But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook people’s sins that they may repent. For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; . . . . [y]our imperishable spirit is in all things!
Wisdom 11:23-26 and 12:1
I’m starting with these verses because it would be helpful to me if they were permanently engraved into my mind. If your Bible doesn’t include the book called Wisdom, look it up. It’s an offering of poetically presented but practical advice and encouragement, just like Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are.
These verses are part of the Old Testament readings for October 30, and for good reason, it seems to me. Why? Because the New Testament reading for that day, Luke 19:1-10, tells the story of Zacchaeus and his neighbors. It’s a story that, for me, inspires a lot of questions. It says Zacchaeus was “seeking to see who Jesus was,” not that he wanted to listen to Jesus or talk to Jesus or even see what Jesus looked like. No, he wanted “to see who Jesus was” (Luke 19:3). [italics mine]. This says to me that he was curious about Jesus’ character and identity. Why does he think he can find what he seeks using nothing more than his eyes?
Well, Wisdom 12:1 tells me it’s not just his physical eyes that are at work. More is already going on here than meets the physical eye. That “imperishable spirit that is “in all things” is already at work in him. Maybe he knows it. I imagine he longs for the days when he was a valued and respected member of the community. I imagine he longs for the days when he didn’t see his reflection in a puddle and find looking back at him a man dressed in finery he had obtained by not sharing with his less fortunate neighbors, by extorting his them even, and in doing so, by betraying the call and community he had received as “a descendent of Abraham” (Luke 19:8-9).
I wondered what had caused the behavior that cut him off from his people. I began my quest for possible answers by looking “extort” on m-w.com and found it defined as “to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power.” I wonder why he got started down unjust paths. Maybe he was just prone to greed and selfishness. Or maybe as he was growing up, his family barely had enough to survive. Maybe he had felt powerless and as he came of age, greed and selfishness were the shields he put up to protect himself from the fear of repeating the struggles in his past. Maybe Roman authorities were extorting him, requiring him to meet certain quotas to protect himself and to be able to continue protecting and providing for his family. Regardless of why he had become the person he had become, I get the feeling that giving “half of [his] possessions… to the poor and paying back “four times over” anyone he has extorted would cost him more than material goods (Luke 19:8).
If Zacchaeus keeps his promises, he’ll have to face people he has badly hurt — probably not just in ways that affected them in the short term. He may have to face that he has made others suffer in ways that still others once made him suffer. Facing such a reality would reopen old wounds as would giving away the possessions he may have used to help himself feel secure. And these costs don’t take into account that Roman authorities may not appreciate his generosity. Their lack of appreciation could bring another level of hardship — or worse—to him and his family.
Perhaps the Roman authorities would bear appraising if they didn’t allow Zacchaeus to keep his promises of reparation and so they wouldn’t punish him. But I have my doubts. I remember the decisions I’ve read that authorities made during Jesus’s final pilgrimage to Jerusalem. If I had cost like these and the material ones Zacchaeus has promised to pay on my horizon, I have a hard time believing I’d have the faith to follow through. As I write this, however, I pray for that kind of faith. Faith aside, maybe Zacchaeus’ own fear the crowds and what they could accomplish will encourage him to keep his promises. The Lord works in all kinds of ways.
Maybe when Zacchaeus keeps his promises, his neighbors will forgive his unjust behavior toward them. But I bet the forgiveness will take time, and the time between fulfillment of the promise and the forgiveness will be difficult. Who knows what the people have lost as a result of Zacchaeus’ actions that cannot be paid back. Poverty has many ways of taking lives.
I imagine that some of the people in Jericho that day may have hoped Jesus would provide them relief from their poverty — for example, by healing a sick or injured family member so that person could return to contributing to the well-being of the family. And I imagine that while Jesus was in their midst he did work miracles. Yet other Gospel stories suggest not everyone who clambered after Jesus received what they had hoped to. When I consider this likelihood and that Jesus spent part of his time in Jericho having dinner with a person who contributed to the suffering of people who sought Jesus’s help and guidance, the Lord’s invitation to himself is challenging as much as consoling. I empathize with the people who call Zacchaeus out as a sinner.
