Living the Beatiudes: Part 4

This morning we conclude our series of reflections on the Beatitudes with the last and longest of these famous sayings of Jesus.  It’s the Beatitude that is perhaps the most disturbing to our modern ears, as well as the one that is— for many of us I suspect— the most distant from our actual lived experience:

 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

What on earth are we to do with this? 

 At least with all the other Beatitudes, we feel like we can relate.  At one point or another all of us have been the ones who mourn, the ones who are poor in spirit, the ones who hunger and thirst after righteousness.  But this last Beatitude can feel like words for a distant people in a distant time and place.  After all, while our friends might wonder why we still bother to come to church in this modern age, no one is going to jail us, beat us, or threaten our lives because of what we believe.  We no longer live in the world—for example-- that Jesus’ original audience lived in.  1^st century Jews in Palestine knew that their situation was precarious.  They had allowances from the Roman Empire to practice Judaism, but only so long as they remained compliant with Roman authorities, paid their taxes, and maintained ultimate loyalty to Caesar.  Any hint of radical religion or rebellion, and what little freedom they had could be crushed in a moment.  One can imagine that Jesus’ audience might have been even more uncomfortable hearing these words than we are today.  They might have thought—“this guys needs to tone down his rhetoric, or he’s going to get us all in a whole lot of trouble!”  And of course, as we all know, he eventually did.  By the time these words were actually written down, John the Baptist had lost his head, Jesus had been crucified, and the early Christian church had begun to see its first martyrs.

But things are different for us now.  We live in a world where Christianity, while perhaps not as all powerful of an institution as it was hundreds of years ago, is still the dominant religious voice in America.  We live in a world where we are free to believe whatever we want, and practice those beliefs, for the most part, however we choose.  So what could these words possibly mean for us today?

I think one answer to that question lies in the ultimate meaning behind the Beatitudes as a whole, as well as the Sermon on the Mount of which they are a part.  Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes care to set up two realities, and is constantly giving his audience a choice— which reality will you choose?  The Kingdom of this world?  Or the Kingdom of God?  And the Beatitudes, as part of the sermon on the mount, frame that choice in a very specific way.  Whose blessings will you seek?  The blessings of this world?  Or the blessings of God?

Perhaps it would help to frame the question in our modern context a bit.  Consider the complaint of one individual, who says this:

"I go to church on Sunday and hear about how the essence of the good life is self-sacrifice and service—that we are to take up our cross and follow Christ.  But then from Monday to Saturday we are told by pretty much everyone else that the essence of the good life is to assert ourselves and gain all that we can."

I don’t know about all of you, but I can certainly relate to that feeling of conflict between what we talk about in here, and how we live out there.  But in the Beatitudes, Jesus gives his followers— including us— a very clear cut choice.

Which kingdom will you choose?

Whose blessings will you seek?

The truth of the matter is, while it may be a very clear cut choice Jesus is setting up here, as people of faith, we often find ourselves caught between two kingdoms.  Because while we are called to seek after God’s kingdom and God’s blessings, we can’t just sequester ourselves from the world either.  We can’t just hide out behind the doors of our churches all week long.  We are still called to be— in Jesus’ own words— in the world, though not of the world.  And so in setting up a choice between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God, Jesus is not telling his disciples to simply wait things out in this world in order to receive blessings in the next. Immediately following the Beatitudes comes another famous teaching— Jesus’ call for his disciples to be a light to the world, and salt of the earth.  In choosing to seek after God’s kingdom and God’s blessing, Jesus is not calling us to disengage from the world.  But he is warning his disciples—and us-- that the kind of engagement he is calling for may cause conflict when the ways of God’s kingdom inevitably bump up against the ways of the world.  But like the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, and like Jesus himself, we are called not to shrink away from that conflict-- not to be afraid of it, but to shine God’s light upon it and seek to mend it.

There is perhaps no better contemporary example of this than that of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. One of the most famous documents to come out of that era is Dr. Martin Luther King’s Jr. letter from Birmingham jail, in which he responds to the criticisms from clergy colleagues that his actions are too extreme.  They tell him that he’s causing too much trouble.  “Now is not the right time,” his fellow ministers tell him, “the kingdoms of this world are not ready for your demands.”  But as he writes—literally from a jail cell— he defends his actions in Birmingham, saying, “just as the prophets of the 8^th century left their villages and carried their message of justice far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my home town…  for injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  Later in the letter, he responds the criticism that he and his fellow activists are extremists, writing “was not Jesus Christ an extremist for love, truth and goodness?”  And of course it was not just King who found himself persecuted for his belief in the gospel of freedom.  Many other suffered police brutality and jail time for their actions.  Even many of the white preachers and lawyers who stood alongside King found themselves losing their jobs and their credibility. Dr. King and those who walked with him were people who made a choice.  They chose—very deliberately-- to eschew the blessings of the world in order to seek the blessings of God’s kingdom.

As followers of Christ, we are similarly called to choose to live within the tension between two worlds— the tension that exists between the world as it is and the world as it should be, between the already and the not yet.  We are called to recognize God’s saving act in Jesus Christ, but we are also called to recognize that God’s work is not yet complete, and that God has chosen us, and given us the power of the Holy Spirit, so that we might be a part of that great work.  And that also means that as people of faith, we are not always called to be comfortable.  We are called— as we heard in our first reading this morning-- beyond our comfort zone.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are times in our walk of faith that we need the comfort of the gospel.  Times when we have experienced great loss, time when we are in the midst of tragedy and need to hear Christ’s voice saying to us, “come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  But just as often, there are times in our walk of faith that we must move beyond that comfort in order to more fully experience the blessings that God wishes for us to have.  There are times when we must make the choice of which kingdom we wish to build, and whose blessings we wish to seek. And for those of us who have read the rest of Christ’s words in the sermon on the mount, we know that that’s not necessarily an easy choice to make. It’s a choice that requires loving our enemies, turning the other cheek, and purging anger from our hearts.  It’s a choice that requires-- to use Christ’s words—“being perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.”  It’s a tall order for sure.  G.K. Chesterton once famously said that “it’s not that the Christian ideal has been tried and found wanting, It’s that it has been found difficult, and left largely untried.”

