Sermon (Fr Peay) April 15, 2018

St John Chrysostom Episcopal Church – Delafield, Wisconsin

Third Sunday of Easter – April 15, 2018

V. Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.

[texts: Acts 3:12-19/1 John 3:1-7/Luke 24:36b-48]

"Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?" Jesus' question to the apostles, hiding in the upper room, is also asked to every assembly of Christian believers. That question confronts us this morning as, like the disciples, we are "in our joy disbelieving." We want to believe, we want to accept, but the doubts continue to bother us. How can the message of Christian faith possibly be true? How can someone rise from the dead? How can a human being become a child of God?

I don't believe that doubting is wrong. Rather, I am an advocate for doubt. All of us have heard the phrase from Descartes, "Cogito, ergo sum." "I think, therefore I am." That may be the most famous, but I don't think it's his most accurate proof. His most accurate proof was, "Dubito, ergo sum." "I doubt, therefore I am." Because his understanding was that one cannot doubt that one is doubting. You see that you have to exist as the doubter, you can't doubt that you are doubting. You can doubt everything, except doubt you're doubting. Dubito, ergo sum -- no doubt about it.

Doubt, then, sets the parameters for faith. As there can be no reason without doubt, neither can there be faith without doubt. Faith rises out of doubt. Faith when first learned deals only with certainties. These are the things that our parents, our teachers, our heroes have explained to us. But the situation changes as we grow older. I like what the theologian Romano Guardini has written. He says, "Belief in the living God, the Creator and Father, means really belief in him as he is in himself." But in the mind of everyone, as I have said, faith is associated with some kind of mental image. For the child that image is first of all his/her own father, only raised to a mysterious greatness or to some other person especially revered or who represents majestic authority. As the child develops, that early image no longer fits in with newly found ways of thinking and feeling. The natural loosening of the ties between child and parents and opposition to the authorities in one's childish world have an effect. Hence, the young person's belief in God begins to waver. Now, is that wavering necessarily bad? No.

Doubt simply signals a change in the relationships and perceptions that we have. We need to learn to understand the difference between revealed truth and our own certainties. Like when we found out the real truth about Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, we begin to realize that reality can live in larger constructs. So that we can very well say, "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" because the spirit of giving is more than just the personification of giving. So here we come to see that maybe we've constructed a vision of God that is not the same as divine revelation. "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?"

Doubt, a healthy skepticism, allows for real faith. Coming to know who God is in himself means to develop. This is what the great existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers exposed in his classic Philosophical Faith and Revelation. There he raises the point that creeds, statements of faith, had once served a purpose as defining or explaining how believers related. However, when these statements became absolutes, here's the truth and there is no other, they can then become fatal to relationship. If we think that we possess all of the truth, if we have no questions, then we don't need to communicate anymore. We don't need to ask questions. We don't need to be open to questions. We become closed. Thus, the I-Thou relationship that is central to coming to know God, as the Transcendent came to make contact with the finite, is cut off. We're stuck in our own little world which we've made too small.

Peter Berger, who was a sociologist of knowledge as well as of religion, took this notion a step further. He says that there is a heretical imperative. The Greek word herein means an opinion or choice, so the heretic makes choices of what to believe from the whole body of the tradition. Berger says, given the wide spectrum of choices that are available in our pluralistic society, coming to the heretical imperative is absolutely necessary if we are to affirm faith in God. Berger wants to affirm the human as the starting point for theological reflection and to reassert the sacredness and the supernatural character of religious experience. So relationship with the Other is what enables us to deal with present reality and future uncertainty.

Relating to a God who see us as not some object, but as a subject, as one who is able to relate, affirms our own dignity as human beings. It says that there is something worthwhile in us and in the world around us. This is why I am convinced that God spoke his Word into flesh in Jesus Christ. As John writes, "See what love the Father has given us, that we be called children of God." Jesus is the one, who by his incarnation, passion, death, and resurrection, fully embraced humanity and brought it into God's life. In him we see how God wishes us to relate and how we are to respond. So our present status as God's children and our future hope of the full revelation of God's mind to us has real, profound ethical meaning for the present. We are called to truly become children of God, living after the manner of Jesus in the way we approach each other. We are to respond to God's invitation to be his children and to live after his image and likeness, restored in us through faith in Jesus Christ.

