Easter II, Year C

Welcoming Blake to the
Christian Family!

Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel: John 20:19-31
April 28, 2019

It’s the 2nd Sunday of Easter. Typically on this Sunday a church is not as full as it was on Easter Day. There is less ceremony, fewer family members visiting, no hunting for eggs, or flowering of the cross. Perhaps, because of this comparison to Easter Day, previous generations nicknamed this day “Low Sunday.” But, today, God willing, we will witness the Baptism of a child. We will hear his parents and sponsors pledge to raise the child as a Christian, and the people of this congregation will also pledge to do their part in nurturing his Faith. Soon, we will welcome the newest member in all of Christendom. Today, promises to be anything but “Low Sunday.”

The Gospel reading gives another hint that this is more than “Low Sunday.” I had déjà vu while preparing this sermon….not just because I’ve been preaching for 32 years...but I preached on this same Gospel in this pulpit on this Sunday last year! A check of the Lectionary shows that the same reading from the Gospel According to John is appointed every year for the Second Sunday of Easter. This reading has multiple themes but the primary focus is on the nature of Faith. Believing is so central to who we are as Christians that it bears repeating year after year! It’s a big deal, and it doesn’t sound anything like a “Low Sunday” to me.

In this Gospel, we hear the story of two Resurrection appearances. The first appearance was on Sunday evening, likely the first evening meal after Jesus had risen from the dead. The disciples were afraid and for good reason. Their teacher had been been identified as a threat to Roman authority and brutally killed. Perhaps, the authorities would come after them next….it was best for them to keep a low profile. We get a hint of this in the significant detail that the door was locked. The locked door not only conveys the disciples’ fear but also the power of Jesus’ Resurrection. Despite the doors, locks, and, most of all, despite death itself, Jesus came and stood among them; he spoke a greeting of peace and conferred on them the Holy Spirit to empower them to rise above their fears and to do God’s work.

The first appearance in this Gospel serves to set up the second appearance one week later. The problem with the first instance was that one of the original twelve (other than Judas) was missing. Thomas was not present for Jesus first appearance, and when Thomas eventually heard about it, he was incredulous. Can’t we just imagine what was going through his mind? “These people have lost their minds; they have left their senses; their eyes have played tricks on them.” Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

The two stories together give the answer to a real problem of Faith experienced in the early Christian community. In the post-apostolic Church, the community after the Apostles, after those who were around for the resurrection appearances, after that big group who, according to Paul, witnessed Jesus ascend into heaven, and after the time of Paul to whom Jesus also appeared...in this post-apostolic community, how is it that people are expected to believe? How do the ones who did not benefit from seeing the Resurrected Jesus with their own eyes...how do these people come to have Faith in Jesus?

Through the Lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer, the Episcopal Church gives us the opportunity to ponder the answer to this question every time the 2nd Sunday in Easter comes around. The spotlight on Thomas’ experience is a reminder that even seeing the Resurrected Jesus is no guarantee of Faith. The disciples in that upper room all saw with their eyes, but they still had to make a “leap of faith” to accept that their teacher and friend was also their Lord and God.

The Gospel According to John tells the story of Jesus appearing to his disciples to establish a first wave of witnesses who would subsequently establish the pattern of one generation witnessing to the next. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God from those who came before us.

The story of how Thomas comes to believe yields at least three things we can say about Faith:

1. To have Faith means to trust. This is the way Faith is used almost exclusively in the scriptures, and it is what Jesus meant when he encouraged Thomas to believe. There may be times when you will hear faith used to describe a set of things to believe. In this sense, the Episcopal “faith” might include such things as the apostolic succession of bishops and the basis of religious authority being scripture, tradition, and reason...but these are just two in a list of things to which we might subscribe. When Jesus speaks to Thomas, he is not talking about things on a list...he is talking about trust, he is inviting Thomas to bet his life on God.
2. Faith is not the same as certainty. If a person is certain, he or she does not need to trust, because he or she already “knows.” Faith requires vulnerability and there is no vulnerability in certainty….there is no “leap of faith,” no mystery. Instead of certainty, Jesus invites us to be open to him, with hearts inspired by the reading of scripture, formed by participation in worship and selfless actions, and guided by careful thinking as well as thoughtful discussions with fellow Christians. Certainty distorts religion. Many forms of extremism are about choosing certainty over Faith. Certainty takes dogma and beats other people over the head with it...or worse...and you find this in religions all over the planet. The suicide bombers in Sri Lanka last week were so certain in their contempt that they were driven to commit atrocities. But, Faith as trust means having an open heart, trusting that God is with us even if we remain reverently unsure about some of the details. Trust in this way also means accepting the possibility that God has spoken to others who worship differently than us and who subscribe to different things than we do. Trust never leads to contempt. Our world surely needs less certainty and more Trust, don’t you think?
3. And finally, we do not create Faith. It is a gift that comes to us from beyond us. In John’s theology, we don’t make ourselves believe...we come to believe when the story of Jesus and the traditions of the Church are passed down to us. Because faith is a gift it is not coercive. People are free to harden their hearts to the Good News. We were created, after all, with the ability to choose. Of all things, God made us with the ability to take God’s invitation to Faith under advisement. In the end, God has shown us in Jesus that we are called to take our place in a family, to join others around a table, so to speak. Jesus even used the term “friends” to describe those who follow him. True friends are not forced or bribed to be loyal; friendship is only so when it is given freely.

