April 11th 2010
2nd Sunday of Easter
Holocaust Remembrance Day
“Through Locked Doors”
Siobhan Sargent
Coming off of Holy Week I must say I’m still riding the wave of excitement and intention. I’m coasting. I’m on the downhill and the breeze feels great!
The thing is, I’m not used to this, to having a real live donkey around named Rocky or carrying a cross through Times Square. The experience here at SPSA is definitely unlike any other I’ve encountered. It’s powerful, it’s transformational. It’s just downright spiritual. Who would have thought! I mean come on, Church is the last place you’d expect to find spirituality, right?
And I feel I’ve arrived here with you, I can say without hesitation, Christ is Risen! I feel I know what it means, not necessarily only on some intellectual level. But on many levels. On a much deeper level.
Going through these past weeks of Lent, moving through the last few cold winter days and into the growing warmth of Spring, I don’t know about you, but I have to admit, to confess
that up until Easter morning, I truly felt the heaviness of the cross (my cross) and the darkness of the tomb, (my tomb.)
Given our walk with Jesus, something different happened to me this Season. Journeying together, I’ve also come to realize this was my journey, Christ’s story became truly a part of my story and my continuing story.
How wonderful it is then, that Christ’s story is a story of resurrection. Not death but life! It’s a story about life, possibility. It’s a story about love.
On that note! I’ve decided to embark on a new adventure. A thrilling ride, if you will. Even with the extreme anxiety I felt around the subject, the nervousness and sometimes cold sweats. I knew it was time to take that first step. To plunge myself back in the so-called game. You know, the dating game!
Although generously offered by the Youth here at SPSA to find me a date, it was a bit of a wake up call. Do I seem that desperate?
Though I’m sure they have great taste, something seemed a little off allowing eleven and twelve year olds attempt to set me up with their straight teachers. I toyed with, as K mentioned in last weeks sermon, the dating websites like Match.com and Plenty of fish. But ultimately I began feeling like my life was a bad romantic comedy. You know like that movie “Must Love Dogs” with Diane Lane and John Cusack. When I had the urge to put as my own header “Must Love God” I immediately shut-off my computer. And slowly backed away.
All this is to say, entering into that game again, the dating game from the outright, began to serve as a reminder, a reminder of my desperation.
That word desperate, desperation. You know what I’m talking about. That feeling…it creeps in, unnerves our psyches. It’s panic and fear and anxiety all rolled into one.
With the end of my previous 5 year relationship in the back of my mind. A Relationship I had considered to be a constant in my life. The thing I could count on when everything else was up in the air. A relationship I believed to be for “life.” When that ended my personal world became desperate.
Will I find anyone again? Will I find love again? Someone to love me? Someone I will love? I can love? I want to love?
I began thinking, even at my tender age of 27, perhaps that was it for me. Thoughts of, perhaps God’s plan for me was to be alone for the rest of my life. Alone, isolated.
O Ye of Little Faith…
I imagine we’ve all been there or are there. Maybe we haven’t worried about finding Mr. or Ms. Right. Maybe that is not your cross or is not your cross anymore. But those feelings of desperation and anxiety. They descend upon us all, like a heavy dark cloud.
We fight them. As hard as we can, we fight them. I fight them, as hard as I can. We might tell ourselves that it’s okay. We tell ourselves to have faith.
Everyday we might wake up and say we can do it, we say wait, we say to ourselves patience. Patience is a virtue. We say to ourselves, have faith, just believe, hope and we can make it through and God will show up. Christ will show up.
Ms. or Mr. Right will finally come knocking on our door.
That job, we just lost will be replaced by a better one, one that allows me to spend more time with my kids, or gives me better benefits and more paid vacation.
The illness I’m facing, or the sickness and disability I have, if I just have faith, if I just pick myself up from my desperation, from my fear and anxiety, I’ll get better.”
We start thinking about perseverance, strength and courage through the shadows and the dark valleys. We think if we can just make it through this storm, calmer waters will be ahead.
O ye of little faith.
It often boils down to, If I just have faith.
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah. It is the day we remember the 6 million Jews who suffered and died during the Holocaust, A MILLION OF THEM CHILDREN.
