The Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski
March 30, 2008
The Second Sunday of Easter, Year A

In 1991 a movie came along at a time when I was in the midst of difficult change.  The movie was Truly, Madly, Deeply.  It was set in England in which two lovers Nina and Jamie live a blissful life — he a cellist, she an English teacher.  The movie title comes from a conversation they used to have that went….Jamie: “I love you.”  Nina: “I really love you.”  Jamie: “I really, truly love you.”  Nina: “I really, truly, madly love you.”  Jamie: “I really, truly, madly, deeply love you.”  And so on….

Jamie dies.  Nina is lost in grief.  Then an amazing thing happens:  Jamie comes back as a ghost.  It’s unbelievable, but soon they take up their new life, shutting themselves off from the world.  In time Jamie’s dead ghost friends start showing up at Nina’s house.  They more or less take over the place and Nina resents it.  It’s a story about Jamie’s amazing return and Nina’s journey of letting him go and needing him to stay dead.

Today we hear of Thomas’ doubt about the risen Jesus — a gospel about faith, doubt, questions, and the choice to reverse what one believes in order to accept a new reality.  So, what does this story of Thomas have to do with the movie Truly, Madly, Deeply?

In both stories someone truly, madly and deeply loved has died.  For Nina it’s Jamie; for the disciples it’s Jesus.  The deaths leave the survivors lost, unable to set a direction, locking themselves away — Nina in her house, the disciples in the Upper Room.  The shock of loss makes the uncertainty of what to do next overwhelming.  And then, something totally outside the realm of earthly existence happens.  The dead one returns.

In both stories the survivors are confronted with a new reality.  When they are just coming to grips with the truth that their loved one is gone, they are forced to deal with the possibility that they are not gone at all.  They’ve come back and yet, they’re not quite the same. 

And here’s the important part:  They both had a choice about what to do when confronted with this new reality.  Would they accept their loved alive or would they keep them dead?

This is what I believe is at the heart of the gospel about Thomas’ doubt.  It’s a question Thomas faced and one that we all face.  Will I accept Jesus alive and risen or keep him dead?

When Jamie came back to Nina he wasn’t the same.  His new life as a ghost came with a price, a price she was unwilling to pay.  It was too much to live with him as a ghost.  She chose to move on, which is the point of the movie, but the movie also reveals that being confronted with an alive, real person exacts a price.  At the Easter Vigil I preached about the promise of resurrection that simply comes to us as surprise, but today, Thomas presents another picture, one in which acceptance of a living Jesus exacts a price. 

Thomas was just getting used to the reality of Jesus’ death and now he’s asked to change.  I can imagine him saying, “I’ve been in denial that Jesus is gone and just as I’ve accepted this tragic reality you’re asking me to accept something completely different.”

Changing what we truly believe is difficult.  Grasping a new reality, being asked to change, or, worse, being forced to change is hard.  An alive Jesus exacts a price.  Look at what happened to the apostles.  The price of following an alive Jesus was huge — one paid with their own lives.

In some ways a dead Jesus is easier to follow.  It’s the living one that never stops pushing and prodding us to see a new reality, to grow deeper in our commitment to others, to leave our comfort zone, to do more; to give more of ourselves.  This endless discomfort brought by the living Jesus is often too much to take, and we wish he would simply go away.

One of the great theologians in the Episcopal Church was a woman named Verna Dozier.  I had the immense privilege of knowing Verna, who was a member of my parish in Washington, DC.  At the heart of her theology is the idea that we are called to “follow” Jesus, not worship him.  In the gospels Jesus points away from himself to the Father…today he says “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”  Verna held that the great sin of Christianity is that we have moved away from Jesus’ teaching.  We forgot the message.  It’s about following, not worshiping.  It’s about following the alive Jesus who challenges us, makes us uncomfortable and sends us, giving us His Spirit to unlock the doors of fear that keep us from following.  To merely worship and not follow is to keep Jesus dead and buried.  Resurrection proclaims Jesus alive and all the messiness that entails.  Following an alive Jesus is hard.  It exacts a price.  It compels us to change.  An alive Jesus makes us uncomfortable, asking us to confront our limitations and to love more truly, deeply, madly God and one another.  Like Thomas, the choice to follow an alive Jesus or keep him dead is ours.  Amen.
      

© Copyright 2008 by the Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski