United Methodist Church Hyde Park, NY

LATE BLOOMERS
John 20:19-31
 
 
I love moonflowers. Unlike most other flowers, moonflowers open not to the daylight, but to the darkness. As night approaches, they unfurl their swirling white petals. By the light of the moon and stars they shimmer, pale and lovely, against the darkened earth. One spring not long ago, I thought how wonderful it would be to plant together moonflowers and morning glories. Looking out the window, I would be greeted each morning and regaled every night. But it didn’t work out quite the way I planned. By July
the morning glories were bursting into glorious color each morning, splashes of blue amid trailing green vines. But as of late August, the moonflowers had yet to bloom. Still I waited expectantly for the night when the white blossoms would finally appear. Patiently I waited for my late bloomers to come to their season.
 
About the same time I read of a couple that planted five new rosebushes in the spring. They watered and tended the bushes daily. By May four of them had green leaves and were budding. The remaining bush looked dry and withered. They thought of replacing that dormant plant with another, but decided to give it more time. One day the wife noticed a tiny green leaf on the “dead” plant. Soon there were many leaves and even some buds. At last the buds opened and became beautiful roses.
 
Nature reminds us that all God’s creations are individual and each one will grow and bloom at a different rate and at a different time. We must be patient and guard against giving up on a plant that is growing at a different pace. That’s true for people as well as plants. With God, each of us has a season to bloom.
 
Some of us are early bloomers. At the age of five, Mozart was beginning to compose minuets and other pieces. A sufficient number of them have been preserved to show us his immediate grasp of musical forms. And he soon became proficient on both the harpsichord and the violin. Benjamin Franklin published his first newspaper column when he was sixteen. Shirley Temple was starring in movies at an age when most of us are just beginning to learn our A-B-C’s.
 
Some of us are late bloomers. Einstein did not speak until he was four years old, and didn’t read until he was seven. Golda Meir was seventy-one when she became prime minister of Israel. Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was eighty, yet she completed over 1,500 paintings during the remainder of her life, with twenty-five percent of them produced after she was one hundred years old. Some of us just seem to get around to things a little later than others. Some of us simply get it all together
somewhat slower than everybody else.
 
As I read this morning’s Gospel lesson, I began to think that maybe this was the problem of the unfortunate disciple now known to the world as “Doubting Thomas.” He was a late bloomer.
 
 
The more I’ve read, the more I’m convinced that Thomas has gotten a bad rap – his reputation as a skeptic is undeserved. Thomas was no better and no worse than the other disciples who needed time and reason to believe. Their incredulity demanded proof no less than the disbelief of Thomas, and what is more, it required the same kind of proof.
 
At dawn on Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene discovered the empty tomb and thought that someone had taken Jesus’ body away. It was only when she encountered the risen Christ in the garden and heard him speak her name that Mary believed in the resurrection. She told the disciples “I have seen the Lord.” But they had not and so they dismissed the report as an “idle tale.”
 
That night ten of the disciples met in a house behind locked doors, disheartened and cowering in fear. It is clear that as yet they had no personal knowledge that Jesus was alive. Then Jesus came and stood among them, spoke to them of peace, showed them his hands and his side – and they believed. But Thomas was not with them when Jesus came. He had missed the sunrise service and the first appearance and so he did not yet believe.
 
One week later the disciples were again gathered behind closed doors in the same house. This time Thomas was with them. Just as before Jesus came and stood among them, greeting them with words of peace. Then he offered Thomas the opportunity to do what no one else had done: to touch the wounds in his hands and side. There was no need. With just one look at Jesus, Thomas cried out his belief: “My Lord and my God.”
 
What Thomas received that night was no more and no less than what the others had received by way of proof – it was simply later. Instead of Doubting Thomas, it might be more appropriate to call him Thomas, the patron saint of all those who are last to know. Last, but not least.
 
I believe that Jesus returned to that house a second time because he knew that all Thomas needed for the seed of his faith to blossom was a little more time and cultivation. And I believe that Jesus knew how beautifully Thomas would bloom. Tradition says that Thomas carried the gospel all the way to India, where there still exists an order known as Christians of St. Thomas of India, who trace their faith back to him. Tradition also records that Thomas suffered martyrdom for his faith. It seems that he more than made up for any initial slowness to believe.
 
Like their Lord, the community of those who saw the risen Christ on Easter evening did not cast out the absent Thomas when he questioned their belief. That second meeting behind closed doors in the same house where Jesus had appeared to them a week earlier seems to have been specifically convened by the disciples to address Thomas’ initial skepticism. They nurtured Thomas in the fellowship of faith until he, too, could come by grace to the same. Thus all of the eleven – ten early bloomers and one late – were brought to resurrection faith.
 
 
As the story of Easter continues, we learn something important about acceptance, patience, and the need to nurture one another’s spiritual greening. Joyce Rupp, author of this morning’s call to worship and prayer, defines such greening, or “eastering” as she also refers to it, as “the inner transformation and rebirth that comes after a winter spell of the spirit.” This greening isn’t always instantaneous or even quick. It may be a painstakingly slow process, a tiny bit of hope gradually weaving through the pain, the doubt. It can’t be hurried.
 
That was the lesson one little girl taught her teacher. Five-year-old Jane was late for school. Her kindergarten teacher met her at the classroom door and said, “Good morning, Jane. I was beginning to worry about you. Why were you late?” Jane handed her teacher a geranium and said, “Sometimes I just have to wait until they bloom.”
 
Easter Sunday has come and gone, but resurrection faith and joy have not yet arrived for all of us. Among us are some whose hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain. Among us are some whose spirits are brown, dry, and lifeless. Among us are some who are trapped in Good Friday’s sorrow, loss, and death, or in its aftermath of doubt and fear. Each one needs an “eastering,” a bright greening. They long for it to come soon.
 
If you are such a one, my hope for you this Easter season is that you will trust the resurrection of your spirit. Believe that joy and new life will come for you, even though they may not be there for you now.
 
If you are one of the fortunate ones whose soul sings with happy alleluias this Eastertide, may you turn often to those who still await their greening, walk hopefully with them, and nurture them until their season to bloom is at hand.