To Abide in Christ Easter 5B

 To Abide in Christ

The Catalan artist Joan Miro once said, “I work like a gardener…leaves must be cut so the fruit can grow. At the right moment, I must prune.” According to Jesus, God also works like a gardener – pruning so that we might bear good fruit, and much fruit. Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit… Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” [i] 

This is the last of the “I am” sayings of Jesus in John. Each time is meant to recall that moment Moses stood on Holy Ground in front of a bush that burned with the power of the Spirit, and when he asks the voice from the bush for its name, the answer is, “I am who I am.” The issue now is bearing fruit. Those of us who follow Jesus will, he says elsewhere in John, “also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” [ii] All because the Master Gardener will do some pruning amongst us so that we might bear more and more fruit of the kingdom of God’s Shalom, God’s Peaceable Kingdom, where everyone gets enough, no one gets too much, and if you try to horde the fruits of God’s Shalom, it rots. It goes bad. Thus, the importance that we, as individuals, but even more so as a community of God’s Love and Shalom, must abide in Christ. 

The word ‘abide’, meno in Greek, can mean: abide, or rest, but also to continue, to remain, to dwell in the Lord as the Lord comes to dwell within and among us. Abide is used 40 times in John’s gospel, of which the current chapter 15 accounts for eleven of these uses! It can also mean to endure courageously even when the going gets tough. Under the iron rod of Rome and with the coming demise of the Temple, things got very tough for those early followers of Christ. A major branch had been removed by Rome. The center of worship life for Jews and Christians was and is no longer. The pruning this time had been most severe. What is everyone to do now? 

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles offers vignettes of what it means to persevere and bear fruit. Here we find Philip, that disciple who had recently asked Jesus how we might find “the way” to the Father, now instructed by an Angel of the Lord to head south to the wilderness road from Jerusalem to Gaza. There he comes across an Ethiopian Eunuch, an official in charge of the treasury for the Candace, Queen of the Kushites in what is now Sudan or southern Egypt. He was heading home to Africa by way of Gaza, and passing the time in his chariot reading the prophet Isaiah, chapter 53 about the Suffering Servant: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.” The Spirit urges Philip to join him and Philip asks if he understands what he is reading. [iii] 

The eunuch replies, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Scholars are not sure if the prophet spoke of himself, or a messiah, or the community of God’s people, Israel. Beginning with Isaiah, Philip proclaims to him the good news about Jesus and the community of God’s Love and Shalom. Then as they come upon “some water,” the Eunuch asks Philip to baptize him. That is, to be incorporated into the community of God’s people of Love and Shalom. Philip, without hesitation, baptizes the eunuch. When they come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatches Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. Philip found himself at Azotus, some 30 miles up the road. As he was passing through the region, Philip continued to proclaim the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea, the provincial capital of Rome. He takes the good news into the heart of the oppressor empire. 

Philip was a productive branch of the vine, and judging from his work after baptizing the Ethiopian Eunuch, he continues gather the community of Christ’s Love. We might note, he accepts without hesitation a foreigner, an alien traveling through the land, a black man, a sexually ambiguous man, an officer for a woman, the Queen of the foreign nation of Kush, and perhaps a proselyte preparing to become a Jew, studying the prophetic poetry of Isaiah. It’s possible Philip was thinking of the 56^th chapter of Isaiah where it is written: “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”   

That is, despite being black, a foreigner, a eunuch, and one who works for a woman, it turns out it is not what you are but what you do that counts for being accepted into the covenant of the God of Israel. As Paul would put it in Galatians, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; all are One in Christ Jesus!” [iv]Jesus practices a ministry of Reconciliation – bringing people together rather than causing division. It is one of the Sins of his Body, the Church, that long after Resurrection and Pentecost we became a cause for division through so many tragic episodes like the Crusades, the treatment of women, anti-Semitism, and the enmity between denominations not allowing those from other traditions to share in Holy Communion – the Sacrament that is meant to unite us. In another of the “I am” sayings, Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” [v] Not just for the life of his Body, the Church, but for the life of the world.

