Easter 3, 2016 - Walking in the Darkness

Have you ever had a time when you had to be out and about during a night-time power outage? It’s unsettling. The dining room chair becomes a piece of wood out to whack your shins, your cozy slippers left on the floor become fuzzy little objects of evil trying to trip you on your way to the stairs, the table seems to move itself just an inch to the left so that it can attack your hip. We’d rather just stay in bed until the lights come back on––walking about is too dangerous. 

In 1998, when the big ice storm hit the East Coast and took out all the power in Quebec and part of Ontario for several days, I was living in downtown Montreal. And I remember having to go into my apartment in the dark, at night, up three flights of stairs that had no windows. I particularly remember that as I was going up the stairs I had gone up hundreds of times before, a voice came out of the darkness. It wasn’t the voice of God - that’s not where I’m going with this story - it was just someone else coming down the stairs as I was going up. But I remember that we started talking to each other in the darkness, asking each other how it was going. We were complete strangers to each other––if we had met on any other regular day, we probably would have said hi and that’s it–but here, in the total darkness, we expressed our concern for each other, reminded each other to go slowly and carefully, and made sure that we each got up and down the stairs safely. Something about both us being in the darkness during this state of emergency made us reach out to each other to help and support each other, even though we’d never met before and so instead of being a scary experience, it was quite a comforting one. I’ve never had that experience before or since, but I will always remember: in a darkness so complete it’s as if we were blind, connecting with a complete stranger to make sure we were both okay made the darkness seem fun instead of frightening.

Our stories today of Saul and Ananias, and of Jesus and the disciples, are stories of what it’s like to walk in the dark, and of how God calls us to help others who are also struggling in the dark. Most obviously, there’s Saul, blinded on the road to Damascus by a light so bright it makes his world completely dark. As Acts says, “for three days he was without sight.” We’re very familiar with this story. We often call it the conversion of Paul, even though there’s no evidence that he stopped being Jewish when he started being Christian, and in fact there’s a great deal of evidence from his writing that even though he became a Christian he continued to think of himself as a Jew. But this story is about more than just Saul. It’s also a story about Ananias, a disciple of Jesus, who is sent to heal Saul. Ananias is also in darkness. He’s not literally blind, but when the Lord calls him to go and meet with someone who would just as soon kill him for his beliefs, he is going into the situation blind, as we say. Ananias has no idea how he is going to be received by Saul––no idea whether he will be spit upon, cursed, rejected. When it comes to Ananias going into the house where Saul is staying, he is just as in the dark about what is going to happen as Saul is.

And then there’s our story of Jesus and the disciples on the shore. The disciples, who are initially in the dark about the identity of this man telling them where to fish, and then Simon Peter, completely clueless about what Jesus was saying when he said, “when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you want to go.” Peter, who would become the leader of the Church, would die a martyr, according to legend, crucified by the Roman Emperor Nero, with his hands stretched out, fastened to the cross. But Peter didn’t know that. And yet he must have known that when Jesus asked him to take care of his sheep, Jesus was asking him to follow the path that Jesus took, to be the shepherd that Jesus was. Peter, too, was being asked to trust in the Lord and to agree to follow a path that he couldn’t see. Peter, like Saul and like Ananias and like the disciples and like us, was in a situation where he couldn’t see the way, where he was blind to what lay ahead, and yet where he was nevertheless being asked to move about in his darkness and help someone else. Jesus’ disciples, and that includes us, were being asked to endure their times of darkness and, for the sake of others, to walk by faith and not by sight.

I think there are two messages here for us today. The first is that even though everyone in these stories is in the dark, unable to see where they’re going, they’re still going. They are walking in the dark, not sitting in the dark. Saul, after he was struck blind, didn’t stop in the middle of the road to Damascus and refuse to take another step until he could see again. He kept going, trusting God and trusting those who were leading him by the hand, putting one foot after another, never knowing where his foot was going to land but still taking each step as it came. He couldn’t see where he was going, but he kept walking.

And Ananias. He, too, got moving even though he was in the dark about what might happen. He could have stayed home, he could have said, “Lord, I have a family to support and take care of and if I go see Saul he might kill me, so since I don’t know what’s going to happen, I’m just going to stay here at home.” But he didn’t. Instead, he left the safety of his home and his family, and went to Saul, the one who, as far as Ananias knew, wanted to arrest every Christian he could find. Ananias, in the dark, got moving.

The same is true of the disciples, who had been sitting in their boat all night without any fish, at a loss as to where to put their nets in next––floating blindly on the Sea of Galilee. When this stranger came along and told them where to fish, they didn’t just sit there. They moved. They lowered the nets. They took action, despite their own inability to see.

