I listen to podcasts sometimes on the drive to and from South Bend. I like NPR, but I don’t like just everything on NPR. The podcast is great because I can listen to RadioLab when I want to.
I don’t know how many of you remember Lucy the chimp from Life magazine in the 60’s. She was a chimp raised as a human. Lucy drank gin, had a pet cat and had about 120 words in sign language. Lucy got a lot of press for a while there. Then she disappeared from the national eye. RadioLab had a “rest of the story” about Lucy, and I set the cruise control and turned up the volume on 31 S.
Two of the problems with chimps as pets or animal companions is that they become teenagers and they are a lot stronger than humans. So these chimps are being defiant and acting out. They can pick up a sofa and throw it. It is a bad combination.
Lucy was sent with a caretaker to an island off the coast of Gambia. This poor woman spent a couple of years on this island trying to get Lucy to integrate and socialize with other chimps. At one point she made herself what sounded like an oversized cage where she lived so she could get away from the chimps and make them hang out with each other.
Now I don’t want to leave you hanging here. Lucy died in 1987. She was probably killed by poachers. This is horrible, and I am sad that there are poachers. There is something else about this story though that I kept thinking about.
I started thinking about how odd it was to build a cage for yourself. I mean this woman was living in a giant hamster cage in the jungle with metal bars for a roof. This is so very strange and yet it seems familiar to me at the same time. I think that really we build ourselves cages just like this all the time.
How many people do you know who are prisoners in a cage they built? I can think of a bunch. Some people have houses that are built like Ft. Knox, and some teachers live in ivory towers. It is just a different kind of cage. Some people are in debt and might as well be in a cage. I know people trapped in abusive relationships. I am going to let you fill in your own set of things that box people in and limit them.
Now I am going to look at the Gospel and look at the disciples. These guys are in hiding, and in some ways you don’t blame them. They are in a room though, and the Gospel tells us that “the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear.”
This is the very sort of cage I am talking about. Fear makes a terrible cage. It is powerful, very common, and it can do a lot to limit us. The disciples were not exactly “making disciples of all nations and baptizing.” They were hiding and scared and probably feeling a little sorry for themselves.
These are the disciples who abandoned Jesus when he was on the cross. They may be afraid Jesus would return and be angry with them for being bad disciples. They have to be afraid that Jesus is dead and gone. Now they are going to look stupid and be persecuted for having followed some crazy guy they thought was the Son of God. This is a lot of fear, and all the options look bad.
Now I would like to back up a little bit in the Gospel of John to give some context. Jesus tells the disciples in John 14 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” When Jesus appears to the disciples in today’s reading from John, the first words out of His mouth were “Peace be with you.” The disciples rejoice, and Jesus tells them again “Peace be with you.” When Jesus appears again for Thomas in this same reading. He says it again: “Peace be with you.”
I am sensing a theme here. Jesus says something three times in the same reading, and I think I should be paying attention. Jesus understands that the disciples are not going to be going anywhere until they deal with the cage they have made. They need to overcome their fears and have confidence in God’s plan for them.
Jesus gives them His peace and reminds them of the promise He made: “I do not give to you as the world gives.” He then does three things that I think are very significant and are important to appreciate as we think about the Gospel reading.
First Jesus breathes on them and tells them “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is to the disciples like a dress rehearsal for Pentecost. He gives them the Holy Spirit, and we see that the Holy Spirit is abundant. It is not a one-time gift, but the Spirit continually manifests himself to empower us.
Second Jesus gives them power of the Holy Spirit to do their work. Now that they have the Holy Spirit, he tells them “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.” The Holy Spirit does not just empower us to make us feel good. He does it to give us power and authority to answer God’s call to service. In this case it is to absolve sin.
Finally he gives the disciples the last beatitude. You folks are familiar with the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. These are all the groups of people who are “blessed.” In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” So are you in this blessed category or not?
You can think about this one and decide if you have seen with your own eyes the power of grace and redemption. Are you a firsthand witness to the delivery of God’s people and the transforming quality of baptism? What about the resurrection? As I see it, you are blessed if you have seen it with your own two eyes. Jesus tells us we are blessed if we have not and still believe. One way or the other though, you are blessed if you believe.
St. Thomas is the “twin,” and as I was reading to prepare for this sermon, one of my sources says that Thomas may have physically resembled Jesus and that was how he got this nickname. I am not sure, but I think Thomas needed a better agent. He is known as “doubting Thomas.” Thomas is famously the skeptic. We understand that he is the man who does not come to his faith like other people.
The important thing for Thomas though is that he does come to believe and believe all more strongly for having witnessed the resurrected Jesus. I think it is probably important to remember Thomas for having believed after having doubted. “Believing Thomas” with a footnote is more like it in my book.
Here are the three things I want you to take from this sermon. First, what is the cage that prevents your doing the Lord’s work? How have you limited yourself? What do you need to do to release yourself for service? The Holy Spirit is abundant, and so is grace. God gives us what we need to be free from our cage.
Second, people come to the faith in many ways. Mary Magdalene believed in the resurrection when she heard Jesus say her name in the reading last week. She took the Good News to the disciples, and they did not believe until they saw Jesus with their own eyes. Thomas does not believe the witness of the other disciples, and he has to see and touch for himself. For Mary it is hearing that does it. For the ten disciples it is seeing. For Thomas it is touching.
There is a lot of disbelief going around here, and Thomas is not the only one who doubts. Those doubts are put to rest in different ways, but the important thing is belief. People come to the faith. I am not so worried about the path or how you get there. The point is that you get there and believe.
Last, I want to thank each of you for being here this morning. One of the things that I am left with as I have thought about these readings is that Thomas was not there the first time Jesus appeared to the disciples.
An ember taken away from the others will go out. Placed back in the flames, it will glow red again. This is the very same sort of message. We need to be in fellowship as Christians. It is hard for us to believe when we are not with the other believers.
I have said these words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon preached by Fr. Tom at St. Thomas, Plymouth
April 3, 2016, The Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 118:14-29
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31