Sermons

“Living Hope”

I Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – April 23, 2017

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that our hearts might be filled with your good news and our lives reflect the hope we share. In the name of the Risen Christ, we pray, Amen.

There is a newish word that has started floating around on the internet. Presbyterian writer Carol Howard Merritt referenced it on Facebook just this morning, suggesting that pastor Mihee Kim-Kort had invented it. I wonder if you think this word describes you. The word is “hopemonger”. Now “monger” as a suffix is a fairly archaic form. American English really only uses it in two ways besides this new one. We hear about “fearmongers” or “fearmongering” and we have a general idea of what that means from context – someone who is spreading fear about or even benefitting from making people afraid. The other word is even older and more British, “fishmonger”. And here’s where we really learn what a monger is. A fishmonger is someone who deals in fish. So a fearmonger must be someone who’s selling fear. So what about a hopemonger? What would it mean to deal in hope? Couldn’t we all benefit from spreading hope around? What does it mean to be Easter people if not to be acting as hopemongers?

Who is our gospel story about today? Anyone? Who is the focus of our gospel reading today? Ah, see, we like to think this story is about Thomas – Doubting Thomas, as we so insensitively call him. We’d like to keep the focus on him and his supposed resistance to believing. But that’s not where the writer of John is trying to go. This story is about us. This story is for us. The last two verses give it away: “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.” Even the story of Thomas, and maybe especially that part, is there for our sake.

There are so many other things we could call Thomas that might be more appropriate. Why don’t we call him “Missed the Party Thomas”? Or “Make-up Work Thomas”? The story here basically tells us that what the other disciples experienced on Easter night, Thomas had to catch up on a week later. They didn’t recognize Jesus till he displayed his hands and side to them, and when they saw that, they rejoiced. Thomas did the same thing, just seven days late. We could even call him “Emphatic Thomas,” since both the way he declared what it would take for him to believe, and his powerful confession once he actually saw Jesus – “My Lord and my God!” – are some of the most emphatic utterances in the post-resurrection gospel narrative.

But why does John include this story? Did the writer have some sort of desire to make sure Thomas never forgot he missed out? I don’t think that’s it. The reason this story is in there has nothing to do with Thomas personally, and everything to do with the literary device known as emphasis through repetition. The aim of this “a week later” drama isn’t Thomas; it’s us. The writer of John knows how hard we are to convince. If we’d just had verses 19-23, it would have seemed to many of us like the whole thing was too easy. The disciples were locked in a room, fearful and hopeless. Then Jesus appeared, and everything was great! Many of us have a level of skepticism running through our blood that makes stories this simple less than persuasive. So the writer of John gives us Doubting Thomas so we can find ourselves in this story. Just because he heard from the other disciples what had happened, he wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t actually ever Jesus he didn’t believe in; it was the testimony of his peers he found incredible.

And how does God respond to that? A week later, Jesus meets him, point for point. ‘You wanted to see my hands; here they are. You wanted to put your hand on this sword wound in my side; go for it.’ And did you notice what happens next? Does Thomas examine the nail holes? Does he feel the wound? No, he does not. It doesn’t actually say this, but I’m pretty sure what happened next is that Thomas dropped to his knees, as he proclaims “My Lord and my God!” He is offered exactly what he demanded, but it turns out he didn’t really need it; the offer is enough.

In other words, the story is promising us that Jesus will meet us where we are, or wherever we think we are, even if we don’t really know where we are, so that we “may have life in his name.” It turns out that the scriptures are very aware of us, those of us “who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We’re not just mentioned in John, but also brought us in the passage we read from First Peter. And that is what brings us back to hopemongering. These verses from First Peter speak of God having “given us a new birth into a living hope.” I’d like to take the “a” off of that. I’d like for us to think about “living hope” not as a noun, but as a verb – living hope. What would it mean to live hope? And how does this Easter night and a week later story help us do that? There are a lot of ways to make sense of the Resurrection. Different interpretations work for different people. There is nothing about this story from John 20 that suggests that there is not still great mystery involved here. Jesus had a body with the wounds he received on the cross. Yet he was able to pass through the locked doors, and the disciples didn’t really recognize him until after he explicitly showed them his injuries. So what was it they were seeing? Is it any wonder they couldn’t explain it to Thomas in a way that was credible?

So the point here is not that hope comes from clarity, at least not clarity about how exactly God does what God does. Perhaps, though, there is a clarity about what God does. God pulls life from the jaws of death. God refuses to let death have the last word. God redeems that which seemed hopelessly lost. God meets us in our stubborn despair and transforms our hearts. God mends what is broken. If this is what we’re being invited to hope for, I’m ready to get on board.

What about you? Raise your hand if you believe that hope is one of the most necessary things there is. Raise your hand if you can think of at least three situations off the top of your head that desperately need some hope injected into them. Raise your hand if you’d like to become an intentional hopemonger. That is what John is inviting us to do. This story isn’t about the disciples. It isn’t about Thomas. It’s about us. It’s about all of us, the people God has called for thousands of years now, to keep hope alive in a world that is broken beyond our comprehension.

The writer of First Peter gives us some hints about what this will involve. It’s about living hope, it’s about loving Jesus, and even though there are plenty of trials to go around, it’s about rejoicing with “an indescribable and glorious joy.” However we understand the mystery of the Resurrection, that mystery is the source of our hope and our joy. Whatever barriers may be keeping us from embracing that hope, Jesus is ready to meet us right where we are and walk us through them. Finding a way to believe in a resurrection we haven’t seen with our own eyes is excellent preparation for the practicing the discipline of hope. Because hope is also about believing in things we cannot see. Jim Wallis of the Sojourners community reminds us that “hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change.”

This is our calling, my friends, if we’re going to be Easter people, followers of the Risen Christ. We are called to be hopemongers, to deal in hope, to live hope, even to sell hope if we run into people who will only value it if they have to pay for it. Jesus wants us to meet them where they are, so we’ll take their money if they insist! Earlier I asked you to think of three situations that really need some hope injected into them. What is your role in those situations? How could you inject some hope? Bringing hope is not the same thing as making problems disappear. We are not called to be God, but simply to share the Living Word with those in need. A kind word, a smile, a story of encouragement, simply showing up, speaking up for those who feel abandoned, there are a thousand ways for us to live the hope we receive here. Let us share the joy! Alleluia and Amen!