Potty Talk

Do you know how, when you go on a trip, there's usually one image that sticks in your memory as the first one that comes to mind when you think back to that adventure? For me, when I recall my month-long immersion in Myanmar last January, the first thing I remember is the day we spent in the small village of Hmawbi.

We ten seminarians worshipped on Sunday morning at the village church, St. Michael's, and afterward we were divided into small groups to visit parishioners' homes. I had three or four students from Holy Cross Theological College guiding me around, translating, and making sure I didn't embarrass ourselves too much with cultural faux pas. My group visited three or four homes, and at each one I was seated in a central place of honor and asked to tell my story - where I was from, what my family is like, what I'm studying, what my ministry involves. Then I was asked to pray for the family gathered around me. (At one home I was asked to sing a song.) And then I was fed - and fed, and fed, until I thought I would pop. In these small grass huts in the Burmese countryside, we were showered with fruit and cake and tea in china teacups. It was not unlike the feeding of the 5,000.

We learned a great deal that day about radical hospitality and generosity to the point of giving beyond your means. We knew that in almost all of those homes we were being given gifts that those families really weren't able to give, but they did because that was what it meant to them to live in a Christian community of welcome. So when we received a request from the people of St. Michael's to help them build two modern toilets with plumbing, it seemed like a small gesture of generosity on our part. We appealed to the seminary community for 100 people to give $10. For us, $10 is well within our means. It is the cost of a movie ticket or, in Alexandria at least, going out for a pretty cheap dinner - two things that the people of Hmawbi will probably never in their lives do.

The World Toilet Organization estimates that every dollar donated to improving sanitation in developing countries ends up brings $9 in value to a community. So a $10 donation will benefit the people of Hmawbi with a value of $90 or more. We ended up with the equivalent of 160 people giving $10 to help their Christian neighbors around the world. This money will travel home with our dear classmate Lwin Thida when she returns in May. She will bring the gift of this money and a strong message of communion from the VTS community to the people of Hmawbi.

Doubting Thomas

Sermon Preached at St. Aidan’s Alexandria (April 11)
Second Sunday in Easter, Year C: Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8, John 20:19-31

Earlier this week I took an online quiz on the web site beliefnet.com called "What is your spiritual type?" It was asking all sorts of questions about what you think about the afterlife, scripture, the created world, prayer, etc. And when you completed the quiz you were placed into one of several categories based on the number of points you scored. So here's the bad news: to make it into the "candidate for clergy" category, you had to score between 90 and 100 points. But I, your St. Aidan's seminarian, only got 71 points. And that score landed me squarely in the category of "Questioning Believer."

At least I'm in good company. I imagine that many of you in this room could also classify yourselves as questioning believers. And you, like me, might breathe a sigh of relief when you hear the story of Thomas in this morning's gospel. This story is often read as an advertisement for taking a leap of faith, for leaving doubt behind. Nowadays, we don't call someone a 'Doubting Thomas' as a compliment, but rather as disparagement when we think they're being a stick in the mud, too cautious or too timid. But I think this story could actually be an endorsement of doubt.

Let's take a closer look. Thomas makes his terms and conditions very clear: "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." And so a week goes by, a week where Thomas is still wrestling with whether the other disciples are pulling his leg, and where the other disciples are probably nagging him or feeling annoyed at him because he won't believe their eyewitness account. But then Jesus appears again, and after his greeting of peace, he turns right to Thomas. And he invites him to do all of those things that he said he needed in order to believe.

What Jesus says to Thomas as he makes this offer is translated for us as "Do not doubt but believe." However, in the original Greek it says fairly clearly, "Do not be disbelieving but believing." There is a big difference between doubting and disbelieving. Jesus knew that Thomas had doubts. He just hoped that those doubts would ultimately lead him to believing, rather than disbelieving, and that's why he returned to that room. He wanted Thomas, one of his original disciples, to be able to go out into the world with conviction, proclaiming the message of the resurrection. He said that it's great if you don't need to see to believe, but he doesn't condemn Thomas for needing that. Thomas needed to see to believe, and Jesus made that happen for him.

