Faith That Can Move Refrigerators
Second Sunday of Easter
March 30, 2008
John 20:19-31
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
A friend of mine from seminary has established a Facebook group – now this, to the unitiated, is a sort of Internet club where you don’t really meet anybody and you don’t really do anything but show up. Kind of like a junior high dance, to my recollection.
Anyway, his Facebook group is called “People Willing to Help George [Baum] Move His Refrigerator.” Several people have signed up, some of them because George has implied that beer will be served at said refrigerator-moving.
My favorite part is this: George doesn’t own a refrigerator. But he may one day, and I suppose it helps to plan ahead. Mostly, it’s a fun way of asking: “What kind of friend are you?” Are you the refrigerator-moving kind, even if there is no free pizza and beverages as a reward?
Speaking as a person who just spent the past week moving, refrigerator-moving friends are not only useful people, they’re good people, and they’re the best of friends.
The disciples who followed Jesus, they weren’t perfect friends. Not to each other, not to Jesus. They were known to quarrel about who would sit at the right and left hand of Jesus in heaven. There was a bit of the “fair-weather friend” quality to most of them. Most melted away during the Crucifixion. Even Peter denied Christ three times.
And there is Thomas. Thomas believed in the Christ – he was one of the disciples chosen by Jesus to follow him and to go out to preach and heal in his name. And he did all that. Tradition tells us that after the Resurrection events, Thomas became a foreign missionary and went as far as India to found churches, which flourish there to this day.
But at the time, Thomas had his doubts. The Resurrection seemed too fantastic a story. Like the others, he never really understood when Jesus would talk about going up to Jerusalem to die and rise again for our sins. What seems obvious in retrospect to us, seemed cryptic to those around Jesus at the time.
So when his friends came to him with the news that they had seen the Lord, he did not know what to think. It wasn’t as if he could be expected to look at his watch and say, “Oh that’s right, it’s time for Jesus to be back!”
It’s not that he doubted Jesus’ ability to return. And it’s not that he disbelieved anything that Jesus had taught. It’s just that when presented with the fullness and awesomeness of the teachings of Jesus, he could not comprehend them in full. He knew Jesus could heal and raise the dead—he had seen this with his own eyes.
He probably had no idea that when Jesus said he would rise again, he really meant here and now and in a way that you could see and hear and touch. So rather than take the word of his friends, he was content to continue in his grief at the loss of Jesus. Unless … unless they could prove their word.
Unlike some of us who are so bullheaded that we stick to our opinions despite new evidence – I’m not naming names, but I tend to be one of them. Unlike us, Thomas was willing to drop his skepticism. He held onto his Lord – literally and figuratively.
And he went belief one better. He said, “My Lord and my God!” Terms used for Jesus like the “Son of Man” are often disputed by scholars. What exactly did such terms mean, especially to those hearing Jesus?
Such points can be debated, but not this one: “My Lord and my God!” There is no question that Thomas was saying Jesus was God on earth. Not just a prophet. Not just a relative of God or a favored being.
No. When it came down to the question of whether Thomas would stick with Jesus, he answered unequivocally: “My Lord and my God!”
As John the Evangelist writes, this has been “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.” Life in his name means life everlasting, as the only name given for health and salvation is the name Jesus Christ.
But how are we to live in this life in this world? How are we to be a friend to Christ in this life? That is the point of today’s collect:
“Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.”
How are we to show our faith in our lives?
Through our baptism, Christ calls us to life with him – by Christ and in Christ and with Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Whenever we renew our baptismal vows, we make some promises that outline some of the ways that we say we will live in Christ.
* We promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
* We promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, and
* We promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.
Big promises, and big promises are hard to keep in big ways. The failures of the disciples teach us that even they didn’t keep all the big promises in big ways. But as Thomas and the others have shown us, even the big promises are possible to keep in small ways.
I’ve been thinking of those promises in the context of two friends of mine. These are refrigerator-moving friends, to me and – most importantly – to Christ.
Jeremy and Penny Lucas have been named missionaries from this Diocese and our national Church. They are leaving Alabama very soon for Namibia, a hot and parched land in southwest Africa.
I’ve known Jeremy and Penny for several years. He was a senior at General Seminary when I was a first-year student, and he was a kind and supportive friend to me.
Jeremy is a former lawyer and is, for a little while more, rector of St. Timothy’s Church in Athens. Penny is an Etowah County girl and a highly capable nurse practitioner. They have been influenced in their missionary goals by Bill Yon, a retired priest in our Diocese who in the 1970s was himself a missionary in Namibia. He helped to train a generation of priests in theology, both academic and practical.
Those priests are retiring and it’s time for another teacher, another friend to help the Namibian Church raise up a new generation of priests and lay leaders. Jeremy will be a canon in the cathedral and a theological teacher in the church. Penny will put her considerable health care and managerial skills to use in programs through the church.
The Lucases have made a big promise that they’re keeping in a big way – moving to the ends of the earth to be friends of Christ, followers in the Way, striving for justice and peace among all peoples.
On Wednesday night, we will move our 5:30 service to Grace Church in Anniston to worship with our friends and then meet and break bread Jeremy and Penny, to hear about their mission plans, and to learn about the needs of our Namibian brothers and sisters.
I’ll be there in the role of keeping my promises in small ways. I’ll be there to ask how I can be a friend, what I can do to support their mission, how my small part can be put with other small parts and become a mission that will grow the African Church and bring health and salvation to more and more.
And I’ll be there to see an amazing sight: How a friend, a refrigerator-moving friend, can move the world.
