Have y’all had too much wine?

I mean… seriously. Don’t you know churches that look like us are on the decline? Are you all drunk? What are you doing here?

Furthermore, churches are supposed to be homophobic, racist grifts that tell you what you want to hear. They’re not supposed to challenge you to encounter your neighbor and take a different view of the divine—to follow Jesus to the margins and care for the poor, the outcast, the widow, and the orphan. We’re doing rugged individualism now, what are you all doing in community?

What’s up with the emphasis on kindness and understanding? Didn’t you hear that we’re also not doing that anymore? We’re being rude, treating strangers like enemies. Deporting without trial. Enemies are to be defeated and vanquished—not loved and welcomed. Gross. Y’all are out of your minds.

I love that this is the reaction the disciples got on Pentecost. Fifty days afte Easter, they were all together in one place, the upper room. Was it the same upper room of the last supper? We don’t know. Yet the Spirit drove them into the streets. Today, I’d like to throw a little sauce on that section while they were still gathered. What were they doing? I’d like to think that they were remembering.

I do a lot of funerals. Waite Funeral Home calls me when a family wants a shame-free service but hasn’t been to church in years. And then there are our own members who’ve passed. It keeps me busy. Honestly, there’s only one real funeral sermon: Forgive what needs forgiven. Remember the love and carry it with you.

Maybe they were telling stories about Jesus.

“Remember that time he fed the 5,000?” asks Peter.

“I thought it was 7,000,” says Nathanael.

“I doubt that,” Thomas said. (Pause for laughing…)

Maybe they looked around and saw each other again. Sometimes grief and depression keep us from noticing who is around us. We get blinders sometimes and we only focus on what’s right in front of us. The noise of the world and the pressure can give us a narrow focus and we forget who we are. That’s not because you’re cursed or possessed or God hates you. As the Rev. Dr. Sarah Lund reminded us: “You can love Jesus and still take Prozac.”

The stigma around mental health is still very much alive in this country. Jane Kenyon captured this in her 1993 poem Having it Out with Melancholy.[1] In Movement 3: Suggestion from a Friend, she writes:

You wouldn’t be so depressed if you really believed in God.

I think the disciples were depressed—grieving, bewildered. The disciples had some big swings in these last 50 days. From the despair of Good Friday and the state sponsored execution of their friend and teacher; to the surprise and elation to Resurrection to the bewildering Ascension… what a swing! Depression, elation, confusion, disbelief, astonished… They were bewildered, at the very least.

Yet when they gathered all in one place. They were gathered because Pentecost was already a Jewish Holiday. It is the feast of the spring harvest where they would gather the winter/spring plantings… remember different growing seasons than ours, they are in a different climate. They would burn the fields and be ready for the summer planting. That’s what gathered them and here is where they saw one another.

They saw Simon-Peter again for the first time. Peter—the blockhead. Always the first to open his mouth and stick his foot in it. He had a taste for sole food. Jesus gave him a new name and said, “I give you the keys to the kingdom.” They remembered how Jesus loved Peter, bold and brash, the first to blunder into the empty tomb. They forgave and remembered the love.

They saw Nathanael. Nathanael would’ve taken Prozac if it had existed. When Philip said, “We have found him about whom Moses and the prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth,” Nathanael sneered, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

What would be our equivalent? Wadsworth? No, we like Wadsworth. As Cleveland fans, Pittsburgh?

I love Nathanael as he is a reminder that we need pessimists in our lives. The optimist builds the airplane. The pessimist sews the parachute. The optimist builds the car. The pessimist installs the seatbelts and airbags.

They saw Nathanael again for the first time. They forgave and remembered the love.

Then my patron saint. They saw Thomas—the doubter. He wasn’t in the room for Jesus’ first appearance. Maybe Jesus’ death hit him hardest. He didn’t talk much. In fact, Thomas speaks only four times in John’s Gospel:

1. John 11:16 – Jesus says he’s going to raise Lazarus. The others are afraid. Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
   Die with Lazarus? Die with Jesus? Is this statement courageous or resigned? Either way, he’s all in.
2. John 14:5 – At the Last Supper, Jesus says they know the way. Thomas says, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?”
   Thomas is stumped. For your GPS, to get anywhere, you need a destination. Thomas is ready to go, but he has no idea what Jesus is talking about or where he’s heading, so this question brings Jesus’ famous reply: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
3. John 20:24–25 – After the resurrection, the others say they saw Jesus. Thomas says, “Unless I see the mark of the nails… I will not believe.” This is the basis for being both scientific and faithful. We often hear of people losing faith because of science—but rarely the opposite: people finding faith because of science. I will give you three names today.

