Doubt and Thomas

[Our lessons were Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; and John 20:19-31.]

During one of the tax protests this week, a woman was seen holding a sign which read, “My God, My Money, My Guns”. I suspect she is certain that our country is departing from the true path of capitalism and that capitalism of course is God’s will.

I wonder how she would square that with the words we just heard from Acts: “... no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” The believers sold their homes and land and gave the proceeds to the apostles who distributed the funds so that there “was not a needy person among them.”

Compare that practice of the early Church to the assertions that those who are in dire straits are “losers” who are in trouble solely because of their own irresponsibility with the clear implication that those who have do not have any obligation towards those who do not have. We obviously can’t say that there is not a needy person among us in this country!

While we want certainty in our lives, we must be careful not to confuse doubt—the lack of certainty—with disbelief. And that brings us to the familiar story of St. Thomas.

We really don’t know that much about St. Thomas. What most of us think we know is from this familiar story in St. John’s Gospel. But, on other occasions, Thomas showed that he was committed to Jesus. He was been willing to face death for Jesus when the other disciples were afraid. But the events of Good Friday were too much for him. Can we blame him?

We don’t know where Thomas went, but we know he was not with the other disciples on the evening of the first Easter, when the risen Lord first appeared to them. He missed it! So, when the disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord,” it was too much for him to believe and he demanded proof. This resurrection story was too good to be true.

Thomas had separated himself from the other disciples and missed Jesus’ appearance. Christ appears to us most within the community of believers—the Church—and when we separate ourselves from the Church, we risk missing him.

We can all identify with Thomas. Thomas is a lot like us—wanting to believe, but not able to make that leap of faith without help.

Jesus did not blame Thomas for his doubt. Jesus again appears to the disciples, including Thomas, and gently said, “Do not doubt but believe,” and Thomas responded, “My Lord and my God!” This was the first time Jesus was named as God, not exactly a minor event!

Faith is not the absence of doubt; it is the overcoming of doubt. We all doubt at times—when the pain of loss is too deep, when evil seems to triumph for a day—and we will do so again. To err may be human, but to doubt certainly is.

This reading speaks directly to us. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Scholars believe that John’s Gospel was written later than the other Gospels, possibly as late as 90 or 100. By that time, everyone was one of “those who have not seen.” They needed to be told that those who had not physically seen Jesus are blessed as well.

We often call Thomas “Doubting Thomas” and we don’t mean it in a good way. We seem to believe that it is wrong to doubt. But doubting is a natural part of the human nature that God gave us and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

One of my favorite literary characters, Anthony Trollope’s Duke of Omnium, put it this way when consoling a friend who had been wrongly charged with murder. He said, “I no more believed you could have done that than could I. But I am human and fallible and I could not eliminate doubt.” Even when we say we are “sure”, we can’t escape doubt. And when we doubt, we can look to Thomas’ example. He can give us the courage to face our doubts.

God does not require or expect or even want us to be free of doubt. He calls us to face our doubts, honestly and openly. We need to have courage and wisdom to deal with our doubts, not accept a false idea that doubting itself is wrong. We need this inner-directed kind of doubt that makes us aware of our own limitations and keeps us on the path of discovery—on our journey of faith in Christ.

When we have doubts and we struggle to believe, we should think of Thomas. He shows us that doubt need not destroy faith. “Love can survive in darkness, unveiling in the gloom the presence of the risen Lord.” And when that happens, we can only hope to respond as he did, “My Lord and My God.”

Those of us in our time as ones who haven’t had the opportunity to be eyewitnesses to the Resurrection have the testimony of the eyewitnesses, which was passed on to other believers and to the next generation, until it is here with us today. It is our faith now that believes because of their testimony and the lives of the faithful over the centuries.

[My thanks to the Rev. Canon Daniel J. Webster of New York and the Daily Episcopalian web site for the story on the tax protests.]

Hearing the Cock Crow

Our priest this morning told us a very moving story that I wanted to post (in paraphrase as I wasn't taking notes):

A priest was hungry at lunch time and stopped at this hamburger joint. It was fairly crowded and while he waited his turn to order, he noticed an elderly black man standing alone at another counter, waiting patiently for someone to take his order, but he was being ignored. The priest was in a hurry, so he didn't say anything.

