Second Sunday in Easter - April 27, 2003
By The Rev. Benjamin J. Newland
About halfway through my second year at seminary I figured out that choosing my classes based on the reputation of the professor was a much more reliable way to get into interesting classes than reading through the class schedule. Better to listen to someone interesting talk, I reasoned, even if they were talking about a subject that wouldn’t have been my first choice. And that’s how I ended up taking a class called ‘Missiology’ in the fall of my senior year. Having been accepted for the class, I made a few discrete inquiries and learned that ‘Missiology’ is just a fancy academic term for studying the theory and practice of missionary work. Now, I hope you’ve have a different experience, but I find that the average Episcopalian is less than thrilled by the idea of missionary work. Most of us view Mission, along with its even scarier cousin: Evangelism, as something to write checks at until it goes away.
While not a ‘Cradle Episcopalian’, I too took a dim view of these concepts. One of the nicest parts about joining the Episcopal Church in High School was that I didn’t have to accost my schoolmates in the hallways, trying to convince them that they were certainly going straight to Hell if they didn’t come to church with me that Sunday. My entire use for the word Missionary was to describe a foaming-at-the-mouth preacher wearing a black suit and tie in the middle of Africa in the summer, ranting at a bunch of natives in grass skirts, most of whom were too polite to tell the maniac to get lost but too intelligent to take seriously anyone who wore a black suit and tie in the middle of Africa in the summer.
The thing about missionaries and missionary work is that most of us think about it, if at all, as a group of seriously devoted white people going from here (the United States) to there (Africa, South America, China, or anywhere that people look really different from us) in order to convince all the poor heathens who are there that they need to become Christians. At one point, this was exactly what the church had in mind. In today’s world of political correctness, cultural sensitivity, and expanded consciousness, this idea seems like exactly what it is: offensive, racist, and despicable.
But it was too late for me, I’d already been accepted for the class and was unwilling to rearrange my schedule. Besides, my policy of picking classes by professor instead of by topic hadn’t failed me yet.
The reason I’m telling you all of this is that in the reading from Acts today we have what is sometimes called Peter’s Mission Sermon. Because Acts is considered an entirely separate part of the Bible from the Gospels, we sometimes forget that it is simply a continuation of the story told in Luke’s Gospel. This Peter, who today stands exhorting all Israel to turn away from its choice to hand Jesus over to Pilate, was just a week ago last Friday warming his hands outside the court where Jesus stood before Pilate and insisting that he had no idea who that crazy man from Galilee was.
This Peter, the same who denied Jesus three times when the pressure was on, now addresses the gathered assembly. He accuses them of having rejected the Holy and Righteous One, and of trading a murderer for the Author of Life. He uses that pronoun, ‘you’. As if he too hadn’t done exactly what he’s telling the crowd they’ve done. Which makes the next line even more interesting I think. Calling them friends, he tells Israel that he knows they acted in ignorance. And how does he know? By experience, I say.
Then, having accused and forgiven both himself and his audience, he gives them their charge. “Repent therefore, and turn to God…” he says. It was that first turning that caused all these problems; that turning where the Jewish people and their leaders turned to Pilate, a disinterested, cynical, official representative of a Pagan Empire. To choose Pilate over Jesus is the metaphorical choosing of death over life; the decision to place faith with the established order’s repression instead of the Author of Life’s liberation. That’s the choice Jesus was calling us away from all along, and now Peter has finally gotten it and is calling us too.
In the reading from 1 John we get what we have come to expect from writings with the beloved disciple’s name on them: a mesmerizing, ethereal, stream of consciousness assertion on the nature of Christian life. To try and render this whimsical mysticallity into logical statement is as foolish as it is difficult. How else to relate Christian Faith, and Identity, and Love, and Obedience, and Hope together than to compare them with inscrutable poetry to Jesus the Christ? For the writer and readers of this letter, Jesus Christ is where all things Christian come together. This has implications for our thoughts on Missionary work, for even in the letter of John the person of Jesus Christ is not everything but rather the place where everything comes into focus. Jesus Christ isn’t the only story, but for us, for Christians, he is the best story, and the story we seek to share with others by living it out.
The Gospel passage for today can be conveniently split into two parts. The first part is where Jesus walks through the wall and scares the bejeezus out of the disciples. The second is famously called ‘Doubting Thomas’. What can I say about the walking through the wall trick except that I’d like to see it done and it wasn’t the point at all. The point is that Jesus breathes on the disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit and charging them with the gifts he promised.
Doubting Thomas is so well known as to be a cliché. For Thomas’ sake, however, I feel that I must point out a couple pertinent facts. First of all, let’s not single out Thomas for doubting. Thomas hadn’t seen the risen Jesus yet and his refusal to accept second-hand proof of the resurrection is no different from the rest of the twelve’s refusal to accept Mary’s word on the matter earlier. The disciples wouldn’t believe the womens’ word when they had seen the empty tomb and spoken to an angel, but we’re supposed to be harder on Thomas for not taking the disciples word on similar evidence.
Again, the point is not the doubt of Thomas, but the compliance of Jesus. If the disciples needed to see a risen Jesus to believe, that is what Jesus would provide. If Thomas needed to see a wounded body to believe, that is exactly what Jesus would provide. The power of a Life in Jesus is not proved by walking through walls. The foundation of the Christian Life is not shown by morbidly poking at the wounds of crucifixion. It is our receipt of the Holy Spirit, and all the gifts and signs that that implies, that forms the beginning of our Christian Life and proves throughout the centuries that Jesus lives.
It is within our power even today to make the same choice made by those Jewish leaders two thousand years ago. We can still choose Pilate and the things of death over Jesus and the Way of Life. It is our choosing Life, as often and in as many ways as we can, that continues to show that Jesus lives. We can make the same demands of Jesus that Thomas and the other disciples made. We can demand proof for our belief. Speaking literally, I doubt Jesus will walk through the wall and let us poke his wounds. Yet our belief, acted out by our continuing attempts to choose the Life Jesus laid out for us, serves as the basis of faith for all of “those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”
I learned a lot about Missionary things that semester in seminary. I learned that Mission work is not about traveling to exotic places and convincing different looking people to think the way I do. I learned that Mission work happens anywhere someone who believes shares their story and their life with someone else. That other person may or may not have their own story, their own faith. That other person may or may not find Life in your story. It doesn’t matter. The Mission Jesus set down for the disciples in that room, and for the church in those early days, and for us in our Easter lives, is simply to breathe in the Holy Spirit and act out the choices of Faith Jesus has asked of us.
Of coarse, all of the really important things I learned in that Mission class I could have learned by reading the Baptismal Covenant every day for a semester and really thinking about it. It’s all in there: Do you believe in Life? Yes. Do you reject Death? Yes. Do you promise to do your best to live this way for the rest of your life? Yes. Mission is really just Baptism. We are accepted into the life of Jesus, endeavor to live it, and then share it with anyone who seems interested in listening.