Then there’s the reason I do find the story consoling. The narrative doesn’t tell me whether Zacchaeus kept his promises. Jesus announces that he’s coming to dinner at the tax collectors house before the promises are fulfilled. Now that’s mercy. That’s “overlook[ing] people’s sins so they may repent [italics mine] (Wis. 11:23). Jesus seems to know that Zacchaeus is going to keep his promises (Luke 19:9). I imagine that Jesus wants to reassure the crowd and Zacchaeus of this. Moving forward in time, I also heard somewhere — where I don’t remember — my apologies if you are the source — that names are mentioned in the Gospels when a person was known in the Christian community at the time the gospel was written. That says something about how things might have turned out for Zacchaeus. But as I go back to experiencing Luke’s story of Zacchaeus as if it currently unfolding, the message I get is this: Jesus knows — and wants to remind us and the extorted crowd — that Zacchaeus, like all the rest of us, needs to know that, no matter what a person has done, God wants his or her company. Zacchaeus needs to know God’s unconditional love before he can give it back to God and share it with the people around him. All of us need the same.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.174, Universalis Publishing Ltd.,7 Oct. 2022, https://universalis.com/.
I think the parable in Luke 16:1-13 might be the most perplexing one for me. The variety of interpretations this reflection offers suggests I’m far from the only one who’s not sure how to apply this story to my own life. Maybe it isn’t one interpretation or the other that’s valid. Maybe it’s a parable that’s meant to be understood differently in different circumstances.
“I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”
To him Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Luke 9: 61-62
I don’t like Jesus’ response. Doesn’t he care whether the family knows where the man disappeared to? Doesn’t he care that the family might be left without support? If God’s nature is to share Godself completely, and if Jesus gives a human nature to that God without diminishing the Divine nature in any way, (and I believe both statements are true) I believe he cares deeply about these concerns. So how do I reconcile this belief with that response?
I took that question to prayer. I told God I’d heard about abusive people and groups that cut individuals off from their families. How long could it really take the man to say farewell to his family and then catch up to the other followers? Was the man’s really so unreasonable?
An answer came to me: maybe there’s more to this scene than the literal meaning of the dialogue indicates. This possibility let me to more questions: How many times have I needed to do something important, especially something that will mean changes are ahead, and I’ve come up with some more ordinary task — like deleting emails—that I need to do before doing the more important thing? Maybe Jesus knows the man’s request isn’t really about saying farewell to the family and then setting out to do the work the man is being called to. Maybe Jesus knows the man is hesitant about following through on the commitment he just made. Maybe Jesus doesn’t want concerns and doubts of family members to cause the man to turn back, though I wouldn’t blame these family members if they were to question this man’s decision to follow an unknown preacher from an unimportant town who criticizes civil and religious authorities. I can’t call questions and doubts bad things when a person is about to make a life-changing choice. But I’m prone to analysis paralysis. Maybe Jesus didn’t want the man to fall prey to the very same paralysis and have time to lose the confidence and conviction that in the moment made him say, “I will follow you, Lord.”
“And if he finds [a lost sheep], amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.”
Matthew 18: 13
On one hand, I don’t want to think of God as someone who gives only one opportunity. After all, I’ve read and heard that the Good Shepherd leaves the gathered flock of ninety-nine to find one lost sheep (See Matt. 18: 10-14). On the other hand, I can see that, while life offers many opportunities, no single opportunity arrives in exactly the same circumstances as the previous one. The same test taken or the same job applied for at different times can mean different results, depending on how a person has prepared, how focused the person is when the big day comes, and who else is involved, to name just a few variables. The would-be follower in Luke might be able to return to his family and catch up to the other followers later, but what lessons will he miss while he’s delayed that he’ll have to learn in a different way in the future? What contributions will he be delayed in making? Will the good resulting from the lessons he might learn or the contributions he might make outweigh any good he might do by returning home or any harm that might result from him not returning home?
What if there’s harm to himself or others he needs to avoid by leaving his past in the past? All this is possible. I also know there may be people reading this post and saying the passage I began with is about not hesitating to answer God’s call, about making nothing else more important than following God. For anyone saying this, I hear you, but I’m not good at not hesitating, so I wasn’t about to put that message out there without qualifying it. I don’t want to be like, “Do as I say, and not as I do.”