March 30, 2008
John 20:19-31
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
A friend of mine from seminary has established a Facebook group – now this, to the unitiated, is a sort of Internet club where you don’t really meet anybody and you don’t really do anything but show up. Kind of like a junior high dance, to my recollection.
Anyway, his Facebook group is called “People Willing to Help George [Baum] Move His Refrigerator.” Several people have signed up, some of them because George has implied that beer will be served at said refrigerator-moving.
My favorite part is this: George doesn’t own a refrigerator. But he may one day, and I suppose it helps to plan ahead. Mostly, it’s a fun way of asking: “What kind of friend are you?” Are you the refrigerator-moving kind, even if there is no free pizza and beverages as a reward?
Speaking as a person who just spent the past week moving, refrigerator-moving friends are not only useful people, they’re good people, and they’re the best of friends.
The disciples who followed Jesus, they weren’t perfect friends. Not to each other, not to Jesus. They were known to quarrel about who would sit at the right and left hand of Jesus in heaven. There was a bit of the “fair-weather friend” quality to most of them. Most melted away during the Crucifixion. Even Peter denied Christ three times.
And there is Thomas. Thomas believed in the Christ – he was one of the disciples chosen by Jesus to follow him and to go out to preach and heal in his name. And he did all that. Tradition tells us that after the Resurrection events, Thomas became a foreign missionary and went as far as India to found churches, which flourish there to this day.
But at the time, Thomas had his doubts. The Resurrection seemed too fantastic a story. Like the others, he never really understood when Jesus would talk about going up to Jerusalem to die and rise again for our sins. What seems obvious in retrospect to us, seemed cryptic to those around Jesus at the time.
So when his friends came to him with the news that they had seen the Lord, he did not know what to think. It wasn’t as if he could be expected to look at his watch and say, “Oh that’s right, it’s time for Jesus to be back!”
It’s not that he doubted Jesus’ ability to return. And it’s not that he disbelieved anything that Jesus had taught. It’s just that when presented with the fullness and awesomeness of the teachings of Jesus, he could not comprehend them in full. He knew Jesus could heal and raise the dead—he had seen this with his own eyes.
He probably had no idea that when Jesus said he would rise again, he really meant here and now and in a way that you could see and hear and touch. So rather than take the word of his friends, he was content to continue in his grief at the loss of Jesus. Unless … unless they could prove their word.
Unlike some of us who are so bullheaded that we stick to our opinions despite new evidence – I’m not naming names, but I tend to be one of them. Unlike us, Thomas was willing to drop his skepticism. He held onto his Lord – literally and figuratively.
And he went belief one better. He said, “My Lord and my God!” Terms used for Jesus like the “Son of Man” are often disputed by scholars. What exactly did such terms mean, especially to those hearing Jesus?
Such points can be debated, but not this one: “My Lord and my God!” There is no question that Thomas was saying Jesus was God on earth. Not just a prophet. Not just a relative of God or a favored being.
No. When it came down to the question of whether Thomas would stick with Jesus, he answered unequivocally: “My Lord and my God!”
As John the Evangelist writes, this has been “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.” Life in his name means life everlasting, as the only name given for health and salvation is the name Jesus Christ.
But how are we to live in this life in this world? How are we to be a friend to Christ in this life? That is the point of today’s collect:
“Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.”
How are we to show our faith in our lives?
Through our baptism, Christ calls us to life with him – by Christ and in Christ and with Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Whenever we renew our baptismal vows, we make some promises that outline some of the ways that we say we will live in Christ.
* We promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
* We promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, and
* We promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.
Big promises, and big promises are hard to keep in big ways. The failures of the disciples teach us that even they didn’t keep all the big promises in big ways. But as Thomas and the others have shown us, even the big promises are possible to keep in small ways.
I’ve been thinking of those promises in the context of two friends of mine. These are refrigerator-moving friends, to me and – most importantly – to Christ.
Jeremy and Penny Lucas have been named missionaries from this Diocese and our national Church. They are leaving Alabama very soon for Namibia, a hot and parched land in southwest Africa.
I’ve known Jeremy and Penny for several years. He was a senior at General Seminary when I was a first-year student, and he was a kind and supportive friend to me.
Jeremy is a former lawyer and is, for a little while more, rector of St. Timothy’s Church in Athens. Penny is an Etowah County girl and a highly capable nurse practitioner. They have been influenced in their missionary goals by Bill Yon, a retired priest in our Diocese who in the 1970s was himself a missionary in Namibia. He helped to train a generation of priests in theology, both academic and practical.
Those priests are retiring and it’s time for another teacher, another friend to help the Namibian Church raise up a new generation of priests and lay leaders. Jeremy will be a canon in the cathedral and a theological teacher in the church. Penny will put her considerable health care and managerial skills to use in programs through the church.
The Lucases have made a big promise that they’re keeping in a big way – moving to the ends of the earth to be friends of Christ, followers in the Way, striving for justice and peace among all peoples.
On Wednesday night, we will move our 5:30 service to Grace Church in Anniston to worship with our friends and then meet and break bread Jeremy and Penny, to hear about their mission plans, and to learn about the needs of our Namibian brothers and sisters.
I’ll be there in the role of keeping my promises in small ways. I’ll be there to ask how I can be a friend, what I can do to support their mission, how my small part can be put with other small parts and become a mission that will grow the African Church and bring health and salvation to more and more.
And I’ll be there to see an amazing sight: How a friend, a refrigerator-moving friend, can move the world.
posted by Michael+ at 9:54 PM
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