Memorial United Methodist Church

Memorial United Methodist Church
White Plains, New York 10605

Out from behind Bolted Doors

A Sermon by Joe Agne, Pastor
Based on John 20:19-31
April 19, 2009 (Not edited or proofread)

Their peace movement put to rout

This is sermon about the bolted doors of our lives.

Jesus closest friends are behind bolted doors.

Jesus had been killed in an act of state terrorism. Some political, economic and religious people participated in order to stop Jesus’ nonviolent peace movement. The manner of his death was intended to be a threat to Jesus’ followers -- to keep them from living in the same way they lived prior to the crucifixion. They are where we would expect them to be. They are behind closed and bolted doors, fearful and filled with doubt.

Jesus comes to them on two consecutive Sundays. He is not recognized by them. He enters their room without the benefit of any openings. He must be a different kind of reality than anything they have ever encountered. He comes within inches of their faces and they don’t know who he is. Then he breathes on them like in the Creation story and the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones. They discover two clues to his identity. They hear him say, “Peace be with you,” just like he had the last time he was with them a few days earlier. They also have an opportunity to touch his wounds. Once they figure out who he is he sends them out in the world with the power of forgiveness, which is the power to “religio” the world.

These first disciples were behind doors of fear and doubt. You can hear them saying, “I can’t keep up our movement, I’m too afraid.” Or “I can’t live in the way we used to live. I’m too filled with doubt about whether our new way of living really matters. They locked themselves behind the “I’m too…” doors.

We are locked behind bolted doors.
I wonder what “I’m too…” doors we lock ourselves behind:

I’m too young.
I’m too weak.
I’m too sophisticated.
I’m too old.
I’m too busy.
I’m too tired.
I’m too confused.
I’m too perplexed.
I’m too afraid.
I’m too filled with doubt.
I’m too sick.
I’m too unprepared.
I’m too important.
I’m too cautious.
I’m too unguarded.

But God comes to us just like the Risen Christ came to his closest friends. Notice he doesn’t berate them for being afraid. He doesn’t chastise Thomas for his doubts. He knows the reality of their feelings. Remember, just a few days before he had said to God, “Let this cup pass from me,” and “God, why have you forsaken me.” Jesus comes to his friends and invites them to risk living out from behind locked doors. The operating word here is “invites.” There is work for them to do. They are to “religio” the world, to rebind the human family, to put back together what humans have put asunder. Jesus invites us to do the same – to repair the creation.

Dr. Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, says, “Jesus’ appearance is certain to change and we will not always know him.” She says Jesus may come to us:

• In “golden garb, calling us to celebrate joyously…”
• “wearing beggar’s rags, reminding us that the love which saves is vulnerable and costly, and that the glory which awaits us is humble in texture and well worn in feel.”
• “wrapped in the wool shawl of the wise old grandmother who simply holds us as we weep.”

Whether Jesus comes in golden garb, beggar’s rags or woolen shawl, we find, not well-construed theological arguments, but a proclamation of peace and a touching love.

Here we are on the second Sunday of Easter. Notice this is not a Sunday after Easter. We are in Easter. Easter is not a day. It is a season and a way of life claiming the power of resurrection over all the deaths that claim us. Easter rolls very large stones from tombs and swings open very bolted doors. We are free to forgive, which is to “religio” the world.

Dr. King and a bolted door.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a young pastor in a new parish, with a young marriage and a young child. He was receiving 30 to 40 threats to his family and himself each day. His home had been bombed. His father and father-in-law came regularly to tell him to leave Montgomery, to be a good husband and father, and to take a pastorate in Atlanta. In a sense they ask him to live behind locked doors. One night, at his kitchen table, drinking coffee at 2 a.m. he hears a voice calling him to be a drum-major for justice. And he does just this.

At the end of his life his closest advisors tell him not to go to Memphis for it is too dangerous. Some even question whether the outcome of a sanitation workers’ strike is worth his time and the risk of his life. He goes to Memphis and says the night before he dies that he has been to the mountain top and he has seen the promised land. He doesn’t know if he will get there but he knows his people will get there. For a final time he proclaims that fullness of life is more important than longevity. He refuses to live behind locked doors. He does his part to forgive, to “religio” the world.

Like Jesus he proclaims that peace and touching love are stronger than even the most violent death. Like both of them we can live out and about, not locked behind the doors that keep us from life. We are free to forgive, to “religio” the world.