Year A
\nActs 2:14a,22-32
\nPsalm 16
\n1 Peter 1:3-9
\nJohn 20:19-31<\/p>\n
God told Noah that it was going to rain for forty days and forty nights\u2026 that is\u2026 for a long time\u2026 and Noah and his family\u2026 and all of those animals\u2026 were in the ark in God-imposed physical distancing\u2026 and they were separated from those they knew\u2026 and all that was familiar to them\u2026 they may have felt bored\u2026 or lonely\u2026 or afraid\u2026 as some of us are feeling now\u2026 and even when the rain stopped\u2026 it would be another long time before the waters receded\u2026 and for life to resume\u2026 in the new normal\u2026<\/p>\n
This pandemic emerged during the forty days of Lent\u2026 and we have just barely emerged into Easter\u2026 and our experience is\u2026 to varying degrees\u2026 unfamiliar to us\u2026 we too are separated from those we know\u2026 and what is familiar to us\u2026 and we are either doing physical distancing\u2026 or self-imposed isolation\u2026 we may know someone who is quarantined\u2026 or who\u2019s tested positive\u2026 or who\u2019s gotten sick and recovered\u2026 or who\u2019s died\u2026 and some of us may even wonder if Lent is really over\u2026<\/p>\n
But in our Gospel\u2026 when it was evening\u2026 on the first day of the week\u2026 the doors of the house\u2026 where the disciples gathered in physical distancing\u2026 were locked\u2026 for fear of the coronavirus\u2026 without any warning\u2026 Jesus came and stood among them\u2026 and he wore no personal protective equipment\u2026 and he said\u2026 Peace be with you\u2026 Be not afraid\u2026 I am the God who counts all the hairs on your head\u2026 I am the God who collects your tears in a bottle\u2026 and who replaces your perishable body\u2026 with an imperishable one<\/i>\u2026 and they all rejoiced\u2026 each one of them\u2026 and Jesus said again\u2026 Peace be with you<\/i>\u2026 and he breathed the healing\u2026 life-giving\u2026 Holy Spirit on them\u2026<\/p>\n
Though Thomas was not with them that night\u2026 the disciples told him that Jesus had come\u2026 and stood among them\u2026 but Thomas doubted\u2026 we tend think of Thomas\u2019 doubt as a negative\u2026 as a mark against him\u2026 as a lack of faith\u2026 and faith is good\u2026 right\u2026 as Hebrews 11:1 says\u2026 faith is the assurance of things hoped for\u2026 and we all remember the passage from Genesis in which Abram believed God\u2019s promises\u2026 and it was reckoned to him as righteousness\u2026 faith and belief make us righteous\u2026 right\u2026 but both the Greek word for faith<\/i>\u2026 and the Hebrew word for believe<\/i>\u2026 are linguistically related to the word trust<\/i>\u2026 and trust can be grounded only in a deep relationship\u2026<\/p>\n
Thomas didn\u2019t want to believe too quickly\u2026 something that was hard to comprehend\u2026 he wanted to see for himself that it really was Jesus\u2026 and he said\u2026 unless I put my finger in the mark of the nails\u2026 and my hand in his side\u2026 unless I see the evidence\u2026 and analyze the data\u2026 unless I see for myself that the curve is flattened and that death is behind him\u2026 I won\u2019t believe\u2026 because maybe we still need to use masks and gloves\u2026 and maintain physical distance\u2026 and wash our hands\u2026<\/p>\n
A week later\u2026 Jesus returned\u2026 and he must have understood the value that information has\u2026 because even though Thomas said nothing\u2026 Jesus invited him to touch and to probe and to examine\u2026 and the text doesn\u2019t say that Thomas actually did\u2026 but implicit in Jesus\u2019 offer to be examined\u2026 embodied in Jesus\u2019 willingness to be made vulnerable\u2026 and to meet Thomas where he was\u2026 was a remarkable depth of relationship\u2026 and I think that\u2019s what enabled Thomas to trust\u2026 and to say\u2026 My Lord and my God<\/i>\u2026<\/p>\n
Throughout Jesus\u2019 ministry\u2026 he challenged the status quo<\/i>\u2026 the gods that humans made\u2026 he asked those around him to look at what they believed and why they believed it\u2026 he asked those around him to consider whether they were living out God\u2019s agenda or their own agenda\u2026 he asked them to reflect on whether their lives and their politics and their religion\u2026 like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle\u2026 could really go together only one way\u2026 and create only one image\u2026 one reality\u2026 or whether those pieces could fit together in surprising new ways\u2026 and present an image which reflected more and more of God\u2019s Kingdom\u2026<\/p>\n
