The Opposite of Faith

The Good News story from Lectionary readings for the Second Sunday of Easter is the same every year and it is a story that even if you don’t know the details you know the nickname taken from it, Doubting Thomas, that has given dear Thomas an undeserved bad reputation these past 2000+ years.

So here’s a question for you: what is the opposite of faith?

Most folks, I think, would say “doubt”. But I’m going to suggest otherwise. Doubt is part of true faith because it leads us to ask questions and seek answers that in turn strengthens our faith.

The true opposite of faith is apathy, not caring one way or another about the things that Jesus does or teaches, not letting the joys of believing in Jesus the Messiah transform us.

It is evening on the the day that Jesus rose from death, and the disciples are in a locked room, all except for Thomas. Jesus miraculously appears, in the flesh, and the first thing he does is to offer them peace. These are the same disciples who had run away, hid, and even denied knowing him when he was arrested and killed, and yet Jesus comes to them in reconciliation and forgiveness.

And then he shows the disciples his wounds, further proof that he is our wounded messiah, one who has suffered for and with us so that in our times of suffering, we can know beyond a shadow of doubt that God is with us and knows our pain and bears us up on the strength of love.

When Thomas returns after Jesus has left them, they tell Thomas what has happened and he isn’t pleased. Thomas wants what they all received – to be with Jesus and he doesn’t think he can do that without Jesus being physically present.

He hasn’t had to believe without Jesus being physically present before this. This is new and different and Thomas needs a new way to experience Jesus. What Thomas wants, what he thinks he needs is to actually touch Jesus’ wounds to know they are real.

A full week later, a week in which I’m sure Thomas spent a lot of time pondering just what he missed and what could make up for it, Jesus comes to the disciples again in the exact same way – entering a secure room and offering peace. Regardless of their thoughts and conversations and demands of the past week, Jesus comes to them in reconciliation and forgiveness.

Jesus appears again with his wounds still visible and offers them to Thomas and Thomas doesn’t need to do the very thing he had insisted upon. Jesus has showed him a new Way.

Thomas experiences the peace and comfort of Jesus’ presence and all is well with his soul. Thomas received what he needed not what he thought he wanted.

If Jesus were to come to us today and wipe every effect of COVID19 from the earth, a lot of people would believe. Belief would be easy. But Jesus says, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’

It’s much more difficult, it takes some serious soul work, to believe that throughout this COVID19 pandemic God is with us, giving us the strength and courage to show and share love in our suffering, to be grateful for what we do have, to be generous in our perceived scarcity, to know that the fruit of our faith isn’t an absence of conflict or tension or suffering but a deep sense of peace and joy and hope in the midst of our troubles because God is faithful and true.

We may want God to take it all away, but growth and faith happen when we receive what we truly need from God rather than demanding we get what we think we want.

Thomas’ doubt doesn’t prevent him from seeing Jesus, it doesn’t prevent him from sticking around and waiting on God. Thomas’ doubt makes his encounter with Jesus even more astonishing to us as we witness it. Without getting what he wants, he falls at the feet of Jesus in total belief. He lets go of his want and receives what he needs.

The fruit of our faith is hope and trust even when there are no visible signs and wonders. We have been saved from what we think we want, knowing that we will be given all that we need. Amen.

Newness

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there isn’t a single person among us who is doing what they expected to be doing when making life plans even a year ago, much less two, three, or four years ago. A year ago at this time, we were expecting the pandemic to impact us maybe through the fall and perhaps the end of 2020 but I don’t think any of us imagined we’d still be altering things because of COVID19 post Easter of 2021.

A year ago at this time, I was writing about taking the opportunity we’d been given to pause and consider all that we consider ‘normal’ and ask ourselves did we really want to resume the old normal. I talked about being given the gift of disruption and using this gift to evaluate what we find most important and how we have the opportunity to craft a new normal. Never did I imagine that a year plus some later, we’d still be navigating this same, uhm, opportunity.

What’s been normal for the past year is loosely held plans and working intentionally to maintain our relational connections while at the same time keeping the most vulnerable among us, as well as ourselves, safe and well. I have discovered two things through this year of ever evolving normal: One, that I really like this less “busy for busy sake” way of living; and two, that living in wait and living in anticipation are completely different things.

I’ll say more about my discoveries in the weeks to come, but I’d really like to hear about what you’ve discovered. How have you been surprised in this past year by the joy you have found in the unexpected? Have you chosen to see this past year as continued newness or constant change?

