Why, are the disciples in trouble?  Because they’re backing up their promises with actions!  The disciples were jailed overnight, after they were teaching in the Temple about the “rejected cornerstone,” Jesus.  And standing right next to them, in the beautiful portico of Solomon, on the southern side of the Temple, had been the man who was paralyzed from birth, who had never stood up straight before!  It was hard to say which was more offensive to the Temple leaders, the healed man, or Peter’s speech about a supposed Messiah, crucified, and raised from the dead.  But the leaders were afraid to punish Peter & John, because they were so popular with the people for the act of healing they had done, and their public word, pointing to Jesus. 

Yesterday, at the MCS Stewardship Conference, we heard a funny story about what happens when you don’t keep word and deed together.  As the story goes, it was back in Reformation times when a group of princes were getting baptized in a German church, a baptism by immersion.  And each of them as they were dunked under, held one arm up above water.  Everyone thought that was a little strange at the time, but it wasn’t until later that they discovered their intentions.  The princes had been thinking ahead to when they would be called into battle, and that that was the arm they would have to use to wield their swords.  ‘This is our un-baptized arm,’ they said.  ‘It’s okay!’  Sort of like crossing your fingers with your hand behind your back, I guess!  Obviously, we can’t separate out our baptized life, in this way.  The words and promises of baptism go together, and apply to what we do in our whole lives, all the time. 

At their trial, the two disciples are given a chance to set the record straight, by which the leaders of Jerusalem expect they will renounce Jesus.  But something had happened to them since the crucifixion and resurrection.  As they reflected on it together in the upper room, they had been changed.  Jesus had even told them that they wouldn’t have to worry what they would say when they were arrested and brought before rulers, for the Spirit would give them the words they needed.  And now Peter, when asked “by what power or name he was doing this” preaching and healing, takes a deep breath, and it says, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit.”  Only then did he launched into his, Jesus is the cornerstone speech.    

The anachronistic irony of course is that, the Temple where Peter is speaking from in this story, has long since been destroyed, and both Jewish-Christian followers, and the Jewish leaders, have been dispersed for some 40 or 50 years by the time the book of Acts is written.  Acts is written to a new community some distance away from Jerusalem.  Both, Jewish-Christian, and Jewish believers, are frantically trying to figure out how to put their lives back together without a Temple, without the ark of the covenant safely tucked away at the center of the Temple, in the Holy of Holy’s. 

Jews and Christians came up with slightly different answers to this question after 70 AD, and not just out of thin air!  But for the Jews, by going back to the tradition of the Ark of the Covenant being mobile, when it led the people on their 40 year journey of faith, in the wilderness.  Now, after a similar crisis, the Jews became a faith of the book, the Torah, worshiping in synagogues, on their new journey, everywhere, throughout the world. 

And the Christians remembered how Jesus called the Temple his father’s house, and that, when he was asked for a sign of his authority Jesus said, tear down this temple and in three days I will raise it up.  No one had understood this cryptic saying before his death.  But one of the “aha” moments the disciples had afterwards in the upper room, was that Jesus had been talking about his resurrection.  Jesus, the stone that was rejected by some, was for them, the cornerstone of a new and mobile temple.  Jesus had backed up his words with one very large deed, in being raised!  Jesus is our ark of the covenant, our light and salvation, our breath of life, going before us, like a Good Shepherd, to lead the way, 24/7, by night and by day. 

I have been challenging the Church Council, and all of us this year, to be on the look-out for where God is calling Unity to go, in these days.  Perhaps a special ministry, or a defining identity that centers and energizes us?  If you asked anyone in Edgewater about Unity Lutheran Church, what would they say about us?  Are we backing up our core values and vision, with an active mission?  Who are we?  What are we becoming? 