And there’s Peter, who was told by Jesus that he was about to set down a road where something not good would happen at the end, even though he didn’t know what it was going to be. Peter, like all of us, was unable to see what path his life would take, whether it would end as a success or a failure, and yet Peter continued on. He kept going, he left his home in Galilee, he even left Israel altogether. He didn’t have to. He could have sat down and refused to move. But he kept going even though his path was dark, saying goodbye to everything that he knew, saying goodbye to a life of sitting quietly with the friends and family of his hometown of Bethsaida, taking steps that brought him eventually to Rome and to death.

So that’s one thing that the stories today tell us. That even though we can’t see, even though we’re blind, we’re not supposed to sit in the darkness being afraid to move. We’re supposed to continue moving. We’re supposed to continue walking, step by step, even if we don’t know where we’re going. God calls us to walk by faith, not by sight. God calls us to leave our home and our family and our safety even though we don’t know what will happen. God calls us to trust.

The other important thing is that these people weren’t just walking in the dark, they were walking towards each other, in order to find each other and offer help. Ananias, who walked blind into his encounter with Saul, called Saul “brother.” Ananias took a truly bold step and claimed Saul as one of his family. That’s what we do when we’re in the dark with a bunch of other people who don’t know what’s going on––we help them like they’re family. Peter went walking into the darkness of his future in order to find and help Jesus’ lost sheep, in order to proclaim the light of Christ to others who were struggling in the darkness so that they could keep going. When we are sitting in darkness, God encourages us to continue to get up and get going so that we can find others who are in darkness. Yes, we’ll stumble, and likely stub our toe, or hit the corner of a table, maybe even run really hard into a doorway. We’ll be startled by strangers, and worry that they might want to hurt us, and we’ll be afraid of what is around the very dark corner. But when these things happen, God encourages us to keep going, to keep trusting that things are where they are supposed to be. God lets us sit with the lights out so that even though we’re afraid, we will have faith and reach out to one another. So that we might act in faith. When we can’t see what’s next, God encourages us to walk by faith, and not by sight, as we sang last week, all for the purpose of connecting with others who are in the dark. Because until we spend time walking in the darkness––walking, not just sitting––we will not actually be walking in faith. We will not be walking like Saul whom we call Paul, or Ananias, or even Peter. 

What’s more, and here is the brilliance of Easter––when we start walking and then finding and connecting with one another, when we reach out and hold each other up in the darkness, that’s when the darkness is transformed into light. If times are dark for me, and I sit in the dark doing nothing but feeling sorry for myself, isolating myself, I will never see the light. Helping one another, what we would call serving one another, going out and finding people to help that is what changes the darkness into light. It was when Ananias reached out to Saul that all of a sudden Saul’s darkness was lifted. It was when Saul reached out to the disciples in Damascus that all of a sudden their darkness of being persecuted was lifted. The disciples recognized Christ when he helped them. Their darkness was lifted when he served them. Like me and the other person coming down the stairs in Montreal, reaching out to connect with each other turned the darkness into a moment of light.

When you are sitting in your own darkness, when you feel yourself lost and blind and when you’d rather just sit still until someone finds you, remember that there are others out there just like you. There are others who are also sitting still, too afraid to take even one step. Help them. Take your step for them. Be like Ananias, who must surely have been terrified about reaching out to Saul, but who did it because he had faith and knew Saul was in darkness. Because if we call to each other, if we each just take one small step towards each other, if we walk by faith and not by sight, we will find that when we are standing with one another, all of a sudden we are standing in the light. When you take that first step, trusting that God is with you, you will find that the risen Christ is with you, turning darkness into light. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Easter 2 - April 3, 2016 - God Blesses Doubters

I’m struck today by a particular line in our Gospel reading, where it describes the disciples meeting, after they’ve experienced the empty tomb and after Mary has seen the risen Christ in person, in a house that is “locked for fear.” I never quite noticed this before, I think because I’m always focused on Thomas and his doubt, but it occurred to me that Thomas was not the only one who doubted. All of the disciples seemed to be having their doubts, despite the proof of the empty tomb and Mary’s encounter in the garden––that’s why they were in a house with locked doors, afraid. They were afraid because they did not yet trust what Jesus had said to them. Jesus had told them that they would go where he was going, he said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” He told them, and so, to be blunt, the disciples––who had a legitimate fear that they might be crucified like Jesus––should not have been afraid, even if they were about to die. Jesus told them, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” They already had seen the miracles of healing and life that Jesus had worked while he was alive, they had already seen the power of God in raising Jesus from the dead––they ought not to have been hiding in a house with the doors “locked for fear.”

But they were. They doubted. They doubted the power of God in the face of death. Those very first disciples––Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved and James––and even, of course, dear Thomas - they all doubted the promise of God’s new life for them.

But don’t we all? We all doubt the promise of resurrection. We all hide in our houses and lock the doors for fear. When faced with a big decision, one that requires us to risk our future, more often than not we retreat and hide in a safe place and lock the doors against intruders. We hesitate. We decide what to do based on our fear and our doubt. We say, like Thomas, unless I see the undeniable and irrefutable proof of resurrection with my own eyes, I will not believe. Unless I see proof that things are going to turn out well, I will not act. I will not risk. I will not unlock the doors and go out into the world and leave this old life behind.

