John 10:22-30; Acts 9:36-43 “The Voice of Jesus is Heard…”

John 10:22-30; Acts 9:36-43 “The Voice of Jesus is Heard…”

John 10:22-30 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”

 

Acts 9:36-43 Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. 37 At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 40 Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. 41 He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. 42 This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

 

There are so many things that disquiet our hearts and minds today.  The unfolding events in Boston and the town of West, Texas, continue as we hear story after story.  There is also much that is close to home and personal.  Family and friends we are thinking about maybe even this very minute who are struggling.  I pray that you find comfort as the love of Christ is shared between us today.  Amen.

Jesus says in our gospel passage today that, “My sheep hear my voice…I know them, and they follow me.”  That is a lovely thing to say and maybe even more lovely to hear.  The imagery of God as shepherd is so common in scripture that many, many people, whether or not they have any connection to church, know the opening lines, and maybe even the whole, of Psalm 23.  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”  While the image may be poetic and comforting, I began to wonder what it might actually sound like to hear Jesus’ voice.

The Acts text might help us out here – bringing us in on hearing Jesus’ voice from a different angle.  Only slightly less well known than Psalm 23, the story begins this way.  “Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas.”  Her name is offered in two languages which gives us an inkling that she is comfortable in her religious community as well as in the wider Greco-Roman culture around her.[1]  The story goes on to tell us that she is known for her charity and good works.  This is how she moves through the world.  And then she dies.

We are told neither how she dies nor the specifics of why the disciples call for Peter to come to them.  Simply that the disciple Tabitha dies and that Peter is in a town near-enough to be able to come.  So he does.  When he gets there, the widows who are there show Peter all the clothing that Dorcas made during her time with them.  We are not told much about the clothing but we know that scripture demands the care of widows who, at that time, were dependent of the community for their lives.  Again, they request nothing of him; they simply tell him their experience and show him Dorcas’ work.  Peter sends them out of the room, prays, and tells Tabitha to get up.  She sits up and Peter offers her his hand to help her stand up, at the same time calling the saints and windows back into the room.

This is a ton of story packed into seven verses.  Imagine the biography that would be written if this story were expanded in its fullness.  It is a story to inspire the imagination.  For those of us who are disciples today, we are here in large part because of the witness of Tabitha and other disciples.  And it is disciples like Tabitha who are powerful examples of discipleship.  But above and beyond the example of discipleship and the witness of a religious faith in a wider world, the story of Tabitha, the widows, Peter, and other disciples speaks powerfully to the way Jesus’ voice is heard in community.  Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice.”  How do we hear the voice of Jesus today?

This morning we will be celebrating many, many people here in this place who give of their time and who give of their skills in this congregational community and beyond its walls as volunteers.  As a full assembly, we will celebrate these volunteers in a litany of gratitude, echoing the grateful celebration of the saints and widows who told Peter about Dorcas.  The voice of Jesus is heard through the work of these volunteers and through our celebration of their work.[2]

There is a story about the love shared between a disciple of Jesus and her community that I’d like to share with you. I received permission this week from her husband Mark to tell a bit of her story.  Her name is Nina.  Nina walked into Augustana many years ago following a nine month long recovery in New York State from a two-seater plane crash.  She suffered major burns in the crash and was still wearing the special stockings for healing over much of her body.  Nina came back Sunday after Sunday and experienced a time of healing here at Augustana; a time that she describes as having “established her faith.”  As she told it to Mark, the church was the one place where she felt welcome all of the time regardless of her physical scars.  The voice of Jesus is heard in this welcome.[3]

A few years ago, Nina’s life situation allowed her to begin participating in the work of Augustana.  Krista Rahe, a good friend of Nina’s and head of the Spiritual Arts Committee, drafted Nina and her creative talent into that committee.  She also began working with Dianne Nelson and the Altar Guild who prepares the sanctuary for worship.  Then Nina became involved with Advent Adventure working with our Children’s and Family Minister, Cary Mathis, which led her to pour her creative energies into the Music Art and Drama camp that impacts children who worship here as well as children in the wider community.  Cary says he keeps a long list of her unique ideas close at hand.  The voice of Jesus is heard as invitations to share Spirit given gifts with people both in the church and beyond and the voice of Jesus is heard in the response to the invitation to share those gifts.[4]