So you see, today is anything but a “Low Sunday.” Our theme is the nature of Faith itself, a message our world so desperately needs to hear. And now, we move to the sacrament of Baptism where in Faith we will witness a child being connected forever to something greater than himself. And, we will, with his family and sponsors, promise to pass on the story of Jesus and the traditions of the Church, so that this little one might in time come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing he might have life in Jesus name. AMEN.

Lent II, Year C 2019

St. Thomas the Apostle, Nassau Bay
Old Testament: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Gospel: Luke 13:31-35
March 17, 2019

Jesus identifies as a prophet, one who in Biblical tradition was called by God to speak truth to power, to put forth God’s word “all the way to the top” so to speak.  Jerusalem was the location of the Temple, it was the seat of religious authority for the Jews.  For a Jew, it was all the way to the top.  As Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry, at the end he is compelled to journey toward Jerusalem to speak truth to power.  

In today’s Gospel reading, we get some foreshadowing of the fate that awaits Jesus in the ancient Judean capital.  But before that, we see the difficulty he faced just on the journey to get there.  Some Pharisees came to Jesus in the guise of being helpful….but we know their real motivation is to keep Jesus out of Jerusalem if possible.  I would not put it past Caiaphas to have sent these folks to scare Jesus into changing his mind, to stray from his course, and hopefully, to go into hiding.  “Jesus, you are vulnerable here….save yourself by staying small and keeping a low profile.”  The religious leadership in Jerusalem had enough headaches just running interference between the “run-of-the-mill” zealots and the Romans.  The last thing they wanted was to deal with this popular teacher whom many thought to be God’s long-awaited chosen leader.   Recent history had already shown the Romans would not hesitate to unleash violent force to put down a riot or anything that smelled of insurrection.  Go and tell Jesus that Herod is in town and wants to kill him….perhaps that will be enough to keep Jesus away at least until after the Passover Festival.

We hear this reading on the 2nd Sunday in Lent well on the way in our Liturgical journey through the season.  The Gospel reading may point us to ask in what way are we being compelled, driven by the Spirit to speak the truth where it may not be welcome, where it might be misunderstood and turned against us, where it will not be appreciated.  What barriers may stand in the way of our saying the right thing, what scripts do we play in our minds to discourage us from speaking the truth where it is so desperately needed.

The world is once again reeling from the news of a mass killing of civilians. Forty-nine people were killed in shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday.  The terrorist attack appeared to have been carried out by a 28 year-old man hellbent on furthering a white supremacist ideology.  
It is hard to fathom how a person could be so evil as to plan the mass murder of other human beings.  I used to think that the underlying motive for terrorism like this must be hate.  We sometimes hear the term “hate” crimes to describe attacks at places of worship, for example.  Hurtful words and Internet memes as well are often called forms of “hate” speech.  But here’s the deal.  I don’t think the term “hate” is the most accurate term for this .  Instead, I think the word “contempt” is probably closer to the truth.  

My work as an educator would from time to time involve educational counseling with students who were being disciplined for bullying behavior.  Bullying involves repeated acts of meanness by someone often with the support of bystanders.   One thing I learned in this work is that students who persist in bullying are not angry at their victims...instead, they view their victims as somehow undeserving of an equal place in the community.  The victims were beneath them in status.  Sometimes a student who bullied another tried to blame the problem on the victim.  “He annoys me constantly,” or “She’s always in my way.”  (Sometimes parents were part of the problem and supported the excuses.)  But this kind of anger was a facade; the real issue was a distorted version of reality in which the victim is viewed as a legitimate target for scorn. 

Contempt is nothing new in human history.  Jesus was surely well aware of the contempt he would face in Jerusalem, both from the religious elite and from the Roman authorities...he was under no allusions that these forces would have any respect for his teachings or even for his life.

