are transformed from a fearful group destined to be scattered to the loving community described in Acts, a community that pools its resources together, distributes them to those in need, and eventually turns the world upside down.

What do we need to experience to know that Easter is real?  What do I need to experience?  I need to experience the power of Easter to change lives.

Let me tell you a story.

It’s the story of Dan, a true story that was told to us by Tom Long at a clergy conference.  It took place in the southern United States, I believe in the state of Georgia.  Dan was pretty messed up.  He was alone, he was living on the street, he’d been in and out of jails, he had problems with substance abuse.  One day, on a Wednesday, for whatever reason, he walked into the local church.  That church, St. Matthew’s it was called, had a drop-in centre on Wednesdays, and there were volunteers there who served coffee and were available to talk with anyone who came in.  When Dan dropped in, he was in pretty rough shape.  One of the St. Matthew’s men engaged him in conversation and listened to his story.  He asked Dan if he’d like to get help, to get some counseling or treatment.  Dan said that we would, and so the volunteer went to call the counseling centre.  When he came back, he told Dan that he couldn’t get him a session with the counselor before next week, but that if he was willing he would meet him here at the church every morning between now and then and pray with him.  And that’s what happened.  The two men met each morning in the church and prayed.  And the next week, Dan started his counseling program, and eventually received treatment for his addictions.  His life started to turn around.  And he started going to St. Matthew’s on Sunday mornings.

That was when my friend Tom first noticed Dan, sitting near the back of the church.  But he really only got to know Dan a few weeks later, when the minister held his annual dinner for newcomers to the church.

Now Tom and his wife were new to the parish, having recently moved to town so that Tom could start a new job.  So he and his wife were at that dinner, along with several other couples, a few younger individuals, one older woman, and Dan. 

The dinner was mostly a social affair, but near the end, as they were still seated around the table having coffee, the minister spoke a few words thanking them for coming to the dinner, welcoming them to the parish and telling them how much he appreciated their having joined the congregation.  And then he asked them a question.  “Tell me,” he said, “Why is it that you’ve decided to worship here at St. Matthew’s?”

The newcomers to the church took turns answering. Tom and his wife told the minister that they had just moved to town, and that they had been looking for a church that was involved in social justice, and so that’s why they had joined.  Another man said, “Well we just dropped in one Sunday, and we loved the music and the choir, and so we kept coming.”  The older women, who used a walker, said that she’d needed a church where she didn’t have to be going up and down stairs all the time.  Another man mentioned that at the church he used to go to there was no parking, and he got tired of always having to look for parking on the street.  “This church has a big parking lot,” he told them, sounding quite pleased.

And so it went, until everyone around the table had volunteered some reason or other why they had joined St. Matthew’s church.  Everyone, that is, except for Dan.  And so the minister looked over at him.  “Dan,” he said, “we haven’t heard from you yet.  Why do you come to this church?”  And Dan straightened himself up in his chair, and a smile lit up his face, and he looked around the table at everyone and said, “Reverend, the reason I come to this church is because this is where God saved my life.”

Now as you might imagine, a bit of a hush fell over that table after Dan had spoken.  As my colleague Tom told me, “Most of us around the table felt a bit sheepish at that moment.  Here we were, all of us having just told the minister that we liked the music, or the parking, or the fact that we could walk to church, and then Dan goes and says something that reminded us of what church is really supposed to be about.” 

But the story doesn’t end with that dinner.  A few weeks later, Tom noticed that Dan wasn’t there on Sunday morning.  And he wasn’t at St. Matthew’s the next week either, or the week that followed.  And so, Tom figured that he ought to find out if everything was alright.  So he got Dan’s address from the parish list, and he went there.  It wasn’t the best neighbourhood.  When he arrived the landlord of the rooming house told him that the police had come and taken Dan away.  Tom went to the police and found out that Dan was in jail.  Now Tom almost stopped at that point, but then he decided, no, he really ought to visit him.  So he went down to the local county jail.  The guards brought Tom to a wall which had a window in it, with a speaker and a mike on the counter below, and they sat him down.  In a few minutes he saw Dan through the glass, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit.  Dan sat down on the other side.

“Tom, it’s good to see you, thanks for coming”

“Dan, what happened, what are you doing here?”

“Well, you see, after I’d been coming to church for a few weeks, I realized that I needed to come clean on some stuff I’d done a few years back.  So I called up the police and turned myself in, and now I’m doing a few months time.”

“Are you okay?  Is everything alright in there?  Are they treating you ok?”

And at that point the same smile that Tom had seen at the welcome dinner broke over Dan’s face again.

“Yeah Tom, everything is great.  I’m leading a Bible study for a group of the inmates here, and every Sunday morning I help the chaplain with the worship service, and I’m seeing God change lives, just like he changed mine at St. Matthew’s.  Yeah Tom, everything is ok.  This is where God wants me to be right now.”

Now, these events didn’t happen on Easter day.  I’m not sure whether they even happened in the spring.  But this too is an Easter story.  It is a story of hope, a story of changed lives.

Easter can do that.  It’s real.

Amen.

With thanks to Dr. Thomas G. Long, who told this story at the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa Clergy Conference in 2009.