Belief and Doubt and Forgiveness of Sins

John 20:19-31

It came across my news feed this week. A young friend from another time and place is in distress.

I would not venture to offer the multiple causes of her worry, however there was this. An older friend suggested she might think about coming back to church for the support of God's people there would surely be a gift to her. And my young friend politely thanked her but said that since she no longer believes it would not seem right to ask for help only when she was in need.

I ached to read this. And not even so much because of her professed lack of belief, but because of her decision to cut herself off from those who would support her on this journey of faith which inevitably holds its ups and downs, its times when faith runs deep and in times when doubt threatens to overtake. And as you might imagine, as I thought of her struggle with faith, I also found myself thinking about Thomas as we encounter him now. Thomas who was not there with the others that first Easter night and who could not, would not let himself be convinced by their heartfelt witness. Thomas, who vowed he would not, could not believe until or unless he put his own hand in the wounds Jesus' carried still. Thomas who is known more for his doubt than his belief, but who in the end believed as surely as all the rest.

Indeed, I found myself thinking about Thomas and I am reminded of what I have long known. We simply cannot force another to believe. Indeed, I cannot even force myself to believe. On their own, all of my convincing arguments and proofs fall flat. Rather, faith comes only and always as precious gift. I will say this, though. It does help to surround myself with others who carry and are carried by their faith. It has never helped me to cut myself off from the community of believers --- no matter where I find myself on the spectrum of doubt and faith, belief and skepticism.

And yet, I am struck today that Jesus does not spend much time that first Easter day in making a case for belief in his having risen from the dead. No, even before the disciples are done rejoicing, we realize that Jesus is not so much concerned with eternal life which his rising from the dead would imply, but with this life now. Oh yes, we hear that even before they can fully take in the wonder of who is standing before them miraculously alive again, Jesus is breathing on them the power of the Holy Spirit which enables them and us to forgive and which calls upon us to discern when and where such forgiveness is called for. Jesus is inviting them and us to extend the same Peace he spoke when he entered into their fear behind those locked doors.

This should come as no surprise to us, of course. For this is the One who spoke to those who would condemn about 'casting the first stone.' This is the One whose story of the forgiving father resonates in every time and place. This is the One who uttered words of forgiveness even as he hung dying on the cross. Oh it is so that this should come as no surprise to us for Jesus came to heal that which was broken -- perhaps especially that which is broken between and among and through God's beloved children --- and what better way to do so than forgiveness?

Oh yes, I came to this long ago: one cannot simply convince another to believe. But when our faith runs deep and when it does not, we can still live as those who believe, bearing witness in our words and in our deeds the truth that Jesus lives. And is there any more powerful way, is there any more surprising way, is there any more life changing way to do so than with forgiveness? Indeed, I can't help but wonder, has the world ever needed it more?

Indeed, what more powerful witness could there be for my young friend than this? My prayer is that she will soon and often encounter others of God's Own People living the truth of Jesus' being alive. And not just in words spoken, but in outstretched arms of forgiveness and grace. And Peace.

• I have always found the existence of 'faith' or 'belief' to be a mystery which cannot be forced but which can be invited. What is your experience of this?
• On this reading of this familiar story, I am struck by the fact that Jesus does not pause long in proving his resurrection to the disciples. Instead he moves on to what this means for their lives, for our lives, for our whole life together. And he speaks of forgiveness which has been, in my understanding, a primary gift of his living and dying and living again. What do you make of this?
• Where do you see forgiveness needed in your life, in your community, in your congregation, in your workplace, in the world?  What would it look like for you to be a bearer of that forgiveness?  How might you be called to be an embodiment of the Peace that Jesus brings?

On Hopscotch and Crocuses and Doubting Thomas Once More

John 20:19-31

I didn't get up in time to go to my weight training class this morning.  It's the day after Easter, after all, and my 4:45 alarm just came too early.  So instead I decided to take the walk I've been fitting in these last couple of weeks.  It takes just more than half an hour to make the circle and while it's not my usual summer walk it's been just right on these mornings when spring is making a late start.  I altered my route by a block or so though today as I remembered that even as cold as it has been, the crocuses must be up by now.

For you see, there's a house about a block from where I live where the crocuses bloom every spring.  They're not in an actual garden set 

apart. Rather, the green shoots and the bright white blossoms poke their way through the grass all over the front lawn.  I remember what a precious surprise it was the first time I happened upon them.  Now I go looking for them early in the spring.  I go because I've seen them before.  I go because even when there there is no other evidence of life just yet, I know they'll come again. They always do.

