April 15, 2007

by The Rev. Constance Jones

Acts 5:12a, 17-22, 25-29; John 20:19-31

In this week since Easter, I’ve been thinking about doors.
The door to Jesus’ tomb, of course,
whose stone was rolled away.
I may have this in my mind because of the, um,
creative representation by the Baptists down on Ballard Street.
But I am also intrigued by the astonishing and almost funny story
told in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles today.

Now, I expect you know
that it’s an ancient tradition in the church to read Acts after Easter,
because with great specificity of time and place,
Acts tells us about the consequences of the Resurrection,
the way in which God’s Holy Spirit
started changing the world after Christ rose from the dead.

Anyway, the story is that Peter and the other apostles
were preaching in public places and causing quite a stir.
The priestly ruling class was frightened and threatened,
because this Jesus movement was spreading like wildfire
(instead of being quenched by the crucifixion of their leader).
So the apostles were thrown in jail.
When the rules and the council called for them to be brought to trial,
what amounted to the sheriff’s deputies went to find them.
Wow! The jail was empty,
and the malefactors were out on the street preaching again!

We who hear this story are kept in the know.
We’re told it’s God’s angel who unlocked the jail cell.
And surely we’re expected to jump to the conclusion
that the angel who opens jail cells
is also the angel who rolled the stone away from the tomb!

Then in today’s Gospel,
yet another door obeys God rather than the laws of physics.
Jesus’ disciples are gathered in a locked house the day of the Resurrection,
and then again the week after.
They’re afraid of that Jewish ruling class, to be sure.
I suspect they’re a bit frightened of Jesus too.
Why? They’d deserted and denied him,
misunderstood and abandoned him,
and who among them didn’t fear punishment?

Yet defying all locked doors, Jesus appeared in their midst,
offering them his peace, his blessing and his Holy Spirit.

In the ancient church Luke’s readers and John’s readers,
and today, you and I, are told to believe
there’s not a locked door in this world that can keep God’s Holy Spirit f
rom blowing where it wishes.
Not the locked door of fear, or of the state, or even of death.
Freedom, surprising and astonishing freedom,
appears to be the hallmark of the Holy Spirit.

Now that Lent is over, we will resume singing at the offertory:
.....Our fathers’ God, to thee,
Author of liberty,
To thee we sing.

This isn’t to be patriotic, or to exalt our founding fathers.
It is to acknowledge that all the freedom we experience is from God.
Yes, we are fond of calling ourselves a free people in a free land,
but even our political freedom comes from the “author of liberty,” the God whose Son “burst the three-days’ prison” as the old hymn puts it.

But there are so many ways in which each of us might be unfree.
We might even have a contest of “Name that prison!”
I could name some, but I may not name the prison you know.
There are prison cells call poverty, or addiction, or abusive relationship.
Depression locks you into an impossibly tight place, and so does resentment.
Anger.......do you know how you can become a slave to anger?
And grief, it can put you in a dark hole where real life seems only an illusion.

There is the prison of a small imagination,
which says that tomorrow will never be better than today.
And heaven knows our bodies turn out to be a prison,
for seet and tender as they are, they are frail and fallible.

How can we extricate ourselves from any of these jails?
Who will release us?
We have tried all the usual tricks.....
.money, wisdom, bribery and cajolery....
We have used our intellect, and we have resorted to beggin.
But to no avail.
Guilt assaults us at 3 a.m., and our intellects cannot rescue us.
As St. Paul says, who will rescue us from this body of death? [Rom 7:24]

Unless.......unless.........it is all true.
That Jesus was raised from the dead.
If it is true, then there is not prison that will not be blasted open.

Two beautiful children will be baptized today.
They have been born into this world of all manner of woe.
There is not a single person here today
who wouldn’t vote to exempt these babies
from every form of disappointment or hurt or sorrow.
If we know anything about the beauty of God’s creaton,
these beautiful and perfect children represent it.

Yet our hearts ache, because we know what the world really is,
and these children will have to contend with it.
It is enough to make you succumb to grief.

Unless .............unless it is all true.
Unless that stone was really rolled away,
and that jail was opened,
and the risen Lord appeared to doubting Thomas.

Because if that is true, then all our prisons are defeated.
The final horrid enemy, death, is defeated.
And all beauty in this life that is fragile and perishable, is eternal.
Safe from all harm.

In Baptism we say, we are buried with Christ in his death,
and raised to the new life of grace in his resurrection.

Suppose we really believe this.
What if we practiced resurrection?
Realized that every scrap of liberation,
every release from the smallest form of bondage,
is a sign that God loves us and moves the whole universe in favor of our liberation?

If you embraced resurrection, what might you do?
In a poem called “Manifesto,” poet Wendell Berry suggests this:

.....every day, do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it....

As the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.....

Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts....

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

It’s a crime to improve on poetry, you know,
but you and I might have a few more suggestions for how to practice resurrection.

Adopt a baby.
Give up life in the fast lane and get out your artist’s materials.
Believe that you are cured.
Stroke a big check to a good cause
where you will not control the outcome.
Laugh until you have tears running down your face,
or make a long-overdue apology.
Take early retirement
and rejoice with the love of your life.
Or even..........give up fear for Easter.

Practice resurrection like this, my friends,
and step back.
Because the doors of the prison are going to swing wide open.
Expect to feel the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing on your face as it passes by,
offering a blessing beyond comparison.

Thanks be to God.

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