In this last Beatitude, Jesus tells us flat out that to make the choice to follow him will not always keep us free from pain and conflict.  And why would we ever expect it to-- knowing that this man we are freely choosing to follow was ultimately taken to the cross?  But lest you think this Beatitude is all doom and gloom for us Christians, there is good news to be found in these words as well.  The good news is that if we make that choice to follow in the ways of Christ, we are choosing to be people of hope.  We are choosing to believe that the world as it is, is not all there is. We are choosing to join the ranks of prophets, poets, and priests— people who have been lights to this world and salt to this earth.  And even if we run into conflict and even if we face obstacles, even if the results of our work seem small and unremarkable to our eyes, remember that the real hope is not in what we do ourselves, but is in God.  Our God who can make something out of nothing, and who can transform the feeble works of our hands into miracles that can move mountains.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Amen, and let it be so.

Living the Beatitudes Part 3: Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Part three of a four week series of reflections on the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew

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Living the Beatitudes: Part 2

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled...

One of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer is coming out in less than two weeks, and it’s one I happened to be very excited about.  It’s the third in a trilogy of films based on a popular comic book series-- one of the most popular film adaptations of a comic book to come out in recent years.  Some have even gone so far as to call it a modern cinematic classic.  If you don’t already know which film I’m referring to, let me clue you in—it’s Batman.

Now many of you—like myself— may be eagerly awaiting the arrival of this film on the big screen.  When you think about it though, it’s really kind of incredible that anyone would want to go see a movie-- let alone three movies-- about an eccentric billionaire who dresses up like a bat and flies around town fighting crime.  It’s really pretty ridiculous when you think about it!  But I think the reason it’s so popular is that underneath the costumes, the over-the-top villains, the crazy gadgets and the special effects; there is a timeless, classic story of a man who is hungry for justice.  Someone who recognizes the injustices in the world around him and seeks to do something about it.  Justice, fairness, and retribution.  These are supposedly the kinds of values underlying the stories— not only of batman-- but really of all the classic comic book tales.  And they are also values that have become deeply ingrained in American popular culture.  We love to hear these stories of good triumphing over evil, of wrongs made right, of injustice being met with justice. People flock to the theaters to see these stories played out on the big screen.  One might say we are hungry for it. 

On the surface, one might think that seeing these values surface in our popular culture is a pretty positive thing.  In fact some might even make the argument that it’s a reflection of our Judeo-Christian values.  After all we find references to justice and righteousness scattered everywhere throughout both the old and new testaments— “Let justice roll down like waters,” the prophet Amos declares, “and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”  “What does the Lord require of you,” asks the prophet Micah, “but to do justice.”  And of course we have the words of Christ himself— “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.”  Other translations of this text read “blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice.”  It’s the fourth of Jesus’ Beatitudes— his descriptive list of what it looks like to live a life blessed by God.  And when placed before the backdrop of American pop-culture, it might seem as if we are actually doing pretty well at this particular beatitude.  After all, do we not hunger for justice?  Do we not stand up and cheer when the good guys triumph over evil and when justice and righteousness win the day?

Well perhaps…

But as is often the case with Jesus, there’s a little more to it than that.  And in order to truly claim an understanding of this Beatitude and then be able to live it out as Christian disciples in the world, we have to dig a little deeper in order to understand the depth of what Jesus is really trying to tell us.

Now to our modern ears, to hunger and thirst after righteousness may simply sound like a call to live just and moral lives.  To be upright citizens-- living according to the law and ensuring that when laws are broken, proper retribution is carried out.  And it certainly is that.  But it’s also more than that.  Jesus was echoing the words of the Hebrew Prophets in this Beatitude, for whom justice and righteousness was not only about following the letter of the law, but also went beyond the law towards a far far deeper kind of justice. Not just punitive justice for those who do wrong, but restorative and transformative justice for all.

In chapter 58 of the book of Isaiah, for example, the prophet declares these words: “Is this not the fast I choose: to loosen the bonds of injustice and to let the oppressed go free?  Is it not to share bread with the hungry and shelter those who are homeless?  Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and then shall your healing spring up, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.”

For Isaiah, and for all the prophets, the meaning of true justice and righteousness could be summed up in a single Hebrew word—Shalom.  Most of us know this word as a kind of greeting meaning “peace be with you.”  But beyond its function as a mere greeting, Shalom also refers to an important concept within Jewish theology.  It means restoration of right relations between human beings, between humanity and creation, and between humanity and God.  Shalom is about restoring the earth and all creation to its fundamental goodness, the goodness that is inherent in all things because creation was made— as Genesis tells us— to reflect the very image of God.  In this fourth Beatitude, Jesus is talking about the kind of hunger for righteousness that goes far beyond a simple desire to see the unjust receive their due.  It’s a hunger for shalom— a hunger for the restoration of the world as it should be, rather than the world as it is.  It’s a hunger to see creation as it was meant to be— reflective of the very image of God.  And so the blessing in this case-- “blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness”-- comes not merely with the execution of justice or the punishment for wrongdoing. Rather, the blessing comes in the seeking itself.  It comes when we align our hearts with the heart of God to seek after true righteousness and shalom.

So what then?  What does this actually look like for us in our communities?  How do we live this beatitude out?

If to hunger and thirst for shalom means seeking to restore creation to reflect the image of God, and if God is particularly concerned with the poor and oppressed— which the Bible tells us that God is— then our communities must also be restored in a way that reflects that image and that concern.  If seeking after shalom means seeking after God’s own heart, then our hunger for justice and righteousness must lead us towards a world in which all are fed. A world in which all have bread, in which all are cared for, in which all have dignity and respect.  Because all of us are made in the image of God.

In most of the comic book movies, there may be thrilling adventures and satisfying endings in which the good guys triumph over evil and justice prevails. But perhaps it’s worth noting that rarely does that triumphant ending have anything to do with justice for the poor or the oppressed.  I can’t really think of any comic book movies in which the hero’s concern for justice is to make sure all the hungry people in the world are fed.  I suppose that wouldn’t really make for quite the same kind of summer blockbuster.  But that’s the kind of justice and righteousness that Jesus is talking about.  That is Shalom.