 In John 15 Jesus goes on to say, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love… I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” [vi] What does it mean to abide in Jesus’s love? What does it mean to love neighbor and self equally, just as we love God? Just as God loves us and forgives us? The way Philip sought is not an easy road to walk. It is hard, but it is necessary if we are to abide with Jesus and bear much fruit – the fruit of his peace, his Shalom, his turning the world right-side-up again, a world in which we rare to recognize that we all are One with one another and One with God. 

Let us all consider what extraordinary courage it took to abide, to remain in the Jesus Movement, for someone like Philip. And how extraordinary it was for him to reach out to a foreigner, a person of color, a eunuch, an official in a foreign Queen’s empire. May we see that it took over 500 years from Isaiah chapter 56 to that moment when Philip made the vision of the prophet-poet real by taking the Ethiopian down to the waters of baptism and saying, “Yes, you are one of us. You always have been. Join us in spreading the Good News!” Think of the pruning of our tradition it has taken from Isaiah to Jesus to Philip to today to accept foreigners, people of color, women, and LGBTQ people into full membership in the Body of Christ, so that we can truly be the community of love and peace God imagines and dreams we can be. Amen. It is truth. It is so.

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[i] John 15:1-8

[ii] John 14:12

[iii] Acts 8:26-40

[iv] Galatians 3:8

[v] John 6:51

[vi] John 15: 10-11

Plastic Jesus Earth Day 2024

 Plastic Jesus    Earth Day 2024

Weltanschauung. One of the first words I learned when studying religion in college. It translates as ‘worldview,’ and is used to describe how we view the phenomena of human existence, the world, and the cosmos where we find ourselves. We are learning the hard way that perception and perspective shape our worldview and the way we understand where we are, who we are, and what we ought to be doing. For instance, for some time it has been accepted that Christopher Columbus discovered America. From the point of view of those indigenous peoples who already lived on this continent for thousands of years, it is just as true to say that they discovered ship-loads of strangers suddenly arrive on their shores. Without trying to sound too woke, how we look at that moment in history, how we let it inform our worldview, makes all the difference. 

A quotation from Dahr Jamail, a journalist, war correspondent, and advocate for the life of planet Earth, is making the rounds on Facebook: “The single biggest thing I learned was from an indigenous elder of Cherokee descent, who reminded me of the difference between a Western mindset of ‘I have rights,’ and an indigenous mindset of ‘I have obligations.’ Instead of thinking that I am born with rights, I choose to think that I am born with obligations to serve the past, present and future generations, and the planet herself.” [i] The difference of a “mindset,” or a worldview, one’s weltanschauung, makes all the difference. How we look at our life together on planet earth and on this continent deserves a careful examination of how we have arrived at this moment of climate crisis that threatens the very life of the planet. 

Dahr Jamail has written a book, The End of Ice, subtitled, Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. In it he describes a moment of critical insight when, speaking with an Inuit elder in his nineties while at the northernmost town in the US in Alaska. When this elder was a kid, “the Arctic Sea ice was visible ten to fifteen miles offshore in the late summer. Now the ice is 180 and 250 miles offshore. In one lifetime that’s how much has been lost. Hearing this, I felt a sense of overwhelm and dread. I also felt deep sadness for the Inuit who had spent their whole lives relying on that ice for their hunting and their culture.” [ii] Perception and perspective make the difference in how we look at the world and our place in it. 

Many of us may remember this song: “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, as long as I got my plastic Jesus, sitting on the dashboard of my car. Going 90, it ain't scary cause I got the Virgin Mary sittin' on the dashboard of my car.” Written in1957, the song made us laugh! It was funny. Now we might hear this as a perfect theological metaphor for the climate crisis facing us. Despite the commandment against idols, graven images, we have Plastic Jesus. Made from the same substance that fuels the car to go 90 miles per hour, which we now know burns more fuel than going 50 miles per hour, spewing pollution and threatening the ozone that protects our fragile island home from too much Sun. Like the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll’s book, we always feel as if “It’s late.” Life speeds up. We accelerate our use of fuel, and to make our smile whiter and brighter when we get where we are going, microplastic particles are used as ingredients in personal care products such as face washes, shower gels and toothpastes, and form one of the main sources of microplastic pollution, especially in the marine environment. The fish we eat are filled with these particles. 

