John 20: 19-31

April 15, 2007

Living the Questions

Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay

We are here this morning because we are seeking something.

Some of us seek the familiar, so we are here as we have been for some time, sitting in (probably) the same spot we have chosen as our own.

Some of us come from a sense of duty. We’ve been taught that people with good values are people who attend church and since we want to be counted among the former, we do the latter.

Some of us are here because we believe that maybe there is a place where the itch in our soul - the place of the big lonely and the place of the big questions - can be scratched.

We gather on this first Sunday after Easter. And we miss the flowers and the trumpets and the big organ splash that testified beyond a doubt that Jesus lives in our midst. We heard the story. And we believed it because the church was full and everyone was happy.

But a week later the fanfare is dampened and the text makes if clear that living as a people of the risen Lord is a complex and nuanced calling.

In this morning’s text, the disciples were terrified. Their world had shifted through the dying and the rising of Jesus and they had so much to sort out and so they did what any of us do when we are frightened and grieving. They stayed together to tell stories and figure out what life would be without their beloved in their midst.

(Read text)

Joan Chittister, a Catholic theologian and writer, makes a provocative statement on this day when we celebrate the witness of Thomas.

She says:

“If there is one thing that we have all been taught to fear, it is surely questions. There are some things, we learn early, that are never to be challenged. They simply are. They are absolute. They come out of a fountain of eternal truth. And they are true because someone else said they are true. So we live with someone else’s answers for a long time. Until the answers run dry. I know that because I myself have been caught in the desert of doubt and found the answers to be worse than the questions could ever be.” (Called to Question, Chittister, pg. 2)

Jesus had promised the disciples that he would not leave them orphaned, that he would come to them. And he does. And the first thing they hear are these words: “Peace be to you.”

And they saw him and knew him and believed him.

Thomas was not there in that room. And while he was told what had happened and wanted desperately to believe what had happened - he could see the light and relief and joy in his friends - but he couldn’t believe until he experienced this Jesus vision himself.

Jesus came again, eight days later, and Thomas was able to share with him his questions and Jesus, rather than shaming this disciple who had a front-row seat to his teachings but even yet was not convinced, Jesus offered Thomas whatever it would take to help him to believe. He offered the evidence of his wounding, encouraging Thomas to explore in the ways he needed to in order to come to belief.

And he shares, does Jesus, words of peace and grace and forgiveness and how it is we who follow him are called to share those sorts of things with each other as well.

So we who are here this morning tell the story and hold it to our heart and ask what it means to us as we seek to live in the midst of fear and unbelief.

And a lot of people are not. Here. In this place. Or in any church where this story is told. Mainline Protestant churches in the United States have 45% less people in them than were there in the thriving 1960’s. (Journal news review, 2003)

And a large part of the decline of the church, I believe, is the ways we have maligned questions. We have created religious institutions that insist that questioning is somehow disrespectful and wrong. And we have created institutions that insist that they have the corner on the market to the right answers to questions- whether it is to the question of Biblical authority or who controls the kitchen.

Churches have become dogmatic and unyielding and unforgiving and not much about sharing peace as we celebrate the presence of the risen Lord breathing in our midst - if we remember to celebrate the presence of the risen Lord breathing in our midst.

But all is not lost. According to Diana Butler Bass, church guru, churches more effectively inviting people into relationship - with the Holy and with other askers of questions - are celebrating:

1. Tradition, not traditionalism. Tradition is honored and cherished, but there is room for innovation and Holy Spirit movement. Alive churches innovate and change.

2. Practice is valued over purity. Faith is about what we DO, not holding right beliefs. The black and white, right and wrong answers are not preached or embraced blindly.

3. Wisdom is valued more than certainty. Following wisdom means that the wisdom of head and heart meet and open to the way of God. (Christianity for the Rest of Us, pgs. 42-52)

An insistence upon inclusivity is bedrock. All people are welcomed as those who breathe the breath of Jesus. In all their sorting and questioning and seeking.

What difference does it make?

Seven years ago I was serving in Duluth. We began there a conference asking churches to practice full inclusion of all God’s people. Our church hosted the regional interfaith event.

And our church, much like this church now, entered into conversation about what it means to be Reconciling - to say clearly that we welcome all people into community, regardless of age, race, sexual orientation, economic status, or any other thing by which we sort ourselves and each other.

We chose to become a Reconciling congregation. To be clear about who is welcome.

And in worship one Sunday was a man who heard that message clearly and could hardly believe what he was hearing.

Tim had grown up in a church that was very conservative theologically. He had attended a college that was the same. And what he heard, through the years of his growing up and the years of his maturing is that he was somehow an abomination. Wrong. Not really welcome. He served as a leader in this church, because he stayed closeted and wracked with pain in the silence of his own heart. And he bled, each time he heard about how God hates the sin and loves the sinner because he did not believe that his born way of being in the world was sin.

But that belief was not questioned in his church.

Tim left. He got out. And he got out for years. Long years when he had so many faith questions and years when he wanted to breathe the breath of the peace of Christ in the community of believers and years when the gift of his incredible voice and musical talents were not being used doing what he does so well - singing praise to God.

But somehow, because he had heard that there was a church in town making a point of saying “welcome” to those such as he, he came to First United Methodist church in Duluth.

And he spent that hour of worship with tears running down his face. I noticed that. The sermon had to do with using God given talents we all have to create grace in this world and he knew he had so much to share and he began to have the wild sort of hope that his talent would be welcomed at this church where he found himself. That he could be there without hiding.

The next week he brought his partner. And they shared with their pastors that they were afraid to believe the peace and grace they felt in the church. But then they began to touch it, and it reached out and touched them.

Tim joined the band as keyboardist and vocalist. Gary became involved in justice issues. They worshipped as family and were taken in as family and they have found a place where others in the church community were not willing to live with the death dealing of someone else’s answers.

They joined the elderly, the newly born, families, widows, executives, seekers, sinners and saints. Followers of Jesus willing to live the questions.

Tim came to church wanting proof that the resurrection was real.

And he reached into the Body of Christ - the church - and found proof. And he became a believer.

Amen