DATE: April 15, 2012
SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 133; John 20:19-31
BY:
Chad Tanaka Pack
It was evening. I drove up the curved path and past the front of the church, rounded the corner, stepped on my brake dutifully at the stop sign, and then proceeded into the parking lot at the back of the meeting house. Because it was early spring, the sun was lingering a little longer above the horizon, a ripe blood orange filtering through bare black branches silhouetted against a grey-white sky. As I opened my car door, I heard the slam of other car doors and the murmur of voices greeting each other in the damp dusk air. One by one we entered the meeting house, through the side door, up the flight of stairs, and past the fire doors.
The Daniels Room was in its usual state: practical tables arranged in an egalitarian square, dependable florescent lights humming faintly above. But somehow the evening endowed the room with a sense of importance, an air of purposefulness, as each of the members of the Church Council took a seat. I looked around the room: committee chairs, officers, deacons. Dressed not in Sunday coat and tie but in weekday fleece and jeans. As we waited for the meeting to start, the room buzzed with banter: warm, yet hushed. Hushed enough that we could hear when someone was entering the second floor, the fire door shutting behind them with a reassuring click.
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus’ disciples are similarly gathered: in the evening, at a meeting house, behind shut doors. Recall that in John’s account of the resurrection, on Easter morning, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb. And later that day, in the evening, we are told, the disciples gather together. By evening, Mary has already told them she has seen Jesus, risen from the dead. But the other disciples gathered have not yet seen Jesus since his death. And so I imagine they are confused. They are in a state of shock. They are grief-stricken and afraid, while at the same time hopeful and expectant. And so I imagine they gather together to support each other in this time of uncertainty. In the evening, at a meeting house, behind shut doors.
The text says that the doors were locked for fear of the Jews. As a reminder, the disciples and Jesus were themselves Jews, so the text is not asserting anti-Semitic views. The text is simply saying that the disciples were afraid of those particular Jews who had persecuted Jesus. The point of the text is that the doors were closed. In Greek the word here for “locked” is the same word that is translated later on in this passage as “shut.” So, “locked,” “shut,” the point is that the disciples were gathered in a house behind closed doors. And there, in the safety of that house, set apart from what is going on in the world outside, Jesus reveals himself to his disciples.
As a student intern at Saugatuck, I was grateful that the doors of the Church Council meetings were not locked. That is, they were open to me even though I was not a member of the Church Council. As one studying how to be a minister, I was grateful to be allowed to attend these meetings, to observe the behind-the-scenes workings of the church. At the same time I appreciated that the doors of the Church Council meetings were not locked, I also appreciated that the doors were shut. The doors were not locked but they were shut. The shut doors reminded those gathered that Church Council meetings were set apart from everything else going on in the church. A time when those gathered did not have to think about Sunday School lesson plans or fellowship hour assignments or newsletter articles. It was a sacred time, set apart from the rest of church life.
At those Church Council meetings, I witnessed firsthand what it means to be the body of Christ. Here was a gathering of people of diverse backgrounds and skill sets, at different stages of their lives, with different viewpoints and opinions, united in their love of the church. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he writes, “For as in one body we have many members, and not all members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” There in the Daniels Room, as budgets were reviewed and events were planned, the ethos that prevailed was a respect for diversity and a belief in unity. There in the Daniels Room, I witnessed the spiritual presence of Christ. There, the risen Christ revealed himself to us.
Of course, Christ reveals himself to us at Saugatuck not only at Church Council meetings. In the nine months of my internship here, I experienced the spiritual presence of Christ in many different times and places. When I nervously made my first visit home visit to Bob Steele, not knowing what I would talk about with a man over fifty years my senior, and when we discovered that we both got our undergraduate degrees from Wharton, and that we both had been accounting majors, Christ was there. When Faith Carmichael firmly but kindly helped me iron out the “umm”s and “like”s and “sort of”s in my speaking style, Christ was there. When Paul Cahill instructed me to always button my jacket when speaking in front of a crowd—a practice I still maintain—Christ was there. Here in the safety of my internship, in the warmth and protection of this community, set apart from the pressures of my academic assignments, I witnessed the spiritual presence of Christ.
I hope you can identify with my experience here at Saugatuck. I hope you too have witnessed the spiritual presence of Christ in this community. Here at Saugatuck, in the warmth and protection of this community, the risen Christ reveals himself to us. Christ reveals himself when we are greeted by the smiling face of an usher. Christ reveals himself when our children sing in worship. Christ reveals himself when we visit those who are ill and when we pray with a friend. Here in the safety of this community, behind metaphorical shut doors, God opens our eyes. Christ reveals himself to us.
I’d like to make an important point about these metaphorical shut doors. The shut doors create a safe space for the community, set apart from what is going on in the world outside. But the shut doors do not and cannot permanently isolate the community from the world outside. Let me say that another way: The shut doors set us apart but they do not isolate us. So the metaphorical shut doors come with two warnings, two caveats.
The first caveat is this: When we enter this community and allow the doors to reassuringly click shut behind us, we as individuals are not leaving behind everything going on in our personal life. We are whole human beings. We cannot separate our lives into all things Saugatuck and all things not. When we enter this community, whether we like it or not, we bring our whole selves to the community. We bring our joys and our hopes. We also bring our grief, our fears, our doubts and our concerns. Thankfully, God does not expect us to separate our lives in this way. In our gospel reading, Thomas is not present with the other disciples on the evening of Easter Sunday. And so when Thomas enters the community, he brings with him his real, human doubts about the risen Christ. And John’s gospel assures us: That’s okay. Jesus comes again the following Sunday, and reveals himself to Thomas. When the doors to our community are shut—not locked, but shut—we feel a sense of security, and we feel safe enough to bring our full selves to the community. We can express our concerns and fears and doubts, knowing that God loves our whole selves.
The second caveat is this: When we enter this community and allow the doors to shut behind us, we are not turning our backs to the concerns of the outside world. This time behind shut doors, this set apart time, is a time in which we are growing and developing, a time in which we are being equipped to go out and serve the world. Jesus says to the disciples, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And in our scripture reading, Jesus does not send the disciples out without any resources. In the safety of the house in which they are gathered, behind shut doors, Jesus breathes on the disciples the Holy Spirit, empowering them to share what they have experienced in the safety of their community with the world outside.
During my internship here, during my time in the warmth and protection of this community, behind shut doors, you helped equip me for ministry. What I learned here at Saugatuck I will carry with me throughout the rest of my ministries. This community transformed me, and sent me into the world. Likewise, each one of us here is being transformed by this community. Each one of us here is being awakened by the spiritual presence of Christ. Each one of us here is being empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve the world.
God is calling each one of us here. God is calling us to bring ourselves fully to this community. God is calling us to open our eyes to the presence of Christ in the midst of this community. And God is calling us to go out from this community to love and serve our world. How will you respond to God’s call?