Trust and Faith - Redeemer Episcopal Church

 John 20:19-31

Jesus Appears to the Disciples

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Jesus and Thomas

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”

26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

The Purpose of This Book

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 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.

Just this week I finished reading Brene Brown’s most recent book called Atlas of the Heart. Brene is a scholar who has been doing research on shame, vulnerability, resilience, and human connection for decades. She has Ted Talks, and a Netflix series, and podcasts. Her work has changed the landscape of how people understand shame and vulnerability. 

In this latest book, she goes through and helps define over 100 different human emotions according to the research her team has done through hundreds of interviews and the reviews of other research. 

What she found is that language matters. How we speak about emotions and feelings matters. The words we use to describe how our bodies are reacting and how our minds and hearts are interpreting events are so vitally important to our ability to connect to one another. 

In the story we heard this morning, emotions are running high. Jesus has appeared to the frightened disciples and Jesus imparts on them the Holy Spirit through his own breath. But Thomas wasn’t there— so he doesn’t believe what the other disciples are saying to him. And a week later, they were all in the house again, but this time Thomas was there. 

So when Jesus came in and stood among them, Thomas believed that Jesus had risen from the dead. 

What is so interesting about this story is that the word “believe,” which is repeated several times between Thomas and Jesus, would probably be better translated as “trust.” 

And at first glance, perhaps these two words do not seem to be very different. But in English, belief is more cognitive. Belief is focused in our brains. I hear this with my students a lot, especially as they move from more fundamentalist faiths into the college atmosphere— how can they believe in the church or God when they see all of the suffering in the world. Or how can they believe the stories of Genesis when they have studied the science behind what those stories try to explain? 

Trust, on the other hand, seems to be more relational. It also exists on a spectrum. For belief, it is more binary— you either believe something or you don’t. But trust… you can trust something a little bit, or you can trust something or someone more. Trust exists on a spectrum because trust exists in our hearts. 

Trust is about a relationship. When Thomas says that he will not trust until he puts his hand into the side and sees the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands, I think he is saying less about whether he believes that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and more about the trust he has with the disciples. 

He is also confessing that he did not trust Jesus when he said he would be resurrected. It wasn’t about his mind being unable to wrap around the resurrection, but the distrust he had for his friends and his Lord. It was about their relationship. It was about his heart, not his brain. 

But trust doesn’t happen without risk, or as Brene Brown would say, vulnerability. That is what Jesus offers to Thomas in extending his hands and his side to him when he came into the room the second time. Jesus gave Thomas the opportunity not only to believe in the resurrection with his brain, but to trust in God who fulfills his promises— God who did, indeed, raise Jesus from the grave. And in that, a deeper relationship forms between Thomas and Jesus. 

“My Lord and My God” he proclaims. 

This new trust that the disciples and Thomas have with Jesus and with God through the Holy Spirit opens the door to the next chapter of what God is doing in the world. 

In a way it LITERALLY opens the door to the place where the disciples were hiding out. Trust allows the disciples to leave the room. Because they know and trust in their hearts that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is also the God who will keep them and be with them as they travel. 

It is the disciples’ relationship with Jesus, their trust in him, that allows them to move from place to place, proclaiming the gospel, knowing that even when they are persecuted, God is with them in the Holy Spirit. 

It is their relationship with Jesus, their trust in him, that carries them into this next chapter, a place where they create community and trust with one another, the people who will eventually become the first church. They know that they can proclaim the gospel because they have seen it, they have witnessed it themselves, and they can trust in their own resurrection, which Jesus promised to them. 

…

In times of transition and uncertainty, trust is even more important— trust in ourselves, trust in our community, and trust in God. While our belief seems to be somewhat static— I’d imagine that most of us would say that we have always and will always believe in God. Trust is more dynamic. There are times in our lives we have had more or less trust in ourselves, our community, and our God. 

Here at Redeemer it seems as if we have been in a time of transition for the last two years. We can thank COVID for that a little bit, but there has been a sense of change and forward motion for as long as I have been here. We are moving toward becoming a different community within this diocese, God is creating something new here— something good and something holy. 

That doesn’t happen without trust. And trust doesn’t happen without some risk and vulnerability. I don’t think we are strangers to any of those things— over and over again I have seen this community be vulnerable with one another and take risks for the sake of the gospel. 

We might say that we believe in God and believe in the resurrection, but how much do we trust in those things? How much do we trust in the resurrection of the dead? How much do we trust that death has been defeated?

Do we have enough trust in the resurrection for it to make a difference in our lives today? Do we have enough trust in Jesus to proclaim him as “my Lord and my God!” to everyone we meet? 

Amen. 

Maundy Thursday at Redeemer Episcopal Church

One of the things I sometimes forget about Jesus is that he was a rabbi. 

He was a spiritual leader and a community leader, he was a revolutionary, and a healer, and of course the son of God. But I sometimes forget that his primary role among his friends was that of a rabbi— a teacher. 