We have ignored, at our peril, the all too subtle prophetic warning in the movie, The Graduate, when Mr. McGuire whispers in Benjamin Braddocks’s ear the single word, “Plastics.” In the film, “plastics” is understood to mean a cheap, sterile, ugly, and meaningless way of life, boring almost by definition—the embodiment of everything about the values of the older generation that seems repugnant to young Benjamin. Plastics! What a joke! How uncool! [iii] It turns out to be more than simply uncool. Plastics, and the act of extracting oil from below the surface of the Earth, are two of the most destructive threats to the health of the planet. It does not take much reflection to see that we have long made an idol out of plastics, and an idol of Jesus at the same time. Even more so, we have made an idol out the money and wealth that can be produced and consolidated from the production of plastics and all goods made from petrochemicals. Plastics represent one dimension of the Golden Calves we create, and to which we bow down before the raging Bull of Wall street that stands on Broadway in New York City’s Financial District. 

All this, despite the Bible’s prohibition of idols. And its suspicion of all things made by human hands. The story we read of building the Tower of Babel, brick by brick up to the sky, an attempt to reach the God of Creation himself. The Tower stands as another metaphor of human hubris – our all too human exaggerated pride and self-confidence. This hubris drives the myth of “the self-made man,” and the “rugged individual” who “pulls himself up by his or her own bootstraps.” We have lost all notions of our interdependence upon one another, and all others. Especially those who have gone before. Those who make it possible for us to continue to be the stewards of the earth God creates us to be. Even more so, we seem to have given up on following in the way of the Good Shepherd, resulting in fewer green pastures, and fewer and polluted “still waters” by which we might get off the treadmill of “it’s late,” and lie down for some well deserved and necessary Sabbath time. The Good Shepherd who says, “I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them.” [iv] 

In fact, we  have not only listened to the thieves and robbers; we have bowed down to their desire to profit from the wanton destruction of the planet. So, we place Plastic Jesus on the dashboard of our metaphorical cars wanting to believe he will somehow return to save us from ourselves and our seeming bottomless desire for all things plastic. The song, it turns out, is not funny at all. It is ironic at best. We forget his invitation to follow him, and follow the Golden Calves instead. 

Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The operant word is “they.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his forward to The Green Bible, reminds us that the Bible is not concerned with individuals with individual rights, but rather for our interdependence upon one another. We are created for togetherness, for living and working together in community, because we are meant to learn from one another. We are complimentary in the sense that I have gifts that you don’t have, and you have gifts that I don’t have. We need one another. This is the fundamental worldview of the Bible, and things go horribly wrong when we flout this law, this worldview, this Dream of God. 

In Genesis, after God created birds, fish, and animals, God created humans to be the stewards of creation and caretakers of one another – to act compassionately and gently toward all forms of life. The future of this beautiful planet is in our hands. Jesus, described as the source and shepherd of our Peace, our Shalom, says of his ascent to the Cross, “And I, when lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” [v]

In this cosmic embrace, Jesus wishes to enfold all that God creates, the entire universe, all things seen and unseen, into unity. He seeks to draw us closer to one another, closer to God, and closer to our true selves as stewards of God’s creation. These are holy obligations, more reflective of the indigenous mindset of obligations, rather than a mindset that declares we have rights. Our obligations are to one another, to God, to ourselves and to our planet. 

Archbishop Tutu concludes, “It is possible to have a new kind of world, a world where there will be more compassion, more gentleness, more caring, more laughter, more joy, for all of God’s creation, because that is God’s Dream. And God says, “Help me, help me, help me to realize my dream.” [vi]  We are those people invited to follow Jesus, not to make him into a plastic idol. For those of us who desire to follow the Good Shepherd, who desire to be united in his cosmic embrace, this needs to be our worldview. It must be our obligation. For every place we stand is Holy Ground. Holy Ground that depends upon our stewardship and care for creation, and one another. All others.  Amen. 

PS Dahr Jamail was once asked:  For people who want to know more about climate disruption, where do you recommend, they start? 

