The Heart's Direction (Easter 2A--Thomas Sunday)

 He Qi, Doubting Thomas 

“The Heart’s Direction”
Second Sunday of Easter (Year A)
16 April 2023
Homily Delivered the Mission Church of the Holy Spirit, Sutherlin OR

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

10 a.m. Sung Mass 
Acts 2:14a, 22-32 ; 1 Peter 1:3-9 ; John 20:19-31 ; Psalm 16

 

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

 take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

 

I remember an exchange with my son David when he was six or seven.  I had done something that had totally upset him, made him angry and caused him to accuse me of being unfair and trying to control him.  I think I had bodily picked him up and put his diminutive body down in another place, safer and more convenient.  But he would have none of that.  He felt diminished and disrespected.  I apologized even as I explained my reasons.  A day or two later, I found myself having to do the same thing to David, dreading what his reaction would be.  But this time, he was happy and thanked me.  I asked him why the same act on my part was so horrible for him before but made him happy now.  After a puzzled look as he for the first time recognized that these two actions were in fact one and the same, he said cautiously, “The other day you did it to keep me from doing what I wanted; today, to help me do what I wanted.” 

 

Intention:  what we hope to accomplish when we do something.  It often changes our actions’ meaning and value.  It leaks out whether we intend it to or not.  Before my wife Elena’s death, I was her principal caregiver for 10 years. In caregiving I learned that putting on shoes gently and with kindness is a totally different act than simply cramming them on.  One helps, the other often hurts.  Lifting and doing transfers can be a gentle act, almost dancing. Or, when merely focused on getting the deed done, it can be what Elena and I used to call “potato-bagging.”  One helps and is affirming; the other can mildly demean and sometimes outright frighten.

 

Because intentions are so important in defining an act, we often make the mistake of thinking that intentions can redeem bad behavior.    “I meant well, and that’s what counts.”  Not so.  A proverb my mother used to quote regularly says it clearly: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  I remember hearing one of President George W. Bush’s counselors defend to me going to war in 2003 against Iraq over what later turned out to be false claims about weapons of mass destruction.  “Well, the President tries to be a good Christian and meant well.  So it wasn’t wrong.”   Though I knew the description of the President was true, I thought to myself, “Try telling that to the families of the 1 million or so Iraqis who died because of this war.”  The road to Hell may well be paved with good intentions.  But good intentions matter, all the same. 

 

We often misunderstand the story of Thomas and the resurrected Jesus.  We think that Thomas is a man who refuses the faith and demands proof instead. “Doubting Thomas” we call him.   The Eastern Church, I think has a better take on the story when it looks at Thomas’ intentions and his declaration “My Lord and my God!” at the end of the story.  For them, he is the first believer in the Holy Trinity. 

 

Thomas is somewhat of an outlier.  He is off by himself the first time Jesus appears.  Note to self, Tony:  don’t miss church meetings.  You don’t know what magic might happen while you’re gone.  But the other apostles seem to be extroverts, energized by being in the group.  Thomas seems to prefer solitude.    He also seems more honest than the rest in confronting his fears and doubts.  “I don’t think I’ll be able to believe what you say here until I see it myself,” he says.  Thomas’ doubt is a tool to help him process the unknown and the wonderful, not a blanket rejection. 

 

You see, there are two different kinds of doubt, just as there are different kinds of actions, depending on our intentions. 

 

One kind of doubt is a heuristic tool, an instrument to help us discover truth.  As Abelard of Paris said, “Doubt is the start of inquiry. By inquiry, we discover truth!”  Doubt as a tool of discovery is open, willing to learn new things.  This is Thomas’ doubt, and it is a good thing.  Note that Jesus, the next week, immediately does not say “Shame on you Thomas for doubting!”  Rather, he says, “You wanted to see these scars on my hands?  You wanted to put your hand in my side?  Well—KNOCK YOURSELF OUT!”  Later this week, we’ll see Earth Day, which celebrates the sciences.  Science, when properly pursued, is a consistent and disciplined use of this first kind of doubt.

 

The other kind of doubt is a willful and stubborn rejection of truth, even as evidence piles up in front of us. 

 

The one is open and affirming, the other is closed and negative. 

 

Affirming doubt leads to assurance and faith. Denying doubt leads to exclusive nihilism and cranky partisanship. 

 

The direction of the heart, our intention, is what makes the difference. 

