The
year was 1995. I was freshly divorced and house sitting for a friend of mine
while he was away for the summer. He had a late 80’s Mazda Rx7 that he told me
to be sure I drove from time to time, but I had to be careful because the
speedometer didn’t always work. Well, I got pulled over. By some miracle of
chance, the officer believed me that the car was not stolen and that the
speedometer was broken. That was probably due to the fact that I was pulled
over for going too slow, but I still attributed being let go without a ticket
to the prayers that leaped into my heart at the sound of the siren!
It was
a trying time in my life, and that very night I did what I would never advise
anyone do. I got out my Bible. I shook my fist at God and said, “If you love
me, prove it!” Then I flipped open the Bible and stuck my finger in it – just
like Thomas. Fortunately, I did not land in something like Daniel’s dream of a
ram and a goat. I landed on Mathew 5:25, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about
your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”
I
looked around and the reality of the fact that the small ranch style house I
was given for the summer was actually on a polo ranch. I didn’t get to ride or
play or anything ridiculous like that, but I was in the lap of luxury. It
turned my life around. It let me see that I was so focused on what I had lost
that I could not see what was before me.
Today I
want you to think a little about how our expectations for God’s activity, or
even our expectation that God is not active or present, can blind us to what
God has done and is doing. Even more than that, this day is a day to remember
that our belief – and maybe even our doubt, to some extent – in Jesus as the
messiah of God is life-giving!
I want
to start by sharing the story of Rachel Farnsworth with you. I’ve posted it on
our church Facebook page in case you want to hear it in her words. She is a
video blogger who produces videos that teach people how to cook restaurant-quality food at home. Apparently, someone commented on her video that her gray
hairs (which are very few) make her look like an old hag. Rather than getting
involved in a tweet war like so many others in our national fabric, she decided
to address the issue (but not the person) directly.
Her
story begins by recognizing that her husband’s opinion is more important to her
than a stranger, and he likes the idea of growing old together. She continues
to describe other personal and physical struggles that have haunted her
throughout her life that have required corrective surgeries, and which will
ultimately shorten her life expectancy. She ends by encouraging men to love
their wives as they are and as they become and women to be comfortable in their
own skin. Then she reminds everyone to be the kind of person that builds others
up instead of tearing them down. "Be that person,” she says.
It’s a
great message, and if everyone would just listen and put it into play the world
would be a better place. It does make me wonder, though. If it’s all about
ethics – the way, we treat each other – does it matter what we believe? For
that matter, if our faith doesn’t take us to the same place – treating others
with dignity – then is it really faith, or is it just some dressed-up form of
mythology?
We
often talk about faith as being the thing that bridges the gap between science
and mysticism, but is that really all it is? Is our faith just a way to look
doubt in the eye and say, “Nanny, nanny boo-boo!”?
I think
this story of Thomas and the appearance of Jesus is about something more. I
think it’s a story about the early church wrestling with the fact that they’ve
been given the responsibility to decide what is life-giving and what is not.
Even more than that, it’s a way to tell us that while faith may provide some
basic assumptions about God, our doubt helps us embrace them as real and true.
The beautiful thing is that both faith and doubt are knit together in something
greater, and that is the hope that both faith and doubt are constantly moving
us toward a greater understanding of what’s real and true.
Now,
left to our own devices, all we can do is find what’s real and true for
ourselves as individuals. It kind of reminds me of a t-shirt my brother used to
wear. It said, “Rule #1, I am always right. Rule #2, if I am wrong, see rule
#1.” When we come together as the church, not the institution but the Body of
Christ working together, the rules become something more like, “#1 Faith moves
us into life-giving action. #2 If doubt replaces faith, see rule #1.” That’s
not as funny, but it’s real and true.
It’s
real and true because we, as the church, have been given the responsibility to
forgive or retain sins. Sometimes we’ve been right, but we’ve also been wrong.
The whole protestant reformation was built on correcting the church. Yet we’ve
still condoned slavery, denied the gifts of women, and relegated LGBTQ+ persons
to second class membership (or worse, by condemning them, have given permission
to violence). We’ve looked away on environmental issues to the peril of our
planet. We’ve relegated “social sins” like poverty and racism to the political
arena, and we’ve allowed ecology to take a back seat to economics.
Yet it
is through the church that Christ constantly calls us to reform. In our
denomination, we have groups and councils that are seriously engaging these
issues and encouraging us to do the same! You may not agree with denominational
stances or social activism in the church, but I can tell you that Jesus did.
All you have to do is read the gospels to see it.
Now I
know that we are not Jesus, but if the church is not the body of Christ, broken
for the world, then what are we? I don’t say this to guilt or to shame. I say
this to acknowledge that Jesus came into the midst of disciples gathered in
fear and trying to shut out the world and said, “Peace. As my father sent me,
now I send you.”
Then he
breathed the Holy Spirit upon them. The same breath of God that hovered over
the waters of creation flowed in and through their lungs and flows in and
through yours and mine even now! That’s why the church must be the life-giving
presence that we are. We are the ones who look at the world and say, “The
Spirit of God is as close as your breath!” Hope in the face of chaos is as
close as your breath!
I
believe that. Do you? I do. Even though I believe it, I am not naive enough to
think that evil doesn’t need to be restrained, and sometimes with force. I am
also not naive enough to think that blowing things up works in real life the
way it does in the movies. I am not naive enough to think that our breath alone
can pull us from the chaos of poverty and injustice, or that laws can fix moral
issues, or that we are ever going to be right 100% of the time.
Yet I
know this one thing to be true. I know that our belief in Jesus as the Messiah
of God is what moves us toward decisions and actions that are life-giving. I
know that he brought peace that was not as the world brings; not a temporary
peace; not a peace that depends on a sword to back it up; not a peace that is
reasonable, but a peace that passes understanding.
It is a peace that compels us in the midst of our own suffering and joy to always be “that
person” who is life-affirming so that even those who have not touched the
wounds of Christ might come to believe. The good news is that we aren’t alone.
As we try to be “that person” we have one another to help us along the way.
That means that the first place that we practice forgiveness and accountability
is right here, between us.
In our
midst is always the font of grace and the table of mercy because we need it as
much as anyone else might. For now just remember rule #1, “Faith in the risen
Christ moves us into life-affirming action,” and leave everything else in the
hands of the One who holds us all; even here, even now. Amen.
Comments