Here then lies the challenge for us-- because Jesus meant for these Beatitudes to be for all of us— not just the superheroes of the world.  While we may not go out and change the world in as dramatic and impressive ways as they do in the movies, we can change our world— right here.  We can be the superheroes of our own lives and the lives of others around us.  We can be superheroes for Shalom.  We can pay attention to that hunger that resides within each of us-- that hunger that says, I know this isn’t quite how it’s supposed to be— I know that we are meant for something more.  We’ve all felt it that hunger.  So go now, and seek the blessing that resides within it.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.  Amen and let it be so.

Living the Beatitudes: Part 1

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The first in a four part series of relfections on the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew. 

The Beatitudes found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are among some of Jesus’ most beloved teachings.  In them we find great comfort and promise, and we also find validation for those who seek to walk the Christian Way.  But in them we also find many questions.  Because like so many of Jesus’ most famous teachings, they seem to take conventional wisdom, and turn it completely upside down.  For instance, conventional wisdom in our culture would say that it’s the wealthy and happy people in the world who are blessed— not the poor and grieving.  It would say that it’s the rich and powerful-- not the poor and meek-- who will inherit the earth.  To say ‘blessed are the poor in spirit,’ ‘blessed are those who mourn,’ and ‘blessed are those who are persecuted,’ sounds pretty darn strange in a world where we avoid things like poverty, sadness, and persecution at all costs. And so the beatitudes are not just these nice pithy sayings meant to comfort us in times of trouble.  They are also words that are meant to challenge us to live differently— not in accordance with a world that is often competitive, greedy, and harsh, but rather in accordance with God’s kingdom of love, justice and compassion.  In other words, the Beatitudes are meant to teach us how to be disciples.

And so we are not meant to simply hear the beatitudes— soaking up the truth within them as nourishment for our spirits alone. We are also meant to live them out. For this reason, we will spend the next few weeks taking a more in depth look at these famous sayings of Jesus in order to discover how we might find ways to live them out in our world today.

This morning we begin with the first of the Beatitudes: “blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And already we find ourselves in a quandary.  Because for those of us who know the version of the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Luke, we know that it’s slightly different.  In Luke’s gospel it simply reads: “blessed are those who are poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Absent from Luke’s version is the qualifier—poor in spirit. So which is it?  Is Jesus talking about spiritual poverty?  Or is he talking about material poverty?

One could certainly decide to privilege one version over the other and come to two very different conclusions about who it is that is actually blessed, and therefore what it means for us to live out this teaching in our lives.  Some might hear Matthew’s version and say that one’s material wealth— or lack thereof— has nothing to do with it. That to be poor in spirit is about spiritual humility, it’s about not thinking of oneself more highly than one should.

Others might hear Luke’s version and point to Jesus’ famous interaction with the rich man who asks him how to get into heaven.  Jesus tells him he must sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor, because in Jesus’ words, “it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven.”

So which is it?  Certainly if we look at Jesus’ entire life and ministry, it’s clear that he often pays special attention to the poor and grieving, and that he never hesitates to cut down the wealthy or elite of his society. But it’s not because being poor, in and of itself, automatically gets you into heaven, or even that being rich automatically keeps you out. I think it has more to do with the fact that worldly wealth and security often gets in the way of becoming true disciples of Jesus. Scholar Stanley Hauerwas has written that “to be poor does not in itself make one a follower of Jesus, but it can put you in the vicinity of what it might mean to discover the kind of poverty that frees those who follow Jesus from enslavement to the world… too often we fail to recognize our accommodation to worldly powers because we fear losing our wealth, independence, and security.”

A number of years ago, I spent a year in a faith and social justice internship that took me to the city of Los Angeles, where I shared a small three bedroom apartment with 5 other people and lived off the meager sum of $500 a month.  Believe me when I tell you that in Los Angeles, that doesn’t exactly go far. The idea was to enter into a sort of voluntary poverty and radical simplicity as I and my roommates all worked full time jobs with agencies where our clients had even fewer materials resources than we did.  And I have to admit that when I started off that year, the thought did cross my mind-- once or twice-- that living with so few material comforts would most definitely grant me some serious bragging rights when it came to living the Christian Way.  So much for spiritual humility!

But very early on, I learned something quite surprising. First of all, I learned it wasn’t about having bragging rights. More importantly, however, I found that even though I was living with fewer material comforts than I ever had before, never had I experienced such a deep sense of God’s abundance. It was in fact the very lack of material wealth that forced all of us to rely upon one another and to care more deeply for one another.  We simply weren’t able to go it alone— and that was perhaps one of the greatest luxuries we gave up that year. The illusion of independence and self sufficiency was broken down in front of our very eyes, but in it’s place was a wonderful feeling of deep community and care.

The other thing that began to happen during that year of living simply was that the lines between us and the people we were serving began to blur. Those cultural barriers that separate the haves from the have-nots, the fortunate from the less fortunate, began to break down, as we discovered that the stories clients had to tell were stories that we desperately needed to hear.  I remember one man— I’ll call him William— was a former drug addict. He spent years out on the streets, in and out of prison, on and off drugs.  But when I met William, he had been clean and sober for years, and was finally moving out of the shelter and into his own apartment.  In the years since he had become sober, he had become deeply involved with substance abuse support groups such as NA and AA.  He traveled locally as a motivational speaker for 12 step groups, churches, shelters, and other local service agencies.  Now William would be the first to tell anyone that going through those years of pain, suffering, and poverty is not something he would recommend or wish for anyone.  The point is not to seek out poverty or suffering for its own sake.  But it was through that experience that William’s eyes were opened to the image of God in people that most others would simply ignore or turn away from.  For William, there was dignity and grace and the possibility for restoration in every person— no matter how messed up they were.  He knew this for a fact because it had happened to him.

