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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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From March 30, 2008
Show and Tell
John 20:19-31
When bad things happen to good people, we
respond. We offer the kindest words we can summon. But that
rarely feels sufficient--not when love is involved. So we
offer food. We offer help. We offer to keep our friends and
loved ones lifted high in prayer.
We want to show we care, not just say so.
We don't live in a spirit world, you and I. We don't flutter
our wings and float on breezes like angels do. We don't eat
tufts of cloud or sip sunlight. We live in a physical world,
governed by gravity and the seasons. A physical world in
which being in bodies is at once a source of pleasure and
vulnerability.
Because God has placed us here and not in the realm of
angels, because we inhabit a material world, it makes sense
that when it comes time to reveal our caring for one
another, we want to find some tangible, concrete way to
express that caring. Indeed, we are more inclined to trust
someone's words when they are backed up with something
tangible.
A dear friend had the habit of saying he adored me. When we
lived in the same town, I had no reason to doubt him; his
actions were always consistent with his message. But after
he moved away, his assertion no longer convinced me; a
two-hour telephone call once a year just doesn't add up to
feeling valued.
Direct experience helps us come to truth. Not exclusively,
of course. Intuition and revelation have their places, as
does rational thought. Still, the body and its senses are
significant teachers of what is so.
Few have understood this more keenly than Jesus. In his
quest to make God's love real, Jesus relied on the spoken
word, often using memorable stories to engage his listeners.
But I doubt Jesus would have had much of a following if
words were all he used.
Jesus didn't park himself on the synagogue steps saying,
"All people are precious in God's sight," leaving his
listeners to connect the dots themselves. Jesus made that
truth come alive by placing himself in the midst of those
who were despised, mistrusted, or rendered invisible.
Jesus didn't just say, "God's desire for you is wholeness,"
and then walk away while folks scratched their heads
wondering exactly what this meant. No, Jesus put his hand on
leprous flesh. He rubbed spittle in blind eyes. He cast out
the dark forces lurking within a tortured soul.
Jesus did more than simply tell us, "God's love will go the
distance." He showed us this was so when he rode into
Jerusalem knowing he was risking everything. Even after his
death, Jesus continued to be profoundly respectful of the
human need for something more substantial than words.
This morning in John's gospel, we remember how Jesus'
fearful and uncertain disciples have locked themselves
inside a room following his crucifixion. Alive again and yet
no longer confined to the limits of flesh, Jesus passes
through the barricaded door and stands before his followers.
"Peace," he says. Even before he speaks the word, his very
presence imparts it.
After Jesus shares his peace, notice what he does next. He
shows the disciples his scarred hands; he reveals the tear
in his side. He offers his disciples a way to confirm his
identity--with their eyes they see, with their own fingers
they touch. And then he breathes the Holy Spirit into them.
"As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
If they doubted before, now the disciples know the truth
about their Lord and about themselves, for by sharing the
Spirit with them--and in a most tangible way--Christ has
ordained them. Has equipped them to serve. Not only do they
know this, they all feel it, too.
Everyone except Thomas, that is. Thomas has been missing in
action, off somewhere else doing God knows what.
So when he returns later and hears words of Jesus'
appearance--words and only words--Thomas is understandably
doubtful. He too needs to see. He too needs a chance to
touch. He is, after all, just as human as any of the other
disciples.
Tradition has encouraged us to belittle Thomas by calling
him a doubter. A skeptic. A failure in the faith department.
This assessment isn't fair. Thomas only needed a chance to
"come to his senses." He only needed to be true to his
nature as a human being living in a body. It's not that
Thomas wanted to doubt. But being told just doesn't compare
to being shown.
As I've gotten older, I've grown in my respect for Thomas.
He knows himself and knows what he needs. Something for
which he makes no apologies.
I like that about Thomas. But what I like even more is
Jesus' response to him; Jesus readily and non-judgmentally
provides Thomas with precisely what he has asked for.
Rather than disparage Thomas for doubting, what if we were
more like the Jesus who respected him? What if we let him,
by example, teach us what he knows about how we can overcome
doubt? What if, in the process, we learned that Christ Jesus
will respect and honor us in the same way he respected and
honored Thomas?
While in seminary, I did just that. Like many who pursue
theological education, seminary was not a time of certainty
but of doubting and questioning. Some of those questions and
doubts were related to faith claims and others were more
practical in nature.
I began my seminary experience knowing that when the time
for a church placement came I would undertake a nine-month
internship away from school rather than split my time
between classes and a congregation, doing justice to
neither. Partway through school, for reasons now forgotten,
I began to doubt God was truly behind this idea.
That is, until a fine opportunity in the Pacific Northwest
presented itself. Then I doubted that this was God's leading
because I knew I could survive the rain. Sure, it sounds
silly now, my not wanting to live with drizzle and
downpours, but I was a self-proclaimed desert rat, a
solar-powered gal; I was worried too many dreary days would
lave me disabled by depression.
Doubting that God was leading in the direction of rainy
Oregon, I decided to take my cue from Thomas; I told God I
needed more. So I said to God: God, I need convincing here.
Not long afterwards, it began to rain. It rained and rained
and rained. After several very sloshy days, it dawned on me
that God was at work. So rather than walking around in the
wetness focusing on how much I resented rain and being
rained on, I said to myself, "This is what living in Oregon
is like."
Day by day, I discovered that rain wasn't so bad; in fact, I
sort of liked it. It softened the hard edges of the city. It
brought out colors and smells I hadn't noticed before.
Sounds, too. My skin was decidedly more moist because of the
rain and even if I did happen to get sprinkled on, soaked
even, my clothes had an uncanny way of drying out once I
came inside.
Living with rain was OK. In fact, when the sun finally came
out two weeks later, the world seemed far too bright, too
harsh. I had grown to prefer the gifts that came with rain.
My doubts had been quietly washed away and I was at peace,
ready at last to go where God was sending me--wet, grey,
beautiful Oregon.
There is a doubt you carry this morning. Maybe it's a big
one. Perhaps it's small but nagging. I encourage you to ask
God to lead you from uneasy doubt to peaceful understanding.
Ask and be open. Ask and be open to the gentleness with
which your need is received, as Thomas' need was by Jesus.
Ask and be open to God's willingness tell you what is true
and then to graciously show you.
How will you know you've been convinced? The same way the
disciples knew. The same way Thomas did--by the peace that
falls over you. By the peace that comesand stays. Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) |
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Please join us for a special viewing of
Defending Your Life
on July 6th at 12 noon.
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