BELIEVE

The disciples are afraid, huddled in a locked room together struggling to understand what has happened. Their emotions are likely all over the place.

Some no doubt were completely overwhelmed with anxiety over being associated with a criminal – wondering if they walk out that door if they too will be arrested…accused…tortured…without any due process.

Each of their lives is forever marred with trauma, so they think, and they are completely puzzled as to where God is to be found in all of this…

They are tired, but can’t sleep. Weary of the chaos. Feeling deep unrest at best and completely defeated at worst.

The disciples are living inside of a legitimate fear.

And Jesus comes to meet them in this dark distress and gives them the tools they need to move forward – He breathes on them the Spirit that heals and brings peace…a peace that is beyond all our understanding.

But poor Thomas missed the whole thing! Poor guy. Maybe he was the one brave enough to venture out for groceries.

And he was having none of it when he returned. He is unconvinced and perhaps even a little indignant, feeling that these unusual visions diminish the injustice of it all…somehow lessen the atrocity that Jesus endured…

Thomas’s doubt is totally justified…and he is honest with his limitations – saying “sorry friends, I’m going to need to see and touch if I am to believe.” Personally, I think we should call him Tolerant Thomas because though he missed the big reveal and probably had to endure a deluge of irritating “Oh, Thomas, you should have been there” kind of comments, he doesn’t abandon the community. He holds hope in his friends and returns for another gathering a week later, and Jesus visits again and meets Thomas where he is at and gives him exactly what he needs.

It’s notable that this outpouring of the holy spirit was given to a community.  “Pentecost…one of the central events that shaped Christian history and history in general, didn’t happen to an individual, off praying alone, or to a monk on a mountain-top, or to a solitary Buddha meditating under a tree. None of these. Pentecost happened at meeting and it happened to a community, to a group of people assembled for prayer waiting for God’s guidance.” (Rolheiser)

When Jesus says he will be present when two or more of us gather, it isn’t because he is some kind of diva who requires a minimum audience to show (Bolz-Weber). Rather, it’s because some manifestations of God’s Spirit can only happen when we are together – in our families, at our dinner tables, and when we gather to worship. Because God is the stuff between us… among us…

God is making something new – and there is a word we are going to hear in our readings quite often over the next several weeks that describes it – he author of the Acts of the Apostles uses it almost a dozen times, Our English version simply reads that the disciples went “altogether now” but the Greek root word homothumadon (ὁμοθυμαδόν) – is much more intense.

It actually means the disciples were rushing along in unison, moving with great intention with one mind, in full accord. This is something new taking shape in the life swirling around and within these apostles…a new power that is being given.

They are going where Jesus went, doing what Jesus did, speaking as Jesus spoke…risking all…no longer cowering, in fact not even flinching or slowing down in the face of probable suffering. They are learning to pray for boldness in the face of forces that would have them be silent. They become aware that the power to heal is flowing through them.

We may never know exactly what happened in that upper room, but SOMETHING definitely happened! Something that changed everything because they went from huddled in fear to single-minded passionate “rushing along in unison” until all but one of them had suffered a martyr’s death as a consequence. 

The early disciples in the upper room began by waiting and wondering if God had a path to transform the suffering, despair, and fear that they found themselves mired in. Maybe you, like me, have also found yourself occasionally paralyzed with a similar anxiety of late…but now we know what to do.

We gather. The early disciples knew that church wasn’t a set of beliefs that you talked AT people – but rather a community of believers sharing in the vision that Jesus entrusted to us, believers in his promise that mercy and compassion can change the world and who knew well that our togetherness is the greatest remedy for all of our suffering and all that fills us with fear.

Authentic church happens in every place where the baptized gather to try to discern how we are called to be in community, especially alongside those who are deemed unworthy, unclean, criminal, those whose lives are under siege, who struggle for life and dignity. (Casey Stanton)

In the wake of the outpouring of the Spirit, a community of genuine sharing was born and continues to grow and flourish in us.

What brings us here each week is our shared vision of all that could be! Of all we can be for one another. Where we receive Eucharist, here in communion with one another – given for us to touch and to taste, calling us to become the Body of Christ that we receive.

Where no single strongman is the Savior, but a communion, a community of disciples cast our lots together, again and again, risking our lives in every generation (Stanton).

This hope is what propels us, missions us, and forms us as disciples. Where we live out together the ninth beatitude Jesus gives us today “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

NOTE: The morning before I was slated to give this homily I heard this INCREDIBLE PROCLAMATION of the Gospel for the same weekend and readings. It is an absolutely PERFECT sermon from Casey Stanton (co-director of Discerning Deacons). My heart rate actually increased listening to the intensity of this Good News!!!!

I felt just like Aquinas and realized “all I had written was straw.” So, I scrapped all I had written and shamelessly lifted a couple things from Ms. Stanton. I hope she holds the view that imitation is the strongest form of flattery! AND I hope that you are good to yourself and listen to her homily!!! IT IS EXHIBIT A as to why the female “diakonia” needs to be restored in the Roman Catholic Church. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/when-all-feels-lost-see-what-god-is-doing-in-acts/id1320295636?i=1000704310246.

Also, Fr. Ron Rolheiser‘s voice and spirit (even if not directly quoted) is the backbone of soooo much of my personal formation as a Christian and writing. I try to be accurate with my citations, but some of his words after 20 years of reading and listening to his work have become my normal way of speaking and I forget their origin. If you see a quote missing a proper footnote, please let me know! His books are gold!