These are the kinds of stories that changed us the most.  And by the end of the year, as we learned to stop relying on ourselves for everything we needed, we were opened up to the people around us in a new way.  We realized we needed these people just as much or more than they needed us. Hearing the stories of their bravery, their persistence, and their struggles through difficulties we could only imagine was truly humbling.  And it was then, perhaps the first time, that any of us really understood what it meant to be poor in spirit.

Personally, I think that the two versions of this beatitude that we find in Matthew and Luke are simply two sides of the same coin.  It is through our material and spiritual poverty that we come to the realization that we are not meant to live our lives in isolation from one another, but rather that all of us are deeply connected and interdependent, and that we can only make the kingdom of heaven a reality on earth if we recognize the image of God in every person-- whether they are among the wealthiest on the planet, or whether they are among the poorest of the poor.

So what does it take to live this beatitude?  I recognize that not all of us have the luxury of moving to LA for a year and joining some experimental Christian community.  So how do we become poor in spirit where we are, here and now, so that we might experience the kingdom of God?

This morning I would suggest two things as a way to begin.  First, that we continue to examine our own lives to see where it is that our accommodation to worldly power and comfort is keeping us from following in the Way of Jesus Christ.  What are we clinging to—either materially or emotionally— that is holding us back from true connection with others?  Where do we need to give up the illusion of independence in our own lives in order to experience God’s full and true abundance?

Second, we make every effort we can to break down the walls of division between the so called haves and have-nots-- recognizing that all of us are equal in the eyes of God.  I believe that this is especially important for us in this country right now, as the lines between the rich and poor seem to be growing ever more quickly into battle lines manufactured by pundits and politicians, with voices on both sides of the aisle crying out “class warfare!”  Well let me tell you something-- we have news for them.  They may be in a war, but we are not.  They may want to create division, but we do not. Instead, we reach out. We create opportunities to hear the stories of people who are not like us. We find ways to reach across social boundaries of class and economic status—just like Jesus did.  Serve a meal to a hungry person. Talk to someone on the street. Notice that person that you usually ignore. Start small, and see where it takes you.

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Amen, and let it be so.

Singing for Transformation

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In preparation for a congregational hymn-sing, Park Congregational Church spent a month collecting ballots for members’ favorite hymns.  The top vote-getter was then chosen as the subject of that morning’s theological reflection.  What follows is the text of that reflection.

 

In the church, we talk a lot about the gap that supposedly exists between generations when it comes to musical taste.  Some of the older, more beloved hymns that we sing are completely unfamiliar to younger generations, and some of the music that younger generations listen to today sounds utterly foreign to their parents and grandparents.  And so we often wonder if it will ever be possible to bridge that gap.  And yet, interestingly enough, when it came to the hymn that was most requested by all of you for this morning’s service, turns out it was the exact same hymn that was most requested by our youth when we were planning our youth service earlier this summer.  Which I think goes to show that when it comes to the most powerful music, that gap between the generations gets a whole lot smaller.

Now some of you may already have guessed which hymn was the top vote getter this morning, but rather than simply tell you the name of the hymn and then have us sing it, I thought I would first tell you a little bit of it’s story.

In 1736, at the young age of eleven, John Newton left school for a life at sea with his father.  After his father died, Newton continued to serve on a number of ships, until he eventually became the captain of his own, becoming deeply involved in one of the most lucrative industries of the time-- the British slave trade.  Newton captained his ship for many years, until gradually, he found himself more and more uncomfortable with the conditions that the slaves faced during the long voyage from Africa to England.  At first he tried to justify his work by seeking to improve the conditions on his boat as much as possible.  But eventually he realized there was no amount of improvements or adjustments he could make that would justify the cruelty of the slave trade itself.  And so he found himself unable to continue in the work that was essentially the only thing he had ever known in his entire adult life.  And he walked away.  He eventually became an Anglican priest, as well as a strong advocate in the abolition movement in England.  He became good friends with William Wilberforce, who many of you know was the British politician that is largely credited as one of the most powerful figures in the English abolition movement.

As a priest, Newton was not a terribly prolific or even gifted hymn writer.  Only a handful of his hymns actually survive, and of those, there is really only one that is sung with any degree of regularity.  However it’s one of the most popular and beloved hymns of all time.  Perhaps that’s because the words so powerfully describe Newton’s own journey of personal transformation— “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”

Maybe some of you know this story already—the story of Amazing Grace.  But it’s worth remembering from time to time-- especially as we prepare to sing it in just a few moments.  Because while Amazing Grace is a beloved hymn that we sing often, it’s more than just good poetry set to a nice, sing-able tune.  We may not think about it much, but perhaps the reason that we love this hymn so much, and perhaps the reason it bridges the gap between generations so well, is because it has its origins in the deepest longings that all of us feel— the longing for true and lasting transformation.  It speaks to the truth that we all so desperately want to believe in-- that change—real change-- is possible.  That even the worst evils and injustices in our world can be defeated by goodness and grace.  That no person, and no situation, is ever beyond redemption.

And so as we join our voices in this old and familiar song, let us sing with the knowledge that wherever it is we seek transformation-- in our lives or in the world in which we live—amazing grace can always be found. 

Conquering Giants and Weathering Storms: A sermon on 1 Samuel 17:4-37 and Mark 4:35-41

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In or Out?

Wouldn’t you like to escape?

This is the message we receive almost daily—whether on television, on the radio, or in magazines.  In the advertisements for luxury cruises, vacation condominiums, a cabin in the mountains, or a week lying on a secluded beach, somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, having someone bring you refreshing cold beverages with little umbrellas in them and fresh fruit on little individual skewers…

Wouldn’t you like to escape?

Amidst all the busyness we have in our lives-- trying to balance work, family, friends and maybe even have a little bit of time just for ourselves-the idea of escaping, just for a little while, sounds pretty good.  