Last Fall, just before Thanksgiving, Nina had a catastrophic stroke.  Her survival in those first days was touch and go but as Mark says, it is not Nina’s first time around dealing with a major illness and recovery that will not be measured in days, weeks, or months – calling into place her resourcefulness and zest for life as part of her recovery.  The church community far and wide began praying, and showing up, and praying some more.  The voice of Jesus is heard in those prayers and in the groans too deep for words.[5]

A little over two months ago you called me as a pastor here and very quickly I began to hear about Nina.  First from the Care Team who stay up to date on care visits to Nina and the progress of her recovery, then bits and pieces from the rest of the staff who know her, then from the Congregational Council, then from the Children and Family Committee, then from other people in the congregation…and so on, and so on…you get the idea.  People say things to me like, “Oh, that’s right, you haven’t met Nina.”  And then they would proceed to tell me something about her – making me think of the widows talking about Dorcas in our Bible story today.  The voice of Jesus is heard as you tell these stories.[6]

I had my first visit with Nina this week.  Her long-time friend, Susie, was also there visiting which was wonderful, in part because the way Nina and Susie are able to communicate their love for each other and stories about each other despite Nina not being able to speak. While I was sitting there with Nina and Susie, listening to their stories, watching them nod back and forth to each other, the Easter Sunday story of Mary Magdalene popped into my head in what I like to call a Holy Spirit moment.  As I re-told the story to Nina, reminding her of Mary Magdalene standing at the empty tomb, thinking that Jesus the Christ is the gardener, until he says her name, “Mary.”  And then Mary knows it is Jesus and not the gardener.  Nina nodded and smiled throughout the story as we remembered our way through it and then I said to Nina, “If you could hear the way people at church say your name… … …”    The voice of Jesus is heard as we hear our names spoken by the risen Christ in the Body of Christ knows as the church.[7]

The story of Tabitha’s discipleship intertwined with the saints and widows; and the story of Nina’s discipleship intertwined with this congregation are only two of the stories that help us to hear the voice of Jesus.  As there are these two, so there are many people who form the great cloud of witnesses in this congregation and in the church catholic.  These two disciples’ and their interconnectedness within and beyond their faith community bear witness to the one who calls and sends them into the world for the sake of the world.[8]

For the witness of disciples who help us hear the voice of Jesus through their work and their stories, today we celebrate and say, thanks be to God!

 

 



[1] Eric Barreto, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary.  On Working Preacher for Acts 9:36-43 on April 21, 2013; http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1625.

[2] Matthew 20:1-16

[3] Mark 9:37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

[4] See 1 Corinthians 12 on Spiritual Gifts.

[5] See Romans 8:26 – “But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.”

[6] Hebrews 12:1-2

[7] John 20:1-18

[8] Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-34; Luke 5:1-11

 

John 20:19-31 “Doubt in Community”

John 20:19-31 “Doubt in Community”

April 7, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  21  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  22  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  23  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  24  But Thomas (who was called the Twin  ), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.  25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”  26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”  28  Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”  29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  30  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  31  But these are written so that you may come to believe  that Jesus is the Messiah,  the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

 

Very, very few people have been able see and touch the wounds of the Risen Christ as he is standing in the living room.  So, for those very few people, I celebrate what faith must look like and feel like beyond the shadow of a doubt.  There are a few more people who have told me that they have never struggled with their faith in Jesus – it just has simply always been there for them and remains with them as pure gift.  I have to imagine that this group is more widely represented in churches around the world than the first group.  Again, I celebrate the fullness of their faith with them and am grateful for the ways in which those people of great faith have impacted my own faith.

Then there’s a third group of people for whom the Gospel of John was expressly written.  Check out verse 31 again, it says that, “these [signs] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  If the number of people in the pews of the church around the world is any indication, this is by far the largest group.  While conversations and theories abound as to why this is so, the Gospel of John presumes this is so.  There are people who believe and there are people who don’t.  Just as there are today.

At Luther Seminary, I took a course called ‘Jesus the Savior and the Triune God.’  Our first reading assignment was a named Doubt: A Parable.[1]  As a class, we had a lively discussion about doubt and its place in conversations about faith.  The various opinions about whether doubt or skepticism should be part of faith conversations are missing the point.  The reality is that most conversations about Christian faith in the western world are fraught with questions and skepticism pretty much since about the 17th century and the Enlightenment.

