AFGO

John 20: 19-31
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
April 3, 2016 – Bright Sunday

             

         This past week, when Olivia and I visited the Kennedy Space Center, I was reminded of how fond NASA is of acronyms: MECO, CAPCOM, EECOM, LEM, EVA, MMU, VOX, and the like. But did you also know about WONG: weight on nose gear. That sounds wong to me. Or WORM: write once, read many. You may not think about WOW in the same way again: worst on worst. OOP is out of position, so if you had multiple ones, that would definitely be an OOPS. MRS gets a better deal as management review system, as does MOM: mission operations manager. 

If you’re headed to the GYM, you might actually be going to Guaymas, Mexico.   If you’re going to the DISCO, Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office, they may not appreciate your dance moves.  GUIDO is really your guidance officer.  When you play DARTS, you may actually want a digital automated radar tracking system.  SERF or Space Environment Research Facility does not bode well for those who work there.  And we can see why the acronym LOSS for lunar orbital space station doesn’t get a lot of press.

There are over 14,000 acronyms used in NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  It's a corporate language, shorthand, but only for insiders.  If you work for DuPont or the university or another large corporation, you probably run into the same thing. 

The UCC or United Church of Christ is just as guilty of insider language.  The national office in Cleveland started a video campaign for OCWM or Our Church’s Wider Mission called "Changing Lives", because many congregations didn’t know or couldn’t explain well enough what it is.  There are jokes about what UCC really stands for:  Utterly Confused Christians, because our theologies are so wide and varied.  People think we don't know what we stand for.  Another is Unitarians Considering Christ, which is actually true in some UCC churches.  Probably the most popular one is Unlimited Coffee and Cookies, which speaks to our extravagant welcome. We may not always be one, but we may all be headed for Jenny Craig.

My favorite acronym is one that I learned in seminary:  AFGO.  I won’t say exactly what the F stands for, so let’s just say Another Fabulous Growth Opportunity.  It’s a way of putting a positive spin on a monumental mistake or failure.  If you Google AFGO, one of the first things that pops up is an HVAC company called AFGO Mechanical Services Inc. in Astoria, NY.  Perhaps they’ve taken to heart this positive spin on failure and they learn from it.  On their website they declare themselves “New York Metro’s leading HVAC professionals”.

Failure or mistakes are things we don’t always handle well in the Church, but ironically the Church began due to an epic failure: the death of Jesus.  As messiah, Jesus was a total failure:  he didn’t throw out the Romans; he didn’t start a holy war to rid the earth of God’s enemies; he didn’t assert himself as king of Israel from the lineage of David; he didn’t establish a lasting peace with Jerusalem as its center.  An AFGO if ever there was one.  Now this morning we have Thomas missing out big time on Jesus’ resurrection confab with the rest of the disciples.  “Hey, you just missed him.”  As if Thomas had been getting take-out for the rest of the guys, but was late getting back to the very important staff meeting.  What a mess.  Another fabulous growth opportunity.  Epic fail.  Thomas questions the whole experience and holds out for some answers.

But Jesus doesn’t hold it against him.  He gives Thomas the growth opportunity and the wisdom he needs to regain his faith and his place among the disciples who were to spread the story about the resurrection.  Anne Lamott wrote, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”  Laughter is one fabulous way some light can return.  And laughing at our mistakes and even our failures means that we take things so seriously, we don’t despair.

The resurrection is the ultimate AFGO, the positive spin put on the death of Jesus.  “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”  “He is not here.  He is risen.”  Love and life have the last laugh on the apparent failure of death.  To us, death looks like the end.  To God, it’s the most glorious AFGO of all.  Amen.