Even if we can’t jump on a plane and fly off to some exotic location, we still find ways to escape.  Even if just for a few hours at a time.  I suspect this is why we, as a culture, tend to fall in love so easily with the wonderful alternative realities that we find in literature.  Take, for example, the Harry Potter phenomenon.  We love these stories, in part, because for just a little while we can escape the worries of our own lives, and the very real and overwhelming problems of the real world, in order to dwell in another world.  One where we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that ultimately, good will triumph over evil.  (Sometimes we’re not so sure about that in the real world.)  A place where we can let our own concerns melt away-- just for a little while.  Now if you’re one of the 5 people in the world who haven’t read Harry Potter, you still know what I’m talking about.  For you it could be mystery novels or the NY Times.  Maybe it’s turning on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ once a week, or the Food Network.  It doesn’t really matter what it is.   The point is-- we all want to escape sometimes.

The desire to escape is a perfectly natural and healthy response to a world filled with stress and anxiety.  A world that demands so much from us— physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  The bible tells us that even Jesus needed to escape sometimes.  He would sneak away from the disciples early in the morning to go and find a quite place to pray.  We need to take time to breathe.  We need to take time to remove ourselves from the stressful demands of everyday life.  Otherwise we burn out, and we’re not much good to anyone.

But of course, we can’t spend all of our time wanting to escape, either.  Eventually, we have to come back to reality.  Eventually, we have to come back to all the messiness and complexity of everyday life.  And that’s the hard part.

John 17:6-19

This morning’s reading from the Gospel of John has something to say to us about all of this.  In this final prayer with his disciples on the night of the Last Supper, Jesus begins by claiming the disciples for God.  He says, “All mine are yours and yours are mine.”  He goes on to pray for God’s continued protection for them, even as he is preparing to leave the physical world.  “While I was with them,” he says, “I protected them in your name.”  So there are some wonderful words of comfort here.  But Jesus also acknowledges that life will not always be easy for the disciples.  He says in verse 14, “I have given them your word, and world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.  They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.”

And here is where things get a little confusing.  Here is where we find that puzzling command that we as Christians have been given: to be in the world, but not of the world.  Over the years, some have interpreted these words to mean that as Christians, we can use faith as an excuse to escape from the pressures of life-- to disengage from the troubles of the world.  You see this in Christian communities that have isolated themselves— either physically, or emotionally, or both— from the world around them.  This kind of interpretation focuses on the words “they do not belong to this world”, and uses that as grounds to say, ‘it’s not this world that matters.  We are focused on heaven.  It’s the next world that is important, that’s where we really belong.  All this is just temporary.’

Well they may be right, it may be only temporary.  This world may not be our eternal home.  But that doesn’t mean that we should ignore the rest of Jesus’ prayer.  Because Jesus had no intention for us to simply disengage.  In verse 18 he goes on to say:  “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

Into the world.  Not removed from it.  Not above it.  But in it.

Jesus himself sets the ultimate example.  Later that same night, he yearns to escape the path that has been set out before him.  He prays passionately in the garden of Gethsemane, ‘Father please, if you can get me out of this, I’ve had a change of heart, and really don’t want to go through with it.  If there is any escape, I’ll take it.’  But no escape is provided.  And so Jesus wills himself beyond doubt and fear-- back into the fray-- to do what must be done.

To be in the world, but not of the world.  That is Jesus’ parting desire for his disciples, and indeed for us as well.  And we’ve talked a little bit about what that doesn’t look like- it’s not about disengaging from the world around us.  We’ve talked a little bit about what that looked like for Jesus on that night in Gethsemane.  But are we any closer to understanding what it looks like for us?

Romans 12:1-21

Perhaps Paul’s letter to the Romans, when put in conversation with this passage, can help shed some light on what that call to be “in the world but not of the world” actually looks like when lived out.  “Do not be conformed to this world”, Paul writes, “but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you will discern the will of God.”

Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world.  That is the key to living in the world as Christ’s disciples but not being of the world.  Paul is saying here: don’t get taken in by all the distractions of life.  Don’t get disheartened by all the bad stuff you see going on around you.  And on top of that-- don’t just escape from the negativity in the world.  Choose to live differently-- “be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”  And here—by the way-- is how he says to do it:  

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.  Love one another with mutual affection, outdo one another in showing honor… rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.  Contribute to the needs of the saints, extend hospitality to strangers.  Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

The Gospel in Action

On the other side of the world, in a place that has seen more than its fair share of war and strife, there are people who have refused to conform to the patterns of violence and hopelessness around them.  A little over a year ago, a photograph was taken during the uprisings in Egypt that very quickly went viral on the internet.  Perhaps in part, because people couldn’t believe what they were seeing.  The photograph is of a group of young Christians, standing arm in arm in a circle around a group of Muslims as they pray in Tahrir square.  Amidst all the violence of the uprisings,these courageous young Christians were protecting the very people who were supposedly their enemies.  But of course that photograph only tells one half of the story.  Here is the whole story: On Christmas of 2010, Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt were scared to go to church.  The cathedral there had been the subject of multiple threats and bombings by radical Islamists.  Many were afraid that the church would be bombed on Christmas.  But it didn’t happen.  Partly because thousands of Muslims from all across Egypt came to mass that day as well.  In a show of solidarity, they used their bodies as something of a human shield and said to those wanting to promote violence and hate-- “you’ll have to take us too.”  Not long after that, Christians returned the favor by protecting their Muslim brothers and sisters as they prayed in Tahrir square.  These two groups that were supposedly enemies, according to the patterns of this world, joined together to protect one another in prayer.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This story is a truly extraordinary example of what it means to live in the world but not be of the world.  Not to escape the messiness and dangers of life but also, to not allow oneself to be overcome by them either.  These young people faced dangers that most of us will never even have to imagine.  But they did not choose to escape.  Nor did they let the patterns of this world dictate how they would react. It’s quite likely that most of us will never find ourselves in such extreme situations as these courageous young people in Egypt.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them and find ways to answer Jesus’ call for us in our own settings.

Just think of the situations that you face, day in and day out.  Think of the places where you are tempted to conform to the patterns of this world-- to give in to fear or prejudice, to be overcome by negativity or doubt, to choose despair over hope, to curse instead of bless.  How can you turn that around?  What can you do to live more fully into Christ’s prayer for us— to be in the world, but not of the world?  Because as Christ says, we do not actually belong to this world.  We do not belong to patterns of resentment, vengeance, prejudice or violence.  We do not belong to patterns of division or hate.  This is not what we are meant for.  This is not what we were created for. We belong to a higher power.  We belong to God.