"Go spend time on the planet. That’s the first and most important thing any of us can do. We need to be moved to action from a deep place of love for the earth, instead of a place of fear and concern. I’m watching what’s happening to the planet and I’m being present with it. I love this place, and from that love stems my motivation." [vii]

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[i] Jamail, Dahr, in an interview on Lion’s Roar https://www.lionsroar.com/the-end-of-ice/

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Seabrook, John, Plastics, in the September 13, 2010 New Yorker magazine

[iv] John 10:7-10

[v] John 12:32

[vi] Tutu, Archbishop Desmond, Forward to The Green Bible (Harper Collins, New York: 2008) p. I-14

[vii] Ibid, Jamail

Anti-Semitism and the Texts Easter 3B

 

Anti-Semitism and the Texts    Easter 3B

The day I was ordained a priest in The Episcopal Church (TEC), I received a telegram from Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel that read, “May this day mark the beginning of a mission that will bring many many people closer to each other, closer to God, and closer to themselves. You will be very much in my thoughts today.” (12/16/1983) My Senior Thesis was on Wiesel and his witness to the world through his books and essays, and lack of response by our nation and others while six million died. Thanks to my supervisor on my thesis, Bernice Saltzman, I had been privileged to meet Wiesel, listen to him lecture in person, and had several personal conversations about the paper I wrote on the Holocaust and the dangers of Anti-Semitism. I have spent many of my 40+ years of active ministry involved in Christian-Jewish Dialogue, leading Holocaust Memorial Services, and being mentored by local rabbis I have known through the years. One reason I sought ordination was the hope to play a small role in ridding the world of anti-Semitism. Bringing people closer together, closer to God, and closer to themselves. 

When I received that telegram, I never imagined that this week I would read a study of dozens of universities that says on-campus anti-Semitism is on the rise. The schools were graded for their efforts to curb anti-Semitism, and a dozen schools received failing grades, including: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, University of Chicago, Princeton, University of Virginia, Tufts, Michigan State University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, SUNY Purchase, SUNY Rockland, and Swarthmore. Only two schools received an A: Brandeis and Elon.  [i] 

Against this backdrop, this week’s lesson from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles deserves our special attention. Enter Peter. Peter, who had recently denied even knowing Jesus three times the night Jesus was arrested. Now, some time after the Jewish Festival of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, Peter is suddenly a powerful public witness to the power of Jesus’s name. He and John were walking to the Temple to pray. They met a man who had been lame since birth who was asking for alms. Peter says, “Silver and Gold I have none. But what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And the man arose and went walking and leaping and praising God as Peter and John continued to the Temple. A crowd gathers at Solomon’s Portico. The man clutches to Peter and John. Peter addresses the crowd.

“You, Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. 

“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” [ii] 

It is easy to hear this as Peter condemning the Israelites for choosing to have Pilate release the murderer Barabbas instead of Jesus. Before hearing it this way, we may as well admit that when making similar choices we too often choose the wrong person. We often have great hopes in those we choose to lead us, only to learn we have chosen poorly. It’s not that long ago that the German people chose Adolf Hitler who promised to make Germany great again to lead their country. It is easy to see how politicians and pastors might have appealed to a passage like Peter’s speech to justify scapegoating Jewish people living in diaspora since the year 70 CE for all the problems facing post-WWI Germany. The consequences were tragic. 

When in fact, the author of Luke-Acts depicts Peter speaking a kind of biblical code, addressing the crowd not as Judeans, nor as Jews, both names often used pejoratively, but rather as their preferred collective title, “Israelites.” Peter is speaking as an Israelite to other Israelites, people who, as he immediately points out, share a common ancestry through the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob. Again, Peter speaks in code: for this description of God not only refers all the way back to Moses at the Burning Bush, who, when asking for God’s name, is told, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. “ [iii] But this is likely how Peter and John will begin their prayers when they get to the Temple: “Blessed be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob It’s called the Amidah. The Israelites listening will recognize this and know that Peter is one of them. The Amidah often continues, “Your lovingkindness sustains the living, your great mercies give life to the dead.” Seems right that Peter and John might pray the Amidah after their experience of the Risen Lord. 

