It was a PR nightmare for Domino’s Pizza.

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 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 my favorite contemporary comedian puts it, “Ya just can’t fix stupid.”

Of course, the 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 done. Did any of you see it? Did you order a Domino’s Pizza the next day? Have you been haunted by this one 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 home about a “five second rule.” But when someone outside our own gene pool is fixing the food . . . fughedaboutit.

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 all be eating only at home, or 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, 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.

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 are washing their hands after going to the bathroom?

Do you “trust” they are looking both ways before crossing the street?

Do you “trust” they will say “please” and “thank you” every time?

Do you “trust” their friends, and their friends’ parents?

Do you “trust” your teen’s pledges about 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 your assistant isn’t really an assassin?

Trust is what finally enabled that first generation of disciples to take on their new identity as eye-and-earwitnesses.

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 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 you think you’ve 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, calming asking for a nosh, and then nibbling down some fish. Put yourself in their place.

Luke’s text describes it well. Their 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 obtuse 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 is not until the disciples tune-in to Jesus’ “Remedial 101” lecture that their wonderment turns to witnessing. At last they truly listen. At last they truly open their hearts and minds to understand the lessons Jesus had already taught them: 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. 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 the 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 “obey” first. See if this helps. Latin word oboedire (“to obey”) is cognate to the word obaudire (“to listen) for a reason. The Latin root of the English word “obedience” is “obaudire,” the first definition of which is not “yield obedience” or “be subject to” but actually “to give ear, hearken, listen.” To be “obedient” at root means “to listen deeply” (hence audire, “to hear”). 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 deep listening. We listen to a lot of different things; can we listen to God? If we become what we hear, can be lean our lives into “hearing” God with the heart? And can we let other people listen in to our listening that we might hear better? This obedience as deep listening is not just something between Latin and English. In Hebrew scripture “to hear” implies “to obey,” and to “hear” God’s word meant to respond in obedience. At the heart of obedience is  . . . a hearing heart. Obedience is a tuned-in harmonic resonance with the essence of that which is heard. Deep listening to the divine leads to resonance with the Spirit of God which issues in change, in 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, by a friend. Trust is a particular issue today, since our “trust” in the foundations of our economy have been shattered and sundered.

Banks didn’t used to be 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 a 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 to intellectually assent to something. To believe is to hold something so close to the heart that you trust your life to it. The disciples’ “belief” is not some intellectual agreement to some cognitive ideal. Their “belief” is now fully embracing, gratefully leaning on, wholly trusting in, the risen Lord who stood before them. In fact, the word “truster” may be a better word than “believer.”

Doubting disciples have been transformed into passionate “Trust and Obeyers.” Jesus’ first instructions to his Trusters-and-Obeyers is challenging. It is only the third day after his crucifixion. The Passover crowds are still milling about. Their own lives are in jeopardy as followers of the executed criminal named Jesus. But Jesus tells his disciples to “stay.” They are not to run and hide, but “stay here in the city” (v.49). Stay in the midst of those who condemned and crucified. 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 not, most fundamentally, believing things about God, or getting right thoughts about God. 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 facts about God. Faith is friendship with God.

In the early 70s, 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 get 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: washed up, worn down, bummed out creatures. 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 appears to us in his Word, we who are washed up, worn down, bummed out creatures, energizing us with the mission of who we are and who we can be—if only we “Trust and Obey.”

[End by singing “Trust and Obey”]