 

                                             Jesus Mafa Project, Cameroon "Christ and Thomas" 

In my experience, what matters most is not whether you are a believer or not, but what kind of heart you have.  Is it open or closed?  Does it seek something beyond itself or is it satisfied or stingy with what it has?  

 

You have some believers who have open hearts and some who have closed hearts.  And you have some unbelievers with open hearts and some with closed hearts.     

 

Believers with cold, tightly closed hearts give faith and religion a bad name.  They can be something very close to demons:  inquisitors, guardians of morality and correct doctrine, holy warriors, who do horrible things to other people using God as a weapon on others.  In the Gospels, the only people with whom Jesus regularly gets angry are the closed-hearted religious.  To them he says, “Whores and traitors will get into the Kingdom of God before you will, because they at least recognize their need for God.” 

 

Unbelievers with cold, tightly closed hearts—the militant godless—can be something close to monsters because they can do horrible things to others simply to protect their own position and prestige, or to build the utopia their ideology demands.     

 

Believers with open hearts remain in awe of what they do not understand about God, what is unclear, and how far removed they are from Deity.  As Paul says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

 

Unbelievers, even disbelievers, can remain open in their hearts, even if they cannot work a faith up for right now.  An example of this is people in recovery in Twelve-Step programs who cannot profess faith in God, but yet “come to believe” in a power greater than themselves, a Higher Power, any higher power.

 

We can go from closed-heartedness to open-heartedness quickly, even with no immediate change in our opinions, and then back again.  Openness is a habit of the heart, an orientation of the personality, not signing on to a particular idea.  

 

The direction of our heart matters.   We often abuse each other and ourselves by focusing on getting the task done, achieving the results we want, and turning out results.  This is like me potato-bagging Elena before I learned that the task was to affirm her dignity and express love, not simply move her body weight.   In church we often focus on results rather than the people we are working with or serving.  This is a form of closed heartedness and it works great mischief in our common life and our own spiritual growth.

 

Again, it is a habit of the heart we are talking about here. There are habits of speech which help develop this habit of the heart.   Here are three little habits of speech and action which I have tried to follow with greater or lesser success.  They have helped me cultivate a more open heart that is less instrumental and more process oriented, less confrontational and more reconciling. 

 

1) Never approach a person as a problem to be solved, or as a person who merely needs to fix a problem 

of theirs.  Always try to see problems as things that we hold in common.  It is not me vs. you.  It is not you’ve got to change and fix this.  Rather it is: we share a goal and a vision.  We face a common problem.

 

2) Do not use the expression “I know that ..., BUT …..”  That little “but” sets up opposition, at least in a person’s heart and mind.  Try instead, “I know that…,  AND…..”  The little word AND joins things, and does not set up opposition and exclusion. 

 

3) When facing a real point of difference, do not use phrases that characterize the other person, set them up as other.  Never dictate to the other person “You are (fill in adjective).  You should (fill in remedial or penitential action.”  Instead, use I phrases like “When you (VERB), I feel (ADJECTIVE), because …..”  “You are so lazy” is bound to provoke a denial or a justification, or at least some vigorous defense, where the goal is to stay the same.  But saying “When you put off doing your chores until it is too late, I feel neglected and taken advantage of, because I usually end up doing the job myself because I get tired of waiting” is not really subject to debate: how can the person argue that you don’t really feel that way, or that you don’t often end up doing the task yourself? 

 

The fact is, we sometimes try to avoid conflict or dealing with difficult matters simply by disengaging with the other person.  This we must not do.  Though it may keep appearances of peace, it deadens our love.  Jesus calls us to engage, never give up, and he calls us to do that in an inclusive, loving way. 

 

The direction of our hearts is the difference between being open or closed, inclusive or exclusive, helpful or insulting.  It is the difference between life-giving doubt and deadly doubt.  It is the difference between constantly running from one argument, one confrontation, of one sort or with this person, to another one of a different sort and with another person, and walking a gentle, calm, and sometimes winding path where we engage with our fellows and grow in love and the ability to hear each other.  Christian spiritual masters over the centuries have pointed out that this is at the heart of the Gospel.  We turn over the results of our actions to God, and focus on process and not product.  We see the person in front of us and beside us.  We draw ever larger circles of “us” and simply turn our backs on the constant temptation to “other” people we have problems with. 

 

Thanks be to God.  