   John Polkinghorne: a physicist from Cambridge who worked on the theory of the quark, the smallest known particle. He stated, “Math is the language of God.” If everything was random chaos, our math wouldn’t work. But our math does because there’s a stability and predictability in the universe. He resigned his post and became an Anglican priest. I got to hear him speak at my seminary, and it was amazing.[2]

   Francis Collins: former NIH head. Also head of Human Genome Project that studied DNA. Life always finds a way. We should be dead through many extinction events, yet life persists. It’s getting more complex, self-aware, and altruistic.[3]

Karl Giberson: author of Saving Darwin. He tackles myths of the division of science and faith. Like Galileo. Galileo was not persecuted for his science, he was under house arrest because he didn’t prove the theory that the earth orbited around the sun. He wrote a nasty little book where he effectively called the pope an idiot. Keppler proved it with math, the language of God. Keppler wasn’t persecuted. Galileo was because he didn’t prove it.

These three are in the line of Thomas who remind us that faith and reason are not enemies. Which leads us to the fourth thing Thomas says…

4. John 20:28 – Jesus appears again, shows his wounds. Thomas says, “My Lord and my God!” My lord meaning Ceasar isn’t. And my God meaning incarnation. From doubt to the strongest profession of faith in the Gospels.

They saw Thomas again for the first time. They forgave and remembered the love.

The diversity in the room! Not to mention the women who never left his side and would undoubtly been around, if not in the room. Then there’s all the ones Jesus met along the way—like the man formerly known as the Gerasene demoniac. Or the woman at the well. Or Zacchaeus, the tax collector in the tree. The woman who was bleeding for years. They forgave and remembered the love Jesus had for them all.

That’s what pushed them out into the streets. That Spirit of openness. That Spirit that forgives shortcomings—for we are just human, after all. That Spirit of encountering your neighbor. Your neighbor, made in the image of God. Your neighbor who sees the world differently. Who brings different gifts.

When Jesus came, he didn’t do it alone. He could have. The man walked on water and turned it into wine. (Not at the same time, but you know the stories.) He calmed storms. He caused storms when crossed lines of propriety. Jesus hung out with all the wrong people and the religious whispered about him, “Who is this man who sits with sinners and eats with them?!” He had the harshest words for those whisperers—those who couldn’t see their neighbor clearly, let alone love them.

Jesus taught the two greatest commandments: Love God with everything you’ve got. And love your neighbor as yourself.

The disciples remembered and got fired up. They ran into the street.

And people thought they were drunk! I love that line.

I hope they—whoever they are—say the same about us. We know they do, we’ve read the comments and deleted a lot of them.

Look at those people… that church lets anybody in. Yup. We sure do.

They bless backpacks and pets and… is that even allowed? It sure is! We bless anything and anyone in our path. We tried to guilt and shame route, let’s try the blessing route as that seems more like what Jesus would do.

That church is shameless. Talking about mental health, LGBTQ folks, veterans, the young and the old… Yup. What’s wrong with that?

We’re on fire for Jesus. We delight in all God has made. We’re just trying to keep up with the Holy Spirit and its presence in all of us.

Take a look around at who is here. Say: “Hey neighbor. I’m glad you’re here. Peace be with you.”

We always say that. Let’s tack on one more thing:

“I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you.”

Doesn’t that just fire you up?

Yeah, love does that.

If you haven’t heard that in a while… may love wake you up. May this be the first day of your life. May you be born again right here in the doorway. Let this be a reminder of our work of love.

For we’d rather be working for a paycheck, than waiting to win the lottery. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Works Cited

[1] Jane Kenyon, Collected Poems. Greywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN. 2005. Page 232.

[2] A great book about his life and work: Quantum Leap: How John Pokinghorne found God in science and religion by Dean Nelson and Karl Giberson.

[3] Francis Collins, The Language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief. Free Press, New York, NY. 2006.