The priest waited his turn and ordered a cheeseburger and french fries. He saw that the elderly black man was still being ignored. The priest was in a hurry, so he didn't say anything.

When they brought him his food--a cheeseburger with all the trimmings, french fries and a drink, they still were ignoring the elderly black man, who patiently waited, shifting his weight from one leg to another, as someone may do when they're tired from too much standing. The priest was in a hurry, so he didn't say anything.

They charged him $1.95 (obviously this wasn't a new story). While he waited for his change, he saw that a clearly uninterested employee finally took the black man's order--a hamburger. They brought out a shrivelled, overcooked pattie on a stale dried-up bun, no trimmings, no fries, and nothing to drink. When the black man paid for it, he gave the employee three $1 bills. The employee turned his back on the man and walked away, not giving any change in return. The priest was in a hurry, so he didn't say anything.

And, as he left the restaurant, he heard a cock crow...

We can deny Jesus in all kinds of ways, from what we say to what we do. Sometimes it's what we don't do, as when we are silently complicit in wrongdoing.

Hosanna!

[Our lessons were Mark 11:1-11; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; and Mark 14:1-15:47.]

Holy Week is a time of contrasts. We begin Palm Sunday in seeming triumph, which quickly turns to what seems to be final, utter defeat, which in three days itself turns into the victory of Easter Day. One of the things that makes Holy Week difficult for us is these sudden mood swings back and forth.

Around the year 380, a Spanish nun named Egeria visited the Holy Land and described the Bishop and people going in procession from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem, carrying palm fronds and olive branches, re-enacting Jesus’ triumphal procession into Jerusalem.

In his method of entry, Jesus carried out a bit of street theatre, parodying the triumphal entry of a victorious Roman emperor. Instead of the emperor’s war horse, he rode on a donkey, signifying that he came in peace. Much of the symbolism no doubt went over the head of the crowd and probably a part of the crowd was simply attracted by all the commotion. As much as any of them saw that Palm Sunday, Jesus was preparing to chase the Romans out and re-establish David’s Kingdom.

Is it any wonder that these events upset the powers of the time—the Romans and the Priests? When you’re on top, change is not a good thing because you can only go down. A claim that Jesus would re-establish the Kingdom of Israel would be seen as sedition and treason by the Empire. And while the Jewish authorities had no real love for the Romans, it didn’t take much wisdom on their parts to see that the type of Kingdom of God that Jesus was proclaiming didn’t have a place for them. Both groups had a vested interest in bringing about Jesus’ death.

And there’s little doubt that Jesus knew this. He knew that the end of this procession led not to a throne but to the Cross. (No Jew of that time could have any doubt about how the Empire punished treason and sedition—a cross.) He knew that this “triumphal” procession was in truth a funeral procession, as we do when we sing

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!
In Lowly pomp ride on to die;
Bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
Then take, O God, thy power and rein.

Unlike the people of Jerusalem and the Apostles, we know where this is leading. As much as we wish for Jesus to stay away from Gethsemane, for Judas to not betray him, for Peter to not deny Jesus, we know that the Cross is the destination that Holy Week leads us to. Jesus would not avoid it and we cannot avoid it either. It is the Passion that gives the entry into Jerusalem context.

Jesus did not want the Cross; he did not want to die. He could have turned aside from that path and he asked God to let “this Cup” pass from him. But he accepted death and remained obedient to God, knowing the price he would pay. And because he did so, death could be defeated.

Without Good Friday, Easter can’t have meaning. Without death, there can be no resurrection.

Palm Sunday is the beginning of a week-long journey from seeming triumph to utter despair to endless hope that Christians must take, no matter how much we would avoid it. To get past the Cross to an empty tomb on Easter day, we have to go to the Cross first. We must walk the way of the Cross this week so we can reach Easter next weekend.

We Would See Jesus

[Our lessons were Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; and John 12:20-33.]

When Philip told Jesus that some Greeks wanted to see him, Jesus’ response was, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Until this point in John’s Gospel, Jesus has said several times that the time or hour “has not come.”

But, when the Greeks wanted to see him, Jesus knew that the time had come for him to be glorified. Because Gentiles—non-Jews—were now seeking him, Jesus knew that his mission had become universal. It was time for him to be lifted up, so all people could be drawn to him. And, of course, the “lifting up” would be on the Cross.

