The end of the Lenten journey is Easter,
and Christians everywhere celebrate it with triumphant joy.
In the Eighth Ode of the Eastern Orthodox Paschal Canon,
the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ is described like this:
“This is the chosen holy day, the first of all Sabbaths,
their queen and sovereign;
the feast of feasts and festival of festivals.”

The Sunday after Easter, unfortunately, is a major letdown
Easter, for all intents and purposes seems to be over.
The lillies, hyacinths and tulips are gone,
as are many of the folks who came out to worship just a week ago.
It’s not uncommon for attendance to fall over 50% on this Sunday,
and I am sure that our attendance today will be no exception.
And as I was thinking of the stark contrast between these two Sundays,
I was reminded of contrasts between the many churches I have attended.
In my ministry I have been privileged to preach or worship at all kinds.
I have preached at The Wesley Foundation at EKU in front of about 15 students who had just returned to campus after a weekend at their homes,
a little weary from their journeys
and more than a little reluctant to begin their new week at school.
I have preached to hundreds of people in a stately downtown cathedral,
filled with the well-dressed, well-educated and well-to-do people of that prosperous city.
And I have preached to fewer than a dozen people in a small country church in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky,
most of whom had walked to church on well-worn trails from their homes,
or had driven there on the dusty gravel roads in cars that had definitely seen better days.

And when it comes to visiting churches,
I have worshipped at some of the Great churches of the world:
St Patrick’s Cathedral and the famed Riverside Church in New York,
I also attended and sang in a choir at a service in the world’s largest church:
Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea is the number one church in the world, if size is anything to go by.
When I was there it had obver 250,000 members,
today it has over 800,000.
I have also worshipped in storefront churches in small towns,
at a church in Korea that was burned down in WW2 by Japanese soldiers,
while the members were still inside,
and in dozens of other congregations – small, medium and large.

And in truth, these churches don’t have that much in common.
Their congregations gather in vastly different circumstances.
There is no common architecture.
They all worship in different styles.
And while some of these churches seemed to have everything.
Huge choirs, symphony orchestras, beautiful buildings,
spectacular stained glass windows,
and magnificent pipe organs
Others have little at all at first glance:
small run down buildings,
some little more than shacks,
one even a double wide trailer on its last legs,
no music but an out of tune piano or an electric guitar,
and many times the worshippers looked lucky to be alive,
let alone able to attend a church service of any kind.

And then, of course, there is FUMC of Pottstown.
We have a small but wonderful choir.
Our building is a beautiful gothic structure,
and our windows our all stained glass,
with one exceptional window depicting Jesus as
facing High Street.
We have a great pipe organ and an organist who knows how to get the most out of it – as anyone who attended our Maundy Thursday or Easter Services certainly knows,
And of course, we have some of the best preaching anywhere!

What else would you need to have church?

Of course, all of this is in sharp contrast to today’s gospel.
Our gospel gives us a picture of a church with no pipe organ,
not even an old upright piano.
No choir. No pastor, even.
In fact, it’s a picture of church at its worst,
the most miserable little congregation you will ever see,
and amazingly enough it is made up of the disciples of Jesus,
gathered after his resurrection.

And look at them!
For long, so many chapters in John’s gospel,
Jesus has been getting his disciples ready for his departure.
He has gone over, then over again, his commandments to love one another,
to be bold, to trust him, to be the branches to his vine,
to feed on the Bread of Life,
and to be ready to follow him at all costs.

But today it is painfully clear that this motley crew hasn’t been paying any attention.
Look at them, cowering like frightened rabbits behind closed, bolted shut doors!
Some disciples, some church they are.

They were supposed to be the ones walking confidently out into the world, full of the Holy Spirit, announcing the Easter triumph of God.
But look at them hunkered down,
hoping no one in town will know that they’re there.
Here, says Tom Long, is the church at its worst – “scarred, disheartened, and defensive.”

Long asks, “What kind of advertisement might this church put in the Saturday paper to attract members? `
The friendly church were all are welcome’?
Hardly. Locked doors are not a sign of hospitality.
`The church with a warm heart and a bold mission?’”
Forget it.
This is the church of sweaty palms, shaky knees and firmly bolted doors.
In fact, can this motley crew even be called a church?
There’s no sanctuary, no pulpit, no choir,
no plan, no mission, no conviction, no nothing.

Awhile back, someone asked Robert Schuller to name the most important factor for a growing congregation.
Schuller is said to have responded, “A good parking lot.”
And though we certainly have a good one,
you have to admit church ought to be more than that.

In a similar vein United Methodist laity were recently asked what they most looked for in a church.
They said, “Friendliness.”
Number two was, “Bold, interesting preaching.”
Nobody, and I mean nobody said:
“Locked doors.” “Frightened members.” “Fear.”

Here is a church with absolutely nothing going for it except….
Except that, when it gathered, the Risen Christ pushed through the locked door, threw back the bolt,
and stood among them.

And maybe that’s as close as any church ever gets to being church.
Whether we are talking about the Full Gospel Church of Soeul Korea with its 50,000 people seating capacity, symphony orchestra and closed circuit tv system,
the little church in the hills of appalachia with no electricity and outhouses for restrooms,
or our own church with our good choir, praise band, organ, stained glass windows, new parking lot and its wonderful pastor.
But no matter what the church looks like or how ever many members it might have, the fact remains -
when we are left to our own devices, we are nothing.
We are nothing more than a huddle of confused, timid, cowering failures who got “F”s in the course called, “Following Jesus.”