Further, Peter turns the disaster that was Good Friday into an opportunity for a new beginning. Because Jesus, as depicted in Luke 24:36-48, had been raised, and stood before Peter and John and all the others, not as a ghost, or an apparition, but as flesh and blood asking for a piece of fish. Ghosts don’t eat fish. God, in Christ Jesus, gave Peter, John and these Israelites not only a chance to be forgiven for their bad choices on Good Friday. He commissions them to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to “all the nations…You are witnesses of these things.” I extended the reading from Acts which, as provided to us in the lectionary, ends in mid-sentence. It’s the continuation that is the Good News: “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” This is good news for us all. 

Context is everything when reading these sacred texts. For just a few verses later, as the community prays together, the text reads, “For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” [iv] That is, these Israelites were not alone in making bad choices that lead to crucifixion. Many others made bad choices as well. The text means to remind us that we are all responsible for making bad choices; we are all in need of repentance;  and can always begin again.. For resurrection means there is always a chance for starting over. 

And we are all called, like those standing before Peter, to be witnesses of these things, and speak out against injustice, and seek ways to repair the damage done. For instance, as anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout these United States over the past eight years, and especially since the Hamas attack on Israel last October 7th, amidst an awkward silence and inaction on the part of many, the Finance Ministry of Germany has just agreed to send a one-time payment of $236 to each of Israel’s 113,000 holocaust survivors to help them cope with trauma of the attack – That’s $27 million dollars. It’s not the amount that is important, however, it’s the gesture that counts. A sign that Germany wants to repent and start over. A gesture that says we understand and we care.[v] 

In a country where it seems the majority of institutions of higher education are afraid to speak out against anti-Semitism, it would seem a careful listening to Peter’s speech at the Portico of Solomon might be in order for us all. I know even the smallest gesture on our parts would mean the world to all the Israelites in diaspora in the US. Speaking out against the sin of anti-Semitism is one way of bearing witness “to these things.” And, who knows, we may even make better choices in future. Always we can begin again. Because Christ Jesus has been raised from the dead, every day has the potential to be a new day. And perhaps my dream of a world without anti-Semitism may still become a reality. May we all seek to draw closer to others, closer to God, and closer to our true selves. For we are all made in the image of the God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for all. And all means all!

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[i] https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4587901-harvard-tufts-mit-failing-grades-adl-campus-antisemitism/

[ii] Acts 3: 12-21

[iii] Exodus 3:6

[iv] Acts 4:27

[v] https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/12/europe/israeli-holocaust-germany-payout-october-7-intl/index.html

God's Shalom Easter 2B

 God’s Shalom for All!

“Now the doors of the house where the disciples had met - all of whom were Jews! - were locked...for fear of...the Jews.” [i]  The Jews were hiding, for fear of the Jews. Let us all ponder that statement for a moment.   Silence.   Nearly two thousand years of anti-Semitism began with our misreading this and other passages in John, that sound like accusations. So, we substitute “Judeans.” Why? Because that literally is what is in the Greek text, rather than perpetuate the poor translation choices of those who were under pressure to produce a Bible for King James. 

We read this the Sunday after Easter every year. So, this needs to be addressed. Judea was a pluralistic and diverse population, which at the time of Jesus had been overrun by Romans: Roman Soldiers, Roman Bureaucrats, and Roman Overseers. It was as if after some thirteen hundred years of living on the land, interrupted for some who spent time in the Babylonian Exile, had suddenly morphed back the Empire of Egypt. Empires are like this. For the record, the Romans are now lumped in with the rest of the Judeans who come from all over the ancient world. For fear of these Roman Judeans? Who wouldn’t be fearful of them? 

Someone on Facebook who has read the Bible every day for over fifty years wrote the other day that all of Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and the New Testament can be summed up like this: We are meant to see that everyone’s needs are met, and to protect the small folks from the big folks. The big folks are represented in the Bible as empire and monarchy. What today we might call authoritarian regimes.   