As People of The Resurrection, as we let Jesus focus our eyes with a Kingdom of God lens, we learn to see the world in a continuous state of renewal, enabling us to grieve what we’ve lost without getting lost in a hopeless wilderness of despair.

Are you able to see good in the continued newness or have you been overwhelmed by the constant change?

Living Seasonally

Hi, Y’all! How are you on this blessed Tuesday? It’s a good time for a coffee break and conversation, don’t you think?

In the church tradition I participate in, Easter like Christmas is celebrated as a season not just a day. We refer to the time from Easter Day until Pentecost as Eastertide. This spiritual rhythm of seasonally remembering is the ground work for our everyday living as we follow Jesus.

Yesterday morning as I put away the table-scape of grass and eggs and bunnies I had created for our Easter dinner, I found myself praying that I wouldn’t also try to pack away the theology of Resurrection but let the same power that raised Jesus from the dead make me alive always to the presence of God.

With all that goes into preparing a celebration that inspires and transforms those who participate with us in worship and in family gatherings, it is easy to let the “whew, that’s over” take hold as we pack the Easter decor away and begin preparing for the next thing. But Easter is about new beginnings not a finalities. Following Jesus in the Way of the Resurrection is an everlasting journey. The intentional rhythm of the Church seasons keeps us grounded in God’s story as we continuously walk the Way of Love, moment to moment, day by day, week in and week out. Our life isn’t a series of encapsulated events but ever flowing movement toward the full realization of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.

Like the disciples who had to learn to recognize Jesus again after The Resurrection we, too, work out what it is to live this Resurrection Life. Each week as we come together for community worship (however that looks like in or out of a pandemic), we celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The act of receiving Holy Communion is the framework of the Resurrection Life. We bring our whole self, our life to God’s table. We give thanks and ask God to bless what we have been given, and then we offer this blessed, God-given life to others as we “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

The difficult internal soul work we’ve done through the season of Lent with God’s help enables us to better receive the gift of The Resurrection we celebrate at Easter and The Resurrection frames our ordinary, everyday, everlasting life.

I’m grateful for all of you who are on this journey with me and I’d greatly appreciate it if you would invite others to join us. As we journey through Eastertide and into Ordinary Time, my plan is to provide a short coffee break for you on Tuesdays and Thursdays with something for us to ponder together. Please share your thoughts in the comments section and let’s make this as conversational as we can. If you’d like to contact me directly, you can send a private note from the “Let’s Get Together” page on the website.

God’s peace, my beloved resurrection friends,
Mother Nancy+

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

“Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.”

Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.

But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?”

But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?” “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him.

Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?” She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.” Jesus said, “Mary.” Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “ Rabboni! ” meaning “Teacher!” Jesus said, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: “I saw the Master!” And she told them everything he said to her.”
‭‭John‬ ‭20:1-18‬ ‭ The Message

Hear Jesus call you by name and respond to his invitation to new life, this blessed Easter Day and every day.

Fire is Kindled

For me, the most significant sentence in the Book of Common Prayer is the rubric at the beginning of the Great Easter Vigil: In the darkness, fire is kindled. The Vigil is observed sometime between sundown on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter Sunday. Before the procession begins, the clergy make a small fire from which the new Pascal Candle is lit.

I’ve seen it done with the aid of paper and rubbing alcohol with the flame taken from a prelit candle and I’ve seen it done with a match and kindling, both methods make it less stressful and more likely for the fire to actually catch. I’ve also done it with flint and steel and this method, although time consuming and difficult, more fully fits with the rubric. The fire is kindled, it isn’t taken from something else but made from a single spark.

In the darkness, fire is kindled. In the darkness. The previous days have been dark in God’s kingdom. Through the worship of the Episcopal Church and our own personal devotions, we have witnessed the betrayal and arrest of Jesus and the trial and terrifying walk through Jerusalem to Golgotha. We’ve stood with Mary and the other women at the foot of the cross and watched the life leave Jesus before placing him in the tomb.

Jesus has died and we are left in the darkness. He didn’t vanish, he didn’t go someplace else to hang out for a couple of days, he isn’t resuscitated or awakened on Sunday morning. Jesus is dead and those who watched it happen are in shock and despair.

What now? Why did he preach and teach life and then die. Why didn’t he fight back? Who do we turn to now? What was that he said about raising the temple up?

In the darkness, fire is kindled. A small spark of hope that ignites a small flame. A new life comes to the body in the tomb. In the darkness before the dawn, Jesus is alive again: a new life, not a resuscitation of the previous life.

