John 20: 19-31                               In the Flesh                           E/DC                           April 23, 2006                                                                                    

(Thanks to Lydia Glawson, ICPO colleague and friend for inspiration, research, some of words)

1)      A second hand report for Thomas just wouldn?t do. He needed proof? physical proof that Jesus was alive. He was not simply going to take his friends? word for it. In order for him to believe this incredible news of resurrection; he had to see it for himself.  See, touch, and experience it.  ?Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.? His faith depended on a first hand experience of the risen Christ.

2)      Thomas has been put down for many years because he had to see before he believed.  Doubting Thomas he?s been called. Those who believe, even though they have not seen, are held up as the ideal disciples. Even blessed.

3)      But how many of you know a Thomas, are a Thomas?  Many of us are blessed to learn through our senses ? to see, feel, hear, touch for ourselves, in order to really know.  We need, like Thomas, a first hand experience of Jesus in the flesh.  Others are blessed ? in just being able to believe intuitively.  This morning, I want to focus on the blessing of the earthy, embodied faith, because it has been so neglected.  After all, flesh is the package we come in? warm, needing, delighting in the senses. Flesh is how we encounter the world? through our eyes, ears and skin. Flesh is how we relate to the world? through our hands and eyes, lips and tongues.  It is through our flesh that we experience pain, physically and in our spirits, since those hurts, too are received through our physical bodies, through what we see, hear and experience.¹ We are fully embodied creatures. For a long time in history, people have chosen to talk as if our true self was spirit or soul. To talk in this way though, sounds like our bodies, are somehow less important, less real than our spiritual self. But our bodies are just as integral to who we are, aren?t they?

4)      Actually, one of the major affirmations we make as we recite our creed is that God came in Jesus, the Word made flesh?. The Word or very essence of God, made flesh. God incarnate?. carne meaning meat? (you know, chile con carne)!  So quite literally, the Word made flesh means the Holy ?with meat on?. It is a critical claim of our faith that the Holy is not simply some concept floating around in space, but that the Holy is enfleshed and embodied among and within us.

5)      There was once a little boy, five years old who was having trouble falling asleep one night because there was a wild thunderstorm going on outside his bedroom window. He called out to his dad, who came into the little boy?s room to comfort him. ?Don?t worry,? said the dad to his son, ?don?t be afraid.  You are never alone. Even though you can?t see him, God is always with you.?  The little boy quieted down and tried to go back to sleep and his dad went back into the living room. That worked for a few moments until the next great clap of thunder, and again the boy called out for his dad. His father came rushing into the room. ?Remember what I told you. God is always with you.?  ?Yes, I know that,? said the little boy, ?but right now I?d like God with skin on.?

6)      God with skin on. God in the flesh. God incarnate.   Even as adults, that?s what many of us want and need because that?s how we first knew trust, hope, forgiveness, unconditional love - with skin on. We experienced God through others, but still have trouble with God living in us, because we have some negative ideas about our bodies. And I think responsibility for our negativity can be laid at least partly, at the feet of the apostle Paul, and the early church fathers that sometimes misunderstood what Paul was getting at. Paul talks quite a lot about flesh and it often sounds like something bad, something that drags us down.

7)      Interesting, when Jesus so clearly celebrated the physical as well as the spiritual.  Rejoicing with his family at a wedding, feeding hungry people, healing sick and lonely folks, sharing meals with friends and outsiders, washing feet, enjoying friends.  But there came a strong move in the Christian church to discredit things of the body. And an unhappy result of all this has been a downright negative attitude towards our bodies, and some really harmful notions that have caused us to regard our bodily appetites, as something nasty, something shameful, something to be hidden, instead of gift.

8)      Rowan Williams, the present Archbishop of Canterbury, a modern day church father says, ?Bodies are where we read love, and where we write it. Bodies are where we learn and where we speak and share.? ¹  If we cannot love our very human limited selves, with all our warts and wrinkles, we shall love nothing and nobody.  How we understand our bodies is critical to our relationships and our connections with others, our enjoying of our very lives. Thomas More, a contemporary mystic, talks of the spirituality of everyday life? that preparing a meal has the potential to be a ritual, a spiritual practice?. so, too, does gardening, golfing, painting, building, and baking bread. All these things are closely connected with the physical, with our bodies. We can?t participate in them without our bodies.

9)      But do we need some people to be less fully human, more ?holy??  It continues to amaze me how many people start to say something that they would say anytime with friends.   Then they say, ?Oh I?m sorry Bev, or worse, ?Sorry Reverend.?  It?s like they need to be on pins and needles all the time, instead of being themselves ? people who live fully embodied, fun-loving lives.  Now the problem with that is if we make the minister other ?worldly ? holy in a pious, prim and proper way ? then faith, life in the spirit is just for me.  It lets others off the hook, but you also miss the rich blessings.  We are all holy, whole, embodied spirit, spirited bodies.  When we get that, we are all freed up for full, abundant life.  The other problem is that how in the world could I understand your lives if I wasn?t one, like you, tempted in all ways, one who laughs, cries, hurts accidentally, and is hurt, enjoys life fully, and who experiences falling flat on her face and getting up again, because of God?s grace and forgiveness and strength.  What earthly help could I be in preaching and talking with you?

10)  Also, if we choose a spirituality that neglects the body then we are in danger of neglecting and minimizing not only our own bodies but also the bodies of our brothers and sisters. We are called as followers of the Christ to a vision of a new creation that takes the bodies of our neighbours around the globe seriously. Taking bodies seriously means we too feel it when our global brothers and sisters are hungry, or thirsty, or in pain. It means we understand them to be people with needs, hopes, hurts, and dreams, like ourselves, who cannot be dismissed and de-humanized as ?collateral damage.?

¹¹⁾      But complex, difficult St. Paul understood that, didn?t he?  In 1 Corinthians 12, he writes, ?For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ?. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.?  The body of Christ. Paul didn?t say we are the spirit of Christ. He said we are the body of Christ?.. his hands and feet in the world. God has met us in the flesh of Jesus the Christ. Living in God?s way has been fleshed out by Jesus and his followers.

12)  And so on this day as we celebrate Thomas? need to see Jesus in the flesh, we ask our incarnate God to keep us so in touch with our own incarnation, in touch with our own hearts of flesh that we might be friends with our vulnerability and so friends with the vulnerable.²   Because we have known the Christ, the Word made flesh. Amen.

Thanks to Williams, Rowan, A Ray of Darkness, Cambridge, Mass: Cowley Publications, 1995) ¹, p. 35  ², p. 36, for many of the ideas in this sermon.