This pandemic is a tragedy\u2026 but it is also providing an opportunity for us to let go of those attitudes\u2026 behaviors\u2026 and the very systems themselves\u2026 which prevent us from loving our neighbors as we love ourselves\u2026 for example\u2026 we think that the systems which interact with each other\u2026 can interact in only one way\u2026 so milk producers are dumping tens of thousands of gallons of milk because schools are closed and there\u2019s nowhere to send it\u2026 but because businesses are closed and families are out of work\u2026 food banks are facing unprecedented need\u2026 and while I\u2019ve been told that the supply chains for commercial foods and consumer foods are different\u2026 there must be some way to stop the waste and get the food to those in need\u2026 it just takes a shift in the puzzle pieces\u2026<\/p>\n
When Jesus died\u2026 the disciples were in pieces\u2026 and scattered\u2026 there were reports of resurrection and oppression\u2026 people were grieving and confused\u2026 disoriented\u2026 numb\u2026 maybe even saying things like\u2026 I don\u2019t know who I am\u2026 or who to believe<\/i>\u2026<\/p>\n
Our culture is feeling a lot of these feelings now\u2026 there\u2019s been a death to our way of life\u2026 not everyone knows how to react\u2026 and just having someone say it\u2019s safe to open the states or the country back up\u2026 may not be enough without any credible empirical data\u2026 because otherwise\u2026 there will be some who believe the pandemic is over when it\u2019s not\u2026 and some who will believe it\u2019s not over when it is\u2026<\/p>\n
Pastor Martin Billmeier of St. Lucas Lutheran Church in Toledo writes\u2026 as we face this disruption of our society\u2026 with all the added anxiety it brings\u2026 which just gets piled on top of our “normal” anxieties\u2026 it\u2019s easy to run after other gods\u2026<\/i> as the Psalmist records in v. 3\u2026 and what “other gods” tempt us\u2026 well\u2026 there\u2019s the god of fear\u2026 the god of anger\u2026 two gods which frequently accompany each other\u2026 then there\u2019s the god of despair\u2026 and if we look at the pantheon of Greek gods\u2026 they frequently represent emotions or passions which can rule over us\u2026 but these gods don\u2019t serve us well\u2026 Jesus\u2019 favorite greeting when he appears is\u2026 Peace be with you!<\/p>\n
So perhaps\u2026 instead of labeling Thomas negatively\u2026 because he didn\u2019t want to take on faith alone\u2026 that Jesus had been raised\u2026 which was just fine with Jesus\u2026 perhaps we can label him as a sort of hero\u2026 because he didn\u2019t leave his brain at the door\u2026 he paved the way for us to doubt\u2026 he gave us permission to ask questions\u2026 to see the evidence for ourselves\u2026 and to trust a God\u2026 who meets us right exactly where we are\u2026 because this God is\u2026 as the Psalmist also wrote in v.1\u2026 our “good above all others.” And with a God like this\u2026 who\u2026 or what\u2026 can stand against us\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Year A Acts 2:14a,22-32 Psalm 16 1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31 God told Noah that it was going to rain for forty days and forty nights\u2026 that is\u2026 for a long time\u2026 and Noah and his family\u2026 and all of those animals\u2026 were in the ark in God-imposed physical distancing\u2026 and they were separated from those they knew\u2026 and all that was familiar to them\u2026 they may have felt bored\u2026 or lonely\u2026 or afraid\u2026 as some of us are feeling now\u2026 and even when the rain stopped\u2026 it would be another long time before the waters receded\u2026 and for life to resume\u2026 in the new normal\u2026 This pandemic emerged during the forty days of Lent\u2026 and we have just barely emerged into Easter\u2026 and our experience is\u2026 to varying degrees\u2026 unfamiliar to us\u2026 we too are separated from those we know\u2026 and what is familiar to us\u2026 and we are either doing physical distancing\u2026 or self-imposed isolation\u2026 we may know someone who is quarantined\u2026 or who\u2019s tested positive\u2026 or who\u2019s gotten sick and recovered\u2026 or who\u2019s died\u2026 and some of us may even wonder if Lent is really over\u2026 But in our Gospel\u2026 when it was evening\u2026 on the first day of the week\u2026 the doors of the house\u2026 where the disciples gathered in physical distancing\u2026 were locked\u2026 for fear of the coronavirus\u2026 without any warning\u2026 Jesus came and stood among them\u2026 and he wore no personal protective equipment\u2026 and he said\u2026 Peace be with you\u2026 Be not afraid\u2026 I am the God who counts all the hairs on your head\u2026 I am the God who collects your tears in a bottle\u2026 