Meeting Jesus on the Road

I have to start off this morning with a little bit of a disclaimer-- the story of the walk to Emmaus, our gospel story this morning, is one of my all-time favorite stories from any of the gospels.  Throughout the New Testament we read of so many astonishing events— miraculous healings, exorcisms, the multiplication of loaves and fish, Jesus walking on water, and of course the most astonishing event of all-- the resurrection of Christ from the grave.  And yet, none of those stories hold for me the kind of uncomplicated grace and power that this one does.  In the Emmaus story we read of something so simple it’s almost commonplace.  Two friends, journeying to a destination.  Sharing conversation and bread with a stranger along the way.  And it is in that very simple, humble act of fellowship and hospitality where God is made known to these two disheartened and disillusioned disciples. 

I love this story because I think it often reflects how many of us feel after Easter.  We have joyfully proclaimed that the tomb is empty, and Christ is risen.  And yet for some of us, even though the stone has been rolled away, we remain in the tomb.  Struggling with the fact that— much like the dashed expectations of these two disciples-- our own expectations for what God should be doing in our lives, or in the world, are not being met.  Or at least-- not in the way we would like them to be.  For me, this is particularly true when it comes to the world around us.  There is this stark and sometimes almost impossible juxtaposition between the proclamation of salvation and resurrection on Easter, and the fact that there are still so many places in the world where hope and salvation seem nowhere to be found.  Places where children go to bed hungry, where war and violence are the status quo, and the sins that Jesus supposedly came to save us from seem to be still very much ruling in the hearts of humankind.  In the midst of all that, we may be inclined to ask: If the resurrection was supposed to change things, why does it sometimes seem like everything always remains the same?

Like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we may not believe the good news of the resurrection, because like them, we don’t see it happening in the way we expect or desire.  These two disciples didn’t believe the good news, and so they were inclined to give up and walk away.  But of course, God had other plans for them, and so God came to meet them on the road.  And so I suppose we could just stop there, and say that despite our doubt and disillusionment, God comes to meet us where we are.  (Actually I think that pretty much sums up exactly what I said last week.)  And that would certainly be true.  However, it’s not altogether as simple as that.  Yes, God comes to meet us.  But what then?  This story begs the question, even if God does come to meet us where we are, would we even recognize it when it happens?  The disciples don’t.  Not at first.  They walked seven miles with Jesus, talking with him, listening to him expound upon scripture.

And they didn’t recognize him.  One biblical scholar observes that even as the disciples are walking and talking with the risen Christ, they still don’t get it.  “In their eyes,” he writes, “either the mission had entirely failed, or they had themselves been badly deceived in their own expectations of Jesus.”  They were so wrapped up in their own disappointment that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.  Of course the disciples do eventually come around.  They do eventually recognize the risen Christ in their midst.  So what was it that made the difference for them?  What was it in that interaction that changed the way they were seeing things?

Well I would argue there is a crucial turn-around moment in this story.  A moment where everything hangs in the balance.  A moment when the disciples arrive at their destination and Jesus is about to walk on.  The choice they make at this moment is critical.  Will they part ways with the stranger?  Will they go back to their homes and continue to dwell in their failed expectations, never to realize the opportunity God had placed right in front of them?  We all know what happens, after all we just heard the story.  But pause for just a moment at this point in the story, and imagine what you might have done if you were in their shoes.  You are exhausted after a long day’s journey.  You feel defeated and deflated.  You would probably just want to get home, have some supper, and go to bed.  You might feel a twinge of concern for this man you had been walking with, after all it’s dark, and walking alone on the road he could easily fall prey to robbers or bandits.  But you don’t quite feel comfortable inviting a stranger into your home and you’re almost too tired and depressed to give it much thought or concern.  What would you do?  Would you invite him in?  Or would you simply give him a polite goodbye, wish him well, and shut the door?  It would have been very easy for the disciples, in their present state of mind to react exactly this way.

Perhaps it was that pesky Holy Spirit, but there was something that just wouldn’t let them leave it at that.  And so they invited him to stay with them.  They opened their door to him, reached out in a moment of generous and almost reckless hospitality, and shared a meal with him.  And that’s the turnaround moment in this story.  It was in that moment of exceptional hospitality that the disciples were pulled up out of their own feelings of hopelessness and defeat and their eyes were opened to the risen Christ in their midst.  It’s a powerful moment, because it speaks to how it is often in and through our acts of reaching out to others— especially to the stranger in need of hospitality--  that we encounter God.

This, by the way, is an ancient religious truth that goes back to the very roots of Judeo-Christian tradition.  The Emmaus story harkens back to one of the earliest stories in the bible.  A story about Abraham and Sarah, the founders and parents of our faith.  They were promised many offspring by God—“ I will make of you a great nation”, God says to Abraham.  But years and years went by without any children.  They were starting to get old, and Sarah had lost hope.   I imagine even Abraham was feeling pretty disappointed and doubtful himself.  Well in the midst of one of their darkest moments, three strangers appear on the scene.  Sarah doesn’t want to have anything to do with them.  In her disappointment and despair, she had turned her energy inward.  But Abraham found it within himself to welcome these three strangers, open up his home to them, wash their feet, and share a meal with them.  And as it turns out, the three strangers were messengers from God.  And it’s from this story that we get the famous truism, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Both of these stories have similar aims-- they present us with the conditions for recognizing God’s presence in our midst.  They teach us that it’s not just in those moments of miraculous triumph that we see God’s presence in the world.  It’s not just in the trumpets and bells and alleluias that God shows up.  And that actually, more often than not, it is in the regular moments of everyday life, with all its trials and tribulations and disappointments, where God comes to meet us.

There is no doubt in my mind  that discernment of God’s presence among us happens in many different ways.  But this morning’s story is perhaps an indicator that more often than not, discernment of the resurrected Lord is most visible when we look beyond ourselves and our own problems-- when we take the risk of opening our hearts and our doors to someone in need of hospitality.

