April 15, 2007 Second Sunday of Easter
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Psalm 150; Acts 5:12-42; John 20:19-31
Some of us know what it feels like to be in both of those rooms where the
followers of Jesus were captive—the one on Easter evening that they had locked
themselves in and the one a couple of months later where the authorities had
imprisoned them.
Some of us have at one time or another built walls of fear around us and
bolted the doors and windows, locking ourselves away from something that
threatened our security or comfort or control. We may learn to do this at an early
age, maybe the first time we fall or fail or the first time someone laughs at us in a
mean way. We may retreat within the safe confines of our fear and timidity. We
spend much of our adult life blocked from doing, saying or being what we feel is
our truth for fear of others’ judgments or our own, or for fear of consequences
known or imagined. This is what some believe was Gandhi’s biggest challenge
and accomplishment: to release the common people of India from their fear and
give them the courage to rise up and work for change.
Some of us also know what it is to be locked and oppressed in a prison not
of our own making or choosing. Some of us have been in prison for what we
believed, like the Apostles in Acts, or like Gandhi or King. Others of us feel
imprisoned by the social forces that hold us hostage to their will—the oil
companies whose profiteering prices we have to pay, the war makers whose taxes
we have to pay, or for some of us, the minimum wages we get paid at a job we
have to take. We also can feel imprisoned by abusive relationships, or situations
we cannot see how to escape. Addictions, or mental or physical illness or
obsession or compulsion can also imprison us, and though they are internal
processes, we can feel powerless within them.
In some cases we block ourselves from being free, and in other cases we
feel blocked by forces beyond us, but when you consider all the ways in which we
can be captive, it begins to look like a universal human experience. So the fact
that the Spirit of Jesus Christ has proven to be a liberating power makes it one of
the most useful and hopeful bits of good news we can find. In whatever way you
are blocked or barricaded in your life, the Way of Christ offers a way out to
freedom.
This does not necessarily mean that Christ will come and change your
material situation. In today’s scripture stories the Holy Spirit did not remove the
threat of persecution, imprisonment or death. It did not remove the shame and
dishonor or the flogging that the apostles had to endure. What changed was within
them, and that inner change freed them so that no walls could hold them back.
The external situation remained exactly the same that first Easter evening in
the locked room, but once the disciples recognized Christ’s presence with them,
they felt peace instead of panic. They felt the Spirit breathing through them
instead of feeling like holding their breath. They felt joy and love that made them
forget their fear and freed them to go out into the world in Christ’s employ.
Later their worst fears came true. They were arrested and brought before
the same council that handed Jesus over to be crucified. But their joy continued
unabated. Their fear did not stop them. Even the prison walls could not hold
them. If they had held, and they had stayed in prison, they would have been like
people in the American Civil Rights movement, singing and praying and praising
God in their jail cells. The external circumstances did not change. What changed
was that, as Peter said, “We must obey God rather that any human authority.” The
situation became completely different when they were looking at if from God’s
perspective rather than their own or anyone else’s.
The story I always think of to illustrate this truth is about a woman sitting
in a hospital waiting room. Her teenage daughter had been in a car accident and it
was not certain that she would survive.
The mother sat locked in terror at the possibility that her daughter could
die. For hours she prayed over and over, “God, be with her. God, be with her.
God be with her.” Then sometime before dawn the new thought came to her,
entering her mind like Christ through the locked door, “God will be with her, no
matter what. God is with her, and if she dies, God will still be with her, embracing
her in loving arms, taking her into the light of love and peace.” She thought, “She
is going to be alright, no matter what.” And though nothing had changed, she felt
peace and even a deep, serene joy. She felt lightness. She felt freed.
I do not know that woman, but I do know parents who were locked in grief
for years over the loss of an infant child. Then one of them had a dream, a vision,
really, of their child coming to them and showing them how well he was doing in
the realm beyond this one, and the parents felt freed from the walls of their grief.
They still grieved at times, but now it was a room they could enter and leave
again, they were no longer locked in it.
I know another woman who was outraged about the potential
environmental impact a local power plant was having on her kindergarten
students’ long-term health. She was soft-spoken and afraid of speaking in public,
and she was afraid of losing her job if she spoke out, but when the love of the
children came fully into her heart, it burst the prison doors of her fear and she
became an eloquent, powerful leader to clean up the industrial threat.
