Acts 4:13-21; 1 Pet 1:3-9; Jn 20:19-31
(Invocation:)
Come, Holy Spirit, open the ears of our minds and hearts, that we may know and proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, [R.: "now and forever."]
This Sunday tends to be remembered as "Doubting Thomas" Sunday, because of that portion of our gospel message today. But sometimes we wonder: why should there be any doubt? Wasn't the whole story during Lent these past few weeks a story of Healing and New Life? Think back:
· The First Sunday of Lent we read about God breathing new life into humankind and the world that he had created.
· The Second Sunday of Lent we read about the beginning of salvation history, as we know it, and how the Lord breathed new life into Abraham and sent him forth with a promise and with blessings.
· The Third Sunday of Lent we heard about the woman at the well, and Jesus teaching about the water that he gives as turning into a spring of eternal life.
· The Fourth Sunday of Lent we saw the healing Jesus give new sight and new life to the man born blind.
· The Fifth Sunday we heard about the incredible healing by Jesus when he raised Lazarus from the dead, and when he identified himself as the "resurrection and the life."
· Finally, on Easter Sunday we rejoiced in the stories of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Now, with that scriptural background, doesn't it seem a bit strange to speak today of "doubt" about Jesus? If we are people of faith, are we supposed to have doubts? Wouldn't it be much easier to talk about the creative and growing aspects of faith? After all, here we are well into the season of spring, surrounded with newness and creativity. We can look around and marvel at the budding and blooming trees and flowers. As my wife Patricia works in the yard, I thoroughly enjoy seeing the progress of her perennial flowers and the springtime bulbs. I know that our tulips, and lilies, and crocus, and daffodils are budding and blooming - yellow, purple, pink, red and white. I discovered long ago that I love flowers; but I hate lawns. At the same time it is harder to picture the optimistic idea of "faith" in the light of many things that happen in our lives. It is hard to have such optimism with the warfare going on in Yugoslavia (1). Where do we find Peace and Unity in the midst of all of that pain and discontent?
There are two kinds of Unity, two ways to Unity: the way of Jesus, and the way of Evil. You don't have to look far in this world of ours to see the effects and consequences of Evil. Immorality is all around us, trying to break down our Christian defenses. Have we forgotten a man by the name of Adolph Hitler? He wanted to achieve the Evil-kind of Unity: that of setting up a "master race" of so-called pure Aryans, separating people from each other. The problem with that is that only the special-interest group is united, and only among themselves.
· We see it again today in the Balkans, or the Yugoslav area, with the so-called "ethnic cleansing" taking place: one ethnic group trying to eliminate other groups by war and repression and even genocide.
· Even in our own country of America, we have experienced the way of Evil on a grand scale, with racism infecting our entire society.
· We see it in northern Iraq, with Sadaam Hussein's continued attempts to repress the Kurdish people.
That is the outcome of the way of Evil: one people is pitted against another people in hatred and war and racism. The Evil way to Unity has only two consequences: those of Separatism and Hatred.
The way of Jesus to Unity, however, is just the opposite. He does not want people to be separated, but to be united, in Him and through Him! He came to bring us Peace, and empowered us to give Peace to others. In today's gospel, Jesus gives the disciples the Holy Spirit, and sends them forth to be Peacemakers, empowered to forgive. What a tremendous empowerment we have! Each and every one of you who have been baptized has been empowered to forgive. Forgiveness is the greatest act of peacemaking that there ever can be, in this world!
We don't have to look across an ocean to see things that get in the way of Unity. A little story might illustrate that point:
- A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
With several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shop,
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.She was engrossed in her book, but happened to see,
That the man beside her, as bold as could be,
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag between,
Which she tried to ignore, to avoid a scene.She read, munched cookies, and watched the clock,
As the gutsy "cookie thief" diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, "If I wasn't so nice, I'd blacken his eye!"With each cookie she took, he took one too.
When only one was left, she wondered what he'd do.
With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh,
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.He offered her half, as he ate the other.
She snatched it from him and thought, “Oh brother,
This guy has some nerve, and he's also rude,
Why, he didn't even show any gratitude!”She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate,
Refusing to look back at the “thieving ingrate."She boarded the plane and sank in her seat,
Then sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise.