The mystery and scandal and revolution of Easter morning is that Jesus was dead and now he is not.

And we are invited into this new life with Jesus: a new life in the Kingdom of God here and now. Everlasting life that begins today and with the dawn of every new day so that we, with God’s help, participate in the answer to the prayer ‘on earth as it is in heaven’.

The joy of Easter is the fire kindled by the single spark of hope. Jesus has given us new life in God’s Kingdom, a life grounded in the Love of our Creator. New life created in the darkness. New life given to light the world with the eternal flame of Love.

Let us pray.
O God, through your Son you have bestowed upon your people the brightness of your light: Sanctify this new fire, and grant that in this Paschal feast we may so burn with heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may attain to the festival of everlasting light; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, pg 285)

In the Dark

On this Holy Saturday, we wait in darkness with the women and disciples. We have the privilege of knowing what’s next, but image that we don’t. Sit with them in the finality of the death of the one who preached peace and freedom, who spoke of salvation from the darkness and is now dead in a dark tomb. Sit with them in the questions of despair, in the silence of not knowing.

“Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus at night, came now in broad daylight carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. They took Jesus’ body and, following the Jewish burial custom, wrapped it in linen with the spices. There was a garden near the place he was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been placed. So, because it was Sabbath preparation for the Jews and the tomb was convenient, they placed Jesus in it. After all this, Joseph of Arimathea (he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, because he was intimidated by the Jews) petitioned Pilate to take the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission. So Joseph came and took the body.”
(John 19:38-42 The Message)

Today we spend in liminal space, a holy place of dependence on the hope we only have with God. What we know is no longer and what’s is to come we know not. It is a time to just be, of letting go and not grasping for what’s next. Just be.

The Goodness of Friday

In five short days, the celebratory cheers and impromptu parade of Palm Sunday have morphed to angry crowds demanding a drama of vengeance directed by fear and produced by hate. The people who had shouted Hosanna now stand with the leaders from whom they had wanted to be rescued. They had asked for freedom but what they really want is power and revenge. They wrote the love and compassion that Jesus spoke of out of the script.

If the events of this day are so awful and horrific, why then do we call it good? Just what is good about this particular Friday?

In the beginning as God spoke this world we inhabit into being, God declared it good, very good. All that God has made is good. Even as we corrupt and defile the goodness of all things for our own will and way, God’s creative work is good.

God takes the terrifying, public display of human hate and redeems it through the personal acts of the few who, despite what is erupting around them, proclaim the glimpses of the Kingdom they witness.

The criminal who chose not to curse and mock Jesus and spoke the truth of the situation.
The captain of the Roman guard who saw Jesus’ true identity in death.
The women who refuse to leave his side.
Joseph of Arimathea who offered the dignity and respect of a traditional burial.

These people show us the embodiment of God’s redeeming word. Time isn’t rewound, there is no do-over. In the midst of the ugliness, the goodness of God is seen and offered and shared. Through this most horrifying method of death, God redeemed the life we had co-opted for our own gain.

The events of this day reveal the ultimate goodness of God’s love for every one: God gave his life so that we may recover the abundance of life we were created for. In Jesus’ invitation ‘follow me’ we enter into the good life that begins with the letting go of, the death of, the life we think we can build for ourselves.

God’s redemptive work happens within and through the brokenness of this world. Every time, with God’s help, we choose to step out of the fray and speak love, to offer dignity and justice where there has been none, to share our vision of God’s Kingdom in the despair of fear, we participate with God in this good work.

The Goodness of this Friday is God’s goodness given to us for the redemption of all of God’s creation.

The Footwashing Way

The Thursday before Easter is called Maundy Thursday. The word Maundy comes from the Latin mandatum and refers to the mandate, the new commandment Jesus gives to love one another as he loves us.

On this day we commemorate the final meal that Jesus had with his disciples before his arrest. Many congregations also offer some sort of ceremonial foot washing as part of the service because before their final meal together, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet.

Foot washing was a normal, ordinary hospitality thing in first century Palestine where Jesus lived and preached and taught. Most homes would have a place at the entrance to wash your feet before entering. People walked everywhere and wore sandals or else were barefoot. Sometimes, there would be a servant at the washing station to assist and in the ranking system of servants this was the lowest position possible.

This is perhaps why Peter is so scandalized that Jesus wanted to wash his feet. Yet, this upending of societal norms is precisely what Jesus has been teaching them all along. Life in God’s Kingdom isn’t about rank or position but about being in relationship with God and letting our God relationship transform all of our relationships.