 

Tom's Song by John Bell of the Iona Community  

 

Sacrament of Life (Maundy Thursday)

 

Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles  by Meister des Hausbuches, 1475

“Sacrament of Life”

Maundy Thursday
6 April 2023 7:00 p.m. Sung

Mass with Foot-washing and the Stripping of the Altar

Parish Church of St. Mark the Evangelist, Medford (Oregon)

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14 ; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35 ; Psalm 116:1, 10-17

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

 

And so with this evening’s service, we begin the sacred Triduum or Three Day Liturgy—Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, so central to our faith. It traces a great arc from fear through darkness and despair into light and the bliss of the Lord.  Its deep mystery is passed on to us in the stories read, the songs sung, and the prayers said, not in any homily proclaimed.  It’s all too great, too ineffable.  We are reduced to actions and not words:  washing feet, eating and drinking the bread and wine offered by Jesus as his body and blood, stripping and washing the altar, sitting and praying in the night, then on Friday touching and praying before the Cross upon which our Beloved died.  At the start of Sunday in the darkness on Saturday evening we light the new fire of hope, listen to the stories of God’s saving acts since creation, renew our baptism, and then light and flower the church, singing joyous alleluias after the acclamation, “Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!”        

We can be overwhelmed by this rich matrix of symbols.  We sometimes tend to focus on one or two less important details whose symbolism is truer than perhaps their historical reliability: the True Cross, the True Crown of Thorns, the True Burial Shroud, and the ever-elusive Holy Grail. 

But the stories of the Last Supper clearly are not focused on the peripherals.  They are not even really about the meal itself as such.   One of the great glories of having four Gospels is that they each give a differing view.  The synoptics say it was a Passover Meal, where Jesus said, instead of "this is the bread of affliction, this is the wine of blessing," the following:  this bread here is my body and this wine, over here, is my blood (a separation that means his certain death).  Yet John says it was one last meal before Passover, where Jesus does not institute the Eucharist, but rather gives a long intercessory prayer on behalf of his followers, a new commandment that we love one another, and the example of how we do that by washing their feet. 

The bread and wine of the Last Supper became the central Christian act of worship.  I wonder if the foot-washing had become the central act, what our Church services would look like?  What if offering bread dipped in the gravy to even those who betray us, or if prayers the length of those found in John’s Last Supper (3 whole chapters full) had?  Would we have had the same level of controversy and division over these things that we have had over the Eucharist and its elements?  

To be sure: the consecrated Bread and Wine are what Christ called them, his Body and Blood.  But the community gathered together at Jesus’ call is also his Body, his arms and feet in the world.  These two are not in contradiction—as if the Body of Christ were either the bread offered on the altar or the beloved community gathered at it.  Rather, as Paul teaches, these two things are one and the same: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body” (1 Cor 10:16-17). 

It's always bothered me that Jesus here commands us to love each other.  How can you command a feeling?  It’s kind of like my mother ordering my brother and me as boys after a fight, to kiss and make up, and—here’s the kicker—really meaning it.  But the love Jesus models and commands is not disembodied sentiment and feeling.  Rather it is a series of actions, a state of the will. It is putting the well-being of the beloved above ourselves.  It is giving them the benefit of the doubt.  It is sacrificing oneself, accepting hurt, to help them. Jesus washes the feet and loves even the one who will betray him.  Later in the night, he will wake his sleeping friends at Gethsemane, but will not scold them for not being able to watch and pray.  Rather, he has compassion and empathy, “your mind is willing, but you're just too damned tired!” 

As we go forward through these next days reflecting on the texts of terror, albeit with a luminous ending, let us remember that these stories and rites use metaphors, limping and imperfect, to express what is beyond our ability to understand or express.

When my second son David was about nine, he asked me: “Why did God have to kill off his Son Jesus to pay for our sins? Doesn’t that make him a very bad Father? Why couldn’t he have just been bigger-hearted and forgiven us when we’re sorry?”

I parroted an answer something like that of the Evangelical Alpha Course:  "God is holy and justice demands that sin be punished.  We are sinners.  It was God’s mercy and love that sent Jesus to suffer such punishment in our stead if only we have faith in him." I sid this all with a straight face, because I didn't know any better.   

David would have none of it: “If God is really boss of everything, he can make things any way he wants. So why did he make them so that he had to kill off his own Son?  It’s barbaric.  It just isn’t fair, and it certainly isn’t loving.”   

I replied that Jesus and the Father enjoyed unity in the Godhead, and this meant that actually God himself was volunteering to die for us on the Cross because of his love.  No go: “Then why does Jesus pray in the garden, ‘Please don’t let this happen to me?’” 