It was as I made my way down the street towards those promised crocuses that I came upon another surprise this time.  Yesterday was Easter after all and apparently some youngsters had gotten sidewalk chalk in their Easter Baskets this year and so for anyone passing by we were treated with a whole length of sidewalk drawings. First there was a hopscotch pattern traced in purple chalk. And then there was in large capital letters HAPPY EASTER!!! for all to see.  And then there was another hopscotch game sketched out this time in bright orange chalk.  By then I couldn't resist.  I glanced over my shoulder to be sure no one else was out and about and I skipped my way through the last several squares. 

I found I wondered though as I continued on my walk about how those children learned about hopscotch.  In this age of smart phone apps and video games and mostly organized sports, somehow children still learn to draw hopscotch on the sidewalk and to jump through the squares. Someone must have taught them.  Someone must have passed along the joy we can know in such a simple game.

And then I walked a little further and found the crocuses where I knew they would be before I made my way home to get moving into another day.  And yes, in case you're wondering my Monday morning after a busy Holy Week meanderings do somehow tie to this week's Gospel story...

For it is so that we meet up with Thomas once more.  And I have to say that yet again this year I find myself empathizing with his unwillingness to embrace the news of Jesus' resurrection until he had seen the evidence.  I am certain I am no different from him.  If I hadn't seen those crocuses every spring for the last five years I surely would not have gone looking for them today.  And that is only spring flowers.  Anyone who has experienced the cycle of the seasons even just a few times knows to look for flowers which will come again.  But in the case of Jesus'  being alive again?  What in all of his life experience could have prepared Thomas for that?

Except, of course the stories of such remarkable things which had happened over and over before throughout the history of God's people.  Indeed, as I experienced our Easter Vigil service on Saturday night I found myself leaning back into my pew and settling into the long familiar ancient stories once more. The Story of Creation.  Of Noah and the Flood.  Of the Parting of the Red Sea.  Of the Valley of Dry Bones Coming to Life Again.   I have never seen these things, just as Thomas had not seen these things.  It may be a stretch, but it reminds me of all children in all times and places to whom gifts are passed along: in small things like learning to draw and play hopscotch and in large things, too,  like stories of a people and our God and what it is to live as those who know that death did not defeat Jesus and so does not stand a chance with us either.  In part we know this is so because we have been told that God has been doing the unexpected, the impossible, the life altering, death defeating for all of time.  To be sure, Thomas had also heard all the stories from his youth.  One wonders why the rumor that Jesus, too, was alive again would come as a surprise.

It could be that Thomas was blinded by grief, by long learned cynicism, by exhaustion, by fear...  But even if that wasn't the case, I suppose one can't really blame him for asking for the evidence.  The other disciples had had as much as he asked for before they believed.  They had seen the Risen Christ. Thomas only demanded the same.  And maybe, just maybe, his knowing the ancient stories enabled him to finally fully believe after all.  For you'll notice that for all of his insistence, he never did place his finger into the mark of the nails or his hand into Jesus' side and yet he still believed.

And so I would offer one more marvelous image from these last special days.  Yesterday morning a hardy group of the faithful bundled up against the lingering cold of this late coming spring and gathered at the cemetery. As part of our service we joined together in naming the names of those we have loved and buried there and in other such places near and far. And we repeated the Easter Proclamation over and over as the names were named.  "Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  He is Risen, Indeed!  Alleluia!"   We were midway through this sharing when one of our 90-year-olds who was sitting on a folding chair in the front row hoisted himself to his feet and bracing himself on his cane he announced to one and all:  "I forgot my hearing aids!  I forgot my gloves!  I forgot my money!  But I'm having a great time!"  And then he sat down.  And I said, "Alleluia! Christ is Risen!"  And the people responded, "He is Risen, Indeed!  Alleluia!"  The wonder was that apparently Jesse had not been able to hear a word we were saying, and yet somehow he knew himself to be fully part of our celebration.  It had to be my favorite moment of the day.  Indeed, Jesus concludes his exchange today with Thomas saying, "Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."  He's talking about all of us there... you and me who gather in cemeteries still.  You and I who can no longer hear and maybe have never seen, but still somehow believe. By God's grace and gift in the company of all of God's people in all times and places along with Thomas who no longer doubts but believes, you and I also believe and encounter Easter Joy once more in long awaited crocuses joyous sidewalk greetings and beside one another we repeat the promise that Christ is Risen. And so shall we be. So shall we be...

• How have you come to embrace a belief in the Risen Christ?  Do you relate to Thomas' struggle to believe?  Why or why not?
• What difference does it make to you that the ancient stories have been passed on to you as well?  How do they shape your understanding of how God works in the world still?
• How did the promise of Easter come home for you this year?