Christ came and sent the disciples out, freed to go into the world making
peace and fighting wrong. But there is another direction in which this works. Our
yearnings for security, comfort and control, our anxious, compulsive thinking, our
concern with or our addictions to material things, our fear of consequences block
us not only from fulfilling our calling in the outer world, but in the inner world as
well. Jesus told us that the realm of God is within us. (Luke 17:21) He prayed
that we would find not only God’s love, but he himself in us. (John 17:26) We
each have in us the possibility of union with God in this life. We have within us a
wellspring of unconditional love and peace that passes understanding, and a joy
that does not depend on any material circumstances. And yet the walls that block
us from experiencing that inner divine presence seem impenetrable, and the doors
locked, and the key not in our possession.
Into this situation, as well, Christ can come and set us free. The woman in
the waiting room experienced it in a way. She got in touch with the source of love
and peace and joy within her. It can happen to us, if we do what she did—if we sit
in the waiting room of our soul and pray as persistently as she did.
The experience of God’s presence is beyond our control—prayer may or
may not lead to it. God’s presence is also beyond our comfort zone, which is one
of the reasons we fortify ourselves against it. Grace humbles us, shows us our true
place in relation to God’s higher power. Often we prefer the illusion of security
we get from our fearful self-limitations. As Gandhi suggested, we should not try
to give them up until we want our freedom so badly that we can give up our walls
gladly.
Experiencing God’s presence is not something we can control, but if we get
to that desire for freedom, there are things we can do to improve our chances of
receiving liberating grace. We can see some of them in the story of Easter
evening. The disciples were locked in the room out of fear, but at least they were
in the room and had not fled the city. The first thing we need to do to put
ourselves in the position to receive grace is to show up in likely place, even if we
go there in fear and trembling.
If you feel called to write, then go into the room and sit down in front of a
blank piece of paper. If you feel called to serve the poor but are afraid, then go to
the Haven or the Listen Center even if you just sit and pray. Go to the soup
kitchen or health clinic. Go to the inner city or Central America. If you feel
called to activism, go to the room where the activists are meeting. Show up. Pray.
If you are in the right place at the right time, and it is your time and God’s time,
the liberating grace may come. If you have the courage to be in the room, even if
you are locked in fear, it opens you to the possibility.
If it is union with God you want, with its inner peace and joy and
unconditional love and a deep spiritual wisdom, then come to Prayer of the Heart
on Thursday evenings, or go to a monastery on retreat, or go into the room of your
own innermost heart. Go into the room of silence and surrender and you will be
saying to Christ, here I am, ready and waiting. Do this not just once, but make up
your mind to practice every day for the rest of your life. There is no guarantee you
will feel any difference, but you will greatly increase your likelihood that there
will be a difference.
Of course, there is another room to go to—this room. People have gathered
within these walls for two hundred and twenty years, perhaps locked in their fear
or grief, distracted by their material attachments or resentments, imperfect,
resisting change, and yet they came here. Maybe they did not find what they were
looking for, but we know from our own experience that they must have found
something. At the very least, they found themselves in the comforting company of
other seekers, like those first scared disciples. And from time to time perhaps they
found themselves transformed as a community as we have, freed, guided and
empowered by the Holy Spirit to do some Christ-like act that they felt called to do.
There is something else besides just showing up that the scripture story
shows can help and that is simply to believe. Thomas did not believe his friends.
He had to experience Christ’s presence himself, and Jesus rebuked him for it,
saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
If you want to open yourself to receive liberation and grace, try a little
“willing suspension of disbelief.” Like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland,
practice believing impossible things for half an hour everyday. Try believing six
impossible things before breakfast. Do not shut yourself off from belief for fear of
being wrong or being ridiculed. Have the courage to try believing in your secret
heart. Lock the doors and pull the blinds, and try. Don’t be afraid. You can
always change your mind in a few minutes and retreat to the safety of disbelief.
You can always doubt again. But try believing that there really is a living force
that can come into your fearful or angry or trapped heart and set you free. Show
up in the room where grace is likely to come and practice believing that it could
come. And then wait, even if you are trembling behind locked doors, wait and
pray and watch what happens.
Let us pray together now in silence, pointing out to God that we have
shown up here and are waiting. Let us practice believing that we may receive just
what we need….
Sermon 04/15/2007