Year C
\u00a0Acts 5:27-32
\u00a0Psalm 150
\u00a0Revelation 1:4-8
\u00a0John 20:19-31<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today’s Psalm is one of two choices allowed by the Revised Common Lectionary\u2026 the other is Psalm 118:14-29\u2026 but in today’s Psalm\u2026 in this translation of today’s Psalm\u2026 the word Praise<\/em> appears eleven times in six short verses\u2026 eleven times\u2026 [ pause ] well\u2026 actually thirteen\u2026 since Alleluia\u2026 or Hallelujah\u2026 as it’s often rendered from the Hebrew\u2026 also means Praise Ye the Lord<\/em>\u2026 and the Psalm ends with the exhortation\u2026 that everything which has breath\u2026 which has been given breath by God\u2026 ought to praise God\u2026 ] thirteen times\u2026 so many times that it prompted one commentator to write that what we have here\u2026 is like one Easter Alleluia expanded into an entire Psalm\u2026 that’s a lot of praise in not very many lines\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast to all this joyous praise\u2026 on the evening of the first day of the week\u2026 all the doors of the house were locked\u2026 the disciples were afraid of the Judeans\u2026 and when we remember that this Gospel was written in about 85 AD\u2026 maybe the persecution of the first Christians had already been going on long enough for there to be some real fear\u2026 and our reading from Acts was written before John’s Gospel\u2026 and demonstrates Luke’s interest in presenting the early church as moving from strength to strength\u2026 and in this passage\u2026 the Jewish and Roman authorities do have the upper hand\u2026 and they oppose the apostles\u2026 but one line in this passage stands out for me\u2026 one thing that Peter says in response to their accusation\u2026 We must obey God\u2026 rather than any human authority<\/em>\u2026 now how many times have we heard this or some variation of it\u2026 sometimes from conservatives\u2026 and sometimes from progressives\u2026 all of whom believe they have private access to God’s will\u2026 especially against their enemies\u2026 and as J. Michael Krech wrote\u2026 some will see as an inheritor of Peter’s boldness\u2026 the public high school valedictorian who inserts a prayer into her speech at graduation\u2026 despite being asked by the school principal not to do so\u2026 thus obeying God rather than human authority\u2026 others will see as closer to the spirit of Peter\u2026 the protesters whose placards and chants of No War for Oil\u2026 break up a Congressional committee hearing on Department of Defense appropriations\u2026 and sometimes these people say\u2026 or just imply\u2026 that their ends justify their means\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must obey God\u2026 rather than any human authority<\/em>\u2026 and in response to events in just the last few days\u2026 . I have to wonder\u2026 does God ever command anyone\u2026 to repeatedly lie about what they’ve said\u2026 even when they’re presented with an audio recording in which they clearly say\u2026 what they’ve said they didn’t say\u2026 and then say again that they didn’t say it\u2026 does God ever command one Michigan senator\u2026 to accuse another Michigan senator by name\u2026 in a fundraising email\u2026 of sexualizing children and grooming them for pedophilia\u2026 and if not God\u2026 then who or what commands them\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must obey God\u2026 rather than any human authority<\/em>\u2026 how do we really know what God commands\u2026 for one thing\u2026 we have to be able to talk about it in community\u2026 we have to be guided by the words and actions of Jesus\u2026 and if we’ve done something which damages or breaks relationship\u2026 we have to be able to acknowledge the error we’ve made\u2026 the sin we’ve committed\u2026 instead of doubling down on it\u2026 even if that means we lose the power and authority we’ve gained by those sins\u2026 we have to learn to distinguish what serves God and God’s will for all of us\u2026 from what serves only us\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the commentaries I read for today\u2026 was accompanied by an image by cartoonist Charles Addams\u2026 an image that appeared on the cover of a 1981 New Yorker magazine\u2026 and in the image\u2026 a man is standing just inside his penthouse apartment\u2026 a steel door separates him from what we suppose to be the hallway\u2026 and his steel door has not one\u2026 not two\u2026 but four locks\u2026 and a security bar\u2026 yet\u2026 on the floor\u2026 pushed through under the door\u2026 is an envelope\u2026 and on the envelope is a red heart\u2026 a Valentine\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Rev. James Liggett wrote\u2026 Easter\u2026 of course\u2026 is about the fact that God comes through locked doors and offers us himself\u2026 and his love\u2026 and his peace\u2026 and he offers us the possibility of faith\u2026 and of new life\u2026 and it\u2019s all a gift\u2026 slid under our steel barriers\u2026 and in the Gospel story\u2026 the disciples don\u2019t do anything noble\u2026 heroic\u2026 or even mildly admirable\u2026 ] and remember\u2026 the last things they showed Jesus were their backs as they ran