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By Pastor Brian Bestian
Two employees recorded themselves as they carefully concocted a “special treat” for their customers. They ceremoniously dropped pizza toppings on the floor, mashed them around, scraped them up, and daintily arranged them on the pizza pie. They stuck cheese strands up their own noses, extracted them, and giddily sprinkled them over the sauce. They squished and spit the condiments over the top. Then, they uploaded their creativity onto the Internet for all to see.
As a well-known, present-day comedian puts it, “Ya just can’t fix stupid.” Of course, the public outcry was immediate. Domino’s Pizza was instantly plunged into the highest damage control alert possible. The two employees, who can only be called “Dumb and Dumber,” were fired on the spot. That particular Domino’s outlet was closed for a complete sanitation “do-over.”
But for anyone who saw the video the damage was already done. For those of you who saw the video, did you order a Domino’s Pizza the next day? Have you been haunted by this single fact: Do any of us really know where our food has been before it reaches our table at a restaurant? We can joke with our own family in the safety of our home about a “five-second-rule.” But when someone outside our own gene pool is fixing the food? Forget-about-it.
The entire “you-serve-me” food industry is based upon a certain level of trust. We trust others to prepare good, healthful, quality-controlled food. Without that trust, we would either: 1.) all be eating only at home, or 2.) there would be a great number of employment opportunities for food tasters. Even official food tasters can’t protect us, though, from the lurking evils of salmonella or e-coli poisoning—toxins that we cannot taste and whose symptoms don’t show up immediately. Recently our trust in the food industry has been tested and tarnished by tainted spinach, tomatoes, and peanut butter.
Trust is something that evolves over time. And trust can be shattered in a moment. For you parents, ever visit your first semester college student’s dorm room? Do you still trust all you taught them about “cleanliness being next to godliness”? Do you trust that your teaching them responsibility really did sink in?
We weave the delicate strands of trust beginning with our youngest children:
- Do you trust they’re washing their hands after going to the bathroom?
- Do you trust they’re looking both ways before crossing the street?
- Do you trust they will say “please” and “thank you” every time they’re dining or staying at a friend’s house?
- Do you trust their friends and their friends’ parents?
- Do you trust your teen’s pledges about abstinence from drugs, alcohol, and sex?
As an adult, do you trust your co-workers? Can you trust that they are being supportive, not subversive? Can you trust that your work assistant isn’t really a work assassin?
Trust is what finally enabled that first generation of Christian disciples to take on their new identity as eye-and-ear-witnesses for Christ. The disciples were terrified after the arrest, trial, condemnation, and crucifixion of Jesus. Wouldn’t you have been? Their Master had been branded as a common criminal, and with two other convicts was executed in the most hideous, humiliating manner the Roman state had ever devised. After His death, Jesus’ disciples scurried and scattered, hiding themselves away from the sight of religious or state authorities.
Then there was that empty tomb. Talk about being stunned! The stories of a risen Jesus startled and confused them even further. And just when they thought they’d seen and heard everything, suddenly, Jesus stands in their midst, holding out His hands and feet for inspection, inviting them to poke and prod at Him, calmly asking for a snack, and then nibbling down some fish. Put yourself in their place.
Luke’s account describes it well. The disciples’ status was a convergence of opposing emotions: confused, despairing, hopeful, joyful, disbelieving. Or in Luke’s exact words, “in their joy they were [still] disbelieving.” The disciples stood before the risen Jesus overjoyed, but thickheaded and baffled. Their hearts were full. But their heads were empty.
That’s when Jesus sat them down and gave them a crash course in “Remedial Discipleship 101.” It isn’t until the disciples tune-in to Jesus’ remedial lecture that their wonderment turns to witnessing. At last, they truly listen and open their hearts and minds to understand the lessons Jesus had already taught them: That the Messiah was “to suffer;” the Messiah was “to rise from the dead on the third day;” and finally, the Messiah would offer “repentance and forgiveness of sins” if the disciples were to continue His mission “in His name” (Luke 24:46-47).
