MY LORD AND MY GOD
Showing Forth in Our Lives What We Profess by Our Faith
Every so often, the teacher in me rises up and demands I give it some
attention. So it is that I promise not to give you a test but ask
you allow me to offer a bit of "churchiology" this morning.
Seriously, from time to time there is benefit to stepping back and
looking at what we do here, examining our liturgy.
The word "liturgy" suggests images of ritual and sacred rite but in
fact, derives from the Greek word for offering service to the people,
to the state a sort of taxation on talent and wealth. We retain
that sense when we refer to the liturgy as a worship service. In
Christianity, liturgy denotes the work of the people and is a
ritualized, active response to the Holy.
Our Eucharistic Liturgy has three basic parts or acts: The Introductory
Greeting, The Liturgy of the Word that begins with the Collect for
Purity and ends with The Peace, and Holy Communion which opens with the
Offertory and ends with the Dismissal.
This morning, I want to focus our attention on an element of the
Liturgy of the Word that leads up to the lessons: the Collect.
The Collect is, by tradition, a one-sentence prayer intended to
"collect" the silent prayers offered by the people at the celebrant's
invitation, "Let us pray." When we unite to say the "Amen" at the
end of the Collect, we are, each of us, agreeing to its petition, a
literal "So be it!" or "Count me in!" Further, the Collect often
serves as a gateway to our spiritual hearing as the Word is read.
The readings themselves always point to Jesus Christ his person, his work, his teaching and our response With that bit of background let's look at today's collect and lessons.
On the second Sunday in Easter throughout the three-year liturgical
cycle of readings, two things remain constant: the Collect and the
Gospel. The readings from Acts, the Epistle, and the Psalm change
but the same Collect and Gospel lesson form an anchor for this first Sunday
following the Feast of Our Lord's Resurrection. That means each
year we pray that we be given the ability to "show forth in [our] lives
what [we] profess by [our] faith." And each year, we hear the
story of Thomas and his doubts year after year; so regularly that the
term "doubting Thomas" is deeply rooted in our language. But I
must tell you, there is more, much more, to this story than Thomas'
need for verification; a careful reading of the Gospel suggests
Thomas may be more the hero than the goat in this story.
Thomas figures prominently on three occasions in John's Gospel.
The first is when Jesus gets the call to come to Lazarus (John
11). There is a fear that Jesus will be taken and killed if they
go. Thomas is the disciple who steps up and proposes they go,
prepared to die with him. Then at Jesus' penultimate post-supper
discourse, it is Thomas who speaks up, who gives voice to the question
they we all want to ask: How can we know the way if we don't know
where Jesus is going? Yes, John in his Gospel uses Thomas as a
little recognized but crucial voice for all who would follow Christ.
And so we come to the Gospel for Easter II. It picks up right
where we left off last week on Easter Sunday. It is still as it is
perpetually for us Resurrection Day. We find the disciples in
the house, behind locked doors. I'm afraid that in our modern
society, locked doors are so common that we hardly notice that bit of
information. Maybe I notice it because I grew up in a rural area
and have lived most of my life without locking house or car. Yes,
I've been burned once or twice but there is an underlying purpose,
necessitated by rural living, of making what I have available if
someone has need of it, and of consciously choosing to make myself vulnerable.
After all, locked doors may keep the world out but they also keep us
in. The image here points back to Lazarus' tomb, to Lazarus
bound, and to Jesus resurrected.
So there are disciples sequestered in this cage. We don't know
how many were there; we only know that Thomas was not. Likely the
ten were in that room but there might have been others there as
well. Jesus appears and shows them his hands, his feet, his
pierced side. I remember a rather decent Marijohn Wilkin song
from the 1970s of perhaps uncertain theological value that included
these lines in the chorus:
I'm headed for a home built by God alone, Hallelujah, praise the lord, I am.
Where the only thing there that's been made by man, are the scars in the hands of Jesus.
In any event, John tells us they were filled with
joy. Jesus pronounces the gift of peace, sends them out as he was
sent out by the Father, and breathes on them, gives them the Holy
Spirit and yes this scripture is also read on Pentecost some years.
So, they've seen Jesus, received the blessing of his peace, been filled with the Holy Spirit, sent to evangelize
and where do we find them a week later? Behind locked
doors! The NRSV translators' intent not with standing, the Greek
word for the locked door in verse 19 is identical to the one in verse
26.
Why should Thomas believe them? What difference does it make for
us to rejoice at the Lord's presence if we deny him in our living, our
daily walk? When Thomas says I have to see for myself, he is as much questioning the testimony of the disciples as he is
doubting the Resurrection of Jesus. They may have reported seeing
Jesus but not only have they not gone out as he was sent out by God,
they are still locking their doors. These are men and women of
faith?
The word, illiterate, refers to someone who cannot read. But
someone who chooses not to read, even though they can, is still
illiterate in a practical sense. Perhaps these disciples might be
described as living with practical unbelief. We can amen,
hallelujah, and I believe to our heart's content but if we fail to
live the life to which we are called, the life for which we were
created, then ours is a hollow faith indeed. These disciples have
a ways to go before they are those of whom we hear in Acts, the ones
who stand before the authorities and insist, We must obey God rather
than any human authority. We are witnesses...
Somewhere between Sunday night and Pentecost, these disciples, these who
lived with, listened to, and followed the Master, are somehow moved from
fear to faith, from death to life, and became God's hands, his feet,
his voice to the world.
Doubt sure, that's part of our human nature, the way God made us, the
part that carries enough cynicism to avoid being overwhelmed by our own
thoughts. We should doubt, but we should also be willing and able
to encourage one another in our times of doubt, those dark nights of
the soul that allow new light to shine within. Mother Teresa's
letters, the ones she wanted destroyed at her death but which the
church chose to publish as a posthumous autobiography, reveal that this
saint of mercy and love lived out her vocation with great doubt.
Never the less, she would surely would have joined John on the Isle of
Patmos in offering this hymn as a paean to the Revelation of Jesus:
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood,
and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
In this season of Easter celebration, we mark the
appearances of the risen Christ to his disciples. Let us unlock the
door, risk vulnerability, encourage one another, and share our own
revelations of the living Christ with each other and with a hurting,
hungry world. And as we walk toward Pentecost a few short weeks
away, we will, as true disciples, "show forth in [our] lives what [we]
profess by [our] faith."
Amen
The
Rev. John Dryden Burton
St.
James Episcopal Church
Springfield,
Missouri
Easter II - 11 April 2010