Our response need not be irrational. Faith is not antithetical to reason. Thomas Aquinas would talk of grace building on nature and how God can speak to the human intellect in such a way as to begin the process of redemption. In other words, from our doubt, through our reason we can come to relate to God. We often wonder how this can happen, especially in face of the claims of the resurrection. However, in the words and acts of Jesus we find that the risen Lord is no phantom or figment. In Luke's Gospel Jesus teaches us that death and resurrection are not escapes or excuses for not living in a responsible or reasonable manner. One commentator cited George Bernard Shaw, who -- in true Irish tradition -- was a great skeptic, as saying that he could imagine no fate more horrible than remaining himself forever. "The good news of the story of the resurrection is that there is a genuine transformation of the self, but it is not a change into a dreamy fantastic state that would be so totally different as to be completely discontinuous with the lives we have lived as real human beings. Resurrection life is God's own mystery, but we hope for it as life continuous with but different from the one we now know." This resurrected life begins here and now in the way we approach life every day and it produces joy in the heart.

The joy which marks a child of God is not giddiness. Nor is it foolish. Rather, the joy which comes of realizing who one really is, that God is our truly our father and not simply our progenitor, gives a sense of well-being and of peace. It allows us to respond to the world around us differently; not with harsh words or narrowed vision, but with genuine kindness and concern. In difficult times and in the face of things which seem to make no sense we can begin to see God at work, seeking to relate, seeking to love, seeking to care for us.

I encourage you, as children of God, to embrace doubt. Don't reject doubt, embrace it. Question, ponder, think and as you do God will reveal himself. Perhaps not as we'd like or as we'd thought, but he'll be there. God's presence will be as real in that moment as it is right now in the midst of this gathered people. God's presence will be as tangible in that moment as it will be in the bread and cup to be shared among us.

If Jesus had not asked those apostles about their fear and doubt they would never have known the joy, even in their disbelieving. If they hadn't questioned, Jesus could not have affirmed them and that they were now heirs with him of the Father's love. There would be no faith if there was no doubt. Creeds wouldn't have been written if someone would not have challenged. Faith comes only after doubt. If we've never doubted, we never believed. To be a child of God is to have the freedom to doubt, to come to faith, to have joy in living. To be a child of God is a great gift -- no doubt about it!

Sermon (Fr Peay) April 8, 2018

St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church – Delafield, Wisconsin

2nd Sunday of Easter/April 8, 2018

V. Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.

[texts: Acts 5:27-32/John 20:19‑31]

"Seeing is believing." This common sense commonplace is fairly straightforward. If you can't see it, can't verify it through your own experience, it isn't real, isn't believable. I'm sure that many folks would say that "doubting" Thomas should be the patron saint of scientists. Didn't he have the researcher's mind as he looked for the evidence to corroborate the other Apostles' assertion, "We have seen the Lord"? Sure, he had seen Jesus bring Lazarus back from the dead, but this was different. Thomas had seen Jesus on the cross. He had seen the nails and the spear do their work. He had seen the stone seal the entrance to the tomb. For Thomas to find this hypothesis credible there would have to be a lot of hard evidence ‑‑ nail prints and spear wound touched and probed ‑‑ before he could believe.

To be honest, Thomas wasn't much of a scientist. While science ‑‑ and I should remind us all that scientia, knowledge, or its pursuit, is the proper description for more than just the physical or experimental disciplines ‑‑ involves facts, evidence, and proof, it also requires belief. A true scientist believes in what she or he is about. Thomas Kuhn changed the way scientists looked at their field when he introduced the concept of the ‘paradigm shift’ in his Structures of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn, however, ultimately framed his description of paradigmatic shifts in religious language: faith, belief, conversion. One has to have faith in the paradigm, believe in the work undertaken, and/or be converted to a new way of perceiving what one sees. Thomas, it seems to me, would have benefited from meeting his twentieth century namesake.

When I was in high school we watched a film on the circulatory system, "Hemo the Magnificent." Something from that film has always stuck with me. At the very end of this rather fine documentary on research into how our life's blood works there was a reflective section on the task of the researcher. They quoted Max Planck – the father of quantum physics – who said: Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with.