No longer are these words strange or unintelligible to them. As the disciples open themselves to the resurrected Lord, and they come to their senses about what they had seen and heard, Jesus’ words become the cornerstone of a new mission. And this mission is best summarized in two words: “Trust and Obey.” What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? “Trust and Obey.”
For some of us, trust is the harder word. For others of us, obey is the harder word. Let’s take the word obey first. See if this helps. The Latin root of the English word obedience doesn’t mean to “be subject to” like you might expect, but it actually means “to give ear, hearken, listen.” In other words, at its root, the word obedient means “to listen deeply.” This is why the Rule of St. Benedict opens, “Listen, carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”
To obey literally translates as “deep listening” or “total hearing.” Obeying is a deep listening. We listen to a lot of different things, but do we listen to God? In the Hebrew Scriptures, “to hear” implies “to obey.” So, to “hear” God’s Word meant to respond in obedience. At the heart of obedience is . . . a hearing heart. Obedience is a tuned-in heart to the Spirit of God who issues in change and transformation.
That is why obedience goes hand-in-hand with trust. For some of you this morning, the trust word is even harder than the obey word. Your trust has been betrayed by a spouse, by a child, by a co-worker, or by a friend. Trust is a particular issue today, since our trust in the foundations of our economy has been shattered.
Did you know that banks weren’t originally called banks? They used to be called “trust companies.” How times have changed! Or imagine you were Elie Wiesel, the holocaust survivor and Pulitzer Prize winning author who lost everything twice in his lifetime. Once in the holocaust, when he lost his entire family and all his possessions because of the Nazis. Then in 2009, when he lost everything again, including his 50 million dollar Elie Wiesel Foundation, because of his trust in another Jewish brother, Bernie Madoff.
Trust was a particular issue for the disciples in our text this morning. As the disciples stared into the face of their resurrected Lord, they finally knew the joy of trusting in His word. The disciples became “witnessing believers.” The Greek word for believe is pistis, which has as its primary meaning “trust.” To believe is not just to intellectually assent to something. To believe is to hold something so close to the heart that you trust your life to it. So, the disciples’ belief is now fully embracing, gratefully leaning on, wholly trusting in, the risen Lord who stood before them.
These doubting disciples had been transformed into passionate “Trusters and Obeyers.” And Jesus’ first instructions to them are challenging. It is only the third day after His crucifixion. The Passover crowds are still milling about Jerusalem. The disciples’ own lives are in jeopardy as followers of the executed criminal named Jesus. But Jesus tells His disciples to “stay here in the city” (v. 49). They are not to run and hide, but are to stay in the midst of those who condemned and crucified Him. Stay in a place that is no home, and is not safe. Stay together, and wait. Will they trust Him enough even though they don’t comprehend?
Jesus’ disciples wanted to scatter like dandelion seeds. But they didn’t. They had made the transition from doubters and debaters to trusters and obeyers. Belief is a trust relationship with God. Trust is a better word than belief to describe what lies at the heart of faith, which has more to do with relationship than with explanation. Faith is not simply facts about God. Faith is a living friendship with God.
In the early 1970s, the Mafia, especially in New York City, was washed up and worn out. Then the movie “The Godfather” came out. More than anything else, it was that movie that brought the Mafia back to life. “The Godfather” movie energized them and told them who they were. They weren’t thugs. They were just like every other ethnic group---trying to carve their piece of the pie, trying to make the dream of the American Promised Land come true. And that was the beginning of their comeback.
This morning, we are like the disciples after Jesus’ crucifixion—at times, washed up, worn down, bummed out followers. Then Jesus changed everything. It was Jesus’ appearance and assurance that energized them and reminded them of who they were and could be.
This morning, Jesus once again appears to us in His Word and Sacrament, we who are washed up, worn down, bummed out followers, energizing us with the mission of who we are and who we can be—if only we trust and obey Him.
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