Sermon for Easter 2, April 24, 2022

Easter Two – Year C, Preached on April 24, 2022

Acts 5:27-32; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19—31

It’s a very different day for us here at St. Paul’s.  For the first time since re-gathering at the end of last summer, we have transitioned to being a “mask-friendly” congregation.  Following state, local and church guidelines, we are now leaving the decision of whether or not you wear a mask in church to you, deciding for you and your family what feels right for your health and safety.  And we are re-introducing the common cup; the opportunity to participate again in sharing the sacrament in both kinds.

Of course, in both cases, no one must do one or the other.  You may wear a mask, and we will support you in that decision.  You may go maskless and we will support you equally in that decision. You might take the cup or not.

There is no one right answer for everyone.  And that is part of what makes this time we are in so challenging.

This time is asking us to navigate uncertainty in a new way.  And that is so much harder than either/or.

How we move through this time together will have much to say about how we actually live into our commitments to be a community who loves one another as Christ loves us.  

For some of you, this transition is long past due.  We are one of the last congregations in the Diocese and in Brookline to move to mask-friendly. Most stores, restaurants, gyms and schools have already made the transition.  For some, your patience has been stretched.

For others of you, this transition might feel, as one person put it, as though the whole world is moving on without you.  Perhaps your health or the health of a loved one means you do not have the luxury of even considering going maskless.  Not yet.

There is no “on/off” switch in this pandemic.  We are not waking up today with all of our fears, worries, anxieties and frustrations suddenly fixed.  We are not beginning this phase from scratch.  We have two years of trauma we are bringing with us.

In the divisive discourse of our country, we are constantly being asked to choose a side.  One or the other.  Are you ready to “move on” or are you taking precautions to ensure the safety of those you love?

In an Op-Ed in the New York Times, Palliative Care physician and author Dr. Sunita Puri tells the story of a patient’s wife who, because she was unable to be in the room with her husband who was dying of COVID, stood at the door of his ICU room as he died, her hands pressed against the glass.  

Dr. Puri uses this illustration to ask some important questions about how we might enter this time we are in together, without divisiveness, but with compassion and empathy.

Dr. Puri reflects on the widow’s question of how she was supposed to “move on” without her husband.  

Dr. Puri writes, 

“I don’t believe in “moving on” and “finding closure.” This language distills the messy complexity of grief into tidy sound bites and asks people to leave something behind, bury it or lock it away. 

The challenge for my patients and their families is the challenge for all of us: Can we instead move forward with grief? Can we find a way to integrate loss into life, to carry it with us? Can we feel tragedy together, without an artificial line between those who are ready to move on and those who can’t see a way out? We cannot simply be those who grieve and those who look away.”

It is hard work, rejecting “either/or” thinking and navigating the messier, but truer reality that we are all in a bit of “both/and.”

We long to grieve, and we want to look away.  We want to honor the pain, and we want to move into the possibility of joy.

In our Gospel reading this morning, we hear the story of a similar struggle breaking the heart of the apostle Thomas.  

Thomas, like all those gathered in the upper room, is grieving.  It has only been a week since Jesus was executed and they are still in hiding.  I like to think Thomas was out getting some supplies for the group.  He is not with the others when they experience Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance with them.

Upon his return, he is asked to imagine the unimaginable.  In that moment, Thomas is asked to choose.  Is he ready to “move on” into the joy of the resurrection, or will he stay in mourning.  Which is it, Thomas, is Jesus risen as he said he would be, or is he still dead?

Thomas wants to believe.  Thomas wants to move forward, but he cannot just “move on.”  There are wounds to be acknowledged, the broken body of Jesus to see before he can risk letting his heart be broken all over again.

Like the patient’s wife, hands pressed against the glass, he wants to witness for himself that the unthinkable has come to pass, so he can begin to pick up the pieces of his life and, what, “move on”?  “Move forward?”

There is an interesting detail in this Gospel story that tells us something about what Jesus thought about Thomas and his need to see before he could allow his heart to believe.

Jesus came back a second time.  Just for Thomas.  Not only did he come back but he offered Thomas the chance to see and even to touch the wounds, that he, too, might come to know the reality of the resurrection.

Sure, Jesus says that line about those who have come to believe without seeing as being blessed.  And, aren’t they?  I am not included in that group.  

I am amazed that anyone could come to know the power of the risen life of Christ without first seeing the wounds in the Body of Christ and witnessing God’s ability to transform those wounds into resurrection.  So, I agree with Jesus’ words here.  Those who have come to believe without seeing are blessed.  Not better, but they are blessed.

If Thomas was wrong for demanding to see Jesus, why would Jesus have come back and shown himself to him?  Why, if Thomas was out of line, would Jesus offer the marks in the hands and the gash in the side?

There is no on/off switch between seeing the empty tomb and knowing the fullness of the promise of Easter.

From the moment of the women’s arrival at the empty tomb on Easter morning there would be, forever, people in all sorts of different places in their lives of faith.  

There would be those whose faith is as old as they are.  There would be others whose faith is newer, more fragile, or in need of signs and showings.

There would always be those who would be ready to “move on” and those who would need more time before “moving forward.”

So maybe this time we are now in; yet another  “unprecedented time” in a string of unprecedented times, maybe it isn’t quite so unprecedented after all.

Maybe the question isn’t whether you were ready for the next phase weeks ago or if you anticipate it will be weeks before you are ready to embrace the phase we are already in.

Maybe the question for us is how we will live and love one another while we figure out what it means not to move on, but to move forward in love, together.  

What kind of radical love is God asking us to show one another, like wounds in our hands and gashes in our sides, scars made by the last two years we have traveled together?

Dr. Puri, in her article, describes how she and the rest of the staff could still see the handprints of the patient’s wife on the glass door of the ICU room, after she had left.  Marks of a set of hands where grief once stood remain a sign to all who pass by while they return to whatever work awaited them next.

Thomas, and the others, bore witness to the hands of Jesus.  Marks of the hands where death once reigned, while they all began the slow work of moving forward into their resurrection lives.

Can we bear witness to the hands of others that bear marks of all the pain and grief, loss and fear of the past two years, while reaching our hands out in love that we might walk, together, hand in hand, forward into the Love of God.

Amen.

© 2022 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello