It's one of the most powerful images in the history of Christianity: Jesus on the cross, flanked on either side by two thieves. Or if you were a first-century gawker at Golgotha, here are three criminals lifted up for humiliation on three crosses.

In the final hours of their lives, these three criminals formed a community of the dying. They entered into relationships with each other, shared intimacies, and conversed with each other about matters of life and death.

If you listen carefully to this dialog of the dying, you will hear the very same issues, even the very same words, being voiced throughout this postmodern culture. The same hungers and hopes, the same fears and infuriation that pervade our world today are vocalized by this community of the dying.

It's the classic postmodern scenario. On one side of Jesus is a thief who gets it. On the other side of Jesus is a thief who doesn't get it. On one side of Jesus, even though he's a few feet away in his dying moments from the Son of God, a criminal whose bitterness and unrepentance stiff-arms the Savior of the world.

On the other side of Jesus, a criminal who opens his heart to God and speaks the words of Eucharistic resonance: "Remember me." That's all it took . . . two words: "Remember me."

Who is the first member of the church? Who is the first Christian in heaven? These two words from the heart were enough for Jesus to place this criminal inside the church: "Today you shall be with me in paradise." The first Christian in heaven was a criminal condemned to death.

On one side of Jesus: the church. On the other side of Jesus: the world. We don't know which is on Jesus' right, and which is on Jesus' left (always important to remember at election time). We only know that one Jesus ushered personally into heaven.

Every church is in mission and ministry to one of these thieves. Which thief is it? Which thief is your church facing? Which thief is your church serving? The one that joined the church? Or the one that remains outside the gates? (With thanks for this insight to church consultant J. David Schmidt.)

Is this church facing the church thief?
Or is this church facing the world thief?
We have to face one or the other. Which will it be?
(Pause here for a hard drive in another direction)

When I was growing up the phrase "saved by the bell" had special meaning. Does it have any meaning to you? If you're under 30, you might think of an adolescent soap opera that played on one of the networks in the 80's and 90's called Saved by the Bell. But if you're over 30, there's a whole other set of images that come to mind: dinner bells, boxing rings, schoolhouses.

In my misspent youth, the first two came together. My brothers and I would be wrestling each other when suddenly Gramma would ring the dinner bell. Whoever was on top would let the other one go and end the wrestling match with the condescending words: saved by the bell.

Actually, the phrase has nothing to do with dinner tables or boxing rings or the beginning of school. Nor does it derive from the use of bells to regulate the offices of the day and mark significant ritual moments. What it does have to do with is cemeteries.

I love to worship at churches that have cemeteries next to them. My brother is interim pastor at a Presbyterian church in New Jersey where the path from the parking lot to the front of the church takes you right through the graveyard. There is nothing more theologically correct than for a church to have a graveyard next to it. It may be a nightmare for the trustees, but it's a dream come true for a theologian. Is there any better symbol of the communion of the saints than this? Every time I see a church with a cemetery next to it I am reminded that the majority of the church is underground. We exist in relationship with them. We don't go anywhere without them. They are part of the living witness of the church.

In the mid 18th century, waves of death, disease, and destruction swept through the villages of England, Scotland and Wales. The cemeteries became full. Our forebears did not have the legal scruples about grave sites that we do today. So in some places they decided to recycle the graves and reuse the space. They dug up the coffins of those that had been buried in centuries past, removed the remains to another site, and buried new bodies.

As they reopened the coffins, they discovered to everyone's horror that in 2-5 percent of the cases, there were scratch marks on the inside walls of coffins, claw marks, kick marks, bodies that were turned over with their backs to the coffin lids as if trying to break out, even teeth marks. In other words, one out of every 25 people buried was buried alive.

Word spread like wildfire. The fear of being buried alive became one of the greatest fears in the latter half of the 18th century. At a time when medical science was in its infancy, and when embalming had not yet become customary (not until the Civil War in the U.S. was embalming standard), some people were being buried alive.

Whether all of these corpses exhumed with telltale signs of body movement were actually being buried alive, or whether this movement of corpses was the result of internal gases being released after death and muscle paroxysms and contractions, the fact remains: the fear of being buried alive was real. It was as real a terror as having your house broken into is today. The whole idea of a wake was for the family to stay with the body around the clock in case the deceased awakened. George Washington was so afraid of being buried alive that he even put in his will that he would not be buried until 5 days after being declared dead.

To allay the fears of the people, cemetery trustees hit on an ingenious idea. They tied a string on the wrist of ankle of the deceased, threaded it through the coffin and up through the ground, and on top of the grave mounted a little bell tower. If you were unfortunate enough to be that 1 in 25 being "buried alive," you would wake up and ring the bell. I call this the ultimate in room service. Or more precisely, the ultimate in "tomb service."

Hence the expression "saved by the bell." Franz Hartmann in 1895 published a book titled Buried Alive: An Examination into the Occult Causes of Apparent Death, Trance and Catalepsy (Boston: Occult Publishing Co., 1895), the story of 700 incidents of premature burial and people being "saved by the bell." For additional insight, read Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson. (March 2000, W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 039304906X.)

Since cemeteries were social centers in the 18th century – places where you'd take your date for a picnic, or walk your cow – there was no problem in finding people to dig you up in the daytime when a bell went off. The problem was at night, when cemeteries were deserted and supposedly haunted. What church trustees ended up doing was hiring people to sit up all night and listen for the bells to ring.

This is the source of another expression that has made it into our language. Anyone guess what it is? The people hired to work nights at graveyards were said to work the . . . graveyard shift. By the way, the phrase "dead ringer" has nothing to do with graveyards. It's a gambling phrase that has a whole different source of meaning from horse-racing. A ringer was a horse substituted for another to defraud bookies; "dead" here means exact rather than lifeless.

Just so you don't think I've mistaken urban legend for historical truth, there's clip from Sean Connery's 1978 film, The Great Train Robbery (CBS-Fox Video, 1978) that depicts such a circumstance. In fact, the movie's plot pivots around it.

Numerous patents were issued in the U.S. and England which enabled those afraid of being buried alive to come back to life. Bells, flags, and later on, electric lights.

In 1791 they even started a "Waiting Mortuary."  The deceased was placed on zinc trenches and hooked up to an intricate system of cords and pulleys that were attached to a variety of body parts. Any movement of any part of the body would cause the bells to ring. Alas, the bells were constantly ringing because of body-gases, contractions, etc. But after two weeks, if no one came back to life, the bodies were officially declared dead.

The chamberlain to the Czar of Russia invented a most ingenious device for detecting premature burial. It consisted of a tube which passed up out of the coffin lid and ended in an airtight box above ground. A glass sphere was connected to a mechanism inside the box, so the slightest movement of the deceased chest would move the glass sphere and stretch the spring and which caused the lid of the box to fly open to admit air and light. The spring would also activate a flag, a light, and a loud bell to attract attention of anyone in the graveyard.

But the most common devices were the bells mounted on the coffin lids.

How many churches do you know of with steeples? When you think of a church, don't you think of a steeple? And what's in the steeple? About 80% of churches have steeples, and a good portion of those with steeples have bells (or beales) in them. Bells are alleged to have special powers: they can repel demons, lift spells, etc. In Roman Catholicism, the bell is the voice of God. Hence bells are consecrated before they are used liturgically or to regulate the canonical hours that structure the daily prayer of monks, nuns, and priests.

How many of our bells are ringing? Actually, it used to be that our communities were filled with sounds, not just of bells tolling, but of bells pealing. There is a difference between pealing and tolling. One bell in slow repetition tolls. Multiple free-swinging bells peal. Peals can last for as long as 3 hours. In tolling, the cone of the bell hits a stationary clacker, causing a single sound that often symbolizes death.

In pealing, the clacker hits the cone of the bell in a continuous rhythmic motion, causing a joyful sound that most often symbolizes celebration and life. Pealing requires a kind of bell ringing called "change ringing." The first peal in North America was rung at Christ Church, Philadelphia, in 1850. The first peal in Canada was at the Cathedral of the Holy Rosary in Vancouver for Coronation of George V in 1911. We have only been averaging 80 peals a year in the whole of North America.

Why are our steeples so silent? Either pealing or tolling, our bells are dumb. Why?

Is there a better definition for what this church is to be about than "saved by the bell?" One of the best definitions of preaching I've ever heard is: "20 minutes in which to raise the dead."

So why are our bells not ringing? About the only time you hear our bells ring is at weddings, or sometimes to summon people to church. But other than that, our bells are hushed.

Why are they silent? Could it be that we have hooked up our bells to the wrong thief. Might not the silence of our steeples be due to the fact that we've tied the clappers of our church bells to the "church thief" and not the "world thief?"

Granted, it's a lot more pleasant to hook up our bells to the church thief. Look how much more appealing he looks. Some painters even made him take on the appearance of Jesus. Now look at the tortured, twisted, tormented countenance of the world thief. (Show again the last images of the crucifixion in close-up.)

But is this what the gospel says: "For God so loved the church?" Or is it not "For God so loved the world". Is the reason our bells are silent the reality that the church is in ministry and mission to itself and not to the world? Isn't it interesting that the only bell-ringing that goes on in our churches is the music of bell choirs? Might this not be another form of "preaching to the choir?"

It's not a love for the church that burns bright in the air of Christ's love. It's a love for the world.

Don't show me the number of people who are interested in this church. Show me the people in whom this church is interested. Show me the people for whom we feel responsibility.

With whom are we in ministry?

For whom is our mission?

In William Faulkner's Light in August, the suggestion is made that the problem with the church is "not the outward groping of those within it nor the inward groping of those without, but the professionals who control it and who have removed the bells from its steeples." [William Faulkner, Light in August New York: Modern Library, 1950), 426 (With thanks to Dr. Lovett Weems, President of St. Paul School of Theology, for this quote.)

Wait a minute, you say: But people aren't being buried alive today.

Oh, really?

You mean people aren't being buried alive today? Buried alive above ground?

You don't hear the bells going off from our kids who are being buried alive today?

Two-thirds of young people say they know a teen who's tried to commit suicide. Our children are self-destructing. They are being eaten alive and buried alive. We don't hear their bells?

A Richmond, California schoolteacher asked students to produce a list of problems kids face today. This is what they wrote: kidnapping, parents being on the pipe, adults being crazy, parents beating their kids, and getting popped in the head.

We live in a culture that buries people too quickly. We especially give up on poor kids too quickly.

In the world out there the bells are not just tolling. The bells are pealing. People are being buried alive today in . . .

(You may want to consider actually passing out bells, and when they see images of people in need, have them ring their bells. Match these words with the images on the screen.)

• hunger
• war
• homelessness
• abuse
• gambling
• poverty
• AIDS

The cries for help being sent out into the void are deafening. There are so many bells going off from people being buried alive our ears ought to hurt from so much bell-ringing. We ought to look more like this...(get an image here of Quasimodo) ... who was almost deaf from the ringing of the bell. Do we turn a deaf ear to the bells being run, because it's not in our backyard, it's not in our graveyard?

The bells are going off all the time out there. Is this church hooked up to those calling for help so that it's bells are ringing?

The bells are ringing: can you hear them? Can you hear the ringing in our ears? It's time to peal, church, moved by the Spirit, which sets the church asong.

The bell has rung - once for all time. The Bell Ringer was Jesus. Life has triumphed over death. Hope over despair. Truth over falsehood. In "It's a Wonderful Life," when a bell rings, an angel gets his wings. When the church bell rings, snares are broken, cords loosed, wounds healed, prisoners freed.

Have you heard those bells? Is the world hearing those bells in this belfry? Can you hear the bells ringing?

Show here the video clip from the famous "Trick or Treatment" (1 November 1982) Halloween episode of M*A*S*H and the "he's dead" toe tag (M*A*S*H: The Last Will and Testament, Collector's Edition, 20th Century Fox, Columbia House Video, 1998).

End with this: Some Sunday I'm going to preach a sermon with no words. You're going to come to church. But every door will be locked and bolted. And on the front door, there will be a note in the keyhole of the big lock.

The note will read simply: "I'm out there." Signed, GOD.