Often, Jesus’ idea of glory doesn’t match ours. To us, “glory” often means having more: more money, more prestige, more power. In many ways, the pursuit of this type of glory has had a lot to do with the economic situation we are in today. To Jesus, glory is about giving more, not having more. Glory, in Jesus’ context, involved accepting the Cross and suffering.

Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus says that he came so we could have life and have it abundantly. He also says that he will show God’s love by laying down his life for his friends—us, all those who have gone before us and all those who come after us. This loving purpose is the focus of John’s Gospel. God’s love for us is so great that Jesus will fulfill it by willingly suffering pain and death.

And by his doing that, we know that Jesus stands with us when we face any danger. This doesn’t mean that we won’t undergo hardship, suffer or face bodily death. It does mean that we won’t face them alone and that the real death that we should fear—separation from God—will never happen to us.

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” We can see him in others if we only look. But, can they see him in us? If we are to let them see Jesus in us, we have to be ready to stand at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday when the Son of God is silenced by death.

For God So Loved the World...

[Our lessons were Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; and John 3:14-21.]

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have everlasting life.”

These are some of the most famous words in the New Testament. In fact, I remember a few years ago it would seem that no sporting event on TV was complete without a shot of a man in the stands with a rainbow Afro haircut holding up a sign which said, “John 3:16”, the verse number of this sentence.

The familiarity of these words should not lead us to conclude that everyone interprets them exactly the same way. Some people would say that they proclaim that “God so loved the world that he sent his Son in order that those who don’t have faith in him will perish.” When we read the Gospel in this way, seeking to draw lines where none might otherwise be seen, we try to put God in a small box of our own making.

Our worst misreading of Scripture come when we try to pull one sentence out of its context. When we place this familiar sentence back into the context of the sentences which surround it and the rest of John’s Gospel, we learn that Jesus was lifted up so that all might see him and that Jesus was not sent to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved.

It’s apparently human nature to say that the particular way we believe and worship is the “right” way and that we can define who “has faith in Jesus” and are thus saved. Of course, our definition includes us and excludes everyone who doesn’t agree with us! Those “other people” who have differences in their beliefs, or have misplaced their belief, or are different from us in some way, clearly they must be going to hell, because we have the magic ticket and they don’t.

We love to judge other people. But, when we do, we do well to remember Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel: “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” In fact, Jesus tells us later in John’s Gospel that “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”

It is wrong when we say that we are “saved” and others are not; that we are “holy” and others are not. Whenever we seek to exclude others from God’s presence, we had better take care that we aren’t the ones excluded.

Just as Jesus came into the world to save it, not condemn or judge it, the Church is called to express God’s love to all the world, of every race, gender, color or creed. As we examine ourselves this Lent, how do we as a church, we as a parish, and we as individuals express that love to the world? De we act out that love? Do we truly welcome all when we say on our signs, “The Episcopal Church welcomes you”? Do we give the appearance of a Jesus who judges and condemns or the Jesus who seeks to make all one?

The Fourth Sunday in Lent has often been called Laetare Sunday. This comes from the Latin word meaning “rejoice”, because in older days, parts of the liturgy set for this Sunday began with the single word “Rejoice!” This was a reminder that we are more than halfway through our Lenten journey and well on our way to the glory of the Resurrection on Easter Day.

When we are on a journey, it can be all too easy to focus completely on our immediate situation and lose sight of where we have been and where we are going. Our reading from Numbers was an example of that. The Israelites have become anxious and impatient in their long journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Although their needs have been provided for by God, they still grumble about “this miserable food”. Apparently the wilderness lacked a McDonald’s. The Israelites had lost sight of their purpose, their perspective, and their hope.

Every week for us this year, we hear new examples of people losing the jobs or homes or both. Banks are failing, with another Georgia bank being closed Friday. We are anxious and impatient. Many are losing hope in a future that they believe is now out of reach.