[Where Is Science Going? (1932)] And then they quoted Paul to Timothy, "Prove ye all things to see if they are of God."

You see, a believer isn't a Polyanna, a naif. Frankly, I distrust those who blithely wish to discount the value of the intellect and reason. My studies of the Christian faith have led me to believe because of the keen intellects who have been witnesses to the wonder of God's work among us in Jesus Christ. Scholars like Anselm of Canterbury who uttered what I have taken as my own motto: Fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeks understanding) or “America’s theologian” Jonathan Edwards, who saw God's beauty not only in the Word, but in his studies of biology and botany as well. Christians stand in a marvelous intellectual tradition, as Anselm said, "I believe in order to understand" (credo ut intelligam); to that I say 'Amen.'

Thomas got his chance when Jesus again appeared in the locked upper room, spoke his calming words, "Peace be with you." And then he took the 'Thomas challenge,' saying to him, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."  He saw and he believed, but Jesus had more to say, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe." Those words, that blessing is for us ‑‑ for you and for me.

Peter declared the core of the Christian proclamation, the essence of our story, when he stood before the council, just as he had before his fellow Israelites in Acts chapter two. He preached that God raised Jesus up from death, "because it was impossible for him to be held in its power." John Chrysostom in his Easter homily speaks of how death thought it had gotten hold of just another poor mortal and found itself facing God‑in‑the‑flesh and was overcome. Peter and the other witnesses to the resurrection were brought beyond their own limited understanding of life and death; through Christ they were brought into the presence of the author of life and death. The beauty of Peter's proclamation is realized in his first letter, "Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls" (1 Peter 1:8-9). As Jesus said to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."

The truth of the matter is that even the apostles had to go beyond experience to come to faith in the resurrection. Although they were "eyewitnesses" to this remarkable occurrence ‑‑ how else could you explain the presence of the Lord in his glorified body being able to come through solid walls? ‑‑ they had to come to a whole new understanding of God's presence and of themselves. For the Christian, believing is seeing.

Thomas saw and believed. We do not see, yet believe and as a result begin to see the world in a wholly different way. When we come to know that believing is seeing we look at ourselves differently. We realize that here is a person loveable and possessed of enormous worth ‑‑ a child of God ‑‑ as the hymnist says, "Changed from glory into glory." When we come to know that believing is seeing we look at those around us differently. We see all persons as loveable, children of God, children for whom Christ died and was raised up again. How can we possibly judge ourselves, or anyone else, in the manner we used to? How can we possibly ever look down upon or condemn another ‑‑ one for whom Christ died and was raised up ‑‑ because they do not rise to our standard? How can we look at any material thing in the same way, since it also shares in the benefit of the fresh start given all creation by the resurrection?

John tells us that, "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 Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name." If believing is seeing, Jesus continues to do many signs through his body: the church. If believing is seeing, you and I become the signs through which others may come to believe and have life in his name. If believing is seeing, and I believe it is, the stuff and the people of everyday life become sacraments, means of encounter with the living Christ.

Believing is seeing and what we see in our believing leads us to cry out: "My Lord and my God!" Amen. Alleluia!

Sermon (Fr Cunningham) April 15, 2018

I find it interesting that I still come across things in scripture that I have missed, which have been hiding in plain sight.  This morning is just such a morning for me where we read, “Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’”  The obvious takeaways from this story are that Jesus was really there and that he is not a ghost and that in his resurrected state he has flesh and bones.  All well and good but we kind of covered that bit of it on Easter Day.  The thing that I find so interesting in it and the thing that I have been missing in all the times I have read it comes in the bit about the hands and feet.  Why is Jesus asking them to look at them because those are the places where he was pierced by the nails when he was crucified.  For as we see other places in scripture his hands and feet still carry the scars of his crucifixion.  And this is the part that I have somehow overlooked and failed to grasp its significance.  For after all if Jesus has been raised from the dead and now has a glorified body why does he still carry the scars from his time on earth – can’t he make those things go away?  I mean he is the Son of God, he cured other people of deformity, can’t he do the work that most any decent plastic surgeon could do?  And the answer to that is certainly yes.  Jesus could make it all go away, but he didn’t and so the question remains as to why.  Why does Jesus comeback bearing the scars of his crucifixion?

