Disproving Gnosticism

John 20: 19-31
Acts 5: 27-32
This morning we begin with a reverse offering, where instead of putting into the plate, we invite you each to receive. Each to take a square cut nail, and hold it in the palm of your hand throughout listening to the sermon. In this Post Modern era, over two thousand years after the death, two thousand years into the resurrection, we un-like Thomas are not able to feel the imprint of the nails in Jesus' hands, BUT we can feel nails in our own!

Those who proof-read and print the Bulletin came to me this week saying: “You have an error, surely you meant: DisApproving of Agnosticism” And I said “No, faith is not about our judgement and disapproval neither is the Gospel about NOT Knowing as in “Agnostic”. But instead, PROVING that we NEED NO PROOF, that we need not see in order to believe. We need not know and we cannot fully understand; though because we live, because we feel, we can believe!”

GNOSTICISM was an early form of belief among the Greeks, competing with Christianity. The Gnostics understood that the world was reasonable, logical, and if each went off by themselves, or in schools where they could reason together, the Gnostics thought they could figure out all about God. The Gnostics believed that the Resurrection was not a physical death, but intellectual, theoretical, in answer to which the story of the Night of Easter and One Week hence are about EXPERIENCE for those who need proof; not to be convinced, but to feel. The Christian Gospel is not taught as knowledge retreating to figure out theoretically only carries us so far, the Christian Gospel must be lived!

Many of us struggle with computers and electronic media, because we were taught that to do anything, you first must understand how it works. When we were in school, those with pocket protectors and horn-rimmed glasses learned to write in the computer-code of DOS, which then has come through leaps and hurdles to PC, to HP to Apple and WiFi. Today, few understand why or how, but when we get stuck, there is always the combination of CONTROL ALTERNATE DELETE that will exit to start all over again. We use deductive reasoning as far as we can go, knowing that there are things in life, which cannot be reasoned and are not Strategically Evolved, which instead we approach INDUCTIVELY and through relationships and trust, through trial and error, feeling our way, we experience.

Our passage from The Gospel of John begins that after the Resurrection to Mary at sunrise at the Tomb, after the journey to Emmaus and the breaking of bread, the Disciples were filled with ANXIETY and FEAR. Like many of us, when traumatized by change, by loss, we look for certainty, we want to know, to prove, to have our fears and anxiety answered by fact. Responding to this anxiety, Jesus said “PEACE, BE STILL. Put out your hand and feel.”

There is a Golden Chapter of The Early Church, that most of us have never heard let alone experienced. We know all about Jesus calling the Disciples; His Teaching and Instructing with Parables; we know the Teachings about the Crucifixion and Resurrection; we know about Peter standing up to the Sanhedrin and Paul on Missionary journeys preaching to convert the world that had not known God. We know about the Crusades and the Reformation, and the Modern Church. But in between, how did a marginalized, obscure movement become one of the greatest forces shaping human culture?

In the latter half of the first Century, there were diseases that spread through the Roman Empire. Whole Cities were decimated by fever and illness. Not knowing the cause or means of cure, families abandoned the ill in the streets, whole cities evacuated leaving the infected to die. And the Christian Community went out into the streets to offer compassion. These illiterate, former prostitutes and money-grubbing tax collectors, sat up with people through the night. They offered a cold compress to bring down fevers. They kept them clean and gave them a cup of pure water to drink. They offered care and compassion to those who were dying, to those who had been abandoned by family and friends and culture to die, and miraculously, by caring, by their acts of compassion, these who were dying – lived. The experience of life after being condemned to die, after being abandoned by the world, what greater evidence could there be for the Christian Faith.

To most the world, “Church” means worship in a Sanctuary for one hour on Sunday morning, Choirs of our members who sing to us, Confirmation Classes to teach our children what we believe, what was promised in their Baptism, Women's Circles and Men's Groups cooking for fellowship of the Church. What if, we turned our established paradigm of the Church on its head? What if we did not come into the Church as a means of escape from the world, a time of being spiritually fed, to figure out the answers in order to cope with the anxieties of secular life? But instead, we saw our time together in Worship, Education and Fellowship as training and practice, rehearsal for going out into the world? Throughout recent years Utube has been filled with glimpses of what are called “Flash-Mobs”. People going through ordinary routines in Grand Central Station, when suddenly Irish Dancers begin clogging. People shopping at a mall when from every corner, choirs begin to arrive singing the Halleluia Chorus. What if, instead of our Bell Choirs rehearsing, so that at the appropriate time in Worship they could process forward to play, if on Memorial Day as the Scouts and Veterans march from cemetery to Cemetery through the Village and waited at the Veteran's Park for Blue Angel Fighter planes to fly over which no longer can, before the first politician speaks, if at that moment as the whole community gathers together, Bell ringers from each of the Churches began playing “For All The Saints”?

We are part of a culture where in the Public schools they can only sing Secular Christmas songs. What if, at the end of the Christmas Concert, before the audience applauding, believers began to sing “Silent Night” or “Joy to the World”?

Public prayer has become a political nightmare. What if, at Graduation Commencements, School days, and Baseball games, instead of a professional Clergyman leading the body in prayer, what if as we each start our day, as we begin a Board meeting, or God help us as we enter the Voting Booth, individually as believers, we silently offered a Prayer to God for guidance?

In recent years, as your pastor, then Contractors from this congregation went to Sudan to build a clinic, then Doctors and Nurses and volunteers went to serve, we commissioned them and prayed for them. A week ago, as a Daughter of this congregation described going to China to teach for the next two years, and we offered to pray for her. One of the finest moments I recall of us being the church, was when her brother was set to be deployed as a Green Beret and came to worship the morning before he left, we placed a baby in his arms as he walked the aisles of the congregation, and we vowed to pray for him. I remember charging him, that if you can carry an M16 Rifle into battle, you can carry a baby in your arms. What if faith, were not to be a private matter behind the closed doors of the Sanctuary, but if we understood we have each been Called to Serve? That each of us, as a Priesthood of Believers, have been breathed on and blessed and commissioned by Jesus Christ to go out into the world as believers?

Peter was arrested for acting in faith, what we are called to is not acts of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, but rather to EXPERIENCE FAITH IN LIFE. The response of Peter to the Authorities was to Question whether we are acting on the Side of God, or not? To the Community of Believers, Peter Challenged do not try to work out all the words of your testimony ahead of time, buyt live and speak from your heart of what you believe. The words of Gamaliel, if it is a human enterprise, like a fad it will die out, but if this is of God, who knows what may happen?