Bishop Craig Schweitzer

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John 20:19-31 • May 1, 2011

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and our risen Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

Walk with me through a few elements of worship that I think many of you will quickly know the response to.

Here we go –

The Lord be with you. And also with you.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. And also with you.
This is the Gospel of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Lord, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
Go in peace to serve the Lord. Thanks be to God.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
And here is the one that I think is the most difficult one of all.

Are you ready for it? The peace of our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with you all. And also with you.

Thank you and very good. And yes I did in fact say that the last one was the most difficult one of all. Don’t blow me off or tune me out yet, give me a little time to unpack that thought today.
It is sometimes easier for us to just move through worship and even though you may be physically present, you are far from actually being present. We offer responses during worship like “and also with you” or “hear our prayer” and fail to even remotely engage with what we are doing or saying. If you’ve ever felt like that, I’m glad. And I want you to know that you’re not alone in that feeling – I can think of a few times when I’ve been there myself.

Jesus offers the greeting, “Peace be with you,” three times in today’s gospel reading. On one level, this was a common greeting in Jesus’ day. Similar to us saying “hello” or “sup” to someone today. But it struck me in a new way today. I think his greeting here is much more significant that simply saying, “Hi guys. What’cha doin’?”

Jesus talks about peace at other times in John’s gospel. In chapter 14, verse 27 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” In chapter 16, verse 33 Jesus says, “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

So I do not believe that Jesus’ greeting in our gospel reading today is just a simple greeting of “hello” and I am more convinced than ever before that our sharing of the peace in worship each week is WAY more than simply saying “hi” to one another or “good morning, it’s nice to see you.”

I’ve been privileged over the past few years to be invited into conversations, planning, and teaching in various settings regarding worship in the ELCA and the ways in which local congregations engage in worship each week. I think the work being done across the ELCA provides congregation’s like ours with valuable insights into worship rituals like sharing of the peace.

Listen to these insights – “The peace is a transitional point in the service standing between the proclamation of the word and the sharing of the Lord’s Supper.” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship Leaders’ Desk Edition, pg. 21)

Sharing God’s peace is not simply offering a friendly hello to those sitting around you. Sharing God’s peace is not a time for catching up on news with your neighbor or for reminding someone about an upcoming meeting.

Sharing God’s peace with one another is an act of reconciliation. It is an opportunity for God’s people to be reconciled with one another. It is a time to set aside our human differences and to recognize and enact our baptismal unity as children of God.

Insights like this are why Jesus’ words of peace can be so powerful for us today. And they are even more powerful when heard in the midst of Jesus’ statement to the disciples in verse 23. In that verse Jesus says to the disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

In the book Wounded Lord: Reading John Through the Eyes of Thomas, theologian Robert Smith writes, “In this final narrative in the body of his gospel, the evangelist (the writer of the Gospel of John) declares that the resurrected Jesus continues to be the crucified Jesus. The Easter Jesus still bears in hands and side the marks of his cruel wounding. His hands and side have not healed. Indeed the wounds will never go away. The Thomas story announces that the universe is upheld in wounded hands of unimaginably deep love and compassion.

Thomas’ final words are his confession: ‘My Lord and my God.’ It is too easily overlooked that Thomas addresses these words to the One who displays not just living hands and side or solid hands and side but wounded hands and side. Through this narrative of Thomas, the evangelist is sharing his own faith that he will not confess as Lord and God any figure, no matter how marvelous or mighty, who lacks wounds.

The crucified and resurrected Jesus is Lord and God. He is God in God’s turning to the world. He is in the Father and the Father is in him. (10:38) Whoever has seen and heard the Son with his wounds has seen and heard ‘the Father’ (14:9).

Jesus comments on Thomas’ confession and proceeds by pronouncing ‘Blessed’ all those in future generations who will come to share the faith of Thomas without the benefit of laying hands or eyes upon Jesus. Blessed are those who will come to faith simply on the basis of the story about Jesus.” (pg. 191)

The story about Jesus that we celebrate in worship extends peace from God to far more than a morning greeting. The story about Jesus forgives all sin. The story about Jesus brings restoration and healing to all relationships. The story about Jesus does not ignore the wounds we carry or the wounds we have caused others to receive. The story about Jesus is given to you and me in love, as a gift, that you and I receive each and every time we hear the words, “Peace be with you.”

Exchanging peace with each other gathers us together as a community of faith not limited by which worship service we attend or which church we belong to or what style of music we think is best. Exchanging the peace with each other unites us in the grace and love of God as brothers and sisters that is not the result of how good of student you were in school, how much money you make, or which political party you think is best.
 