And yes, I’m talking about the decision coming up for this congregation about whether or not to sell this building. But I’m also talking about every decision we have to make in our lives that carries with it a life-altering change. It might be a decision to retire or change careers. It might be a decision to sell a house and move to a new place. It might be a decision to undergo a particular medical procedure, or a decision to stop treatment for a particular life-long illness. It might be a decision to end a relationship, or to begin a new one. Regardless of the decision, when faced with something so monumental, our initial reaction is to retreat to a safe place, lock the doors, and do nothing. 

Our comes from doubt and fear. Fear of death, certainly, but particularly when it comes to this church, fear of making the wrong decision. I will be honest with you - I am afraid that we will make the wrong decision. I am afraid that we will decide to sell, and that things won’t work out the way everyone hopes, and that ten years from now we’ll drive through Bridgeland and this building will be gone. I’m afraid that when I die and stand face-to-face with God, God will say, “Why did you let them make that decision? You, above all, were supposed to have faith that I would bring new life and yet you were too afraid to keep going until I brought it! What kind of Christian were you?” I am afraid of that.

But I’m also afraid of the opposite decision––that we will decide to not sell and to just keep going and hope for a miracle, and that the congregation will die one by one until there are only a handful of very elderly seniors here on Sunday morning and we will look around us and wish we had done something sooner. I’m afraid that when I die and stand face-to-face with God, God will say, “Why did you let them make that decision? You, above all, were supposed to have faith that I would bring new life and yet you were too afraid to die! What kind of Christian were you?” I am afraid of that.

And, along with the fear of making the wrong decision, is the guilt that maybe we are not trusting God enough. Maybe we are not living the Easter life enough. Maybe we do not have enough faith and trust and belief in the resurrection and in the glory and power of God. Maybe we are just like the disciples and just like Thomas and maybe we doubt too much and just don’t have enough faith. Maybe we’ve locked our doors for fear.

Well, as the kids say these days, “Duh!” Of course we don’t have enough faith! Of course we doubt! Of course we are afraid! In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” In other words, God’s blessings are on those who do not doubt. God’s blessings are on those who have faith and believe in the new life that Christ brings. Blessed are they because God has blessed them. We have to be clear on the order here: they’re not blessed because they believe. They believe because God has blessed them. God has given them the power to believe and the power to have faith. Faith and belief and trust are not things that come naturally to us. Doubt and fear come naturally––that we doubt and are afraid is normal. It’s just what humans do. Doubt and fear are signs that we are human. God must bless us in order for us to have faith and trust. God must bless us in order for us to unlock the doors and go out and risk everything. God must bless us in order for us to be willing to die.

And God does. God does bless us, by sending us Jesus Christ, who bestows on us the Holy Spirit. God blessed the disciples by sending Jesus to them, who sought them out and found them behind those locked doors, came to them when they were hiding away, and, even when they were filled with doubt and fear, said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” God blessed Thomas, doubting Thomas who wouldn’t believe a word of anything, by sending Jesus to him, who said, “Peace be with you. Do not doubt but believe.” God responds to our doubt by sending us Jesus Christ, who gives us the Holy Spirit, who gives us our faith. We learned as much when we were in confirmation and memorized Luther’s Small Catechism. In the explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” Luther writes, “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith.” Faith and belief are not natural to us––we are not born with them, we do not work for them or earn them or try hard for them. Faith and belief comes to us only through the Holy Spirit––we have faith and belief only because God wishes us to and only because God blesses us with them.

God blesses us with faith, and even more, God blesses us with the Holy Spirit so that we can trust that God is with us no matter what decisions we make in our lives. Jesus came to those doubting disciples and he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And then he said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In other words, God gives you the Holy Spirit so that you might make the best decision you can and then God works with whatever you decide to do. (Of course, if we follow the story of the disciples in Acts, we’ll find that the Holy Spirit leads them out of their locked houses, and into the streets, and across the world, and even to death, which says something to us...) In the end, though, God turns all things to good, regardless of what decision we make, and never ceases to call us always towards new life. 

We all have doubts, and fear that comes from those doubts, along with a hefty dose of guilt because we doubt and are afraid. We doubt that God has a future for us, we doubt that God will give us new life after death. This is normal. This is why God blesses us with the Holy Spirit, to give us faith, to bless us so that we will believe without seeing. God sends the Holy Spirit to empower you to make decisions, and to trust that God is with you in those decisions. And so, blessed by the Holy Spirit, do not make decisions that allow us to hide, with the doors “locked for fear,” fear of the wrong decision and fear of death, but rather make decisions––big ones and little ones––trusting in God’s promise of new life, trusting in the resurrection and Easter, and trusting that, no matter what, God is with you. Thanks be to God. Amen.