The Heart's Direction (Easter 2A)

 

“The Heart’s Direction”
Second Sunday of Easter (Year A)
19 April 2020
Homily 

Live-streamed 10 a.m. Ante-Communion and Benediction

with Flowering of the Cross 

Trinity Parish Church, Ashland, Oregon

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

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.

A Church of England priest friend of mine in Hong Kong this week sent me a picture of a marquee of an Australian “Church of the Godless.”  It read, simply, “England sent all its religious nuts to America, and its criminals to Australia:  We Aussies got the better deal.” 

This week religious and ideological libertarian crack-pottery seems to have blossomed and encouraged some people to fight against the physical distancing rules that are one of our only methods to contain this pandemic until we have adequate testing, contact tracing, and vaccines.  The tragedy is not only those who will win Darwin Awards for being put out of the gene pool for their stubborn stupidity, but all those others whom the virus may kill because of transmission from the infected non-symptomatic who thought they knew better than the experts. Doubt and faith, truth and error, both for good or ill, appear to be currency in this divided partisan terrain that seems unable to wake up even in the presence of real threat, economic collapse, and life or death pandemic danger.  

We often misunderstand the story of Thomas.  We think that he 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 clearly is a saint for the current times of isolation and physical distancing.  Somewhat of an outlier, he is off by himself the first time Jesus appears. 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, depending on our intentions. 

One kind of doubt is a heuristic tool, an instrument to help us discover truth.  It is open, willing to learn new things.  This is Thomas’ doubt, and it is a good thing.  Karl Popper calls it “falsifiability,” and it is the basis of science.  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.  One of the great harms I see in the current climate of polarized politics that seem driven more by resentment, blame, and anger than by reasoned attention to truth and vetting of facts is the normalization of dwelling in our own little interior landscapes rather than in an objective world of truth and cold, hard facts.  There is something profoundly wrong on the spiritual level with people who think that wishing something were so makes it thus.

Humble, heuristic doubt is open and affirming; stubborn, deny-the-facts doubt is closed and negative.  When put into practice at a social level, heuristic doubt produces true democracy and authentic freedom for all, while resentful doubt means thought-police and tyranny. 

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. 

In my experience, what matters most is not whether you are a believer or not—not even whether what you believe is truth or error, though this is very, very, important—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, partisans, guardians of morality and correct doctrine, holy warriors, who do horrible things to other people in the name of their God.  Now, they can pursue under the guise of “religious freedom” and “personal liberty” selfish acts that put not only themselves at risk, but all.  Snake handling and putting God to the test was never the Christian way. 

In the Gospels, the only people with whom Jesus regularly gets angry are the closed-hearted religious.  To them he says, “Sex workers 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 too can do horrible things to others 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-heartness to open-heartness 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.   But our intentions are not the whole matter—they do not excuse or expunge wicked deeds done for the best of reasons.  In the adage, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Again, the issue here is an openness to look at the facts, not at our desires. 

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. 

In this story, Thomas does not follow his doubt into stubbornness.  Though he said, “Unless I touch the nail prints and spear wound, I shall not believe,” he only has to look at the Risen Lord to know what the other apostles have said is true.  It is only when we can harness an open-minded skepticism that we can, at long last, look up and see Jesus, more alive than he ever was before, and declare with Thomas, “My Lord and My God.” 

Amen.