From the beginning, we Christians have seen the death of Christ on the cross as not simply a case of miscarried justice or persecution, but something much more.   St. Paul, writing just 20 years after Jesus’ death, quotes the apostolic tradition that he received from others and affirms, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3-5) and “in Christ, God was reconciling the world unto Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).  But Paul never says exactly how this was so.   

The idea that the Cross was transferred punishment to placate the anger of a Deity demanding violence and blood as punishment for sin, is never taught as such in the New Testament, nor defined by any of the early Councils of the Church.   The idea first arose in the late Middle Ages in the writings of St. Anselm of Canterbury.  In Anselm’s society, a feudal lord’s honor could only be upheld by a social equal.  For him, God became man because man couldn’t satisfy the debt of honor to God caused by human sin.  Anselm’s theory of Atonement is known as “satisfaction”; this later during the Renaissance, with its emphasis on law and individual responsibility, evolved into a doctrine of judicially transferred punishment.  But the feudal idea is still at its core.  The idea is not biblical, but it became a cornerstone of Calvinist and Evangelical doctrine. 

The praise hymn “In Christ Alone” puts it this way, “… on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied, for every sin on Him was laid, here in the death of Christ I live.”

Now I confess to you, sister and brothers, that I reject this doctrine, root and branch.  It sees God as bloodthirsty and unrelentingly demanding violence as a way of fixing what is wrong with the world.   Further, it corrupts the idea of the self-sacrifice of Jesus.  

The ancients never viewed ritual sacrifice as a transfer of deserved pain and suffering onto the sacrificial victim.  Sacrifice was never about suffering.  Rather, it was food offered to God to create a common sharing and reconciliation.  Jesus’ self-sacrifice in his pursuing the kingdom even at the cost of his own life is far from the idea of transferred punishment.  Early Christians felt it was like a ritual sacrifice because in it God in Jesus shares with us and we humans in Jesus share with God, all as a means of creating communion and reconciliation between us and God.  Calling Jesus’ death a sacrifice was never intended to be some sort of sick expression of a Mel Gibson-esque sado-masochism and suffering for suffering’s sake.

I would prefer that hymn read, “...on that holy cross so blessed, God’s love for us was manifest: our savior died as one of us, here in the death of Christ, I live.”   

The Christian Testament uses many differing metaphors to try to get a handle on what Christ accomplished for us and in us:   

·      justification (declare or make morally upright),

·      salvation (rescue on the field of battle),

·      reconciliation (restoring a personal relationship),

·      expiation (driving away ritual impurity or 
            ‘covering over’ guilt),

·      redemption or ransom (purchasing someone 
            back from slavery or prison into freedom),

·      liberation to freedom (restoring full-citizenship 
           to someone)

·      new creation (being made anew)

·      sanctification (being made or declared holy)

·      transformation (changing shapes)

·      glorification (being endowed with the light 
              surrounding God)

 

None of these are completely adequate descriptions of what “Christ died for our sins” means.   But they all agree that Jesus’s death and resurrection is the great victory over what is wrong with us and the world, a mystery just too glorious to reduce to a single image.  

 

The fact is, the “wrath of God” describes more how our relationship with God feels to us when we are alienated from God than it describes God’s heart.   And it is we human beings who tend to think that violence can make things right, not God. 

 

In this light, our belief that Christ “died for us” takes on deep meaning. In Jesus on the Cross, we see God suffering right along with us, dying as one of us; in Jesus in Gethsemane, a human being alongside us, praying fervently with us, and, with us, not getting what he desperately asks for.  

Christ’s death on the cross rescues us not through substitution, but through participation: his participation in our messy human life, and our participation in his human sufferings and in his divine life.  That’s why Jesus says “Take up the cross and follow me.”  As we participate in his sufferings, picking up the cross, we follow him to the joy of Easter morning, the splendor of his resurrected life.  And we can have that even here, in this cruel, crazy, beautiful world. 

 

I invite all of us to come to participate in Christ.  Let us wash each other’s feet as a sign of our love.  Let us partake of the bread and wine he offers us, both sweet and bitter, and pray with him in Gethsemane even as we are nodding off.  I invite us all to come to the rest of this single Church service—by returning tomorrow for the grim Good Friday part, and then for its glorious culmination on Saturday evening and Sunday Morning.  And most of all, I invite us, with Jesus, to love each other as he loved us, to serve the world selflessly, as he showed us. 

 

In the name of God, Amen.