As the bishops of the Episcopal Church wrote this week:

As we go through our own wilderness, these spiritual ancestors also point the way to a deep and abiding hope. We can rediscover our uniqueness–which emerges from the conviction that our wealth is determined by what we give rather than what we own. We can re-discover manna–God’s extraordinary expression of abundance. Week by week, in congregations and communities around the world, our common manna is placed before us in the Eucharist. Ordinary gifts of bread and wine are placed on the altar, and become for us the Body and Blood of Christ, which, when we receive them, draw us ever more deeply into the Paschal mystery of Christ's death and resurrection.

As our risen Lord broke through the isolation of the disciples huddled in fear for their lives following his suffering and death, so too are we, the Body of Christ, called to break through the loneliness and anxiety of this time, drawing people from their fears and isolation into the comforting embrace of God’s gathered community of hope. As disciples of the risen Christ we are given gifts for showing forth God's gracious generosity and for finding blessing and abundance in what is hard and difficult. In this time the Holy Spirit is moving among us, sharing with us the vision of what is real and valued in God's world. In a time such as this, Christ draws us deeper into our faith revealing to us that generosity breaks through distrust, paralysis and misinformation. Like our risen Lord, we, as his disciples are called to listen to the world's pain and offer comfort and peace.

As we continue our Lenten journey together we place our hearts in the power of the Trinity. The God who created us is creating still and will not abandon us. The Incarnate Word, our Savior Jesus Christ, who in suffering, dying and rising for our sake, stands in solidarity with us, has promised to be with us to the end of the age. God the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God for us and in us, is our comforter, companion, inspiration and guide. In this is our hope, our joy and our peace.

[Note: you can read the entire pastoral letter here.]

Do we have a reason to rejoice this Laetare Sunday? Of course we do. We have God’s promise of salvation: “For God so loved the world…”

The Ten Commandments

[Our lessons were Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; and John 2:13-22.]


When I read the various parts of Exodus that figured prominently in Cecil B. DeMille’s movie The Ten Commandments, it’s hard not visualize scenes from the film, such as Charlton Heston holding stone tablets. Such, I guess, is the power of Hollywood.

What we refer to as the Ten Commandments were in fact only a part of the rules God established for his people, but they were the only ones that God wrote onto stone tablets. The Commandments are seen in context as a part of God’s covenant with God’s people. They also are the part of the Law that we consider also applying to us, even though we aren’t Israelites, and they’ve been included in Anglican liturgies since the 1549 English Book of Common Prayer.

The Commandments establish boundaries in our relationship with God and with our neighbors. When we say that we are to have no other gods before God, that doesn’t just mean we don’t worship Baal or Astarte or Zeus. When we say we shall not make an idol to worship, that doesn’t just refer to a golden calf.

In our world, we have worshipped at other altars and idolized many things in recent years. In many ways, our economic troubles are the result of our worshipping at the altar of greed and idolizing money. I don’t know what (if any) faith Bernard Madoff professes, but clearly he worshipped a different God. When we exalt Wall Street traders and executives with ludicrous bonuses, are those not our real “American Idols”?

The Commandments that deal with our neighbors call on us to have a proper relationship with our neighbors and, of course, Jesus said that everyone is our neighbor. When we oppress the poor and deny them equal access to education and health care, so as to gather those resources to ourselves, aren’t we stealing from them and coveting what should be theirs?

Our secular society often treats the Ten Commandments as a historical document, placing them on walls with other ancient legal documents. People urge us to post them everywhere, believing that the problems that afflict our society are the result of people not following the Commandments.

While that may be true, when we treat the Ten Commandments merely as a decorative artifact to be placed on a wall or on a yard sign, we aren’t following them; we aren’t living them! There is a story that a Boston business man famous for his tough business dealings told Mark Twain, “Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top.” Twain replied, “Why not stay in Boston and keep them.”

Our problem is that keeping then Ten Commandments isn’t always easy. It’s easier to erect a monument to the Ten Commandments than to work toward a society that lives them; it’s easier to say the Decalogue than to live it ourselves.

When we truly live the Commandments, we don’t put anything in God’s place, we set aside a special time to reflect on God’s ways, and we put our neighbor in the place we would wish to be. We respect every aspect of God’s creation. We remain faithful in relationships, deal with others honestly and fairly, and work for justice. We take joy in what others have instead of trying to have what isn’t truly ours.

Saint Paul knew that this is hard. As he said in his letter to the church in Rome, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do!” On our own, apart from God, we just can’t do it; it’s beyond our power.

