April 7, 2002
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| Vital
Faith: From Unbelief to Confession to Praise There is a term frequently heard these days that reflects the current desire to learn to do things as well as they can be. The term is “best practices”. Last week there was a meeting of National Basketball Association mascots looking at best practices for entertaining and rousing fans. The Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta, was on television the other day talking about the best practices for airport security. These fifty days between Easter and Pentecost are an excellent time for us to look at the best practices for developing a vital faith, being a vital people, and becoming a vital congregation. Over the next two Sundays we will look at some best practices for what it means to have a vital faith. The two Sundays after that we will consider what it means to be a vital people. And on the first two Sundays in May, we will look at how a vital faith and a vital people can by the grace of God become a vital church alive with hope, growth, outreach, and service. It is a good time for us to look at what is important for us as followers and would be followers of Jesus, all in light of his resurrection is the touchstone for our faith. In 1998, the General Board of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) identified six vital issues facing the church, and named a working group to each one. The issues deal with concerns about the vitality of worship. Another looks at hospitality-diversity-and inclusiveness, and another with justice-reconciliation-and public advocacy. There are also working groups on evangelism and leader development. We will begin by looking at a sixth issue, that of spiritual and faith development. I am starting with spiritual and faith development for two reasons. One is that if we do not pay attention to our spirits’ relationship with God, then we are engaging in an intellectual and emotional exercise and not adequately feeding our souls. We might feel good and we might think about some things, but our relationship with God will not grow. The other reason is that I serve on the spiritual and faith development working group and have some resources I hope to share with the board, elders, and other leaders of the congregation during the course of the year. John’s gospel helps us understand how to develop our spirits as he continues the story of the resurrection of Jesus. The story takes place the night of the resurrection and continues one week later. Already Mary has told the other disciples that Jesus has been raised from the dead, and they have not quite believed her. They saw him die - they remembered some vague talk about return, but they never did quite understand it. Then the resurrected One comes to them, fully aware of their fear and confusion. He eases their fear by wishing them peace, he empowers them as he breathes the Holy Spirit into them. He commissions them, he sends them out into the world, and grants them the ability to forgive and hold onto the sins of others. He is giving them the means to do what God has given him the power to do. He lets them see his scars and with every gesture of his, they recognize him as the risen Christ and they rejoice. For reasons we do not know, Thomas was not present and does not see Jesus. We do know that he is known as “Doubting Thomas” because when he returns and hears the report that Jesus appeared to the disciples, and that he missed him and the blessings he brought, he does not quite believe them. He wants to see for himself that Jesus is alive. The truth is that the name, “Doubting Thomas” is really unfair. No where in these verses does the word “doubting” occur. The instruction of Jesus to him which we have as, “do not doubt, but believe”, is best translated, “do not be unbelieving, but believing.” We understand Thomas’ reluctance because he wants what so many of us would want if we were in his place; he wants visible, tangible proof. “Unless I can see for myself, I will not believe.” A week later, Jesus comes back and again brings a word of peace. He shows himself to Thomas and offers a word of hope to him and to all of us who have not see Jesus in the flesh, but know him because we have come to believe for ourselves the proclamation first shared with us by others. It is Jesus, the model of compassion and hope who helps Thomas and us, the church, when we are not quite convinced, grow from unbelief to confession to praise. We can ease up on Thomas and his unbelief a little bit. After all, it is Thomas who a few weeks ago was the one disciple willing to go to Bethany with Jesus when Lazarus died, even if it meant his own death. And Thomas is really no different from the other disciples who did not believe in their hearts that Jesus had been raised until they too saw him for themselves. Like his brother disciple Peter, Thomas says what is on his mind. As he does we see what shaped and formed him for faith, what disturbed his faith and what reformed and strengthened his faith, and we might learn something about how our own faith is developing. Thomas was shaped by his culture and his environment. He was a Jewish man born under Roman occupation. He was shaped for faith when he became a follower of Jesus of Nazareth who promised him a new way of being in the world that was not about despair, or rage, or armed rebellion. Instead his new life was about teaching and learning, baptism and communion, and service and salvation. That same life-giving, spirit shaping relationship is available to us. His faith was disturbed, no doubt by the death of Jesus and by his own absence at the first appearance of the risen Jesus to the gathered disciples. Thomas was probably away on important business - buying food, arranging for transportation, trying to get a sense of the mood of Jerusalem that first Easter night. Whatever he was doing, he missed the first appearance and had to wait for his own experience of the risen Christ. He was absent the first time, but he was not lost in despair. Instead he gave voice to his disbelief and uncertainty. Thomas did not call the disciples liars, not did he treat them disrespectfully. He did not yield to contemptuous cynicism. He simply said