Scars and Stories, Doubt and Faith

John 20:19-31

I can still remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when the trailer lurched forward and caught my dad’s hand between it and the hitch on the back of the family station wagon.

I was twelve, maybe thirteen years old.   That would have made my sisters eleven, ten and nine years old.  I was still bigger than they were and stronger. Mary, Sarah, and I had been assigned to the back of the camper to push and Martha was standing next to my dad waiting to guide the camper into place.  Only the wheels were caught on some kind of grade and try as we might we couldn't seem to get it to budge.  My dad shouted at us to push just one more time and I gave it all I had and felt it give. 

Before we could fully understand what had happened, my mom was driving him to the local emergency room with a towel wrapped around his bleeding hand.  We were left to sit and wait around a now cold campfire --- I remember carrying the guilt heavy in those waiting hours for I knew it was my effort that had hurt him.

A few hours later they were back.  His wounded hand now sported a couple of stitches and a big white bandage.  He was quick to assure us that it was his fault, not ours, for we were only doing as we were told.  And then he went on to say that he was glad it was his hand that took the blow and not Martha’s… for he knew the damage to her much smaller hand would have been far worse.  Like any loving parent, he would willingly take the pain in place of his child any time and every time if he possibly could.

He bore the scars of that particular afternoon on his hand the rest of his life.  I sometimes think the mark on the palm of his hand said as much about who he was as anything did.

Indeed, I suppose it is so for all of us.  Our scars tell part of the story of who we are, what has mattered to us, what has happened to us, the risks we’ve taken, the gifts we’ve given.  And as we are reminded in the story before us in John's Gospel, this was surely also so with Jesus, too.

Which is why Thomas insisted he needed to see, no more than that, feel the scars in his hands and put his own hand in Jesus’ side to be sure that it was him.  One would think he would have recognized him with from the features of his face or the sound of his voice, but no, for Thomas, Jesus had become something more since that long walk to the cross a week before.  Jesus’ very identity was now defined by the sacrifice he had made in our behalf.  A sacrifice made most visible in those wounds that by then could have only begun to heal.

Now it seems to me in recent years that Thomas' reputation has been somehwat redeemed.  I'm old enough to remember when the descriptor 'Doubting' always came before his name.... as if one could do anything but doubt in the face of such incredible news as was shared with him by the others.  These days, it seems, the emphasis is more on his confession of faith which comes right after Jesus' appearance among the disciples in that locked upper room: "My Lord and My God!" is Thomas' exclamation as soon as he realizes that he is actually standing in the presence of the Crucified and Risen One.

Still, I wish sometimes that we could go back to the time when we talked more about Thomas' doubt, only perhaps in a different way than we once did.  For in my experience, doubt is not necessarily a terrible thing.  To be sure, doubt is not comfortable, and depending on the circumstances can be downright terrifying.  And yet, for me, it's only when I've allowed myself to stand still in my own doubt that I have discovered answers and meaning and hope again. In fact, in their new little book, Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia For All That Is, Joan Chittister and Rowan Williams name doubt in the second chapter as something for which we should give profound thanks.  For as they write,

There is simply a point in life when reason fails to satisfy our awareness of what is clearly unreasonable and clearly real at the same time --- like love and self-sacrifice and trust and good. Data does not exist to explain these unexplainable things.  Then only the doubt that opens our hearts to what we cannot comprehend, only the doubt that makes us rabidly pursue the truth, only the doubt that moves us beyond complacency, only the doubt that corrects mythologies not worthy of faith can lead us to the purer air of spiritual truth.  Then we are ready to move beyond the senses into the mystical, where faith shows us those penetrating truths the eye cannot see. (p. 17)

We do sometimes recognize one another by our scars.  Thomas thought he needed to see and touch his scars to be certain it was Jesus.  In his quest for the truth he was not afraid to ask the hard questions which led him to an ever deeper faith.  But, in the end, as the story is passed on, he didn't need what he asked for.  When Jesus simply stood right before him Thomas was able to embrace the truth of who Jesus is with all of his being.  The scars told part of the story, but only part of it, it seems.  I wonder though.   Would Thomas have gotten to that point if he hadn't asked the questions, if he hadn't 'doubted' first?  What do you think?

1. Can you think of 'scars' that tell something about who one is and what matters most? 
2. What words would you put to the meaning of Jesus' scars?  What evidence of Jesus' resurrection do you still yearn to see?
3. What role has 'doubt' played in your journey of faith?
4. What questions about  your faith do you still need to pursue that you haven't yet?  Where might those questions lead you if you just let yourself ask them?
5. What have been the moments in your life when along with Thomas you have embraced your faith simply with the words, "My Lord and my God!"  What brought you to that place in those times?