            One answer is that he wanted to be recognizable.  If you remember from last week the Disciple Thomas said, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."  Thomas laid down a criterion for belief that could only be met with visible scars.  But I am not sure if this is a full explanation - that it was done for the benefit of the disciples.  Jesus seems to suggest after Thomas has announced that Jesus is Lord and God that such shows of scars and wounds should not have to be necessary.  He states, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."  No I think the only explanation that makes the most sense is that the scars and the marks of the nails have somehow become part of whom Jesus is - that some of the suffering on this earth stayed with him.  Which means, if look at Jesus as the pioneer and perfector of our faith, the one who went before us, this means that our wounds and injuries are also part of what makes us who we are.  We will one day have resurrected bodies, but some of the slings and arrows that we have suffered while on this earth will still be present in those new bodies.  Which I guess may sound disappointing; I for one had hoped to have more important hair in the next life.  But even following that logic we still have not quite gotten to the point of why this happens.  Why do injuries and wounds follow us?  Well, you are in luck because I have a theory.  And just as a caveat some of what I am about to say is a bit of my personal theory, but I don’t think it is heretical so we should be safe.  If I am wrong and it is heretical if you could wait to burn me until the service is finished I would appreciate it.  So let’s start with Jesus and the nature of the wounds that we see today. 

            The Prophet Isaiah says, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”  Part of what this is telling us in terms of who Jesus is and what he did is that his bruises and his wounds are the means by which we have been healed.  The bruises may have been done in malice, but what came out of them was our salvation.  So therefore, when the disciples are seeing the wounds of Christ they are not only seeing the brutality with which Christ suffered, but they are also seeing the means by which they, and by extension we, have been made right with God.  And so now on to my theory.  Christ’s wounds remain because the ultimate result of them is something wonderful and beautiful.  In this life we have all suffered – some of us more than others, but we have all experienced times of nastiness and vitriol, pain and hardship.  Times where we have been despised and hated and unfortunately for some of us even had physical suffering.  As best I know none of us have actually been crucified, but we have had experiences in our lives that left us wounded.  And the question is what have we done with our woundedness?  Have we used it to make things better?  And if we have it seems that these things may remain throughout eternity, because they have been redeemed by God.

            And I know that may sound like a strange proposition, but let me tell a story and see if it makes it a little more clear.  The first parish in which I served I worked for a priest named John.  A little over a year into my job John’s wife went to the hospital with what they thought was a pinched nerve.  Three days later she was dead from septicemia.  It was horrible and tragic and John obviously went into a deep and profound period of mourning.  Four months after the death of John’s wife, just after Christmas a young man in our parish shot and killed himself.  The thing I remember so vividly about this experience was that after John had met with the family, he told me that if he had met with them four months ago he would have had nothing to say to this family who had just lost their son.  He would not have been able to understand the level or nature of their grief, but because of his own tragedy he was able to bring someone else through tragedy.  His woundedness helped to heal someone else.  Carl Jung developed the phrase “wounded healer” which was picked up by Henri Nouwen in his book of the same name.  In that book Nouwen essentially argues that woundedness can serve as a source of strength and healing.  Which is what Jesus did and it is what we are called to do as well.  By our wounds we can heal others.

            Many of us in life will experience things that we don’t like.  All indications are that Jesus did not really want to be crucified, but the question is how do we make those scars part of who we are in a way that is glorifying to God.  Sometimes you will hear Christians say after some tragedy that it was God’s will.  I am not one that tends to subscribe to such theories of fatalism, which posit that everything that happens is because God orchestrated it to be that way.  But what I do subscribe to is the belief that all things can be used to the glory of God.  When Christ was crucified it was the single worst act in human history.  The one person who ever existed who was without sin was crucified as if he committed a wrong.  But through this horrible and wrong act we have been saved.

Christ’s wounds are a reminder of the fact that God can redeem anything.  Which means that our scars and our woundedness can be redeemed by God so that they can be used to further God’s kingdom.  And it appears that those wounds, if so wonderfully and beautifully redeemed, will be with us in the next life.  Because they are no longer signs of the victory of sin and evil but are instead the signs of God’s victory.  Yes we will all suffer in this life, we will all have things befall us that are not of our making that will wound and damage us, but God can redeem these things for his glory so that we may be his both now and forevermore.