away\u2026 the last thing we heard from Peter was his denying three times that he even knew Jesus\u2026 after that\u2026 the disciples just hide out\u2026 that\u2019s all they do\u2026 but Jesus comes through the locks and he offers peace\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then\u2026 a week later\u2026 Jesus appeared again to the disciples\u2026 and notice what they have done that week\u2026 they have kept the doors locked… and they have failed even to convert Thomas\u2026 the testimony of the entire church wasn\u2019t persuasive or compelling enough to convince the one guy who really wants to believe\u2026 so instead of calling this a story about Doubting Thomas\u2026 it\u2019s perhaps more a story about the Unpersuasive Disciples\u2026 in fact\u2026 if we’re going to say this is a story about Doubting Thomas\u2026 then we also need to call Peter Doubting Peter\u2026 because Thomas only wanted to see for himself\u2026 what Peter wanted to see for himself\u2026 when he ran to the tomb\u2026 when the men called the women’s story an idle tale\u2026 and Peter was amazed\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n A clergy friend of mine said that resurrection\u2026 is rebellion\u2026 which is vindicated\u2026 a rebellion against lies\u2026 which is vindicated\u2026 a rebellion against corruption and tyranny\u2026 against autocrats\u2026 against systemic racism\u2026 a rebellion against the walls we erect to keep others out\u2026 and a rebellion against the lie of death\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And one way to rebel\u2026 is to tell the truth\u2026 to hold accountable those who start wars\u2026 those who lie about what they said or did\u2026 to stay in power\u2026 to rebel is to be a light in the darkness\u2026 to rebel is to be vulnerable\u2026 to rebel is to praise God\u2026 and not the gods of the world\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n I used to feel frustrated\u2026 it’s been two thousand years\u2026 and we’re still behaving in many of the same ways\u2026 but that reality doesn’t diminish my hope\u2026 it just helps us realize that many of the lessons we all need to learn\u2026 the ways in which we need to become Real\u2026 are not neatly boxed apart from each other\u2026 but are intertwined like a plate of spaghetti\u2026 and those of us who just read Waking Up White learned about some of that\u2026 which is why I’ve begun to wonder whether what we’re looking at may be more like a ten-thousand year program\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Shea points out\u2026 that in this Gospel\u2026 Jesus leaves them his peace\u2026 and this giving of peace is contrasted with how the world gives\u2026 the overall sense\u2026 is that the world gives and takes away\u2026 the security of one moment is replaced by the anxiety of the next\u2026 the world cannot sustain an abiding peaceful presence\u2026 yet that is precisely how Jesus sees himself\u2026 an abiding presence that transcends the vagaries of the world\u2026 Jesus does not stop the chaos of the world\u2026 rather he is present within it\u2026 calming and untroubling the heart\u2026 and bringing peace\u2026 and so it’s worth considering\u2026 from what do we lock ourselves away\u2026 and what do we lock in with us\u2026 refusing to let it go\u2026 we can try to lock ourselves away from Christ\u2026 but Jesus is persistent\u2026 Jesus will respect the walls we erect\u2026 and the barriers we construct\u2026 but Jesus will also find ways to come to us\u2026 to slide an envelope with love’s red heart under our door\u2026 and to breathe the Holy Spirit of new life on us\u2026 the question is\u2026 will we unlock and open the door\u2026 so we can breathe it in\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year C\u00a0Acts 5:27-32\u00a0Psalm 150\u00a0Revelation 1:4-8\u00a0John 20:19-31 May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026 Today’s Psalm is one of two choices allowed by the Revised Common Lectionary\u2026 the other is Psalm 118:14-29\u2026 but in today’s Psalm\u2026 in this translation of today’s Psalm\u2026 the word Praise appears eleven times in six short verses\u2026 eleven times\u2026 [ pause ] well\u2026 actually thirteen\u2026 since Alleluia\u2026 or Hallelujah\u2026 as it’s often rendered from the Hebrew\u2026 also means Praise Ye the Lord\u2026 and the Psalm ends with the exhortation\u2026 that everything which has breath\u2026 which has been given breath by God\u2026 ought to praise God\u2026 ] thirteen times\u2026 so many times that it prompted one commentator to write that what we have here\u2026 is like one Easter Alleluia expanded into an entire Psalm\u2026 that’s a lot of praise in not very many lines\u2026 In contrast to all this joyous praise\u2026 on the evening of the first day of the week\u2026 all the doors of the house were locked\u2026 the disciples were afraid of the Judeans\u2026 and when we remember that this Gospel was written in about 85 AD\u2026 maybe the persecution of the first Christians had already been going on long enough for there to be some real fear\u2026 and our reading from Acts was written before John’s Gospel\u2026 and demonstrates Luke’s interest in presenting the early church as moving