There's a radio program that I usually listen to on my way to St. Aidan's called "Speaking of Faith." It comes on at 7 a.m. every Sunday morning – apparently our public radio schedulers have assumed that the only people who would be interested in a show with a religious focus are the ones who already get up early on Sundays. And they may be right. Anyway, a few months ago they did an interview with poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, who had written a book about the history of doubt. Hecht makes the point that Christianity is the first major religion to develop after a tradition of skepticism had become part of our greater cultural mindset, thanks to the Greek philosophical tradition. Before that, religion was mostly about doing the right thing, like making sacrifices at the right place and the right time, and as long as you did the right thing it didn't matter so much what you believed. But the Skeptics and the Cynics taught people in Greek and Roman societies that they could question their traditional pantheon of gods. Some rejected religion altogether, but others turned to Christianity instead. Hecht says that only very recently has doubt become narrowly equated with total rejection of faith rather than a healthy process of discernment. It used to be one of that ways early Christians arrived at their beliefs. Doubt is part of our DNA as Christians.

John spoke in his Easter sermon about belief as something that can be gradual, something that we live into little by little. Some of us can't just jump into the deep end of a pool. We have to start in the shallow end, waiting for the water to warm up before we step farther. The story of Thomas is reminding us of the same thing, acknowledging that there are many different varieties of believers in this world. In fact, the last verse of this lesson is really unusual, in that it is directed at us as readers and hearers of this story, especially those who are still hanging out in the shallow end of the pool. "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." None of us will have the chance to see Christ's resurrected body the way Thomas did, but now these stories become our witnesses. Maybe they allow us to take small steps toward the deep end, until eventually we come to realize that we are swimming in a pool of living water.

So that hokey quiz I took, about my spiritual type, was actually for one of my classes at seminary. It's a class where, for six weeks, we're looking at the growing phenomenon of people who describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious." So far the class has been fairly depressing, because it has highlighted the great variety of reasons why more and more people end up defining themselves in this way, many of which involve having been hurt by the church. To many people, the word "religion" is loaded: it means sex scandals in the Catholic Church or suicide bombers or being told they're going to hell because they weren't saved in the right way or mechanical liturgy that doesn't leave room for spirituality. Why would anyone want to wade farther into those waters? Unfortunately, these are often the only images of religion and faith that get projected in our culture. And we as believers often aren't very skilled at conveying our own faith, at articulating it so that others will have a deeper understanding of the life we have in his name. I wonder how the other disciples tried to convince Thomas of what they'd seen. Did they describe what those healing wounds looked like and how they felt when they saw them? Did they tell Thomas what Jesus was wearing, or mention those familiar mannerisms that let them know this was really their lord? Or did they say, "Hey, you just had to be there, man."

I think Jesus commissions us with three things in this story:

Number 1: Don't be afraid to doubt. Doubt is the constant companion of maturing faith. It means that we're not accepting things just for their surface value. Jesus invited Thomas to name his doubts, to bring them forward. He invites us to do the same. And this very room is one of the best places to offer up your doubts – bring them to worship, bring them to coffee hour, just don't keep them locked away, pretending they don't exist.

Number 2: At the same time, be imaginative and active in seeking those things that help you wade into deeper waters. The evidence of God's saving love, of Christ's passion, is all around us. But what helps you "come to believe" is not necessarily what helps the person sitting next to you come to believe. If the definition of what you think you're supposed to believe feels too narrow, widen your scope. Name what you need to see to believe, and then be on the lookout for it. It may appear right in front of you, in a room you thought was locked.

Number 3: When you have those experiences of swimming in living water, keep building your toolbox of how to share that with others. If those of us who aren't afraid to define ourselves as "religious" aren't able to explain why, or answer questions about the deep riches of faith and tradition, we'll be swimming alone. So come to adult forum (hint hint – I'm starting a series this morning about the prayer book, hope to see you there), try daily Bible reading, keep asking questions in coffee hour, maybe even get up next week at 7 to listen to "Speaking of Faith" on public radio (or download their podcasts)! No matter what, keep learning new vocabulary to describe whatever it is that brings you here on Sunday mornings – not just "You have to be there."