Besides, I believe a lot of following God is about looking at the relationships and things in our lives in different ways, not always about leaving those relationships or things behind — unless those relationships or things are taking over our lives and/or harming the ability of each of us to become the unique and undistorted reflections of God we’re meant to become.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
“As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (John 13:34). This is the clarification Jesus offers after he gives his followers “a new commandment.” He says people will recognize his disciples if they “love one another” as he has loved them (35). In Matthew 5:44, he tells them they shouldn’t stop at loving the members of their own group. They should go so far as to “love [their] enemies” [italics mine].
He models the version of the commandment that we get in Matthew when, from the cross, he asks his heavenly father to forgive those who have tortured, tormented, and abandoned him.
In what other ways does Jesus show love in the Gospels?
He loves the total person.
He tends not only to physical and spiritual needs, but also to intellectual, mental and emotional ones as well. He knows that even though I’m categorizing these needs separately, they’re never really separate. He teaches crowds using stories they can relate to. He doesn’t forget to feed the people will come to him before he sends them home. He meets emotional needs, not only by teaching people to hope for and to work for a just society (Google the Beatitudes), but also in another way.
He erases perceived dividing lines.
Jesus calls God his father and teaches us to do the same. (Actually, I’ve read that the word he uses translates to a more familiar name, one closer to Dad than to Father.) He excludes no one, and instead makes a point of including outcasts who approach him. Scripture tells us that he shared the experiences of both the just and the unjust. He was imprisoned and sentenced to death. He associated with tax collectors and people with traditions and practices different from the ones in which he had been brought up. I’d say there wasn’t anyone he wouldn’t connect with, though not everybody wanted to befriend him.
“As I have loved you, so you also should love one another”
John 13: 34
Marginalized people are not invisible to Jesus. The Bible tells us that in his time on earth, in a very patriarchal culture, he spoke to and touched women, even women with tainted reputations, and at least one woman who had been hemorrhaging for years. It’s my understanding that a woman with such a condition was considered unclean and would have been expected to keep distant from Jesus.
The Scriptures tell us about many more times when Jesus healed people whose health conditions isolated them and obscured their dignity in the eyes of the society in which they lived. As a person with a disability and mental health conditions, I think of these healings as helping to integrate people into their communities, as helping people contribute to their communities. Though it’s absolutely okay to want healing, no one should be sent the message that they have to be healed of what makes them different before they can be whole and be equal to everyone else. Helping someone heal is by far not the only way to help a person contribute to and integrate into a community.
He asks and answers questions.
When I think of Jesus interacting with a person, I think of him asking questions to lead that person to insight. I think of his conversations with Peter and his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. I also think of the times he used people’s questions as teaching opportunities. Some of the people with questions were Jewish and Roman authorities, but not all of questioners are identified in the Bible as holding official leadership positions. I think of the unnamed man who asked Jesus what else he needed to do to inherit eternal life.
He took breaks.
Jesus knew he needed to let God love him so that he could love others. He knew he needed times of withdrawing from crowds and of leaning on Abba. He prayed in deserts and gardens. He slept on a fishing boat in the middle of a storm, and he prayed when his closest friends were sleeping.
Jesus’ ways of loving looked different at different times in his earthly life. The question for us is, what do the ways he loves look like at different moments in our lives? Each of us will have different answers at different times. If two of us were to compare our answers, we would likely find similarities without having exactly the same answers.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
When I heard the first reading this week feelings of dread, guilt, anger, and anxiety came over me. I heard the story from Acts as a conflict between completely holy good guys — the apostles — and the totally blind and fearful bad guys — the men at the top of the Jewish religious hierarchy in Jerusalem at the time. The writer in me is bothered by stories involving flat, purely good or purely bad people.
I’m bothered by stories that are simplistic in this way because I have a hard time imagining myself and people I know on either side of the line that seems so clearly drawn between good and evil. I know I’m far from perfect. Actually, the apostles mentioned in the gospel reading were imperfect, too. Too bad the passage from Acts doesn’t record them acknowledging their weaknesses and outs to the people and how Jesus responded to these. I like to think that even though the passage doesn’t include such confessions, they were included in the apostles’ preaching. I like to think the Holy Spirit used their openness and humility as some of the qualities that allowed the message they were sent to convey to spread. After all, we read about the weaknesses, imperfections, and frailties that I just mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament. I think we know about them because the apostles knew the frailties of their humanity and the humanity of their followers were an important part of their mission.
