Thomas, Redux

I have made a not-so-subtle move on this blog during the pandemic that I want to be more explicit about today. In my role on the Bishop's staff I often say that I'm an itinerant preacher. I'm in a different congregation most weeks of the year. Sometimes it's directly related to congregations going through pastoral transitions. Other times, I'm called upon to do what we call "supply work" - to be a substitute priest if one of our clergy is on vacation or family leave or sabbatical. But most Sundays I'm in one of our congregations, usually as the preacher, somewhere in our diocese.

So in "normal times" this blog is a place where I usually post those sermons. I try to always include a picture of the church as a way to offer context. My hope is that for most readers my ruminations offer another voice to complement what they may have heard from their own pastor that morning, and that we point together to the risen Christ who shows us the way to the living God. 

I also hope it offers a glimpse of what a diocese looks like as I move from small to medium to larger congregations, from rural to urban to suburban. Most lay people (and even most ordained people) tend to be...well, more parochial. There are many, many gifts in parochial ministry: you get to go deeper and strengthen relationships. But there is a breadth to diocesan ministry that also helps one to see what it means to be "Church" beyond the walls of a particular building. I hope that my blog posts allow those who travel with me to get a glimpse of that. 

But I'm not getting out these days. My work is not "essential" work in this sense, and our buildings  have been empty on Sunday mornings, even though the Church is alive and well. So I have not preached a sermon  since March 8 when I was at The Church of the Reconciliation in Webster. 

Instead of posting sermons, I have been posting reflections here and doing so earlier in the week.- usually on Monday mornings. These reflections are not situated in a particular time and place, other than perhaps my home and my awareness of the current situation many of us find ourselves in. But I hope that by offering some thoughts and ideas to preachers and those who will hear sermons preached on Sunday mornings that I'm now "priming the pump." I've watched in awe as my colleagues have adapted to the current situation and continue to learn how to go live on Sunday mornings. That has got to be exhausting! I know some are not preaching regular "sermons" but are inviting conversation and reflection on the texts of the day. I think that's great. I hope these posts might be helpful in that work of opening up the Word. 

I've written sermons for most Sundays for over three decades now and in that process, I have learned to pray with scripture. While I try (with some degree of success) to read more scripture each week than just what's coming up in the lectionary, that plan for reading the Bible (an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, an Epistle reading and a Gospel reading for each week of the liturgical year) shapes my prayer life week after week. Because I have been at this for some time, I've seen these texts before. The lectionary is a three-year cycle, which means I've now been through it ten times!  But it does not get old for me and besides, when I circle back to a text three years from now, I will be different - and the world will be changed - even if the Word of God remains.

All of this is by way of saying explicitly why I'm sharing these posts on Monday mornings now; so that I can offer some thoughts on the coming week. Rather than being a "finished" sermon these ruminations are offered to invite your own reflections and prayers during the week ahead. This coming Sunday will be the Fifth Sunday of Easter. The readings appointed can be found here. 

There are potentially many very good sermons to be preached on the Fifth Sunday of Easter and probably some rabbit holes, too. Acts (which I've been trying to call attention to in these posts throughout The Fifty Days of Easter) is focused this week on the first martyr, Stephen. Notice his last words echo words of Jesus: he forgives his murderers and he offers his life back to God. As the day's collect reminds us, even those of us not called to martyrdom, we are not simply called to worship Jesus. We are called to follow in his footsteps. We are called to imitate Christ, as Stephen does. It sounds cliche but we are meant to ask, "what would Jesus do?" or at least "what would Jesus have me do?" Even when it's hard. Especially then. 

So in this time when there is too much death all around us we can remember that what makes our own deaths holy is work we do for ourselves, and even before we take our last breath we can practice forgiveness on a daily basis so that when we die it is well with our souls. And we can, on a daily basis, commit (and recommit) ourselves to God our Maker, who formed us from the earth to which we will all one day return.

Both the Psalm and the reading from First Peter are ripe with possibilities as well. But I'm drawn this week to Thomas. I know the gospel reading is not about Thomas, but it's his second Easter appearance. Remember Trusting Thomas? The one who says "my Lord and my God!" 

In today's reading we get a "back flash" to an earlier moment in Jesus' earthly ministry. These verses are often read at funerals, and I think chosen by families because these words bring great comfort to people who have put their trust in Jesus as the way, and the truth, and the life. In the context of John’s Gospel, this is the beginning of what the scholars call the “farewell discourse.” It is the last night of Jesus’ earthly life—Holy Thursday—and that is why the disciples’ “hearts are troubled.” 

Anyone who has ever kept vigil with a dying loved one knows something of the emotional energy of that Upper Room, of wanting to say goodbyes and of trying to take care of unfinished business. Anyone who is unable to keep that kind of vigil as is now the case during this season of pandemic feels that tremendous loss. Especially many pastors I know are finding this to be so difficult. Even more difficult than not being able to gather together on Sunday mornings in the flesh. Too many people are dying alone. 

In any event, Jesus is giving instructions to the disciples on how to carry on with the work he has begun after he is gone. He is summing up what his life has been about and pointing the disciples to a way forward. He is explaining what it means to be the Church. I think of this material as similar to the Book of Deuteronomy, where Moses is giving his own farewell discourse and summing up forty years in the wilderness, as God’s people prepare to enter into the Promised Land. At the heart of Jesus’ farewell discourse in John 14-16 is a lived-out parable –the washing of the feet—and a new commandment “to love one another as I have loved you.”

And so we heard Jesus explaining that he must go to prepare a place for them. But they should not let their hearts be troubled, because they know the way to where he is going. It’s like a preacher rolling along in a sermon or a professor who is gaining momentum in her lecture. Only everyone listening is starting to get a little lost. It takes that one student who is willing to raise his hand and say, “excuse me professor, can we back up?”

Thomas is that student. “Lord, we do not know where you are going. So how can we possibly know the way?"

It is in response to Thomas’s question that Jesus says: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” It is important to hear those words in context: Jesus is essentially telling the disciples that he will be their GPS, that he will lead them where they need to go, that he will be with them throughout the journey; however long it takes and wherever it may lead them. 

It's important to be clear that Jesus is not uttering these words as a threat to unbelievers which is how it sometimes feels when I see these words on a highway billboard. I've even seen translations in those contexts that add the word "only," which seek to turn them into a weapon: Jesus is the only way, you either have him or you don't! Clearly this is not the text with which to begin a serious interfaith conversation. But above all, it's not what Jesus is saying! These are "comfortable words" addressed to intimate friends; a confession of faith that will help them to carry on. They are, on our own lips, a confession that helps those of us who have been sealed and marked and claimed as Christ's own forever to know who we are and what we are about. As Ralph Vaughn Williams understood, this is a call to follow.

Knowing this, and living this, is what it means to be God’s Easter people - or at least moving in that direction. Our work is to keep putting our trust in this risen Christ, as we learn to live one day at a time, embracing each new day as sheer gift. Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Twice then, in these fifty days, we've seen Thomas not as the "doubter" as he is so often labeled, but as one who is fearless. One who will ask the question that leads to deeper faith. Sadly, while Jesus was a master at encouraging this kind of engagement, too many of us were wounded by pastors and Sunday school teachers and sometimes even parents who said, "put your hand down! No questions!"

But our questions lead us to deeper understanding and to the living God revealed in the risen Christ, who welcomes the questions. How can we possibly know the way, Jesus? Stick with me, kid! I'll be with you all the way. No matter what. Come and follow me.