And he is such a good teacher. 

“Maundy” means mandate. Today is the day that Jesus gives his followers, his students, a new lesson, a new commandment. He knows that in just a little while, he will no longer be there to teach them. So he is wrapping up his most important lessons after 3 years of teaching his friends. 

After three years, he only has one evening left with the people he loved. So he teaches them the same way he has always taught them— by example. 

He kneels before each of them and washes their feet— teaching that in order to be a great leader for any, you must be a humble servant to all. 

And then he sits among his friends at a table and says that they, too, must learn to wash one another’s feet. They must learn to do the smallest, dirtiest, most disgraceful jobs, for the people who will deny them, betray them, and not deserve any of it. Because that is what God has done for us. 

And then I imagine Jesus leaning in close to the table, and the disciples all leaning in with him, heads close. And Jesus says, “I have one last thing I need you to remember. It’s important— a commandment.” The disciples hold their breath, awaiting the secrets of the world. 

“Love one another.” 

I imagine they all slump back from the table and utter “come on,” “we need something more than that.” 

“But that,” Jesus tells them, “is how people will know that you are my disciples.”

It will not be from your big buildings or your marketing campaigns. It will not be from your beautiful banners or gorgeous music. It will not be from the size of your staff or even the size of your congregation. 

“It is by this that everyone will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another.”

See, Jesus is such a good teacher because he understands that the way people learn is to see a thing being practiced. Jesus knows that he could tell his disciples to be a humble servant, but for them to really understand and learn what it means, they must see him on his knees in from of them, washing their feet. 

He could tell his disciples to be in community with one another, to provide for one another, and to remember all of the things that he taught them, but he knows for them to understand what it means to be in community, they would have to gather around a table to break bread together and drink the cup of the new covenant. 

It is why we come here to practice these things, to embody them— not because our feet are dirty and need to be washed, but because we need constant reminders of what it is to serve one another. 

It is why we gather at this table every week— not to fill our bellies, but because we need the reminder of what it means to be in relationship with God and with one another, what it means to be fed with spiritual food and kneel next to one another around a table. 

Jesus could have simple told his disciples to love one another, but he knows for them to truly understand and learn what love means, they must see him be nailed to a cross.

Palm Sunday at Redeemer Episcopal Church

One of the faith practices I encourage with my students is to put themselves into a story when we read it together. It doesn’t matter if it’s a news story or a Bible story, I think it helps us practice empathy and reflect on where we are in the social construct. 

We heard a lot of scripture this morning. More than we hear in almost any other Sunday morning. So I’ll give you a minute to look back at your bulletin and reflect on who you might be in this story. 

My friend Shea reflected on it in this way: 

Of all the characters present in the story of Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem, there is only one that I would willingly choose to be. 

It certainly wouldn’t be Jesus. Because while he enters the city as a hero, surrounded by crowds shouting, begging for their salvation with Hosannas and spreading their cloaks along the ground in front of him. But that’s not how his week ends. 

No, if I could be any character in Jesus’ story, I’d choose to be the colt. The colt had one simple task. Carry Jesus to the place he wanted to go. And the colt did it. For the colt, serving Jesus was simple. Easy. Painless. It had a certain beginning and a certain end. He didn’t have to worry about what happened after his job was done. 

But am not the colt. 

The role I’d play in Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem is much more tragic. 

I am the disciple whose feet have been washed by the Son of God who, hours later, fell asleep when I should have watched and prayed with my Lord. 

I am the disciple who took bread and wine from Jesus’ own hands and then left the table, was paid my 30 pieces of silver, and led the soldiers into the garden and greeted the Prince of Peace with a kiss of betrayal. 

I am the religious leader in the crowd who tells Jesus to make his followers stop shouting, stop making a scene, stop drawing too much attention to himself as he enters into the holy city. 

I am a part of the assembly of elders who handed Jesus over to Pilate and falsely accused him of all sorts of things that threatened my own way of life. 

I am Pilate, eager to wash my hands of this whole affair and let someone else handle the problem, even if it leads to an unjust sentence. 

I am Herod, asking Jesus to do some sign, waiting for him to help me put a more secure hold on my own power. 

I am Peter, denying Jesus over and over and over again. 

I am in the crowd who, days before shouted Hosanna, now screams “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

I am the soldier mocking the King. Dividing his clothes for a souvenir of this celebration of horror. 

I am the soldier with the nail and the hammer.

I am the one with the spear.

I am casting lots for his clothing and standing by, watching. 

And after witnessing this horror. Reveling in this death. Hearing the gasping breath tearing into the lungs of Jesus who says “Forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” After hearing that God will have mercy on even the criminals hanging next to him, even the ones who are below mocking him. Even the ones who nailed him to that cross. Only after all that do I say, “Certainly this man was innocent.” Only then do I wail and beat by breast at this spectacle that has taken place. 

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. Amen.