[Propertalk] 2 Easter c

[Robert P Morrison]

Draft:

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY 2 EASTER c

	ACTS 5:27-32 3rd APRIL, 2016

	REVELATION 1:4-8 PSALM 150

	JOHN 20:19-31

	 “I doubt it!”

	 People say this all the time, mostly as a playful response to
something another has said. It may be a way of telling another that
she’s teasing, or making an off-the-cuff, humourous remark. Of
course it CAN be what you or I say when some distasteful, or
dangerous, or inappropriate comment is made and our support is sought.

	 We’ve heard the stories about Thomas, so-called “doubting
Thomas”, as if he were someone to be pitied, someone who was more
than a couple of bricks short of a load. Thomas is taken as the
epitome of weakness, for instance. I had a friend who named her son
Thomas, and the friend’s mother responded horror, as if Thomas –
or Thomas the apostle, it didn’t matter which – as a name was like
the kiss of death for the poor boy.

	 Doubt gets such a bad press, though. In my book, however, it’s one
of humanity’s most prized attributes. It means that a person
doesn’t take anything for granted, that the woman or man uses the
God-given power of reasoning embedded in her or him, and is willing to
debate any and every statement either internally, within the
individual’s own mind, or externally with the person who made the
comment or asked for something.

	 So, consider this interesting statistic. “A survey found that nine
per cent of Americans believe in zombies – which don’t exist.” 1

	 Nine per cent! That may not sound such a large number, but that’s
twenty-eight million, seven hundred and one thousand people! How would
you like one of those twenty-eight million odd people driving a school
bus?

	 It’s important to ask questions, REALLY important. And it’s
vital to ask all the ultimate scientific questions. Otherwise we’d
be in a mess. Everyone would function as the ultimate, one-person
authority on anything under the sun.

	 At Roger’s funeral yesterday, I quoted Richard Chartres, the
Bishop of London on the subject of what function atheists have in our
society and how we, as Christians, ought to view them. This in itself
is an interesting question, because it presupposes that we can tell
who’s an atheist by the way we perceive a man or a woman. On a
darker and much more frightening level, it also suggests that we may
consider responding to such a person in a less than charitable manner,
if we discover her or him in our midst – something that is scarily
present in our society right now.

	 The Bishop of London wrote positively about atheists that they
provoked others, including people of faith, to think about “the
human response to the mysteries of life, death, beauty, love, and
ideological passion.”

	 He went on that, “Healthy, opportunistic attacks by atheists on
believers are as essential to the good estate of religion as an
effective opposition is to any democratic government. They help
preserve us from cant, from irrational fundamentalism, and from
self-absorption.” 2

	 Bishop Chartres was writing in the Foreword of a book entitled
“The Unknown God”, which in turn is a series of sermons preached
at Jesus College Chapel in the University of Cambridge. The Dean of
the Chapel and Fellow of the College, John Hughes, was concerned about
how various western cultures were responding to the increase in the
number of those who claimed to be atheists and, particularly, by the
way that Christian communities in these same societies were reacting
to this.

	 “Many of the (people who preached during term in 2011),” Hughes
wrote, “note with alarm the peculiarly violent tone of the debate,
the visceral loathing of religion and desire to eliminate it from the
world.” The scholars who participated in that term’s preaching
offered “some suggestions as to the possible causes of this tone and
(pled) for the importance of greater mutual understanding, as much
from believers as from atheists.” 3

	 I find this last qualifying statement as important as any. The
scholars sought a spirit of mutual understanding, of respect, of
critical honesty – from Christians. Not from atheists, not from
Muslims, not from Jews, not from Buddhists, not from Hindus – FROM
CHRISTIANS. After all, WE’RE primarily the ones being addressed by
the sermons, either at Jesus College Chapel or at St. Alban’s.
WE’RE the ones who can do something about our attitude, our
personalities, our actions, our words. Yes, of course it would be nice
if any with whom we’re having a debate, even an argument, were
civil, and polite, and level-headed. But, ultimately, WE have the
potential to control ourselves, not the other. So, like any situation,
it starts with us, and then, we hope, by example, by attitude, it
spreads to everyone else.

	 I read this past week that someone described as a poem the Gospel
incident read to us this morning. If we need reminding, a poem is “a
work in verse, a composition of words expressing facts, thoughts, or
feelings in poetical form … (something whose) theme and its
treatment must possess qualities which raise it above the level of
ordinary prose.” 4 A poem is something which raises a thought of
series of thoughts above the level of ordinary prose.

	 I don’ know about you, but that’s what I need so often. I get so
used to the sound of someone’s voice, even someone I really respect
and admire; I become so accustomed to knowing what sort of a
vocabulary that person uses; to the way that the person thinks; that I
allow the words to pass through my brain with barely a second thought,
only hoping that I’ll pick up on the last word and figure out what
the person was saying; even the Gospel, even other verses and chapters
in the Bible can be received by us in this way. All of us need at
least a little poetry in our lives, every day, so that we’ll be
wakened up, be made aware of God breaking into our lives, hoping that
we’ll pay attention.

	 So with this episode about Thomas: how often we really need to think
before we speak, think before we think, even. How often do we need to
say, wait a minute. Is that true? Did that really happen? Is that what
this person or that, this group or that, this nation or that really
believes?