This realization helped me consider the first reading in a different light. It also got me thinking about what other qualities and approaches help the Good News sound more like good news to me than it often does. I thought it might be a good idea to present these approaches as a series of positive suggestions, so here they are:
Do speak from your own experience.
That’s what the apostles were doing. Unfortunately, sometimes their experiences can feel distant from our own. Creeds and verses by themselves can feel so empty to someone who’s at a different point on the spiritual journey. Acknowledge all this. Consider sharing experiences of God that you’ve had. These may not feel so distant to you or to the person you’re conversing with. If you have trouble thinking of your own experiences to share, or if you’re not comfortable sharing, maybe now isn’t yet the time for sharing. Maybe it’s a time for prayer and reflection. Maybe you’re in the garden or behind the locked doors, and that’s okay. These places are stops on the spiritual journey.
Do meet the other person where they are.
Notice I’ve referred to “the person” and “conversing.” Whenever possible, talk to a person, not to a group. Sometimes even when you need to talk to a group, it can be helpful to think of the exchange in terms of talking to a group of individual people rather than to a group whose members are indistinguishable from each other. Talk to people, not at people, and take steps to learn about the needs and experiences of your audience. Get to know your audience. This involves learning and listening, sometimes for a long time, before speaking. Tip #1 can help create an environment where people feel safe sharing their experiences, questions, struggles, and doubts, and creating this environment is how we listen and learn. Once we learn about the questions and needs of our audience or of the person we are conversing with, we need to acknowledge those questions and needs and try to respond to them as concretely as possible. I think concrete responses are what gives the Gospel the most credibility. In the Gospel reading from John listed above, Jesus uses concrete verbs in response to Peter’s declarations of love, and I’ve never seen the verbs in this exchange translated as “teach.” They’re caretaking verbs.
Furthermore, we’re told that prior to taking Peter aside, Jesus reveals who he is by sharing a meal with his friends. Keep that in mind.
When we don’t know how to respond to a particular question or struggle, I think it’s important that we don’t respond with theology or a verse. There are times for sharing these inheritances, but I don’t think these are helpful when a person is hurting or has questions — unless the person is in a similar place spiritually to the one you’re in. Respond in ways that resonate with the person. Remember that the reading from Revelation says all of creation praises the Lord, so look for ways to respond with what already appeals to the person and what he or she can already take in with his or her senses and experience. And keep the conversation going in two directions, if the other person stays willing to continue it. What seems helpful in the beginning of a conversation may not turn out to be. Stay open to listening and changing directions throughout the conversation.
Do acknowledge what the other person offers.
Look for qualities and contributions you admire. Share what you appreciate about the person and what he or she has taught you. Acknowledge what you didn’t know before you met him or her, and thank the person for giving you additional perspective. To me, doing this is the foundation of good communication and a healthy relationship.
I don’t recommend rushing to tell the person that his or her admirable qualities or achievements come from God. Pushing for this acknowledgment can make it seem like you think the person doesn’t have value on his or her own or that you don’t think they have free will. Someone who has, at best, a complicated relationship with faith may shut down if he or she feels you are implying this. Gratitude to God may arise naturally in the person at a different point in the spiritual journey.
Do wait for an invitation and offer one.
Various Scriptures tell us to knock, to seek and to ask. We’re told to ask God for what we want and need, even though we’re also told that God already knows what we need. Why should we not give others the same space to ask us about our spirituality. Remember that God respects the other person’s free will and doesn’t force a relationship with the Divine on the other person. Why should God’s children be any less courteous?
Pushiness and anger get attention, but they risk making the Good News not sound or feel like Good News. Is expressing anger sometimes necessary to convey the need for change? Perhaps. Jesus did turn over tables in the temple court. But that isn’t how we see him interacting with people most of the time. Often, instead of allowing its message to affect change, pushiness can garble a message. Anger that is expressed unproductively can do even more to get in the way of a message. It can be a catalyst, but it’s not a solution. I find it hard to believe that militancy can achieve long-term, positive goals.
Are there places we are invited to go by virtue of living under a representative government? Absolutely. We can be clear about what what’s important to us. But we still need to respond to these invitations with respect, humility, and courtesy.
