April 19, 2020 - Second Sunday After Easter - Welcoming: Pastor Janell's First Sunday at Creator

The Holy Spirit breathed all through today's service for me. As Creator decided Pastor Janell would be our Interim Pastor, part of what she exhorted us to do was to be kind to each other.

As I have in the past I listened to today's Gospel Lesson, John 20:19-31, like I have every Second Sunday After Easter. I must admit this story used to open up a wound from my past that shamed me.

I have a memory of asking my old pastor when I was attending confirmation class "Did the resurrection of Jesus need to be of his physical body, or could the disciples have started believing that the power of what he taught and did might go on living within and through them?"  ..

I was already embarrassed by how awkwardly I asked the question. I was totally unprepared for his angry response "Of course the resurrection was physical. You can't believe or think anything else and be Lutheran".

All these years later I don't know why or what he thought or felt as he said this.  I don't remember even reflecting deeply on what I personally believed at that moment about the resurrection and the empty tomb.  Yet suddenly I felt I was the Doubting Thomas in class.  I knew the list of Biblical characters to emulate and those that served as abject, object lessons.  Thomas was certainly on the wrong list.

My past pastor's words stung. I reread the story, unfortunately with a particular ax to grind.  First I noticed what Thomas feels is never described as doubt.  He simply stipulates what it would take for him to believe what the others were telling him.  And, of course I thought, the other disciples didn't believe the story of the women who came from the tomb, but they are not called "Doubting Disciples".  The unfairness of that label rankled me.

What I also read into my pastor's response at that time was something Jesus did not say and I doubt would have agreed with in the passage,  Jesus said "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

My pastor appeared to believe, "and cursed are the ones who don't believe. They are not worthy as the others."

It feels petty to say now but that is how I read the Thomas story for years. Not as Gospel to share, but with a heart heavy with vindictiveness. I have since reconciled with this memory over the years but Pastor Janell's sermon, and being in this situation of being isolated to protect others, this Sunday was like salve to help heal many of the hurts I still carry.

Pastor Janell preached about what Jesus told his frightened disciples. He says "Peace be with you" and repeats it immediately. She repeated what Jesus said and taught us the ASL way to sign which allowed us to express this without words in our zoom session. Pastor Janell also preached that he breathed on them. A loaded word during a time of pandemic. Normally Easter wraps the story of Thomas around the singing our majestic, triumphant, holy songs. To have them framed around our current fear and self-isolation provided a completely different frame,

For me, however, what was important was that Pastor Janell pressed and drove home her main message. She continued to say and sign "Peace be with you" throughout the sermon and asked what "Peace be with you" meant to us. Did it mean, she asked, the peace which passes all understanding? Personally it meant another level of reconciliation around the story of Thomas. The understanding that the way of Christ's victory is truly the way of wounds. The wounds are what makes Jesus real to Thomas. They are what makes his peace real, His is the peace of Jesus saying "It is finished" but not before we go through his anguished cry "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' This peace comes in his acceptance of his friends after what they did at Gethsemane

After the sermon, the Litany of Welcome was also filled with the Holy Spirit and seemed to hint at possible directions for the big dreams that we hope and dream for Creator as we start this time of transformation.

We won't be perfect in how we behave during this pandemic, any more than how we usually behave. Jesus sees all this and, even knowing our weakness or because of it, can still say "Peace be with you" and allows us the space to be kind to one another.