"The Choice Offered in the Locked House" - Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter

It was reported that one reason the president fired the attorney general was because she was insufficiently retributive and vengeful against his political enemies.

Someday our nation’s strife will be o’er, the battle done. The powers of death will have done their worst, but they will be gone. And then, as we recover and rebuild, we will have moral choices to make, outside of the system of laws which will, I hope, bring justice to the injured and punishment for those found guilty. All this is for the courts to ask and answer.

The Church will, I hope, ask and answer the one moral question upon which true justice will be served or set aside: Will we be a people of reconciliation and renewal? Or of retribution and revenge?

The desire for retribution against our own political opponents – enemies is too strong a word – retribution will be tempting: not against the politicians, who remain out of our reach; but against ordinary people – our family, or friends, or neighbors, or coworkers, or fellow congregants – who voted for and supported the other side. I have ordinary people from each category in my life. It is likely that you do, too.

When the time comes, will the Church be judged by some as insufficiently retributive and vengeful against these ordinary people – these fellow children of God – when, as I hope, her clergy and laity, you and I among them, choose to act as Jesus chose to act on that day of his resurrection?

Jesus’s Good Friday body carried the weight of the world’s sins on his cross-scarred shoulders. His very same body Easter Day retained the marks of his torture and execution. His mind, fully divine and fully human, held the memories of his disciples’ betrayal and denial, of their fear and abandonment, and of the crowd’s call for his crucifixion.

Jesus – who could have done anything, said anything when he entered that locked house – Jesus said to his disciples, to his Church, “Peace be with you.”

And then Jesus empowered his Church, as he empowers us, to forgive sins … or to retain them. But retaining sins comes at a cost. It means to share their weight, to co-shoulder the yoke of their burden.

Jesus already took on all their weight, already carried that all that heavy burden for us – including the vast sins of the future that had yet to be committed by you and me, and, yes, by this administration. Why would we presume to pick up what Jesus left behind on Calvary’s hill? Each of us already has our own cross to bear. Isn’t that enough?

I know that, for some, even for some in this congregation, nailed to their crosses are the real injuries hammered in by members of this administration. Careers curtailed or ended. Existential uncertainties and attacks on hard-won civil rights. And for those like me, lucky enough not yet to have suffered direct injury, still we sympathize in solidarity with the aggrieved and the afflicted. Our impulse not only for justice but also for retaliation is understandable.

But vengeance remains in the Lord’s portfolio only. Retribution is unlikely to win any converts and reconcile any relationships. It is more common, when being yelled at, or made fun of, or name-called, for people to get their backs up higher and dig their heels in deeper rather than thoughtfully to reconsider their position, to see just how the other was harmed or humiliated. I know. I have been the giver and the receiver in these types of arguments.

Even knowing this, still it is hard work. It seems impossible. But, then again, Jesus’s resurrection seemed impossible, too.

Today’s collect teaches us that the Paschal mystery of God’s passion for us – the Son’s birth and ascension, his death and resurrection, his love and his suffering – all this, all this, is to establish something new for us: to live not in the regime of retribution and vengeance; but to live, converted by Christ crucified, in God’s kingdom of reconciliation.

When the time comes, which will you choose? … But why wait? Choose now.      

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

Second after Easter A – April 12, 2026

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“The Choice Offered in the Locked House”