It is why there are 6 lit candles behind me.
It is a day WE ALSO HONOR THOSE WHO SURVIVED, WHO CAME THROUGH THAT STORM OF HORROR TO SHARE THEIR
STORIES WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD, SO THAT THE HOLOCAUST MIGHT NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.
Thinking about those who suffer innocently, unjustly I want to take a moment of silence.
MAY THEIR MEMORY BE FOR US A BLESSING.
In HONOR of those who know what desperation is
I’d like to offer a different interpretation of today’s story about Thomas, different than the traditional or common understanding.
Most of us have heard the story of Thomas, culturally he’s been given the name “Doubting Thomas.” He exists in our minds as the example of what not to do. That faith above doubt, believing without seeing is the way to go.
It is and has generally been regarded as the appropriate response. To believe, to just have faith in the face of fear.
Some commentators take it as far as to assume that Thomas’ need for proof is sinful.
They argue this because the story as we see in the text, follows Christ’s statements “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them, if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
We have portrayed Thomas in the worst light. Disbelieving, sarcastic, demanding even sinful. We’ve projected shame onto
Thomas, who simply needed Christ to show up. Who simply needed a savior. His Lord, to show up.
Ironically Jesus shows up to where the other disciples were sitting, cowering and afraid because of persecution,
Jesus shows his glorified and risen body to the disciples, shows them his hands and his side where the wounds were inflicted.
Jesus shows up, he comes through “locked doors” and meets his disciples.
Can I say that again, through “locked doors” to meet his disciples.
So that they may see him. So that they may believe the words Mary had just spoken to them that She has seen the Lord.
How much more can we ask of Thomas? How much more can we ask of ourselves?
Can you just imagine Thomas’ desperation? His panic, fear, anxiety and isolation. His locked doors. His hope, His savior gone, dead, crucified, buried?
His life’s meaning, and purpose vanished, dead.
Can you just imagine desperation.
Are you desperate?
Have you been desperate?
What about those who suffer because of oppression in our often times, very unjust world. Those who don’t know where their next meal is, or where they can lay their heads at night on a soft pillow or in a comfortable bed.
What about those who are terrified to be all of themselves, scared of being gay, for instance, for fear that they will be rejected, or persecuted.
The sad reality is as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates: 575,000 to 1.6 million homeless and runaway youth are living on the streets from New York City to Los Angeles. And 20 and 40 percent of these homeless youth, youth put out on the streets by their parents are LGBT,
Paul Tillich in his book “Courage to Be” writes
“The anxiety of emptiness is aroused by the threat of nonbeing to the special contents of the spiritual life…. one is cut off from creative participation.”
Thomas was isolated, alone. Thomas was cut off from the truth. He was cut off from the creating participation of Jesus Resurrection.
Thomas was brushing up against the threat of nonbeing, starring straight in the face, living in the threat of a world without a risen Christ. Without the truth of God’s love.
God’s abundant love.
Is it no wonder that Thomas was without faith as the Greek suggests. or doubt as the New Revised Translation infers.
Thomas faces his fear, his anxiety
and in an act of desperation demands proof.
It is a moment of confession, a moment of need. A need of God, and Christ to come through his locked doors. In the midst of the death that surrounded him.
O ye of little faith. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe.”
Yet, our story today, the story of Thomas is permission.
It is permission to doubt, it is permission to need Jesus, to need Christ and to need proof.
Because the point of the story is, Jesus shows up,
He shows up for Thomas, he comes through locked doors to meet Thomas.
Through the locked doors.
So maybe it would be easier!
Maybe it would be easier to just have faith, maybe it would be easier to persevere.
To ignore our needs, to overcome our desperation, our fear and anxiety.
But then again, what does it say to simply need Jesus. To need a risen Christ, a Christ that is not dead, a Savior that is not Dead but Alive!
I’ll tell you what it means, it means you need Jesus! You need to see life and not death
So YES!
Yes, to Ye of Little Faith,
Crawling on the shore of Christ
Needing God, needing life.
Come and see, The Lord is Risen,
God’s plan is resurrection. God’s plan is love and life.
Christ is Risen indeed!
Blessed be God
Amen