One little example: I heard this story this week about a mobile food project and restaurant on wheels, Enemy Kitchen, the brainchild of Chicago-based artist, Michael Rakowitz.  On his food truck flies an Iraqi flag and he serves Iraqi food.  The chef’s are Iraqi too, Jawher Shaer and his two sons, who own and run Milo’s Pita Place, a nice little restaurant in Rogers Park.  The four servers on the truck, on the other hand, are all U.S. veterans of the Iraq war.  And so, through this Enemy Kitchen project, Rakowitz has been using Iraqi food and culture to break down cultural barriers for several years already.  One of the veterans, Aaron Hughes, has added his own twist to the project.  Hughes served at Guantanamo Bay, where he said he learned not to trust the prisoners, part of military training, of course, even though it has long since been proved that the vast majority of prisoners there had nothing to do with Al Qaida, and many were swept up as innocent businessmen themselves.  Hughes remembers how he was offered tea daily by some of those prisoners, but he always refused.  So now he’s on the Enemy Kitchen food truck, and instead of the usual street art that aims to shock, his “Tea” performance is pure hospitality.  ‘Each evening at sunset he’ll unfurl an Iraqi prayer rug, fire up a hot plate and begin the time-consuming double-boiler method of traditional Iraqi tea service. When he’s done, he’ll hand passersby cardamom-scented black tea in Styrofoam cups that he adorns with arabesque flowers.’ (Time Out Chicago)  At Guantanamo, you see, the prisoners are allowed to keep only one possession in their cells, a Styrofoam cup for tea, which each prisoner decorates by hand, usually with flowers. 

This ministry of Enemy Truck, and act of societal healing, is a “good deed” that begs for a word of conversation – on our part – which was exactly the aim of creator Rakowitz. 

Together, through our words and deeds, and in the name of “the one who laid down his life in order to take it up again,” healing can happen – in our neighborhood, in our world.  Each week, we are energized at this table when we receive the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, and remember the powerful words and deeds of Jesus.  And so, let us take a deep breath, and let the Holy Spirit fill us.  Jesus promises to give us the words, if we live the deeds we’re being called to.  Where is God calling you?  Where is God calling Unity?  Go, let us be healers, as Christ has healed us – loving our neighbors, and even our enemies – and the words we should say, will be given to us. 

Our Eucharistic Prayer over the bread and wine concludes in this resounding crescendo: “With your holy ones of all times and places, with the earth and all its creatures, with sun and moon and stars, we praise you, O God, blessed and holy trinity, now and forever.  Amen, amen, amen.”  I like to think Earth Day has nothing on the church.  That at the heart of the churches tradition, is care for the creation.  That at our best, we understand that the human race, along with, all creatures, even sun, moon and stars, thank and praise, the “Author of Life,” as Peter calls Jesus, in our worship, and our work, in the world. 

The communion liturgy, remembers the creating, redeeming, and life sustaining work of God, in the world.  Specifically, we remember Jesus’ body and blood, given and shed for us in the bread and wine – and that it was during the Passover meal, with the sacrifice of an innocent lamb, and the deliverance and gift of freedom given, that Jesus also liberates us – and in the remembrance and presence of the gift, we eat and drink the meal of blessing, so that, we are freed from our bondage to sin and death, and saved and made alive, in Christ.  And that it is not only us, singing God’s praise, but all creatures, and all creation, “with sun and moon and stars,” as Psalm 148 declares, sing too!  It’s a song that reflects our high calling to care for God’s creation!  Can we do this?  Be this? 

Earth Day began with idealistic dreams on April 22, 1970, under the initiative of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.  Hoping to give legislative birth to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” the Environmental Protection Agency came into being, and soon after, the passage of the Clean Air and Water Acts, that some say have saved hundreds of 1,000’s of lives, and, at the time, gave the 99%, protection, if not voice, in its caring for creation. 

Originally, the passage of that legislation was a bipartisan effort, under a Republican President.  Opposition, however, has only increased over time and coalesced into a movement whose success is bank-rolled by an emergent oligarchy – a caring for the 1%, more than creation, kind of movement.  And so Earth Day will be another stand off resulting in no action – at least for climate change.  Protests will run into the buzz saw of well organized climate deniers, who have bought and paid for, our elected leaders.  There is an Earth Day celebration going on the National Mall in Washington DC as we speak, famous bands entertain, and speakers enlighten.  And the Earth Day website urges us to join the “campaign for communities,” offering hundreds of suggestions for connecting up with people and resources to make a difference in your community.  But who will speak for the earth as a whole, as our mother, who alone, silently, continues to pay the price for our sins of excess, as carbon emissions, among many other pollutants, continue to climb beyond safe limits?  The Opposition is kicking her butt, if you’ll pardon my French, and winning! 

Peter and John were familiar with the Opposition, and suffered for it – willingly suffered for it, if you take the book of Acts at face value.  Joyfully, almost!  Going to prison for it, but making friends and continuing to spread the good news, under guard!  Before being arrested, however, they intended to come to a prayer breakfast, if you will, at the temple.  Having recently baptized 2,000 new members, and agreeing to share “all things in common,” they “sell all their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need,” but they never make it to their prayer meeting.  On the way, they run into a man on the street, paralyzed from the waist down.   

