Sermons

“Another Five-Finger Exercise”

John 20:19-31; I John 1:1—2:2 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – April 12, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might come to a deeper understanding of your Easter good news and walk in the light of your truth. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Easter does funny things to time. Last week, everything was happening really fast. Things were one way, and then suddenly, everything was totally different. This week, we’ve got a scripture that starts on the evening of the Sunday morning we were talking about last week, skips to the next Sunday, and then stretches all the way to this present moment, by addressing us, the readers. That’s quite a time span for just half a chapter. Something that moves that far that fast can be somewhat challenging to grasp. What does Easter mean for us?

Back in the founding days of our denomination, there was a traveling evangelist named Walter Scott. He would ride around on horseback to different towns and frontier settlements. And he had this thing he’d do called the “five-finger exercise”. It was his way of explaining what Christian faith is about, in as simple a way as he could come up with. He’d share it with children, and then send them home to tell their parents to come and hear him preach that evening. Scott’s five-finger exercise was designed to explain what he saw as the five steps of salvation. The way he told it, the first three steps were things we do. We begin by having faith, and because of our faith, we then repent. Having repented, we would then get baptized. Then the last two steps were things God does. Once we’re baptized, God forgives us, and then we’d receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Scott’s five-finger exercise was a beautiful thing in its time. It brought a lot of people into the faith. But for me, it’s a bit too momentary. It gives the impression that faith is something that happens all at once, and then you’re taken care of, whereas for me, faith is a constant companion, something that is with us, flowing and ebbing and growing and guiding us throughout our whole lives. So when I read today’s scriptures, and I noticed five major things going on, I thought maybe I’d take a stab at a new five-finger exercise. So this morning, I want to walk you through my revised version of explaining faith on one hand. I will make no claims that this is comprehensive, because really, it’s just inspired by these two passages. But these steps do cover a similar, if more expansive trajectory as Scott’s did.

First of all, let’s start with peace. Jesus did. The first words out of his mouth, both times he visited the disciples in this passage, were, “Peace be with you.” So let’s start there, with a God who comes in peace. This may sound silly, but it’s actually really important, because it gets at our basic understanding of who God is. Do you believe that God comes in peace? Is your image of God rooted in the idea that God created you and loves you more deeply than you can understand? Or do you live in fear of God? Does your image of God involve judgment and wrath? Do you think of God as a grumpy old man in the sky, watching your every move, ready to pounce with vengeance at your slightest screw-up? Because there are people who think of God that way. But what does Jesus say? “Peace be with you.” Peace. Like so many angels throughout the Bible, Jesus knows that the disciples were likely to be terrified upon seeing him. Peace. Do not be afraid. It seems like a lovely starting place to me.

And it gets better. Mercy. This next step comes from both passages. Jesus talks to the disciples about forgiving sins. And then, instead of just telling them, he shows them. Far too often, we have interpreted the story of “Doubting Thomas” as one in which Jesus is judging Thomas for his slowness to believe, rather than understanding that he simply needed what all the other disciples had experienced the week before. He doesn’t speak to him harshly. Rather, he freely invites Thomas to do exactly what Thomas had declared he would need to do, in order to believe, that is, put his fingers in the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side. Thomas does not, as it turns out, actually need to do that, as he confesses his faith in exuberant terms before even touching Jesus. If there was sin there, it was forgiven before the two were even in the same room. Mercy.

And from the passage in First John, we hear a lot more about sin and mercy. “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” We’d rather you didn’t sin, but since you’re going to, relax: there is mercy through Jesus Christ. Mercy. Forgiveness. Grace. There are lots of words for it. What is incredible to realize is that it’s there even before you recognize that you need it.

Step three is where things get real. The passage from First John is the more emphatic of the two on this point. There is this mercy, see, and it’s free, so why try to pretend you don’t need it?   Truth. This may be the hardest step of all. It is, unlike in Scott’s five-finger exercise, the first step that involves us doing something. God already has the truth, of course, as illustrated in Jesus matching Thomas’ demands point for point, before even talking to him. The question is whether we will own the truth. And also unlike the way Scott’s five-finger exercise works, this truth step isn’t something we do once for all time. It is a constant cycle. The forces of denial and rationalization are continually at work within us, trying to help us hide from the ugly truths of life as human beings. We are petty. We are cruel. We are selfish and jealous and conceited. And God knows all that and loves us anyway. The question is whether we can admit it ourselves. “If we say that we have no sin,” John writes, “we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins.”

It’s that simple. And that hard. In order to access the mercy of God, we have to admit that we need it, day in and day out. As the hymn writer put it, “O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be!” Might be a good thing to wake up singing every morning. We can use every tool we can get to keep ourselves honest.

The fourth step, belief, is closely related to the third one. In fact, in a complete reversal of Scott’s five-fingers, the ones I’m proposing have God acting in the first two, and then a constant inter-mingling of the last three representing the daily life of a Christian. Now, because Christian tradition in recent centuries has had a tendency to reduce belief to moments of intellectual assent to certain declarations, let me be clear about what I mean by belief. The word “belief” comes from German, that are far more interesting and involved than we’ve allowed this word to be. The root word is actually “beliebe” which would translate, if there were such a word in English, into “belove.” To believe in something is to belove it, that is, to give your heart to it. This is not about one singular moment any more than a marriage can be reduced to a wedding vow. It is a choice we make every day, every moment. And in this particular five-finger exercise, the choice we’re making is to live as though we truly believe in God’s peace and mercy and our utter need for them.

Nobody is saying this is easy. Thomas got a little bit of a hard time because of his dramatic requirements, but “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Accepting the eternal forgiveness of God is hard enough, even when you’ve got Jesus, the embodiment of divine grace, standing right in front of you, holding your hand. No wonder we struggle with it. But remember, it’s a process, a lifetime, not a now-or-never, make-or-break moment. It’s about what we give our heart to, and our hearts are constantly growing – in their capacity for honesty, in their ability to accept God’s mercy, in their willingness to find rest in the peace of God.

The final step, as inspired by the two passages we read today, is more of a summary description, somewhat like Walter Scott’s generalized ending, “Then you receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit.” But John’s letter is very insistent on this imagery of walking in the light. And it’s a great image. There is all sorts of metaphorical weight to bring to bear here. Truth is easier when we shine a light on the things we’re tempted to gloss over. Giving our heart to following Jesus and living like we believe in grace is easier when we can see clearly. And we do it with more integrity and be a better witness to God’s love when it’s obvious we’re not trying to hide anything. They don’t call them “sunshine laws” for nothing!

You could stretch the metaphor even farther and talk about light not just as the opposite of dark, but also as the opposite of heavy. “Come to me, you that are weary,” Jesus says, “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It doesn’t sound like it makes a lot of sense, but when we’ve truly accepted God’s mercy, things do become easier to carry. The burdens of guilt and shame aren’t ours to tote around anymore. We are released from the weight of grudges and anger. The stone is rolled away.

Easter does funny things to time. It both compresses it into that transformative moment when death gives way to life, while simultaneously stretching out our faith into something that we’re choosing every minute of every day. There’s a reason we have Easter every year – or every week as another Disciple founding father, Alexander Campbell would argue. The good news of Easter is something we have to breath in every moment. That peace, that mercy – we have to honestly seek them every moment. The heart that we have to give, we have to give over and over again. That is how the light of resurrection is kept alive. Christ is risen! Blessed are those who believe! Alleluia!