2024 04 07 Sermon
The Best of Times/
The Worst of Times
The Best of Times/The Worst of Times
Easter 2 B
John 20:19-31; Acts 4:32-35
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Many of you have heard or read this famous opening line from Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, about Paris and London during the French Revolution in the 1790s, and the similarities of that time to the Industrial Revolution 40 years later. This opening line is repeated often in popular culture, including in the cartoon The Simpsons; there’s a scene with 1,000 monkeys chained to 1,000 typewriters, slaving away in hope that one will write the greatest novel of all time. The greedy millionaire Mr. Burns grabs what one monkey is typing and reads: “it was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?...You stupid monkey!” he yells, crumpling the paper and throwing it at the monkey. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no_elVGGgW8 ]
The cartoon, in parody, gets at the point Dickens was making as he continued his opening sentence: “…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” Literary analyst Bex Roden points out the meaning: It was the best of times if you were a French aristocrat, or a British industrialist who reaped immense wealth from new technologies. It was the worst of times if you were a laborer working 14 hours a day for low wages, while living in overcrowded, unhealthy conditions. Society lived with a paradox of being both blessed and cursed; life was great and terrible and everything else in between. [https://www.historythroughfiction.com/blog/a-tale-of-two-cities]
I bring up this famous line because it sheds light on our scripture readings today. We see in the experiences of the disciples after Christ’s resurrection (as described in John 20 and Acts 4) not a tale of two cities, but a tale of two churches, two communities. One community is acting in fear—it was the worst of times for those disciples on that very first Easter evening, about 12 hours after the risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, and then she went and announced to the disciples “I have seen the Lord.” They are supposed to be on the joyful side of Easter, but they’re stuck in fear. Of course they are! They’ve been traumatized. You don’t get over the shock of everything they’d been through in the past week so quickly: Traumatic betrayal of Jesus by one of their own (Judas); witnessing what Jesus endured at the hands of the authorities, including death on a cross. The disciples’ biggest concern is “are we gonna be next up on the cross?” (And let me also quickly point out that when John writes “they were hiding for fear of the Jews”, he is referring to the Jewish authorities and the crowd in Jerusalem who threatened violence, and who colluded with the Roman authorities to crucify Jesus. We should not take this as a reason to slander Jews. And besides, the disciples themselves were Jewish.)
At any rate, they were hiding in fear because the trauma they had been through had wounded them. It’s been said “the body keeps score”—if you’ve been through a traumatic experience, whether it is physical or emotional or both, your body feels it as pain and remembers the pain. Sometimes people get stuck there; it can take some time and effort to be healed again. And it can be tempting to believe at a time like that, when all you want to do is hide in fear, that God has abandoned you.
But it is right into the midst of this kind of pain—precisely when they feel at their lowest—that the risen Jesus appears to them, when they are behind the locked doors in a kind of tomb of their own making, and he says to them: “Peace be with you”—the kind of peace that makes the world right, even if everything around you seems to be going wrong; a peace that forgives our failures, heals our wounds, and lifts our fears. Jesus gives them a new lease on life by sharing God’s peace with them. Then Jesus shows them the wounds from his crucifixion still there on hands and side—and it’s at that moment when they finally realize they are seeing the Lord. Seeing that the risen Jesus still has his scars is the assurance they need to believe that new life in God is waiting on the other side of fear, and pain, and even death itself.
Well, we also hear a tale of another community, another church—now it was the best of times for the disciples, just a few months later. By this point, they have moved through their fears and learned how to act in faith. The Spirit of the risen Lord lives among them, and he is empowering their new way of living. Acts 4:32 describes it: “Those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common”—meaning that they were “ready to regard each other’s needs as one’s own” need [N.T. Wright, Acts Part 1, p.77]. Your need is my need. Verse 34 explains: “there was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the apostles’ feet, who distributed it as any had need.”
This was the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 15 in the Old Testament, where God instructs his people: “Every seventh year you shall grant a cancellation of debts…There shall be no needy person among you [that’s what we saw in Acts 4], because the Lord is sure to bless you… Do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted, but be generous and lend whatever they need… Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly, for the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.” And that’s what the disciples were doing; no longer hiding in fear, they were learning to offer a bold witness that God is faithful; and by living the new life of faith, the Spirit of the resurrection was making a powerful impact on the health and well-being of everyone in the community.
This was God’s plan all along, that his covenant—his promises of faithfulness to his people—would bring health, blessing, and well-being to all. In Old Testament days, God’s covenant was remembered in the Temple with the priest offering worship and sacrifice on behalf of the people. Now, in Acts 4 we see God’s new covenant in Jesus being remembered by all the faithful—a priesthood of all believers, who gathered together to become a new Temple, offering their worship and sacrifices of generous giving to benefit everyone in the community.
Well, this tale of two churches, two communities of faith in John 20 and Acts 4, is really a tale of just one church—because both communities were made up of basically the same group of people! The ideal picture of faith, worship, and sacrifice as described in Acts 4 didn’t last long. Already in Acts 5, people start falling away from it and they suffer the consequences. But on the other hand, the painful picture of fear in John 20 also didn’t last long. By John 21, the disciples are learning how to trust Jesus and follow his instructions.
This tale told in John 20 and Acts 4 is also our own. In every church and Christian community since the time of the Apostles, including every church I’ve ever been part of, and you’ve ever been part of, both fear and faith reside. It’s the paradox of Christian life—among one group of people things can be both great, and terrible, and everything else in between. And Jesus is in it all. He appears among us when you’re experiencing a time with wonderful awareness of God’s presence. He appears among us (even if you don’t recognize it) when you’re suffering through a terrible feeling of God’s absence. He appears among us if you’re in a time of dwelling “somewhere in between”, living by some combination of faith and fear. This is why God calls us to be part of a community; this is why God’s people need a church—in the best of times, and the worst of times, and everything else in between—we need to encourage one another, care for one another, be generous towards one another, and follow the Spirit of our risen Lord in bringing health, wholeness, forgiveness, and well-being into the world.
These are the gifts Jesus has for us in his community of faith that we call the church. They are simple gifts, and they’re really all we’ve got to offer a world in need. It turns out, though, these simple gifts are powerful—because through them everyone has an opportunity to believe and have life in his name. Amen.