It had been a long day. Mary Magdelene had found the tomb to be empty. She went back and told the disciples, who were hiding behind closed doors, because of fear – fear that their association with Jesus who had been crucified could result in the same for them; fear of Roman Centurions searching the streets for anyone associated with the man from Galilee; and just fearful and confused about what to do next. They had always followed Jesus. What now? They were not inclined to believe her. This gathering behind closed doors is more than just the twelve, and at least one of the twelve, Thomas, for whatever reason, was not present when it happened. If Mary Magdelene was right, and the tomb is empty, all the more reason to be fearful. Now it was night time, and a new reason to be fearful appeared – appeared to come right through the locked doors. 

The apparition greets them, “Shalom! Peace be with you.” He shows them his hands and his side which had been pierced to make sure he was dead. Suddenly, they rejoice! It’s him! Again, he says, “Shalom! Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Then he breathes on them. As the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had done with that first handful of dust and water to create the first human – breath means life. Breath is what makes the difference between the living and the dead. Breath is what Jesus must have received to return from being dead and breathless. This is resurrection breath. New life breath. The gathered room full of followers are receiving new breath, new life, a new spirit, and a new vocation – they are the ones being sent to bring the good news to a broken world. News that there is new breath, new life, new spirit, if only we will receive it. If only we will breathe it in and allow Jesus and his Father make us whole again. Alive again. Without fear again. To be sent to repair a broken world that seems to be running out of breath. They are to bring this new life and new breath to all the world. 

Then along comes Thomas, who hears Jesus had been risen and says he will not believe them unless he sees “the marks on his hands and the mark on his side.” Thomas remembers what had happened to their Jesus. He remembers the torture. He remembers the physical violence. He remembers the soldiers mocking Jesus. Thomas has long been a man of integrity among the disciples. It is good that he remembers. He says he will not remain faithful until he sees for himself. He is right to say so, for any talk of resurrection, and recovery that moves forward will have no integrity if it forgets the past. Any moving forward that forgets the past violence, mocking and torture will be ill prepared to deal with the very ongoing reality of people who are tortured, mocked, abused and violated every day. To forget the past makes it impossible to repair the breach. Makes it impossible to bring good news of new life and new breath to the world. 

Eight days later, Jesus returns to stand among them, the doors are still shut. He says, “Shalom! Peace be with you.” Then turning to Thomas he says, “Do not be unfaithful. Touch my hands, put your hand in my side and know, this is me, Jesus, to whom you have been faithful for all our time together.” Thomas then makes the single most bold declaration in all of the New Testament. He says, “My Lord, and my God!” Then Jesus says, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." It may as well be addressed directly to us. To all of us. Those of us who are here and those of us who are not here. All who are as faithful as Thomas are blessed. And those who are blessed are to be those who are sent to be a blessing to others. To attend to their needs and protect them from the violence of empires. 

By the way, in its original Greek there is no discussion of doubt. The word doubt is not in the text. The word in the text is faithfulness. Thomas was no doubter. Jesus knew that. He emerges as possibly the most faithful of disciples. When the other disciples were fearful to go with Jesus to Jerusalem, it was Thomas who had declared he would go with Jesus, even if it meant dying alongside Jesus. Let the reader be sure to understand, Thomas is the very model of a faithful disciple of Jesus. Thomas was not hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Judeans. Thomas shows no fear. Thomas asks to see the marks on his hands and side. Thomas remembers the violence of the empire. Thomas is faithful. A repairer of the breach. A bearer of the good news. 

Jesus says, “Shalom!” three times. Shalom, which means more than peace. It is a peace that sees to it that the needs of all people are met, and that the small folks are protected from the big folks. Protected from the violence of empires. God’s Shalom is the Good News. 

Storyteller John concludes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

That is, the story is told for our sake. Not for John’s sake. Not for Jesus’s sake. But for our sake. So that like Thomas we might be without fear. So that like Thomas, might be faithful to the one who promises to be with us to the end of the age. So that we, like Thomas, may without fear declare, “My Lord and my God!” So that we, like Thomas, might be those people who remember the violence, mocking, torture and abuse of empires has no place in God’s kingdom of Shalom. So that we might become repairers of the breach; that we might let ourselves be those people who repair the world rather than tear it apart; that we might become bearers of Good News, and forgiveness, and God’s Peace, God’s Shalom, for all the people in all the world.  Amen.

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[i] John 20:19-31