Somewhere in the back of their minds, maybe the disciples remembered this, because in fact it was something Jesus himself had taught them.  In Matthew 25 he says to them-- whenever you offer food to the hungry, or shelter to the homeless-- whenever you welcome the stranger, or visit the sick or imprisoned-- whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.  Perhaps somewhere in the back of their minds they remembered this just as they were about to part ways with the stranger they met on the road to Emmaus.  And in that moment, whether they expected it or not, they encountered Christ.

Sometimes I think we view this practice of reaching out to the least of these as something to be done by people who are well-off in life for those who are not.  We say that we give to the needy or to those less fortunate.  But I think this is actually a little deceiving.  Because truth be told, we are all needy-- especially when it comes to God’s grace and love.  We all have problems that we struggle with—our own disappointments and disillusionments.  We all have our own Emmaus roads that we walk.  We all have stuff.  If it was only ever the happy, healthy, well adjusted people who reached out to others, then I suspect we would live in a world of very self-absorbed people who never helped anyone.  Because the truth is, as these stories this morning illustrate, we reach out to others not because we are so much better off, but because we are the needy ones.  We are the ones in need of God’s presence.  And we find it in our gestures of love and compassion towards others, knowing that Christ is most fully alive in our world today in the midst of loving and caring relationships and communities.  Not between the so called fortunate and less fortunate.  Just one person caring for another.  Just one stranger walking with another.

And so this Easter season, I encourage you to test your vision as you seek the risen Christ in your lives and in the world.  Think of those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, lost in their discouragement and disillusionment.  And think of your own road to Emmaus-- wherever and whatever that might be.  And ask yourself: Where might God be giving you an opportunity to meet Christ on that road? 

The History of Doubt: John 20:18-29

Poor Thomas.  He gets such a bad rap.  Every single year, on the Sunday after Easter, the lectionary turns up this well known story from the Gospel of John: the story of Thomas, the one disciple who just so happens to be out of the room when Jesus appears to the other disciples for the first time.  Who knows where he was--maybe he was out getting food for everyone, or perhaps he was out gathering information, trying to determine when it might be safe for the disciples to show their faces in public again.  Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, clearly, he missed out.  And now he has had the misfortune to be known for all time as Doubting Thomas.  And I have got to say, quite frankly, I think it’s pretty unfair.  I mean, let’s look a little closer at what’s going on here.  After Jesus dies, the disciples go and lock themselves up in a room.  They are afraid to go outside.  They don’t want anyone to be able to recognize them or associate with them with their fallen leader.  And apparently in the midst of all that, the only disciple who was brave enough to venture outside this little room they had holed themselves up in was Thomas!  We call him Doubting Thomas, but really, it was the rest of the disciples who were so full of doubt and fear that they were paralyzed into inaction-- hiding out from the rest of the world and locking themselves behind closed doors.  At the very least, Thomas probably shouldn’t be singled out as the only disciple who experienced doubt in those initial days following the crucifixion and resurrection. I think there was plenty of that to go around.

Beyond that though, I would argue that singling Thomas out as the focus of this story distracts us from what this passage is really all about.  It’s not really a story about Thomas and his personal inability to believe.  Or perhaps it is about that, but it’s also much bigger than that.  This is a story about all of us and this universal human experience called doubt.  But it’s not only about us.  It’s also a story about God, how God responds to us, and how God communicates with us even in the midst of that doubt.  Additionally, I think that hidden deep within this story is a lesson about how sometimes, it is in fact our doubt that can be the means through which we develop deep, transformative faith. 

Over the years, this morning’s text has probably become the single most commonly referenced passage when it comes to the experience of religious doubt.  Even people who never go to church have probably heard the phrase “doubting Thomas.”  But it’s not just in this passage that we find it.  Doubt is really one of the most prevalent themes in all the post-resurrection accounts in all four of the gospels.  Yes, there is joy and amazement, there is wonder and excitement.  But for the most part, the best way to describe how the disciples feel about everything going on around them is doubtful and afraid.  Last week, for example, we heard about how Mary and the other women at the tomb went home after hearing news of the resurrection and didn’t say a word to anyone because they were afraid.  In John’s gospel this morning, we continue the story, and we read that Mary has apparently since recovered from her speechlessness, and has announced the good news to the disciples.  But it seems that her word is not quite enough to quell their own doubts and fears so they remain behind closed doors.  The doubt and fear the women first felt has now seemingly affected the men as well.  But then Jesus appears to them.  “Peace be with you,” he says, perhaps in an effort to subdue their fear.  And then the gospel tells us that he “breathes on them” and bestows upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit.  

Now one would think that this kind of personal encounter with the divine would be enough to remove their doubts.  One would think that such an experience of the risen Christ might finally prompt them to unlock the doors they hid behind and start spreading the good news.  But that’s not what happened!  Scripture tells us that they remained hidden behind closed doors for another whole week!  Even after seeing Jesus himself— standing before them in the flesh, giving them the gift of the holy spirit-- they were still doubtful and afraid.  When you think about it, it’s kind of hard to believe that this is the same group of disciples that we heard about in our passage from the Acts of the Apostles this morning—this passage which portrays this almost utopian sounding Christian community where everyone shares everything in common and all are cared for.  “There was not a needy person among them,” the book of Acts says, “for as many as owned lands or houses, sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold… and it was distributed to each as any had need.”  How on earth did they get from this cowardly group of doubtful disciples that we read about in John to this courageous group of apostles— spreading the good news, living in a community of radical love and compassion?  How did they get from here to there?  How did this transformation come about?

Well I’m sure that the Holy Spirit had something to do with it.  But I would also venture to say that it was in part their doubt that got them there.  Now I realize that this may seem like a rather strange thing to say.  After all, doubt is not exactly viewed in a positive light in some circles of Christianity.  For many Christians, the measure of one’s faith lies in the certainty of their belief.  And to have doubts, or to call into question that certainty would be seen by some as an attack on Christianity itself.  But I think we actually do ourselves a disservice when we ignore or deny the value of doubt. It’s certainly clear from many of the gospel stories that it’s natural and not something to be ashamed of.  And even though we live in an age where doubt is not always seen as a positive trait for Christians to have, it hasn’t always been that way.  In the long history of religious thought, Doubt has not always been looked down on as a thing to be avoided.  And in fact, has been seen by many as an important part of one’s spiritual development. 

