doubt

"Or perhaps it was a croissant..."

Doubting Thomas 

The two Sundays following Easter Sunday, are still part of the resurrection message – as is everything up until the Ascension. In the Gospel of John (20:19-31) we read of disciples gathered the evening of Easter Day, anxious and afraid – at least “concerned,” as I said of myself after a real earthquake. They instinctively drew together for shelter and comfort, not knowing what would happen or what to do next. If it had been a fire in an office building, they would have gathered in the parking lot, in impromptu attire, chatting about what happened, pondering it. 

Billy Graham once in a sermon described evacuating a hotel in the middle of the night as a fire alarm woke everybody up, and as people milled around looking for someone familiar, they saw him, the one person they recognized and came over. “And I ministered unto them,” he said.  

For the disciples on the first last day it was Jesus who showed up, much less expected than Billy Graham, despite “an idle tale” they had been told but dismissed out of hand, and He ministered unto them. He reassured them. The idle tale was true. The resurrection was real. He was real.

And then one thing happened. “We have seen the Lord,” they said to one who had not been there, one who would turn a sudden 180° from disbelief to total faith: Thomas. He would not put his faith in hearsay; he wanted to see and feel for himself. 

And so a week later on the second Sunday of Easter he did. Here, go ahead, test me, touch me, feel me: what you see and hear and hold in your arms is real. Jesus is for real. 

Thomas expressed all the doubt and unbelief of the fresh first day of the new, risen Lord, and then made his exclamation of radical faith a Sunday later. 

How blessed are we who heard the news from afar and centuries later, who can yet testify, and put our faith in one who we have not seen but yet believe. 

What went on from here, what grew from here, was a community not only of those few apostles, witnesses to Jesus’ life and messengers of his resurrection, but an ongoing community that could testify to the reality of the risen Lord. He is alive, he is at work in the world, and he is at work in the world through our hands, and he proclaims the good news of the reign of God that is at hand through our voices, word and deeds. 

We continue the work that the first apostolic community began. The third week of Easter season we hear another story of the risen Lord, set in the place that once held the world record for the largest platter of hummus. That's another story. It involves bread and, like this story, discouragement and grief: grief turned to wonder and faith. 

For now, though, we join Thomas at the feet of an unexpected Jesus, and there’s one thing to say: “My Lord and my God.” (John 20:28)

The Rev. Dr. John Leech serves as a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson.

• Acts 2:14a,22-32
• 1 Peter 1:3-9
• John 20:19-31
• Psalm 16
• http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEaster2_RCL.html

(Meditation for The Second Sunday of Easter 2023)

https://cdn.britannica.com/93/152993-050-57F2DCCE/Marcel-Proust.jpg

Take care of it

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/885/earth-from-space

Earth Day 1970
Earth Day 2020

Bitter Water Made Sweet

I am the vine, you are the branches. (John 15:5a)

 

Again and again the words in the Bible encourage its listeners and its readers to put their trust only in God and they will receive life.

In the Exodus story as the people fleeing bondage are being forged (unbeknownst to them) into the core of a new people, they get this message again and again - the hard way.

There they are in the wilderness newly escaped from the chariots of Pharaoh and all they can think about is their immediate need: water.

Well, yeah.

Again and again though God provides for them as in the Exodus story, as at the waters of Marah - bitter water turned sweet. 

I wonder. 

Is this how it is?

Is there any other source of nourishment, of life, of provision for life's necessities, besides God?

Oh.

Earth Day brings it home to us. Sometimes I have paraphrased God's message to the primordial Human Being, Adam, in Genesis, as "Take care of it - don't wreck it!"

50 years ago today we the members of the Carlmont High School Sierra Club along with our fellow students walked to school. Not the only time I'd done that, but this time with a purpose: to remind ourselves and those around us of our dependence on nature to survive, and our need to care for the earth to thrive - and more than that it was our responsibility.

Not just for a reward. It's common sense. And our job.

At least Adam thought so.

