Journey's Weekly Homilies

Homily by Joe
2^nd Sunday of Easter, Cycle A, 7 April 2002

Acts 2:42-47
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31

If there’s one thing we human beings seem unable to live without, it’s hope. Hope is what makes it possible for us to dare to look into the future, even when the worst happens. After the terrorist attacks of last September made it brutally clear what evil human beings are capable of, we turned gratefully to the stories of the heroic firefighters and police officers who risked their lives to save others to assure ourselves that humankind is equally capable of doing good. When I despair that organized religion has been more of a cures than a blessing on our world I have only to remember Journey and the Unitarian Church where I work, and not just because the description “organized” doesn’t apply to either of them. When good people die and pass from our midst our memories of what was good and noble in them keep them alive in us, assuaging our sense of loss and helping us to go on.

Lynne told us, I think in a Good Friday homily, that we often “see” those we have lost, in dreams or in waking visions. Partly this is the denial that is an inevitable part of the grieving process – think how many people claim to have seen Elvis – but it’s also a measure of the difference these loved ones have made in our lives.

 John’s story of “doubting” Thomas was written for would-be believers in Jesus who found the resurrection story too hard to take. Thomas, with his demands for proof and therefore weak faith, is an example not to be imitated: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe!” But Thomas, I think, is on to something. It’s not his faith in Jesus that is lacking, but his faith in his own human perception. He wants to be sure that the sight of Jesus alive again is not merely wishful thinking,  and in his quest for verification he winds up confronting the fact of resurrection more intimately than his fellow disciples. He enters the mystery they are content to observe.

 In daring himself to wake up, Thomas takes a huge risk. What might otherwise be the happy ending, however miraculous, to the story or the vindication of Jesus’ life and ministry becomes infinitely more: the possibility of transformation and the gateway through which all the followers of Jesus must pass. Jesus’ death, the experiment he alone was willing to risk, is now an imperative for all.  And that doubting Thomas is the one willing to chance finding out that the resurrection is not work accomplished but work to be done. For all the talk of darkness vanishing forever and the victory of life over death, we have only to look around to see that things are still pretty dark and people are still killing other people.

Even the blessings promised by Jesus do not seem ummixed, especially if the first letter of Peter is to be believed. This letter is believed to be a baptismal homily and it doesn’t mince any words describing what converts to the faith can expect.  It’s about as appealing as being asked “wouldn’t you like to be a prophet?” This week and in the weeks to come there’s plenty of talk of pain and trials and suffering. Is it any wonder that we prefer the image of Jesus striding out of the tomb wearing a neatly pressed toga, into a beautiful garden to the sound of trumpet fanfares? Or, for that matter, that a comparison of Jewish and Christian children’s books for this season reveals that Christians put their emphasis on bunnies and candy rather than covenant and liberation?

Marilyn Sewell, the minister at First Unitarian, devoted her Easter sermon to the topic of “developing an adult faith life.“ I know, a Unitarian Easter sermon? Just bear with me on this. As she put it, being an adult means having gone from asking God for a pony or a boyfriend to saying the following four things to God: Thank you, I’m sorry, help me, and what’s next? Four simple things (though I have trouble remembering “help me” – can’t imagine why), and I can hear all four of them in Thomas’ “my lord and my God,” especially in the context of the John’s story: thank you, I’m sorry, help me, what’s next?

Take or leave Marilyn’s formula, it’s an adult faith that the first letter of Peter calls us to. The letter is all about conversion – coming to faith in Jesus and being born anew. For those of us who were baptized as infants and had the baptismal promises made for us, this sort of conversion is tantamount to starting over, really thinking about what these promises say and what our faith impels us to do. Claiming our faith for ourselves means learning to think for ourselves, maybe putting the catechism on the back burner. It may mean, for example, rejecting a clerical authority that has no end other than its own preservation, as we’ve done at Journey. It certainly means exploring radical approaches to justice and community, as the early church written about in the Acts of the Apostles did. It means being ready to embrace some of those dubious blessings in the first letter of Peter. And it means, like Thomas, putting the impossible to the test, giving the unthinkable a try.

The poet Wendell Berry wrote the following in his Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front:

Friends, every day do something that won’t compute.

Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace the flag.

Give your approval to all you cannot understand.

Praise ignorance, for what we have not encountered we have not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Expect the end of the world.

Laugh, for laughter is immeasurable.

Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men.

As soon as the generals and politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it.

Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go.

Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.