There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes!“If mine are here,” she moaned with despair,
“Then the others were his and he tried to share!”
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief! (2)
I like that story - it makes me think about how well God treats me even when I am not treating him well, or when I am not thinking all that kindly about my neighbors. It also reminds me about how fragile this goal of "unity" can be, and how hard we have to work to achieve it in our normal everyday life.
The best part of today's scriptural story is that the disciples "got" the message! They heard, understood, and acted upon the words of Jesus. The First Reading tells us about that: "Those who believed shared all things in common… they divided everything on the basis of each one's need… they took their meals in common, praising God…" Sharing and Caring: that is the way of Unity! That is the Christian conduct that we are led to by following the way of Jesus!
To be caring and sharing, just like those first disciples, is our Christian calling. Sometimes it can be hard for us, because we are called to work not only on behalf of victims, but also against unjust systems. Jesus challenges us not only to hold poor peoples' hands and sit with them in their poverty, but also to help bring them out of their suffering, to address the systems and realities that bind them, and let them go. Jesus challenges us not to shake our heads and wring our hands over racism and ethnic abuses, but to rage against it, and to attack it - yes, attack it - attack it with Love so that it may no longer hold this city, this country, this world in its grip. Jesus challenges us to see him not as a "someday" Lord, but as Lord of this day and this place, and as Lord of the whole world (3).
Nevertheless, a lot of so-called Christians are still blinded by ethnic pride, which prevents them from living out the gospel message of Jesus. They "pick and choose" what they want to hear. I'm reminded of the old joke about the woman who sat in the "Amen corner" during the sermon, and responded out loud as the preacher denounced the evils of the day:
· The preacher said, "I tell you, brothers and sisters, fornication is a sin!" "Amen!" she replied.
· "And drunkenness, and profaning the Lord's day, are sins and will be judged!"
"Amen!" she answered. "That's the very word-a-god!"
· "And playing cards, and smoking, and wearing makeup, and dancing, are sins in the sight of the Lord!"
"Amen! Amen!" she responded. "Now, you're preaching!"
· And then, getting bolder from the response his obviously life-changing sermon was having on the congregation, the preacher eyed the woman, and solemnly declared, "And playing bingo, especially on the Sabbath, is a sin in the eyes of God."
"Preacher," the woman answered, very thin-lipped, "Now, you're meddling." (4)
There can be no place for "cafeteria Christianity" in our lives. The entire message of Jesus Christ is life-giving; we cannot pick and choose what suits our ethnic pride or ethnic desires.
John's gospel is telling us that we may have "doubts," and that's OK. The apostle Thomas having doubts doesn't mean he, or you and me, are without faith. On the contrary, I think it shows that we take our faith seriously, so seriously that we want to understand and grow - just like Thomas did (5). But if we stay within the worshipping community, our doubts can be resolved by our mutual support, our mutual influence of faith and hope, and especially our mutual Love and Forgiveness!
We all know that New Life comes to us through the grace of God given to us in the sacraments. What we may overlook is that we are still on a pilgrimage, always journeying every day towards this new life. And as we try to live the life of a disciple, we need to remember that we journey together as a community, with a goal of Unity, of Sharing.
I would like to end by quoting from a song that our Choir sings occasionally at the 11:00 a.m. mass. Its lyrics are very fitting for today, and help us keep our focus on Jesus. Here is the song:
- "He came from heaven to earth, to show the way,
from the earth to the cross, my debts to pay;
from the cross to the grave,
from the grave to the sky,
Lord I lift your name on high"!
Notes: (1) Adapted from Ben Manning (homepages.infoseek.com/~heritagechristian).
(2) The Cookie Thief, by Valerie Cox. From A Third Serving Chicken Soup for the Soul, by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, pp. 199-200. Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, Fla.: 1996. Used with permission of the author. (This resource and many others, as well as specially-priced package of the Chicken Soupbooks, are available through the Homiletic Resource Center
(3) Adapted from S. Sylvester, 5th Lent, PRCL-L.
(4) Source unknown; I first heard this from Neil Parker, Jan.'98.
(5) A Bass Mitchell thought from 1998.
(Comments to Paul at prooney@ne.uswest.net or visit his web page at http://www.angelfire.com/ne/DeaconPaul/ )