 * * *

As usual I take the opportunity of the anniversary of Earth Day to express my gratitude for the organizers of the Carlmont High School Sierra Club - including Stan Fishburn and Paul W. (Bill) Leech; the organizer, Paul deFalco, regional director of the US Federal Water Pollution Control Administration (FWPCA), of the New Year's Eve 1968 conference in Oakland Civic Auditorium about clean water, clean air, and the environment, and the Ecology Action people there present (perhaps including Bill and Betsy Bruneau of St Francis in the Woods Willits). The high school Sierra Club encouraged our fellow students to join us and walk to school that day... and take some extended hikes through the local mountains and forests, which further raised awareness of our natural environment. 

the trouble and the sorrow

Surely you see the trouble and the sorrow :
 you look on, and will take it into your own hands.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Ooh, is it even possible, to trust God in times of sorrow?

Are we not afraid? 

The Kingdom of Anxiety is all too real... 

And yet.


Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them:
‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’

The Kingdom of Anxiety

W. H. Auden

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden

Monday in the Second Week of Easter

We are into the Fifty Days of Easter season, and the Octave of Easter (Easter Day to Easter 2) has run out. This could be ordinary time, but will time ever be ordinary again? 1 Peter 1:23b-25 tells us

You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. For
‘All flesh is like grass
   and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
   and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’
That word is the good news that was announced to you.

Nothing will ever be the same, not simply because of Jesus' resurrection, but because of the new life he has engendered in us. And this through the holy Spirit, the Breath of God breathed upon us....

One of the first verses of the Bible I ever knew was one that I memorized for the Good News Club (which rewarded memorization):

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:2-3)

Honestly I only remember the first part of this; and together the two verses are not enough. Jesus goes on to say the controversial puzzling amazing thing, that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that we come to God the Father through him.

This has been taken as exclusionary but perhaps it is more cautionary. Remember the hymn # 463, 464 in The Hymnal 1982, with its words from the Christmas Oratorio, For the Time Being, (and that time being, immediately but not only, 1941-1942) by W. H. Auden:

Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety...

Perhaps that Kingdom is seeking us sometimes.

But no, what I would say, falling back on words I have said before, is in response to the question, what do all the great religions of the world have in common?

"We are all seeking the same thing - and the same thing is seeking all of us."

Now as much as ever. As always, and as always we are found, not least by our seeking.

Inshallah.


https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/22/us/beliefs-729090.html

all of us are witnesses

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"                                                                                                          -John 20:26-28

detail, The Incredulity Of St Thomas, Frankish Miniaturist, Psalter, 1279

http://edgeofenclosure.org/easter2a.html

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

This morning participating in morning prayer with the good people of St Paul's Tombstone lead by Deacon Heather Rose, as we recited the Apostles Creed, I thought of its unfamiliarity to Sunday morning worship in the days of weekly common Eucharist. (Other days and daily offices, sure.) And I thought of the affirmation of faith it contains that echoes Simon Peter's brave announcement to the assembled powers-that-be in Jerusalem, the very ones he feared so much during the trial of Jesus. 

He is not afraid and we should not be either. We are more likely now to face people who think it is all just a story, that Jesus did not live, that at best he is a good example of a moral teacher. But those powers that be - including Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea, who name and rank are chiseled into a stone stele found recently in Lebanon - did not crucify Jesus because of his resurrection. That is not what they feared, at least not yet. 

Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate because of how he lived: his faithful adamant witness to the truth, as the Gospel of John puts it so clearly. He confronts everyone with reality. It is not convenient. Just like his cousin John the child of Zechariah and Elizabeth before him, Jesus is quite willing to speak truth to power. And he is willing to tell truth to ordinary people too.

"What do you want me to do?" he asks a blind beggar. The response to the respect Jesus shows is immediate. Bartimaeus does not ask for something comfy. No, not at all. "That I might see!"

And see he does.

It is not always pretty.

And his fate, as a witness to the power of Jesus alive, is subject to the threat of the we-don't-want-to-hear-it people of his time.*

This courage Peter shows as well as he stands before the assembled authorities and bravely loudly proclaims the power of God manifest in the death, resurrection, and life of Jesus of Nazareth.

And now it is our turn. All of us are witnesses, now, to the power of God, the triumph of life, made manifest in Jesus. "Receive holy Spirit" Jesus said, as he breathed upon the disciples: it is this empowerment, this equipment, with the presence of the Spirit of God in us, that makes us able to stand up and testify, to be witnesses to the resurrection and power of God, in our own time.

Collect for the Second Sunday of Easter

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery
established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all
who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body
may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

*Authorities in our own time did not want to hear it, and certainly did not want the news to spread and undermine their self-conscious authority, that there was a virus in town...

