I'd like to tell you my ghost story.

About 20+ years ago, my wife Amy and I moved from Daytona Beach, Florida, to the small commuter's village of Hartsdale, in Westchester County, New York. Amy found us a place in a large apartment building. Amy and I soon found that most of the residents were mid-level managers from Japan. Most spoke little English, so Amy and I found ourselves mostly interacting with the dozen or so families who were born in the United States.

So Amy and I were saddened when we heard, one day, that an elderly English-speaking woman who lived a few floors below us had suddenly died. I'd seen her many times, mostly down in the basement laundry room or in the elevators. She always greeted me with a nod and one of her lovely smiles when we saw each other. So I found myself grieving a little (remember, I hardly knew her) when I heard of her death.

She died mid-week and a few days later I was in the laundry room doing the Saturday morning laundry. A wile later, I entered the elevator with my basket of clean laundry and pushed the button for my floor. The elevator stopped at the ground floor

And the dead woman got on.The dead woman got on – on the elevator with me.The door closed.There was no one but the two of us on the elevator.

Now, I don't know if anything like this has ever happened to you; but certainly, nothing like this had ever happened to me. I wasn't brought up with the skills to deal with something like this. So I decided to be cool, you know, nonchalant, sort of the way we, here in eastern Monmouth County pride ourselves as being when we spot Bruce Springsteen in a record store. You're not supposed to say anything to him, right? You might nod and smile; but you'd give Mr. Springsteen his space. He lives here too. We don't want to chase him away.

So I used Bruce Springsteen rules with my elevator ghost. I didn't say anything – just nodded and smiled. She smiled back. Then she pushed the elevator button for the 7th floor. "Wow," I thought, "I'm seeing a real ghost – and ghosts can push buttons. In movies, ghosts usually can't do that."

The elevator stopped at her floor. The door opened. She got out, turned right (the direction of her apartment) and disappeared down the hall. The door closed and I dropped my laundry basket.

"It's real," I thought as the elevator started to go up. "The afterlife is real. All that stuff in the Bible is real." Well, of course I knew that, I thought. And wasn't I, a minister of the Gospel, supposed to believe in the afterlife anyway? Of course, I believed in the afterlife. And I'd had an experience with the risen Lord 10 years before then. So why did seeing a ghost make any difference? I felt very confused.

I think that the first disciples must have gone through something like that. They'd had as many as three years before His death on the cross to experience His miracles. He'd walked on water, given sight to the blind, and fed the five thousand with a few loaves and fish. He was constantly teaching them about His Father in Heaven and about God's Kingdom. He even raised people from the dead. But the disciples all ran away after His crucifixion. They'd all been afraid for their lives.

Then Jesus started appearing to them. And that made the difference. His appearance gave them the courage to leave their locked rooms and spread the Good News.

It's notable that He appeared to groups of people at a time. Forget Hollywood for a moment. Most accounts of ghosts are of a recently dead person appearing to a single loved one. Jesus appeared to several women at His tomb and to 10 of the 11 disciples. Afterwards, his followers could check with each other to see if they were imagining the Lord's appearances.

No one else had seen my elevator ghost. I don't remember where Amy was that morning. But she hadn't been in the elevator when the ghost got in. I was the only witness, as is the case with most ghost stories. I found myself questioning my reliability as a witness. Did I really see her? Is there any reason why I would have wanted to see someone who wasn't there? Was I nuts?

I spent a lot of time the next few days going up and down the elevator. The ghost didn't come back. A few days later, though, I was riding up from the basement when the door opened. Several fellow residents got on. They were mid-conversation about the dead woman. I listened intently. "Too bad about her," one said. Everyone, myself included, nodded and murmured agreement. "And it's been so hard, this last few days, for her twin sister who has been here cleaning out her closets."

Oh. No ghost. My world changed back to its normal state in the flash of an eye. I still believed in the Lord. I still believed in the afterlife. I still believed – sort of – in ghosts. But I didn't have the tangible personal witness. I still believed in the Lord because there have been times, and there still are times, when I feel the Lord's powerful presence. As Charles Wesley wrote, "I know that my Redeemer lives."

In today's gospel, we are told a story about Jesus, during His lifetime, visiting two sisters in the home of the eldest. We usually focus on the contrast between Martha the older sister who is working hard in the kitchen and Mary, her younger sister who shirks her responsibilities to listen to the Lord's teaching. I've often heard United Methodist Women talk of themselves as "Marthas" when referring to those who preferred to work in the kitchen preparing refreshments while others, the "Marys" were in Bible Study.

Most of the time, most of us miss the point of this story. The point is lost if we focus on the women. The focus of the story is on the Lord, on His sudden appearance in the women's town, and His acceptance of Martha's invitation to come to her home. The point of the story is that Jesus still comes to us when asked, despite having died on the cross. The point is that He is still among us, still active with us, still concerned about us, still available to any who will sit at His feet. This is why He told Martha that Mary had "chosen the better part."

Each sister had done something significant that day. Martha had invited Him into her home. Mary had listened to Him once He was there. Mary would not have been able to listen to the Lord had Martha not asked Him in. But Martha was not listening to the Lord's teaching. The point is that you have to do both. You have to be both a Martha and a Mary. You have to invite the Lord in and then you have to listen to Him when He comes. Importantly, in the first place, you have to believe that He is still amongst us.

The experience of feeling the powerful presence of God is indescribable or as the theologian Rudolf Bultman said it, "language cannot describe God, not because God doesn't exist, but because language is inadequate to describe the experience." Then we are all sort of like the way I was the Saturday that I though I'd seen a ghost. You can't describe God or prove or disprove God's existence. You can't prove or disprove the appearances of the Lord to His disciples after His crucifixion – or today either. But if you've experienced the Lord's powerful presence, you know that He's real. And that's the only way that you're going to know for sure.

So, do I believe in ghosts? I didn't see a ghost that day. I've never seen a ghost. But I believe in the Lord. I believe that my redeemer lives. I believe that He came back from the dead and appeared to his disciples. And unlike the typical ghost story, the Lord didn't scare his disciples. Instead, he took their fears away. He gave them power over evil and sent them out into our world. And in this world in which all its fears and evil, that is good news indeed.

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