I would be interested to hear more about the things you doubt, the ways you discover Christ's love in your life, and what you want to learn more about. And I invite you - from one questioning believer to another. Come on in – the water's fine.

Good Friday meditation

April 2, 2010
St. Aidan's, Alexandria

What part of this story could we leave out and still have the story we need? That is a question we ask sometimes with children in Godly Play, when we are "wondering" about the stories of scripture. What part of this story could we leave out and still have the story we need?

Of course we can't leave out Jesus, or the cross. They are the focal point of this story, the focal point of our faith. Generations of theologians have spelled out the necessity of this moment for our salvation. Christ's sacrifice is not something we can leave out of our Christian story.

But there are many other characters in our gospel lesson for this day. What about them? Could we leave them out? Are they distracting us from the main focus of what Good Friday is all about?

There's Judas and his betrayal. Judas came to the garden with soldiers and weapons, in fear and defense, even though Jesus gave himself up without a fight. Only hours after the Last Supper, Judas gave up his Lord to his death. Why did it have to be someone in Jesus' inner circle, someone who had followed him and his teachings, who gave him up? It would be nice to leave this part out.

There's Peter and his denial. Peter denied his connection with Christ; he denied being a disciple; he denied even being seen with Jesus. One of Jesus' most beloved disciples, the one who was the first to recognize him as the Messiah, failed him when it mattered most. Jesus' betrayal and death are cruel enough, without this extra layer of disloyalty from one of his most faithful friends. This part is hard to reconcile with the rest of the story.

There's Pilate and his conviction. Pilate wrestled with his conscience, and with his power. Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent, but he was afraid to take responsibility for releasing him. Instead, he passed the buck. He tried to prevent his own guilt by handing Jesus back over to the angry mob, knowing full well what they intended to do. If Pilate had just been a cruel or careless dictator, it might be easier to accept his decision. But he knowingly condemned an innocent man to death, over his better instincts. How do we reconcile this part of the story?

Mary and the other disciples also trouble us in this story. Mary, the mother of Jesus, looked up at the cross remembering her baby boy. The other women probably tried to keep her away, but she had to be there. She who had witnessed Jesus' first moments of life had to be there to witness his last. Why did she have to watch her child die? I would really like to leave this part out.

And then, right at the end, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus came out of hiding to honor their savior. They acted quickly and furtively, to prepare Jesus' body before the Sabbath. They brought expensive spices, doing work that normally would have fallen to the women of the community. And then they disappeared as quickly as they had come. Is their role important to our story?

You may have discovered someone among this cast of characters that you would like to leave out, someone who complicates the story too much or makes its heaviness too much to bear. But there is a danger, when we talk about Jesus' death on the cross, to speak of it as a concept rather than as a real, live historical event, something that happened in real time with real people. So these other folks, who are huddled around the cross in various ways, anchor this moment in history and in humanity, and they also help us anchor ourselves in the story. Because, ultimately, WE are a part of the story that can't be left out. We betray and deny and convict, but we also wait and suffer and anoint. When we look into this story, Judas and Peter and Pilate and Mary and Joseph of Arimathea reflect pieces of our own image back at us.

One of the Holy Week hymns in our hymnal says:

“Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, that man to judge thee hath in hate pretended? By foes derided, by thine own rejected, O most afflicted. Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee. ‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee: I crucified thee. For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation, thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation; thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion, for my salvation.”

We now have a few moments to sit with this story and to sit with the cross. If you’d like, you may move closer to the cross, to look at it and contemplate it more closely. And as we move through this time in silence, I invite you to do your own wondering. Where do you find yourself in this story? How have you participated in Christ’s moment of suffering? How do you accept this sacrifice?

You can write your reflections on your piece of paper and, as you feel comfortable, lay your paper in the offering basket at the foot of the cross.