Every day someone helped carry the man to the street corner near the temple so he could put out his hat to beg for some change, to eat.  Unfortunately, Peter and John don’t have any cash on them.  They gave it all away - donated everything to share with their church community!  But, they do stop and, do what they can.  Peter and John say to him, “look at us,” as they “stare” at him intently.  And looking up, he expected the usual handout.  But Peter said to him, “I don’t have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk!”   And taking him by the hand he helped him up, and his feet and ankles were made firm at the same time.  And “he jumped to his feet,” it says, “and began to walk, and went with Peter and John into the temple where he was “dancing and praising God.” [The Message trans.]  Others recognized him as the one they had passed outside everyday, and they were “astonished and amazed.”  “And the man threw his arms around Peter and John,” it says, “ecstatic.” 

When the leaders of the temple began to grumble and complain because the crowds were getting the impression that Peter and John had special powers, Peter begins his now second speech, in Acts.  “Why do you wonder at this… as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?”  Don’t look to us, look to the power of Jesus, the servant of humanity, and the "Author of life.”  He did this. 

And this healing, was what got them thrown into prison!  Bad men!  Healing someone!  Bringing to life that which was dead!  And making a useful citizen out a man paralyzed from birth!  But, that is how Opposition works.  March for peace, and you get thrown in jail.  Bring light to the darkness of our society, and you become a target.  Opposition to the realm, and Spirit of God, is strong, and ever alert, to intimidate, shame and disappear!

But Peter and John were undeterred, and didn’t falter in prison – think Nelson Mandela, in our times.  The light of Christ, and the gift of life in the resurrection, had enlivened them.  Peter and John, who before the resurrection, couldn’t give speeches if their lives depended on it, now become a font of good news.  Peter, the one who curtly denied Jesus three times, and John, the one who wanted special privileges from Jesus when he came into his kingdom, now speak with the same power as their servant-teacher, had.  Though uneducated, they speak passionately from the heart.  They laugh in the face of the Opposition, being alive in Christ, beyond fear! 

As gospel-story, we see in the raising of the paralyzed man, how Peter and John see through what holds him down, and into his need to be re-created, not just given a hand out.  In standing up to the opposition, they reject the way of privilege and self-preservation.  The Author of life, writes us, more than a book, giving us the gift of life itself.  We see in Jesus’ death and resurrection the way of life beyond death, not just heaven, but the understanding of a servant-vocation, and the freedom to live authentically, which we might call, the way of no fear – or faith.  In Jesus, the Author of life, there is no death.  Which is opposite of, the way of the Opposition, who desperately seek to hang on to their life, and so, sadly loose it. 

Easter teaches us that “death has lost its sting.”  In Christ, we banquet with the crucified, living one, singing with the saints, who are alive to us now, and with all the creatures, with sun and moon and stars.  In this song, earth day can begin.  Creation, put in it’s rightful order, is no longer our servant, but we serve it, and its Creator.  For death no longer has dominion over us!    

“Thomas, who was called the Twin, one of the twelve,” is an iconic figure.  His questioning-unbelief, or doubting, is legend, even beyond Christianity.  What remains a mystery, is, we don’t know who Thomas’ twin was?  Nothing in scripture reveals it to us.  Though, the creative conjecture today is that, we all know who Thomas’ twin is… we see him or her every morning, when we look in the mirror!  

Thomas, it seems, isn’t one to just skip over the fact that the risen Jesus has died!  Was buried even!  Thomas isn’t jumping from Good Friday to Easter joy, without some proof, some connective evidence, to link death and resurrection. 

We all have, or will, experience the death of a loved one.  And though painful to our core, it can become, fruitful and life changing – but one dare not jump over the pain and loss, just because we are so well schooled in the resurrection.  The dialog between Thomas and Jesus is instructive.  “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.”  Earlier, Jesus taught his disciples with a very earthy metaphor: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain.  But if it dies it bears much fruit.” 