Many of the conversations people have with me about their own faith are on the very topic of doubt – as if faith and doubt are mutually exclusive, as if faith cannot exist while doubt exists or vice versa.  But they aren’t mutually exclusive, they are connected.  It’s right here that I need to give a shout-out to something called a dialectic.   A dialectic is when you take two ideas that seem in complete opposition to other but yet they are connected.  Today, the dialectic in this sermon is faith and doubt.  One of Martin Luther’s favorite dialectics is Law and Gospel.  Rather than saying that one cannot exist while the other does, a dialectic connection acknowledges their coexistence and allows the tension between them to reveal meaning.

In the Gospel reading for today, Thomas is on the outside of faith looking in at the disciples who have seen the risen Christ.   I wonder if he’s listening to all of that excited faith-filled testimony of the rest of the group and feeling left out, feeling frustrated that he missed out and wondering if he could ever trust as they seem to trust, could ever be comforted as they seem to be comforted.  Or maybe it’s something else entirely.  Maybe Thomas thinks the disciples have truly lost it.  The trauma of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion was simply too much and they were under the power of some kind of group delusion.

Regardless of his motive and tone, we can learn from Thomas.  Not only does he own his skepticism, he talks freely about it with his friends, his community.  He struggles, wondering about the truth of the risen Christ, and the people who know him best make space and hold his doubt.  That first day in the locked house, Jesus appears to the disciples but not to Thomas and when Thomas shows up later that same day he makes his big speech about what it would take for him to believe.  Then we are told that it’s a week later, the disciples are still in the house and Thomas is still with them.  He is still with them!  He responded to the disciples with skepticism but he is still there in the house…with the disciples.

So, yes, we can learn from Thomas.  But I think today we also learn from those disciples, those disciples who hold the space for Thomas even as they hold to their witness of the resurrected Jesus.  They are true to the story as they received it without ridding their group of one who stands resolutely against what they say they saw.

A few weeks ago in the Gospel of John class, I asked everyone to break into twos or threes and talk about something that they had heard or learned.  Two people from the same pair then shared their thoughts with the larger group.  I asked them if they agreed with each other or did they agree to disagree because at that moment it was unclear.  The conversation moved on without an answer but then a hand from the pair went up after they chatted a bit more and realized that they were, indeed, in disagreement on a particular point.  Their capacity to discuss and hold this disagreement is a powerful example to us all.

When I begin teaching a class, one of the things that I like to say is that, “Jesus is Jesus; what we say about Jesus, sing about Jesus or construct about Jesus is not Jesus.”  It is so tempting, so unbearably tempting, to hold up what we say about Jesus and slip into believing that whatever it is that we say is actually Jesus.  Listen to Thomas again.  He says, “My Lord and my God.”  This claim and confession of “My Lord and My God” is the starting point.  And in saying this with Thomas, we are freed into the conversations about Jesus that deepen our faith and expand our witness of Jesus in the here and now by the power of the Spirit.

Thomas is not an example of meek acceptance of the status quo.   He stands in the middle of that house and makes a demand – a demand that allows for the possibility of faith.  And who is able to respond to Thomas’ request?  It is the risen Christ Himself.  As Thomas stands in the presence of his friends who faithfully witness to the risen Christ, it is Christ who yields to Thomas’ demand.

The story of Thomas gets at some of the most daunting dimensions of faith because it’s clear that faith is not self-generated, nor can we generate it in others.  Faith can only be generated by God in Jesus through the Spirit working through the witness that people hear.[2]  As readers of the Gospel, we are the ones who have not seen the risen Christ, we receive only the witness about Jesus.  This means that seeing is not a precondition for faith as it was for Thomas but rather “faith is evoked by words from and about Jesus…through the work of the Spirit in whom the risen Christ is present and active.”[3]

By the work of the Spirit, the risen Christ is revealing his wounds and birthing faith.  He holds out his wounded hand as he challenges us to a new reality through the scriptures.  He turns and offers love from His side as He forgives, strengthens and renews the Body of Christ, His church, to make space for faithful testimony as well as doubt.  He immerses with us into the waters of baptism as He washes through our sin and brokenness to reveal the power of His resurrecting grace.  Christ beckons us through His meal as His wounded and resurrected presence offers love and forgiveness unknown except through Him.

May God grant that you be born out of Christ’s wounded side,

and be drawn to faith in Him.

 

 



[1] John Patrick Stanley, Doubt: A Parable (2005).

[2] Craig R. Koester, Class lecture, NT3211 “The Gospel and Epistles of John” (St. Paul, MN: Luther Seminary), December 18, 2010.

[3] Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 73.