However, if we live by our covenant relationship with God, God gives us the strength to succeed. The giving of the Commandments and Jesus’ attack on the sellers and money changers at the Temple are both efforts to remove barriers between God and his people.

By the time of Jesus, a “market opportunity” had grown up, supplying the proper type of sacrificial animals so that the people could offer the proper sacrifice at the Temple and be restored to a right relationship with God. The money changers would change the Roman money into Temple money for a fee and the sellers sold the animals for a profit. Jesus wanted to eliminate a doubly unjust and corrupt system that placed barriers between the people and God and enriched some at the expense of the poor.

When we come between God and another person, aren’t we under judgment ourselves? When we let pride, arrogance, spite, or hurt feelings prevent another person from coming to God, aren’t we like those who Jesus chased out of the Temple? When we support those who exploit those in need or support systems and economies that oppress the “least of these”, aren’t we like the sellers and the money changers?

If, with God’s help, we live the Ten Commandments, rather than just sticking them on the wall, we can give the right answers to these questions.

Take up Your Cross

[Our lessons were Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Romans 4:13-25; and Mark 8:31-38.]

Sometimes it is tough being Peter. One moment, Jesus is calling you the rock upon which he will build his church, and in seemingly the next, he calls you Satan. Talk about moving from the heights to the depths! It says something about Peter’s faith that he persevered and stayed, in his own stumbling, human way with Jesus.

What had gotten into Peter? Human misconceptions. He had his own idea of what the Messiah would do, based upon tradition and scripture, and it sure didn’t include suffering, rejection, and death! By this point, talk of a resurrection probably went right over his head. Peter couldn’t accept that Jesus was saying that the Messiah must suffer and die instead of Peter’s more traditional expectations of Kingship, might, and victory. What Jesus was saying was that to reject suffering for the Messiah was to reject God’s plan in favor of human priorities.

Often don’t we do the exact same thing Peter did—let our own preconceptions, our prejudices, blind us to God’s will? We might not rebuke Jesus, of course; but we might not be willing to follow Jesus, if he is not heading in the way we choose.

Jesus then tells the crowd that his followers would have to take up their crosses and follow him. Just what did Jesus mean? We often speak of someone having “their own cross to bear”, usually meaning some problem or challenge they have to face. Is that what Jesus had in mind?

To a Jew in the Roman occupation, a cross meant one thing. It wasn’t an item of jewelry that you wore. It wasn’t an object that you put on the wall of a church. A cross was the way the Empire executed criminals. It was an object lesson to anyone who dared to oppose the might of Rome: you would die publically, shamefully over several days. Crosses were placed in large numbers at the crossroads to provide an object lesson to anyone who would dare challenge Caesar. In 6 CE, the young Jesus could see 2,000 Galilean insurrectionists crucified by the Romans. When Jesus was talking about picking up a cross, he meant the real thing! And for many of his disciples and many early Christians, following Jesus did lead to their own deaths, sometimes on actual crosses.

While picking up our own cross is no trivial thing, it usually will not lead in our executions. But there are no guarantees, even in our time. In our own lifetimes, we learn of martyrs who have knowingly accepted their own deaths in carrying the Cross. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maximilian Kolbe from the Nazis, Jonathan Myrick Daniels in Alabama, and Archbishops Jawani Luwum in Uganda and Óscar Romero in El Salvador show us that martyrdom is not only a feature of history.

Taking up our Cross is not automatically a call to martyrdom. God does not want or need another drop of blood shed in His name. God calls us to be the Body of Christ, praying that His Kingdom will come and His will be done here as in heaven. Jesus taught us to seek the Kingdom of God—a place where God’s justice is done, the hungry are fed, and death itself has no more dominion. Jesus doesn't so much want us to die as he did as to live as he did.

Jesus also tells the crowd that followers of Jesus must deny their selves and lose their lives. That was hard to take then, but I suspect it’s even harder in 21st Century America with our near idolatry of individuality and self-realization. When cable commentators are cheered for their unwillingness to help others in need with words like “Why should I help losers?” it’s clear that “self” reigns, not God.

Here in America our relative wealth and education comes with privilege and give us power. Jesus calls us to use that which we have, not for ourselves, but for those who have less than we do. If we are serious about denying our selves, can we do any less?