Grief is a tricky thing!  I will never forget the unfortunate faux pas of our bishop in the NGLS when we lived in the UP.  At the wake for Kim’s mom, Tedi, Bishop Tom was nice enough to drive out of his way to pay his respects.  But his theology of glory was not what Kim needed.  And unfortunately for him, she would not let his office, or even death itself, hold her back from speaking the truth.  And so when he led off with, ‘isn’t it great that we can hang onto the promise of the resurrection at times like these,’ he probably, after 15 years, should have known her better.  Kim, with eloquence and unswerving focus, would let him know that that’s not what she needed, now.  Now, as they stood side by side in front of her mother’s still, and casket-entombed body, Kim was clear that she needed to grieve and remember how Jesus had also died and was buried, and that he continued to carry the marks of the crucifixion in his hands and side, with him, forever.  She needed the bishop to remember that we are all ‘dust and to dust we shall return’ – that the pain of loss is real.  And the peace that Christ comes to bring us, is accompanied by those scabbed over hands that know the depth of our lives, and all our woundedness. 

When our grief is deep, we need peace.  Jesus, in his newly resurrected body, appears to the disciples, bringing them shalom.  “Peace be with you,” he says.  Jesus, understanding the disciples entombed fear, holed up in their hiding place, knew enough to connect the dots between his surprising appearance to them behind locked doors, and so immediately offers to show them his wounds from the crucifixion.  And only then, paradoxically, do they rejoice!  Oh, here is our Lord!  Yes, what a relief to see his scars! 

Not much makes sense in times of grieving.  Nothing except perhaps, facing up to the pain, and loss, and realizing you can’t make it go away, even if you try.  You can only go through the experience, one foot in front of the other.  Loss and grief feel like being buried in the ground, and so we can only cling to the hope of Jesus’ promise, lean on friends who water and tend to us, knowing that seeds must first die, before they spring forth and bear much fruit. 

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain,” said Jesus.  “But if it dies it bear much fruit.” 

Thomas portrays the paradox of faith to us – Thomas our twin.  We don’t demean his doubt, but we acknowledge his human struggle to come to terms with the new reality of the crucified one now resurrected – for we too are somewhere on the boundary of unbelief and becoming a believer. 

And, the disciples will come around after they take time to face up to their pain and loss.  In our Acts reading we find them a-ways on down the road, when they have already been transformed by this new life, gifted them by the glory of cross and resurrection.  They have been united as fledgling-church now, by faith and trust, and this motivates them to restructure how they live together.  In a word, they share.  “They share all things in common.”  Those who are more well-to-do “sell their property, lay it at the apostles’ feet, who distribute it to each as any had need.” 

No one knows how long this may have worked, or to what degree it was followed.  But Luke, the author of Acts, makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is directing them to form their community around this sharing principle.  Today, politicians claiming to be the spokes-people for the bible, run this very principle down as godless, and insist out of thin air, that God wants us to have the unbridled freedom to be successful on our own, individually.  Despite Acts Ch 4, and also Ch 2, and throughout the gospels, sharing for them, is some kind of class warfare.  Those who are left behind, or left out of their circle of privilege, deserve it, it seems. 

But what actually happened to the apostles, is that they faced up to their grief, and they remembered the mark of the nails their risen Lord had showed them.  And in this way they came to know that the peace Jesus kept offering over and over to them, was not just a peaceful tranquility to cultivate in their private lives for their own personal betterment.  But it was also a peace that was to be shared, and de-clared, to the whole world. 

The risen Christ shows his wounds to us, because they are the root of God’s gift of forgiveness.  Even in the face of death and painful brokenness, whether done to us voluntarily or involuntarily, we now see in Jesus, the one who is our innocent victim, the crucified Lord who comes back, not for revenge, but to gather his scattered flock – to forgive, that we too may forgive others.  In the gift of peace, and the breath of the Holy Spirit from Jesus who has conquered death, we are offered a new way to relate with the world, and to all our sisters and brothers.  We are given a grace sufficient to the unity of “heart and soul,” as Acts says.  Inner peace begins to give way, to giving peace away – for others!  As Martin Luther King liked to say, “justice denied anywhere, diminishes justice everywhere.”  Such is Christ’s gift of peace, for all. 

I am not advocating that you sell all your possessions and deposit them in our Unity coffers – that would be foolish of me!  But I am saying, that when Jesus tells Thomas, “Do not become unbelieving, but believing,” he’s inviting us, the twins of Thomas, into the new life of the resurrection, a life of peace with justice, that does not retaliate, but learns the way of forgiveness and the way of the common good for society.  In a word, sharing.  When we do the grief work of facing up to the pain and loss we find all around us, it’s hard to ignore – sharing is not class warfare, but it’s the gift of life, the breathe and Spirit of Jesus, in our world.