what was on his heart, and by his action, he encourages us to do the same. We know that these are days of uncertainty. The news brings horrific images from the area of the world Christians, Moslems, and Jews all call the Holy Land. Each day seems to bring one more allegation of a betrayal of trust by a member of the clergy. Both the violence and the betrayal give rise to our uncertainty about whether people really trust and honor God and God’s people. They give rise to skepticism about the integrity of all religion on the one hand, and to religious bigotry on the other. And the attention given to these difficult issues obscure the fact that violence and abuse happen among people of all faiths and no faith. Unfortunately, they are universal activities and they break the heart of God. Thomas said what was on his heart, and then he stayed put. He did not go away. He said he wanted to see Jesus, and he waited until he did. Even in uncertain times, we have in Thomas a model for not walking away, and for waiting to see what God will do. We have been reminded in the days following the death of Queen Mother Elizabeth that during World War II, when she and her daughters could have waited out the war in the safety of Canada, they chose not to walk away from England. They would not leave their country in a time of crisis. Thomas does not walk away either. He just says what his spirit needs. “I need to see Jesus and to know for myself that he is alive.” That is what people who seek a life in the church want. We all want to know that Jesus Christ is real for us, is alive for us, and that he as a word of peace and hope for us, no matter our circumstance. Stay awhile and see if the risen Christ does not show up in your life. Thomas helps us to understand that spiritual and faith development are about making room in our lives for the risen Christ to help us find what we need in order to come to belief in him. When Thomas made his desires known, and Jesus appeared the second time Thomas was able to see for himself that Jesus was alive. Jesus did not scold Thomas for his unbelief. In fact he did the opposite. Jesus offered himself to Thomas, he invited him to see and to touch his wounds. He gave himself to Thomas in a way that led him to belief. His belief led to his faith, which had been shattered by the crucifixion and by his inability to believe the other disciples, being reformed and made stronger. Now he can confess the risen Christ as his Lord and his God. Jesus responds to his confession with a question and a promise. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen yet have come to believe.” (v. 29) I know we all look for certainty and undisturbed belief but life is not like that. It shakes us up sometime. We have to deal with death and disappointment, with betrayal and abuse, with horror and hopelessness. We are confronted with having to ask ourselves what forms and shapes us, what disturbs our faith, and what reforms and reshapes our faith in Jesus Christ, and leads us to confess him as our Lord and our God. As we answer those questions, our faith can begin to grow and develop. As it does, we discover what Allen Greenspan once called “irrational exuberance”. That is we can have joy that says our spiritual and faith life, come what may, is strengthened and made vital because we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. We can praise God that the result of our vital faith is the living hope Peter described. We live with the expectation that God, through Jesus Christ will act in our lives for our good and will lead us to the places we need to be. Our hope is eternal, it cannot die, it will not be ruined, or fade, and it is our spirits’ inheritance willed to us through our faith in Jesus. We can be glad that we have as part of our spiritual inheritance the model of Jesus, especially when times are hard, in times of oppression and discouragement. It is our hope in him that makes those hard times bearable, and it is the witness and presence of the church that pulls us through when we have too few resources of our own. All of us have said at one time or another, “if I did not believe in God and if the church had not been there for me, I don’t know what I would have done. I could not have gotten through my time of need. Because we are in fact part of the church, and seek to be witnesses of God’s good news, we can show our gratitude to God by celebrating our faith through acts of faithful ministry. There is reason to rejoice and keep the faith here and by being in prayer for others in ministry around the world. Nuns and priest are tending to the wounded in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, right now; that’s an act of faith. People all over the world are tending to the sick and grieving now, in the name of and by the grace of Jesus, another act of faith. Families of every kind are taking care of each other, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, serving at Trinity House, clothing those without adequate clothing, caring for children whose parents are working hard to stay sober, cleaning this building, even working together to make the house we own on Madison more suitable for living. Those are all acts of faith. Through the BREAD organization, this congregation is joining with others to make this neighborhood and this city a good place to live, work, raise a family, make the life one chooses, and worship, for everyone. That is an act of faith. These acts of faith are the best practices of we followers of Jesus are what we do with our confession that Jesus is the living Christ is our Lord and our God. And in our confession we rejoice, and offer God praise for these opportunities give witness to what Peter calls, the “indescribable and glorious joy” we have that the risen Christ is alive in the world and alive in our souls. Finally, John says that his gospel is written so that we may “believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing have life in his name.” (v. 31) Through his life in us we are given the gift of salvation for belief, and confession, and praise for the risen Christ. For all that God has given us, we say thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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