Our challenge from Jesus today is the same as it was for his disciples just a few days after the resurrection. As the community of faith called Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, we are gathered in worship on this day in the name of the risen Jesus Christ, wounds and all. We are called and sent to live in the gift that Christ’s peace offers you and me not only today, but every day.

The peace of our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with you all. And also with you.

Thank you.

Let’s continue and in many ways begin our journey of peace together by standing and offering a greeting of Christ’s peace to brothers and sisters in Christ who are gathered around you.

Click here to hear the audio recording of this sermon.

Matthew 28:1-10 • April 24, 2011

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and our risen Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

A Church School teacher asked his class of first graders during their small group time a couple weeks ago if they knew what happened on Easter and why it was so important. They had been working on this in church school.

One little girl spoke up first and said, “Easter is when the whole family gets together, and you eat turkey and sing about the pilgrims and all that.”

“No, that’s not it,” said the teacher.

“I know what Easter is,” another student offered. “Easter is when you get a tree and decorate it and give gifts to everybody and sing lots of songs.”

“Nope, that’s not it either,” said the teacher.

Finally, a third student spoke up, “Easter is when Jesus was killed, and put in a tomb and left for three days.”

“Whew, thank goodness somebody knows,” thought the teacher to himself.

But then the student continued, “Then everybody gathers at the tomb and waits to see if Jesus comes out, and if he sees his shadow he has to go back inside and we have six more weeks of winter.”

A cute story. Maybe even a little mean given the length of winter that we have experienced this year – but in many ways there is probably a great deal of truth that we can relate to in these first graders understanding of Easter. In fact, I would argue that there is not one person here today, myself included, who hasn’t felt just a little bit like these kids when trying to explain the resurrection to someone who doesn’t believe.

Author Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “Remember that these things are mysteries and if they are such that we could fully understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you can fully understand would be less than yourself.”

I’m not sure why you are here today. I’m guessing that there are some here who question how it was possible for Jesus to rise from the dead or if in fact an angel did roll the stone of the tomb away as an earthquake occurred on that first Easter morning.

I also guess that there are some sitting here who are more concerned about the ham baking in the oven at home right now than actually participating fully in worship.

Regardless of why you are here or how you are participating – I’m glad you are here. And I give thanks on this day for each person who gathers in worship in the name of the risen savior Jesus Christ to once again hear the story of God’s victory over death – a story heard not only in this place, but around the world on this day.

You see – I don’t know most of you. And I would bet that most of you don’t know many of the people you are sitting with today.
I can’t stand before you on this Easter morning and tell you that I know and understand everything that you are struggling with today, or every disappointment you have faced recently. I can’t tell you that I share in the joy that you have felt recently or how excited you are today because of the success you have achieved recently after working tirelessly toward a goal.

BUT – Even though you and I may never have met before this moment. Even though you and I don’t know or understand or feel or experience everything in exactly the same way. Even though all of that may be true, God’s saving act of life given to you and me in the resurrection, connects us together very deeply and intimately as brothers and sisters today and forever.

The good news of the resurrection is not in the pageantry of the angel’s entrance in front of the tomb in a way that resembles a royal wedding in Great Britain. The good news of the resurrection is God giving us new life – a new life that we share as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.

Believing in the resurrection isn’t just a matter of believing that a dead body came back to life.

Believing in the resurrection connects us together in the mystery and beauty of the most significant event in the entire history of the world that forever heals the relationships between you and I, and God. The transformation in the resurrection for each one of us who call the risen Jesus Christ our savior and lord, takes us from walking constantly in fear to walking boldly with Christ; away from any darkness we encounter toward light that restores hope; from pain and grief in suffering to joy and confidence that God is always with us; from apathy and complacency in our worship to passionate and spirit filled times where we kneel at the feet of the risen Jesus in worship and praise; from times of death where there seems to be no hope for tomorrow to life that is filled with God’s love that will never end.

Jesus may not have shown us his shadow on that first Easter morning, although who’s to say that the sun wasn’t shining enough for his shadow. What Jesus shows us and what Jesus extends to us is the gift of life. And life in Christ does not end.

We may never have met each other before today. That doesn’t matter in the resurrection. The stone has been rolled away. And because of that, we can confidently call each other sister or brother.
Jesus says to us today, “Do not be afraid; go and tell, … there they will see me.” Brothers and sisters in Christ, go and tell in Bismarck and throughout North Dakota. Go and tell around the United States and across North America. Go and tell in England, the Central African Republic, and Japan. We are connected with these first witnesses to the resurrection in Matthew’s gospel and are called to go and tell. I am filled with thanksgiving and joy today, because God unites us through a savior named Jesus who is walking with us every step of the way. The stone has rolled away…now what? Go and tell. Amen.