from strength to strength\u2026 and in this passage\u2026 the Jewish and Roman authorities do have the upper hand\u2026 and they oppose the apostles\u2026 but one line in this passage stands out for me\u2026 one thing that Peter says in response to their accusation\u2026 We must obey God\u2026 rather than any human authority\u2026 now how many times have we heard this or some variation of it\u2026 sometimes from conservatives\u2026 and sometimes from progressives\u2026 all of whom believe they have private access to God’s will\u2026 especially against their enemies\u2026 and as J. Michael Krech wrote\u2026 some will see as an inheritor of Peter’s boldness\u2026 the public high school valedictorian who inserts a prayer into her speech at graduation\u2026 despite being asked by the school principal not to do so\u2026 thus obeying God rather than human authority\u2026 others will see as closer to the spirit of Peter\u2026 the protesters whose placards and chants of No War for Oil\u2026 break up a Congressional committee hearing on Department of Defense appropriations\u2026 and sometimes these people say\u2026 or just imply\u2026 that their ends justify their means\u2026 We must obey God\u2026 rather than any human authority\u2026 and in response to events in just the last few days\u2026 . I have to wonder\u2026 does God ever command anyone\u2026 to repeatedly lie about what they’ve said\u2026 even when they’re presented with an audio recording in which they clearly say\u2026 what they’ve said they didn’t say\u2026 and then say again that they didn’t say it\u2026 does God ever command one Michigan senator\u2026 to accuse another Michigan senator by name\u2026 in a fundraising email\u2026 of sexualizing children and grooming them for pedophilia\u2026 and if not God\u2026 then who or what commands them\u2026 We must obey God\u2026 rather than any human authority\u2026 how do we really know what God commands\u2026 for one thing\u2026 we have to be able to talk about it in community\u2026 we have to be guided by the words and actions of Jesus\u2026 and if we’ve done something which damages or breaks relationship\u2026 we have to be able to acknowledge the error we’ve made\u2026 the sin we’ve committed\u2026 instead of doubling down on it\u2026 even if that means we lose the power and authority we’ve gained by those sins\u2026 we have to learn to distinguish what serves God and God’s will for all of us\u2026 from what serves only us\u2026 One of the commentaries I read for today\u2026 was accompanied by an image by cartoonist Charles Addams\u2026 an image that appeared on the cover of a 1981 New Yorker magazine\u2026 and in the image\u2026 a man is standing just inside his penthouse apartment\u2026 a steel door separates him from what we suppose to be the hallway\u2026 and his steel door has not one\u2026 not two\u2026 but four locks\u2026 and a security bar\u2026 yet\u2026 on the floor\u2026 pushed through under the door\u2026 is an envelope\u2026 and on the envelope is a red heart\u2026 a Valentine\u2026 The Rev. James Liggett wrote\u2026 Easter\u2026 of course\u2026 is about the fact that God comes through locked doors and offers us himself\u2026 and his love\u2026 and his peace\u2026 and he offers us the possibility of faith\u2026 and of new life\u2026 and it\u2019s all a gift\u2026 slid under our steel barriers\u2026 and in the Gospel story\u2026 the disciples don\u2019t do anything noble\u2026 heroic\u2026 or even mildly admirable\u2026 ] and remember\u2026 the last things they showed Jesus were their backs as they ran away\u2026 the last thing we heard from Peter was his denying three times that he even knew Jesus\u2026 after that\u2026 the disciples just hide out\u2026 that\u2019s all they do\u2026 but Jesus comes through the locks and he offers peace\u2026 Then\u2026 a week later\u2026 Jesus appeared again to the disciples\u2026 and notice what they have done that week\u2026 they have kept the doors locked… and they have failed even to convert Thomas\u2026 the testimony of the entire church wasn\u2019t persuasive or compelling enough to convince the one guy who really wants to believe\u2026 so instead of calling this a story about Doubting Thomas\u2026 it\u2019s perhaps more a story about the Unpersuasive Disciples\u2026 in fact\u2026 if we’re going to say this is a story about Doubting Thomas\u2026 then we also need to call Peter Doubting Peter\u2026 because Thomas only wanted to see for himself\u2026 what Peter wanted to see for himself\u2026 when he ran to the tomb\u2026 when the men called the women’s story an idle tale\u2026 and Peter was amazed\u2026 A clergy friend of mine said that resurrection\u2026 is rebellion\u2026 which is vindicated\u2026 a rebellion against lies\u2026 which is vindicated\u2026 a rebellion against corruption and tyranny\u2026 against autocrats\u2026 against systemic racism\u2026 a rebellion against the walls we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[110,114,113],"class_list":["post-1583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","tag-easter","tag-holy-spirit","tag-obey-god"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Addams-Valentines-Day-New-Yorker-Feb-16-1981-e1650825772177.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}