	 John Hughes wrote that “This collection has been titled ‘The
Unknown. God’ with reference to Paul’s debate with the
philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17). That story shows
the importance of Christians engaging sympathetically and critically
with those who hold differing religious and philosophical views and
who shape the patterns of thinking within a culture. St. Paul uses the
altar to the unknown god as the starting point for this conversation,
…” Paul looked around, as Jesus did so often before offering an
explanation of God’s love and God’s reign. Jesus, if He was by the
lakeshore, would look to see if there were boats, or net-menders, or
disheartened fisher folk, and then tell a story about where and how to
catch fish – and where and how to interest and enlighten people
about God. Paul looked around, saw this undedicated altar, and knew
that he could use this to reach the minds of the folk around him.

	 We can look around – in here, perhaps, at the flowers, or the
sunshine playing through the stained glass, or the music to which we
can listen quietly and reflectively; we can look around, and find
there a word or sign of God’s Presence. Of course, supremely, we can
look to the altar and see the Bread, see the wine; we can come forward
at the invitation and actually take it into our hands. And n all of
this we CAN and MUST ask questions. What did that person say? What
does that image symbolize? What does this taste represent? And is it
of significance and, if so, what? What will any of these do for my
life this morning, and for the rest of the week.

	 We all know that God can never be grasped fully, in this life. We
talk and pray about the life experienced now by those who’ve left
this earthly shore, and how they know God – REALLY know God! But
despite our inability to grasp God in the here and now, God continues
to offer revelations which give us knowledge in an through all things
and all people, even the craziest of situations, the most awkward, the
most difficult, the least understandable people. In these, in all of
life and all our encounters we’re offered the possibility to say,
“Wait a minute. Is this really so?” And how often have I been
stopped dead in my tracks, in humility and horror, to discover that
God is speaking to some direct situation in my life through one of the
people for whom I have so little time and respect?

	 Think for a moment about what our Easter faith, which IS, basically,
the faith that carries us through every day; think about what our
Easter faith describes. Torture, criminal injustice, utter
self-absorption, death itself – they CANNOT win. They CANNOT
overwhelm us, despite the confusion and pain that still attaches to
human life. Even in the worst experiences, we can find God speaking,
God crying, God reaching out.

	 If we DON’T ask questions; if we DON’T allow ourselves to be
challenged and don’t ourselves challenge; if we don’t think; if we
don’t ask questions; perhaps if we assume that we know what’s
happening and that we have the a complete grasp of what’s going on
in our lives and in the world; then I think that we’re opening up
the potential to making our faith more shallow.

	 If we shut out the possibility of the totally unknowable power of
God, the unimaginable love and compassion of God for us being there,
in front of us, in any and every situation, then we’re diminishing
God AND ourselves.

	 “In the seventeenth century, defenders of religious toleration
like John Milton believed that the truth could only emerge if there
was a peaceable public space in which citizens could disagree with one
another without coercion or civil war. ( … only in) an honest
exchange of opinion could greater wisdom be found.” 5

	 This seems only common sense, but then, common sense can seem in
short supply some of these days. And we pass on opportunities by
demanding that others – be they atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews,
Baptists, other Episcopalians – HAVE to make the first move. THEY
need to provide the peaceable public space before we’ll engage them
in debate.

	 But look at this poem from near the end of John’s Gospel. Thomas
was free to ask questions, to doubt, possibly to raise his voice to
the point of the veins bulging out on his neck, only because the other
ten let him. THEY provided the peaceable place. It’s easy to say
that Thomas had been among them for a while, and that made all the
difference. But they were in such a fragile state of mind that they
could have pitched Thomas out on to the street rather than let him
upset them with his scientific reasoning or his upsetting opinions.
Yet they didn’t. The ten took on the mantle of the Church that Jesus
envisaged, They made themselves vulnerable so that Thomas could ask
what he liked, could express himself as he felt he had to, could
debate to his heart’s content.

	 The Good News is that not one of the eleven in the room that night
said to each other or to anyone else, or about anyone else,
“You’re nuts! You’re dangerous! You’re impossibly wrong! We
have to get rid of you!” In Jesus’ power, they told their story,
they expressed their faith, and they listened to Thomas, knowing all
the while that Jesus, in His own good time, would straighten out the
situation, and that no harm would come to them.

	 And, when He did come, Jesus said to Thomas, “Thank God, Thomas!
You always have questions! That’s what I love about you. Never give
it up! We all come to faith by our own roads. And God loves us all!

	 “P.S. Don’t worry about zombies. They really don’t exist. Not
even on the political circuit. You’ve got My word on that!”

	NOTES:

	[1] “The Toilet Paper”, distributed on the campus of Willamette
University, Salem, Oregon.

2 RICHARD, CHARTRES IN _FOREWORD_ TO _“THE UNKNOWN GOD”_ EDITED BY
JOHN HUGHES. CASCADE BOOKS, EUGENE, OREGON. © 2013. PAGE IX.

	3 Hughes, Op. cit. p xiii.

	4 _“Poem”_ in Oxford English Dictionary 

	5 _“The Ethics of Being Reasonable”_ by David Fergusson, in John
Hughes, Op. cit., p. 12.

	
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