and who replaces your perishable body\u2026 with an imperishable one\u2026 and they all rejoiced\u2026 each one of them\u2026 and Jesus said again\u2026 Peace be with you\u2026 and he breathed the healing\u2026 life-giving\u2026 Holy Spirit on them\u2026 Though Thomas was not with them that night\u2026 the disciples told him that Jesus had come\u2026 and stood among them\u2026 but Thomas doubted\u2026 we tend think of Thomas\u2019 doubt as a negative\u2026 as a mark against him\u2026 as a lack of faith\u2026 and faith is good\u2026 right\u2026 as Hebrews 11:1 says\u2026 faith is the assurance of things hoped for\u2026 and we all remember the passage from Genesis in which Abram believed God\u2019s promises\u2026 and it was reckoned to him as righteousness\u2026 faith and belief make us righteous\u2026 right\u2026 but both the Greek word for faith\u2026 and the Hebrew word for believe\u2026 are linguistically related to the word trust\u2026 and trust can be grounded only in a deep relationship\u2026 Thomas didn\u2019t want to believe too quickly\u2026 something that was hard to comprehend\u2026 he wanted to see for himself that it really was Jesus\u2026 and he said\u2026 unless I put my finger in the mark of the nails\u2026 and my hand in his side\u2026 unless I see the evidence\u2026 and analyze the data\u2026 unless I see for myself that the curve is flattened and that death is behind him\u2026 I won\u2019t believe\u2026 because maybe we still need to use masks and gloves\u2026 and maintain physical distance\u2026 and wash our hands\u2026 A week later\u2026 Jesus returned\u2026 and he must have understood the value that information has\u2026 because even though Thomas said nothing\u2026 Jesus invited him to touch and to probe and to examine\u2026 and the text doesn\u2019t say that Thomas actually did\u2026 but implicit in Jesus\u2019 offer to be examined\u2026 embodied in Jesus\u2019 willingness to be made vulnerable\u2026 and to meet Thomas where he was\u2026 was a remarkable depth of relationship\u2026 and I think that\u2019s what enabled Thomas to trust\u2026 and to say\u2026 My Lord and my God\u2026 Throughout Jesus\u2019 ministry\u2026 he challenged the status quo\u2026 the gods that humans made\u2026 he asked those around him to look at what they believed and why they believed it\u2026 he asked those around him to consider whether they were living out God\u2019s agenda or their own agenda\u2026 he asked them to reflect on whether their lives and their politics and their religion\u2026 like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle\u2026 could really go together only one way\u2026 and create only one image\u2026 one reality\u2026 or whether those pieces could fit together in surprising new ways\u2026 and present an image which reflected more and more of God\u2019s Kingdom\u2026 This pandemic is a tragedy\u2026 but it is also providing an opportunity for us to let go of those attitudes\u2026 behaviors\u2026 and the very systems themselves\u2026 which prevent us from loving our neighbors as we love ourselves\u2026 for example\u2026 we think that the systems which interact with each other\u2026 can interact in only one way\u2026 so milk producers are dumping tens of thousands of gallons of milk because schools are closed and there\u2019s nowhere to send it\u2026 but because businesses are closed and families are out of work\u2026 food banks are facing unprecedented need\u2026 and while I\u2019ve been told that the supply chains for commercial foods and consumer foods are different\u2026 there must be some way to stop the waste and get the food to those in need\u2026 it just takes a shift in the puzzle pieces\u2026 When Jesus died\u2026 the disciples were in pieces\u2026 and scattered\u2026 there were reports of resurrection and oppression\u2026 people were grieving and confused\u2026 disoriented\u2026 numb\u2026 maybe even saying things like\u2026 I don\u2019t know who I am\u2026 or who to believe\u2026 Our culture is feeling a lot of these feelings now\u2026 there\u2019s been a death to our way of life\u2026 not everyone knows how to react\u2026 and just having someone say it\u2019s safe to open the states or the country back up\u2026 may not be enough without any credible empirical data\u2026 because otherwise\u2026 there will be some who believe the pandemic is over when it\u2019s not\u2026 and some who will believe it\u2019s not over when it is\u2026 Pastor Martin Billmeier of St. Lucas Lutheran Church in Toledo writes\u2026 as we face this disruption of our society\u2026 with all the added anxiety it brings\u2026 which just gets piled on top of our “normal” anxieties\u2026 it\u2019s easy to 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