IN his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,”
Wendell Berry’s mad farmer gives anyone who will listen some great advice.
Among many other things, he says:
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
And finally, he says,
Practice resurrection.

The disciples in today’s gospel reading needed some help in practicing resurrection.
They were behind closed and locked Doors -
Intent on keeping people out and keeping themselves is
They were filled with fear – afraid of losing what little they had left -
so they were focused on one thing only – Self-Preservation.
And if that sounds like many of the churches in our world today,
if it sounds more than a little like First UMC,
make no mistake, it is meant to.
The fact is that all too often churches, ours included, look and act nothing like the church ought to be.
But sometimes, by the grace of a living God,
Christ slips through our closed doors,
forces our fearfulness to flee,
and turns our minds away from our incessant navel-gazing out into the mission field that is our community and the world.
And in so doing, he turns us into a church, a real church.
And he does by doing some fairly simple things.
First of all, he offers us the gift of peace,
The first words out of Jesus mouth that night in the Upper Room were “Peace be with you” (John 20:19).
Now you might think that Jesus would have swoop onto the scene like some kind of avenging angel,
bent on kicking the rear ends of some miserable excuses for disciples.
But instead of saying, “Shame on you all! You call yourselves a church!”
The Risen Christ comes and says, “Peace be with you,”
he shows them his pierced hands and feet.
And just in case they didn’t understand him the first time,
he says again, “Peace be with you,”
And then he tells them that he is sending them out into the world.
He breathes on them, giving them the Holy Spirit,
and bestows on them the awesome power to forgive sins.

Now that is a church,
as much a church as any odd assortment of human beings can ever be.
And we come to know here in John that being the Church is a gift of a God who refuses to leave us be.
He comes to us.
His presence makes this church.
To the church which had nothing,
Christ gives everything.
Spirit. Mission. Forgiveness.

We are a church, not because of the building we’ve built and cared for,
not because of the choir, the organ, the preaching,
or our many activities.
We are a church because to us, even to us,
Christ has come and given us his gifts of Spirit, mission, and forgiveness,
commissioning us to give them to the whole world in his name.

That’s why we’re called church.
And it is that kind of Church that Luke writes about in Acts:

Now the whole group of 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.
With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.
Or how about:

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.
All who believed were together and had all things in common;
they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.
Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple,
they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.
And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Now what in the world happened to change that first little congregation gathered in the upper room cowering in fear into the amazing church we see in Acts?
What made the difference?

I’ve told the story before of Will Willimon taking his first pastorate in rural Georgia, but it’s a good story, and bears repeating.
Willimon arrived at his first charge only to find a large chain and padlock on the front door, put there, he was told, by the local sheriff. Why?
“Well,” said one member to Willimon, “things got out of hand at the board meeting last month,
folks started ripping up carpet, and dragging out the pews they had given in memory of their mothers.
It got so bad the sheriff came out here and put that there lock on the door until our new preacher could come and settle things down.”
That rather typified my time at that church. I would drive out there each Sunday, just praying for a miraculous snowstorm in October which would save me from another Sunday at that so-called church.

Willimon was fresh out of seminary, eager to be a good pastor,
but he found himself wishing he were elsewhere.
He said, “I spent a year there that lasted a lifetime.
I tried everything. I worked, planned, offered, but the response was always disappointing.
The arguments, the pettiness, the fights in the parking lot after the board meeting were more than I could take.
It was tough and I was glad to…leave them behind.”
“You call yourself a church!” he’d mutter to himself.

Several years later Willimon ran into a young man who was now the pastor of that church.
Willimon’s heart went out to him,
but, said the young man, “They still remember you out there.”

“Yea,” said Willimon, glumly, “I remember them too.”

“Remarkable bunch of people,” he said.

“Remarkable?” said Willimon.

“Their ministry to the community has been a wonder,” continued the young man.
“That little church is now supporting, in one way or another, more than a dozen of the troubled families around the church.
The free day-care centre they established is going great.
And also, as you know, there’s not too many interracial congregations in North Georgia.”

Willimon could hardly believe his ears.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said the young man.
“One Sunday, things just sort of came together.
It wasn’t anything in particular.
It’s just that, when the service was done, and we were on our way out,
we knew that Jesus loved us and had plans for us.
Things fairly much took off after that.”

After reflecting upon what he had heard, Willimon said
I tell you what I think happened.
I think that church got intruded upon.
I think someone greater than I knocked the lock off that door,
kicked it open and offered them peace,
the Holy Spirit, mission and forgiveness.
And now, they are called “church.”

Church isn’t my hard work, your earnest effort, our long range planning or heavy duty giving.
Church isn’t our building, our organ, our choir, our praise band, our parking lot or our money in the bank
No, church is a gift, a visitation, an intrusion of the Living Christ standing among us.

May the Risen Christ and his Holy Spirit intrude upon our common life,
that we might be a church worthy of that name,
worthy of being called the body of Christ.
And may our prayer today and every day be simply this:
Come, be among us, Lord Jesus.