Second Sunday of Easter:

• Acts 2:14a,22-32
• 1 Peter 1:3-9
• John 20:19-31
• Psalm 16

Thanks to Deacon Heather Rose for her sermon this morning for the people of St. Paul's Tombstone.

https://www.facebook.com/stpaulstombstone/

https://stpauls.azdiocese.org/

locked rooms

There have been conflicting reports, you know, of what happened on Easter morning; who saw him first, or whom they saw, or what they said, or where they were. Be that as it may. The afternoon passed away. And what had been said or heard in the morning seems to have been forgotten, lost in the anxiety of the afternoon.

And that evening, gathered, afraid, disciples gathered, closed the doors of the house behind them, and waited, in a locked room, for they knew not what. They were afraid.

By the time John wrote his gospel, it was the people of their own nation that they feared; the ones who had betrayed their Lord, they thought, would tip the word to the soldiers and they, too, would suffer at the hands of Rome.

But it was not Rome that came. It was he, himself, alone, who appeared among them. And his first words were words of comfort, of greeting, and, yes, of challenge. Peace be with you.

Shalom be with you, it means. And shalom means the peace and the reign of God. That is comfort. It is greeting. It is also challenge. For their vocation, their business, was to proclaim that kingdom at hand.

That was his work, until then, and now it was theirs. And, after he had shown them that it was truly him, he spoke again. As the Father sent me so I send you.

And then he breathed on them: he breathed, and said, receive holy spirit. He breathed on them the very breath of God, that had enlivened Creation at the very beginning, in Genesis, when the spirit, the breath, had moved upon the primordial waters.

It was the same breath, by the way, that Ezekiel prophesied to, in the valley of dry bones. That was a vision Ezekiel had, that all of Israel was like a boneyard, a deserted battlefield strewn with the remains of defeated warriors, but that at God’s words those dry bones had come together again and with God’s breath upon them they were kindled again into new life.

And now Jesus, their Lord, their Master, was breathing that holy breath upon them, putting that same spirit into them, that they might find new life and share it, spread it, throughout the world.

Receive holy Spirit - and the breath came into them.

The once-dead man, Jesus, had brought them new life.

They had been given a message and a mission: to bring the world the news of the kingdom of God - and now they had the power to achieve it: to speak and to act, that God’s love, God’s reign, might be known in the world.

This meant that the kingdom of the power of love had conquered the kingdom of death. And the ones who followed his way were there to proclaim it.

But hold on there! What if I have not seen? Can I yet believe?

Not everybody was present that evening. In fact, one of the twelve, Thomas, speaks up on behalf of those who have not seen.

Speaking to comrades who were wrought with despair the last time he saw them, Thomas says I won’t believe it until I see it - and not only that, have tangible evidence in my own hands, my own body, that it is true. I have to see, I have to touch, before I can join you in your happy party.

Eight days later they are all together in the same house, doors closed again, and Christ reappears: Christ reappears, reassures, and reconciles the “doubter” Thomas to community. And Thomas, through his stupendous confession, returns and more than returns to fellowship. For it is not a return to how things were Before - this day begins a new relationship with Christ, and therefore in Christ with the other disciples.

Their whole relationship to each other, God, and themselves, is changed, made new by the transforming power of the resurrected Jesus: who is here among us today, in the reconciled community of the beloved-by-God.

God is with us! In the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers… he is here with us as we go forth into the world in the name of Christ.

What Christ gives us in this story of the locked-up house, and the freed-up disciples, is more than a new set of rules: it’s the good news of a living Lord, a life-giving breath. God is present with us, empowering us, enlivening us.

Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what thou dost love, and do what thou wouldst do.

Jesus Christ our Savior, you have delivered us from sin and death. You have filled us along with your first disciples with the enlivening power of your spirit and made a new beginning; grant us strength and humility, love and courage, hospitality and faithfulness, wisdom and compassion, mercy and grace, to enter into life, and to welcome into the new life in Christ the stranger we meet who becomes our brother, the foreigner who becomes our kinsman, the enemy who becomes our friend, the opponent who becomes our teacher, the sorrowful who becomes a wellspring of joy: all the gifts of the Spirit we anticipate may we receive with abundance of grace, through your transforming love. Amen.

• Acts 2:14a,22-32
• 1 Peter 1:3-9
• John 20:19-31
• Psalm 16

"Breathe on me, Breath of God." #508, The Hymnal 1982.