Jesus washed even Judas and Peter’s feet, knowing they’d betray and deny him. Jesus didn’t come and die for us so that we could learn how to earn favor with God. Jesus died and rose again to show us stiff-necked humans that God isn’t transactional. God is God regardless of whether we acknowledge that or not. God loves whether we learn to love as Jesus loves or not.

All that Jesus does reveals God’s love for us. All of us. Each and every human being ever born and yet to be born (yep, even that person). We have the choice to love God or not because God gave us the gift of free will knowing a lot of God’s beloved children wouldn’t choose to love. God’s love has no strings, no conditions, no exception. Regardless of our choices and behavior, God loves us. We don’t earn it. There is no score keeping. God loves us. And when we come face to face with God’s love for us what other sane response is there than to love God?

Jesus gives us the mandate to love as he loves, to love as God loves. Loving and caring for our neighbors, sharing our resources because we want everyone to have some rather than me or even a few having it all, is how we follow Jesus. Let’s not settle for less than God’s Kingdom.

Economy of Relationship

The third test with which Satan tries to get Jesus to be less than he is a test we face every single day. Satan tells Jesus: All this will be yours if you forget who you are. And, the joke’s on Satan – the whole world, all of creation, already belongs to God, even if so many humans have forgotten their Creator.

God has already given us the good life. We don’t have to prove ourselves worthy of it. We don’t have to fight for it or claw our way to the top to get it. We just need to acknowledge and accept that we are God’s beloved children, inheritors of the Kingdom that is already here. The only immigration policy of God’s Kingdom is that all are welcome and loved. The only navigation system we need to find it is to follow Jesus on the Way of Love.

In the Temptation Story, Satan tries to coerce Jesus into being someone he isn’t, to accept less than what is already his, to be less than he is. The abundance of Life that God created us to live is a never ending supply of grace, peace, hope, and love. Why do any of us settle for less?

This story ends with Angels tending to Jesus. God’s love and provision for Jesus’ needs wasn’t a reward for a job well done, it just is. The economy of God’s Kingdom is relational not transactional. When we let life become a series of transactions: I do this for you & you do that for me, I give you this because you earned it, I get that because I deserve it, etc., we are being less than we are created to be.

The act of giving up things during Lent is to help us get rid of that which blocks our vision of God and who we are as God’s beloved Children. Lent is about improving our Kingdom vision. How has God transformed your vision in this time?

We aren’t quite done with Lent, however. We must inhabit the events of the coming days before we can celebrate Easter. We must witness Jesus’ last meal with the disciples before his arrest, the confrontation in the garden, his trial, suffering, and crucifixion, his agonizing death on the cross, and the grief of those who placed him in the tomb. Without this, Easter is just another day in which we accept less than what God gives us.

Don’t skip to the end. There can’t be resurrection without death. There can’t be new life without letting go of the old one. Don’t settle for less.

God will Catch Us

Since you are God’s Son, jump. This is the second of the three tests with which Satan attempts to get Jesus to be who he’s not, to accept less than what God gives us. From the highest point, from the top of the temple, Satan says, “Jump and God will catch you.”

There’s a big difference between jumping and falling. Yes, God promises us that when we fall, when we are in pain and suffering God is with us to bring us peace and comfort. But when we choose to jump and expect no consequences, we are not asking God to keep promises, but to do things our way.

From the highest point, we often get a false sense of security. At the top, we feel successful and that we have arrived at the place where the world says ‘well done’. And this is the very structure and vision of success Jesus comes to undo. The life Jesus calls us to live with the invitation ‘follow me’ isn’t about putting ourselves above anyone else. It isn’t about competing for a limited supply of resources.

The life Jesus calls us to isn’t about keeping God in our emergency kit to take out when we are in the worst of troubles. The life Jesus calls us to is so much more than that. It is life in relationship with God who is always faithful and loves us. We don’t have to test God’s love for us. We just need to accept the gift that is already ours. And when our identity is grounded in the God of love who created us in the divine image, we don’t need to climb to the top. We don’t need to jump to test God’s love for us because we know that God is with us always, even when we fall.

God’s love isn’t earned or proven, it IS. We are, each and every one of us, God’s beloved children and there is nothing good enough or bad enough any of us can do to cause God to love us more or less.

So often, the world around us tries to convince us to settle for less than God’s love. Fall into God’s love and know the security of who you are created to be.