Take for example, one of the great Fathers of the early Church, Saint Augustine.  He wrote about the importance of doubt in his major 5^th century treatise—The City of God.  And he said that for a man to doubt is not so terrible a thing because “at the least, even if he doubts, he lives. If he doubts, he remembers why he's doubting... If he doubts, he thinks. If he doubts, he knows he does not know. If he doubts, he judges he ought not to give a hasty assent.”  For Augustine, doubt was an important stop on the road to true wisdom.  For him, one could never really know anything without experiencing doubt first.

Fast forward about a thousand years later, and mystics like St. John of the Cross would come to talk about doubt as something called “the dark night of the soul.”  What we might call a crisis of faith-- often brought on by some kind of personal upheaval in which we lose all comfort of certainty.  An experience in which we are plunged into darkness and are forced to question everything.  For John of the Cross and many others, they believed that one must first experience this “dark night of the soul” before one could come to true faith.

For these ancient thinkers, doubt played an important role in one’s personal spiritual development.  Not only that, doubt has also played an important role in the development of religion itself.  Looking back over the history of the church, one can see that some of the most famous “doubters” are the ones who actually helped the church make progress and move forward.  Take for example the Reformation: when Martin Luther and other reformers casst doubt upon many of the doctrines being handed down from the Catholic church.  Not only did these doubts help form the Protestant church as we know it today, but they also led to many important reforms within the Catholic Church itself, helping them to move forward as well.  And you know, while we’re here, talking about reformers who cast doubt on the religious status quo, there is another figure in the history of Christianity who did a lot in terms of casting doubt upon the religious establishment.  Someone who questioned the way things were and prompted others to seek change.  Someone who turned the status quo of religious authority upside down and made a whole lot of people rethink what they believed about God.  I’m talking of course about Jesus himself.

One could argue that really, the most significant and positive moments in the history of the church have been those when doubt— not certainty— was at the forefront of people’s minds.  One could also make the argument that if some of the greatest achievements in the history of religion have been the product of doubt, that on the flip side, some of the greatest sins in the history of religion have been the product of a kind of arrogant religious certainty.  The Crusades, the Inquisition, modern day fundamentalism and religious terrorism— these can all be traced back to the kind of religious certainty that leaves no room for self reflection, humility, or thoughtful engagement with those who think differently than oneself.  And it is here where I want to bring us back around to our gospel story from this morning.  It is here where I want to come back to that group of 12 frightened disciples locked up in an upper room, full of doubt and trepidation about what their next steps should be.  Imagine what might have happened if the disciples had reacted differently to the brutal execution of their religious teacher and friend.  What if their response had been not grief and doubt, but rather anger and rage and a desire for vengeance?  Perhaps such a reaction would have been understandable, if not justifiable.  But I think that if that had happened, the end result would have been quite different.  And I think we can be fairly sure that this community of radical love and compassion that we read about in the Acts of the Apostles wouldn’t have been part of it.  

Because here’s the thing-- there is something about the humility that comes with doubt-- that comes with the admission “we know we do not know.”  There is something about the vulnerability that accompanies that experience of “the dark night of the soul” that allows room for something other than one’s own certainty.  If we barrel through life, certain at all times that we know everything there is to know, where does that leave room for God or for our faith to transform us?

I have a theory that the reason why there are so many stories of doubtful disciples in the gospel, and the reason why so many of the early church fathers and mothers emphasized the importance of doubt so much, is because doubt has this ability to  open up these little cracks in our exterior, to make a little more room for God to break through.  Furthermore, to have that experience, to enter into that dark night of the soul, opens up one’s own sense of compassion towards others who are also struggling to make sense of life’s difficulties.  

Perhaps that’s what happened to those original disciples.  They truly did experience a dark night of the soul— a period in which they thought all hope was lost and were ready to throw in the towel and give up.  Perhaps it was exactly that experience which gave them the kind of compassion and empathy needed to create this radical and inclusive community of love.

The vulnerability that doubt creates in us makes us more open and compassionate towards others.  It also makes us more open to experiencing God.  Christian activist and preacher Pauli Murray has written that “the Crisis of doubt is inseparable from our human condition.”  “However,” she says, “God is never closer to us than when we are in greatest doubt.  When all our human efforts have failed and we acknowledge our helplessness and defeat; when our lives are wrenched apart by devastating loss and we are numb with grief, when our bodies are filled with pain and weakness and we are compelled to face the inevitability of death.  In our inability to solve the problems of evil and suffering, in our deep despair, we learn that our ultimate support and strength comes from God, who loves us, accepts us with all our weakness and doubts, and enters into our suffering with us.  In the major crises of our lives we abandon all illusions of self-sufficiency and find refuge in God’s infinite mercy and grace.” 

And so perhaps the most important lesson we learn from our gospel reading this morning is that that even in the midst of great doubt, God comes to us.  God reaches out to us in our most vulnerable moments undeterred by dead bolts or locked doors.  In the words of theologian Serene Jones, “when doubt threatens to crowd out hope, we can be comforted that Jesus will come to meet us exactly where we are, even if it is out on the far edge of faith that has forgotten how to believe.”

Even when we repeatedly hold onto our doubt and fear, God still comes to us.  The disciples probably didn’t deserve that second visit from Jesus.  After all, they supposedly knew this moment would come.  They had the testimony of Mary and the other women and they had that first encounter with Jesus himself.  Yet still, they persisted in their doubt.  But God didn’t give up on them.  And that is perhaps the most crucial part of the story.  God did not give up on them.  And God will not give up on us.

Doubt is not the opposite of belief and it is not an obstacle to belief.  It is part of what it means to seek God.  It is part of how we come to real faith.  Maybe there are things in the Christian story that you wrestle with.  Maybe you have some questions.  Maybe there are some things you aren’t sure about.  God isn’t going to disappear because you have some doubts.  In fact, it may just be, that in those very questions, God has something God wants to tell you.  And that’s probably the best news of all.