Sacramental People

Easter 2B, John 20:19-31; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 4/12/2015

Jim Melnyk: “Sacramental People”

I am willing to bet many of you are hoping I’m not going to preach about today’s lesson from Acts, “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common” (Acts 4:32-35).   Don’t worry – I’m not.

Episcopalians, like many of our sisters and brothers in other denominations, are a sacramental people.  Sacraments, as you may recall, are outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace given to us by God in Christ as signs of God’s certain favor toward us.

Sacraments, then, on an outward level, are tangible experiences.  During Holy Eucharist, our principle feast of thanksgiving, we can see and taste the bread (though wafers don’t have all that much taste in my thinking). If we are quiet enough at the fraction, we might even hear the priest’s host snap when it is broken.  And if we were using a loaf of bread instead of wafers, as some churches do, we might even smell the yeast as the loaf is torn apart, or as the portion of bread is placed in our hands and brought to our mouths.

In Holy Baptism, we can see the water poured into the font, and hear it splash.  We feel the coolness of it as Christ’s name is writ upon our brows, and we can feel and smell the chrism oil on our foreheads as we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  The list goes on: the feel of a human touch during prayers for healing, the laying on of hands at confirmation – as we witnessed last week – or during an ordination.

As Episcopalians, we are a sacramental people, and we celebrate our faith with tangible actions that signal our deepest held religious beliefs: Christ’s real presence in the bread and wine of Holy Eucharist, God’s Holy Spirit filling us in Baptism, and empowering us when sick, or dying; when confirming our faith, or being set apart for holy orders.  Holy mystery at a level where we can taste, and touch – holy mystery we experience with our senses.

Yet, here we come to the perfunctory Second Sunday of Easter story about Thomas – who tradition has labeled as “Doubting,” and doubt becomes front and center in most people’s preaching because, after all, isn’t the story about good old Doubting Thomas?  But yet as Sacramental People, we can understand Thomas’ desire to touch, can we not?  After all, our lesson from 1 John begins with “ we report to you that which we have heard, and seen, and touched…” (paraphrased) – that which is tangible!

But Thomas with his quest for assurance – the same assurance experienced earlier by his peers, by the way – Thomas with his quest isn’t meant to be front and center in today’s gospel lesson – at least not the way we usually portray it all.  The story is not meant to separate Thomas from the other disciples, as someone whose faith is somehow less true – just as it isn’t meant to chide us when we struggle with our own doubts.  “At the heart of the story is Jesus’ generous offer of himself to Thomas,” and by extension, Jesus’ generous offer of himself to all who follow throughout the ages – even to us (Gail R. O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible). 

The story we call “Doubting Thomas” in John’s Gospel is about a Jesus who comes to us where we are and how we are – not demanding acceptance, but inviting belief.  It’s a story about Jesus telling us there will be a time when we have to move beyond our senses to make sense of what God does for us in the mystery of Easter. 

This story is about a Jesus who honors Thomas’ needs – a Jesus who meets Thomas where he must meet him – so that Thomas, along with his companions, will be able to proclaim the wonder and power of Easter.

Now, I can no more prove the Resurrection than I can prove much of what I believe about this world and my life.  But what I have found over the course of my short time on this planet is this: The same Jesus who appears to Thomas and the others in that Upper Room makes himself known to me time and time again in ways, which I cannot prove, but are as real to me as any of you.  It makes no sense on any sort of provable level – but it makes plenty of sense in my gut and in my heart.  And though I’d never be mistaken for, or claim the title of “mystic,” I will embrace the reality of those experiences as holy mystery. 

In the end, it’s not our doubt or our skepticism that matters most – it’s the willingness of God in Christ to be present with us and for us in the midst of those doubts – that matters most: in the touch of a friend; a helping hand; in taking a stand for justice; in welcoming the stranger; in serving and accepting someone who looks, acts, or believes differently from us; or in something as simple as offering an encouraging word, or something as complex and challenging as the early followers of Jesus and their response outline in today’s lesson from Acts!

When I see someone choose a path of compassion and grace instead of the easier, and often more alluring path of self-service, lack of care, exclusion, greed or hatred – I sense the presence of the Risen Christ.  For you see, Easter is about more than the ongoing presence of Jesus in this world – though it is that.  Easter is also about God’s vindication of Jesus and his Gospel that proclaims God’s passion for this world.  “Easter,” writes Borg, “is God’s ‘yes’ to Jesus and God’s ‘no’ to the powers that killed him” (Borg, p. 276).

Easter is about finding one’s breath when the world around us feels like the deep vacuum of outer space.  Easter is about finding wholeness after a great loss; it’s about finding truth in face of the world’s lies; it’s about finding courage in the midst of fear.  Easter is about finding hope in the midst of despair and justice where there has been only oppression. Easter is about finding life where before there has only been death.

Still, doubt is real and will always be a part of who we are as human beings – who can ever be absolutely sure of everything?  In many ways we’ve come to live in what Bishop Anne called an “If I cannot see it and feel it, it couldn’t have happened world.”  She went on to say we’re all too ready to doubt everything – everything, that is, “except our wireless internet.”  Reminds me of a meme that goes around on Facebook from time to time saying, “Ninety percent of what we read on the internet is made up – according to Abraham Lincoln.” 

“As Frederick Buechner has so aptly said: ‘Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith – they keep it alive and moving’” (Understanding the Sunday Scriptures, p. 80).    Doubt may be real, but no matter how much we don’t like to doubt – no matter how much we frown on doubt – doubt is really just the beginning of faith.  And while some preachers even make a living off of people’s doubts, that’s not the way of Jesus.  Rather than demand acceptance, Jesus invites belief, and meets us where we most need to be met.

The wonder and power of Easter is in Christ’s risen presence in our hearts, in our lives, and in our actions – in the way we live and move and have our being in the world around us.  Our Easter celebrations are the outward and visible signs of the Risen Christ who comes among us offering the gift of peace – the gift of wholeness and life – and even in the midst of our most serious doubts that wholeness and life can sustain us. 

The Risen Christ comes among us and offers a wholeness that calls upon us to be a transformed people who are then called to transform the world.  Jesus breathes on his disciples and we are reminded of the Spirit of God (Ruach, meaning spirit, breath, or wind) the Spirit of God moving over the waters of creation.  We are reminded of God’s breath breathing into the nostrils of the first human – painstakingly shaping that first being out of the clay of the earth and then bending down and putting lips to lips – and breathing life into that first being.   We are reminded of the wind or breath of God filling the once dried out, dusty, cracked and broken bones of Israel stretched out before the prophet Ezekiel.  “Mortal, can these bones live?”  Yes!  Yes they can and they do!

The breath of Jesus breathed upon his disciples is the sacramental promise of God’s presence in our lives – it is the transforming and empowering breath of God – it is the breath of life.  It is God’s gift to each of us.  It is Easter!