What is new and unique in human history is what God has done in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  In life, Jesus taught with parables….stories and images that had staying power and caused us to think.  In the Gospel reading, Jesus uses such an image.  He compares God to a hen with a brood of chicks.  What does God want?  God wants to gather the chicks under wing to protect them, if only they are willing.  In the parabolic image, the way God has of being God is to gather, to assemble people together, to bring people into a family.  But only if they are willing.  Adoption into the family of God is an invitation to accept God’s nurture and favor.  

In his death, Jesus laid down his life to pay the price for our ignorance, for our lack of trust.  He paid the price for the way we betray God, one another, and even for the way we betray ourselves by giving-in to our basest instincts.  Jesus showed us that God’s desire is to gather people together under wing...people from every nation and tradition, a new family whose exact makeup is a mystery known only to God.

In his Resurrection, Jesus gives us hope.  Human life is grounded in hope, is it not?  Life is easier to live when we hope for good things in the future.  At different times in our lives, we hope for success, we hope for happiness and peace, and we extend that hope to those we love and even to strangers.  In the face of tragedy, we mourn but keep our hope for a world that is better, a world with solutions to disease, poverty, and hunger.  A world without violence fueled by contempt.  Hope sustains our lives in the worst of times because with it we can hold in our imagination the possibility of change for the better.  Those who face a grave challenge in life know that hope is required….it’s not optional like something you can take or leave.

In our reading from Genesis, we learn that Abram is tempted by despair.  God had promised that he would be the founder of a great people who would become a blessing to all nations.  And as it has turned out, Abram is getting along in years and has no children of his own.  It seems as though what he had signed-on for was not happening.  Into the midst of this low-point, God re-affirms the promise first by showing Abram the night sky and comparing the stars to how numerous his family will eventually be.  Then, in the next story God gives Abram a dream in which a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between cut pieces of animals….this unusual dream portrayed a kind of ancient contract ceremony.  So, this was also a reaffirmation of God’s promise with a kind-of signed contract, as it were.

We learn from this story that Abram is inspired by these mysterious visions and dreams.  He could have ignored them or attributed them to something he ate...but instead, his faith in God’s promise was rekindled.  What God gave him was hope that his life was on course; hope that his calling was true; hope that his life was connected to something larger than himself...hope that life has meaning and purpose.

The first time I rode the subway in New York, I was rather cautious.  All of my life I had heard negative things about the subway there.  As the time came for me to board, I was imagining pickpockets, thieves, and half-crazed addicts just looking to do harm.  I found a seat and clutched my computer case for dear life and looked downward to avoid any eye contact.  All I wanted was to make it alive to my conference destination about 6 or 7 stops to the North.  At the very next stop, I noticed a boy of about 10 years of age, enter the subway car by himself.  He looked to be on his way to school with his books and homework. This all looked to be the regular routine for him as he exited on one of the stops before mine. This unaccompanied minor was a sign for me.  He instantly put my fears to rest.  He put a light on my own dysfunctional thinking about New York.  I laughed inside with a bit of embarrassment at how a grown man could be afraid of something that was just everyday routine to a child.  I was a bit more relaxed for the remainder of the ride and reminded that signs of hope can be seen even where we least expect them.

Now, many years later, the biggest sign of hope for me has to be my new grandson, Jonah.  I think his great grandfather, Craig Morgan, said it best when holding Jonah for the first time he proclaimed,” When you look at this baby, you know there is a God who loves us.”  

The scriptures are full of signs meant to give us hope: the stars of the sky, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, a hen gathering her brood under wing.  Perhaps, today’s lessons invite us to reclaim the place of hope in our lives.  This is especially challenging when we see how human beings can hold each other in contempt and how this leads to violence.  As people of the cross, we have a vision of a better world...a world made different by the transformative power of God’s love.  We hope that the Kingdom of God, established in power and beginning when Jesus came among us, will one day be known in all its fullness.  One day all the earth will see Jesus and say, “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.”  Until that day, we live in the between time, a time when we need hope to see God’s love at work changing the world.  May hope allow us to live our lives with meaning and purpose.  In hope may we love our neighbors as ourselves, may we see all people as God’s creatures, worthy of love and connection, all invited to gather under God’s wing for protection.  May hope allow us to speak truth to power, to call bullying when we see it, to recognize contempt, and do our best to stand apart from it with acts of kindness for its victims.  All God’s children have a place in the choir. May hope allow us in some small way this week to make our world a little safer for all God’s children.  AMEN.