And we need to connect with others in invitational ways. Receiving an invitation is so much less anxiety- and anger-inducing them being scolded, threatened, punished, pushed, or forced. I don’t think anxiety and anger are likely to generate the responses we want long-term.
Do open yourself to challenging conversations within your spiritual community.
In the first reading, the apostles are brought before religious authorities because of the message they have been sharing. Jesus was brought before both religious and civil authorities because of what he said and did. Nobody is perfect, and chances are, nobody involved is pure evil.
Do assume that opposition isn’t personal and is well-intentioned.
Is there opposition that is personal and isn’t well-intentioned? Sure there is. But chances are, the person has his or her perspective because of a lifetime’s worth of experiences, experiences which may be different from yours. (Remember the forgiveness we are told Jesus gave from the cross to people who caused his agony, people weren’t even asking for it. I’ll be the first to say that that’s a hard forgiveness to give. I’m not good at it God, please keep trying to help me.) Experiences alter how we see and what we see. As a result, we sometimes go about our goals in imperfect ways, totally wrong ways, in destructive ways, or in counterproductive ways. It can happen to you, and it can happen to people you disagree with. That’s why we need to work on answers that respond to individual questions and meet individual needs.
Do remember that change comes from God and from within.
It’s not our job to change someone. However, we might be able to help someone see the need to change. Often this happens not through words but actions. And I don’t mean adopting a particular prayer posture or displaying a particular image publicly. I mean doing the other things on this list.
Am I saying that only home and church are the places for expressions of faith? Absolutely not. But I don’t think the presence of a posture, or an image, or a Bible has as much of an impact without the other approaches on this list. Also, I think that even if you aren’t adopting a certain posture publicly just to be seen, to someone alienated from organized religion, it can seem like you’re doing what you’re doing only to be seen.
And maybe, in the best sense, you are praying or displaying that image in hopes of starting a conversation. But I have a question? Would you pray the same way if you knew no one could see? If the answer is yes, fine. Just don’t forget the other tips on this list, and be courteous. Pray like the sinner, not like the self-righteous man.
If we want to offer the world and everyone in it God’s love, we need to behave like everyone is created in the image of God and thus has something to offer us.
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
What follows is a new continuation of the story I posted last week. Like last week’s story, it uses fiction writing techniques to engage with Scripture.It is based mostly on John 20:17-28 with a few verses from elsewhere in the Gospels mixed in as indicated.
In a way I couldn’t explain, Jesus wasn’t just alive again. He looked and felt more alive than ever before. More alive than I was. And yet I felt as if seeing him like this, touching him like this had transferred some of that life, that energy, to me. It filled me and overflowed, compelling me to run back to where the eleven disciples still living hid behind locked doors.
I came up against the locked doors sooner than I expected to. I could neither recall all the turns I’d taken, nor did I remember climbing the stairs that led to them. It was as if the doors had come to me.
I glanced around, peering into every shadow and raised my hand to knock the signal that only the followers knew. I hesitated, surprising myself. Though I was thrilled to have received a new purpose directly from the Teacher and eager to fulfill it, it was precisely because of this mission that I didn’t want the doors to swallow me again. The encounter had dissolved my fear. The Lord’s power was stronger even than death. What else could I fear? Why should only the followers huddling behind the locked doors get the message? Nevertheless, I trusted there was a reason the Teacher had instructed me to him tell only the brothers.
So I told them “I have seen the Lord. I’ve embraced his feet, and he told me to tell you this: ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’ (John 20:17-18).
I received looks of confusion and suspicion in reply with, perhaps, astonishment mixed in.
“Why would he appear and speak to you?” John asked.
“He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, to the woman with a hemorrhage, and to the woman about to be stoned for adultery. And don’t forget Mary and Martha in Bethany.”
“Yes, but that was before he was crucified,” Peter said.
How could he speak as if I didn’t know this?
I was soothed a little when he continued. “No doubt things we don’t understand are happening. Grave robbers would never take the time to separate the burial cloths and fold them neatly, but even if what you say is true, what does it mean for us? What are we to do?”
I opened my mouth, No words came out for far too long before I was able to admit, “He didn’t tell me that.” Had I run away too quickly? Surely he would have called after me if I had. “But he’s told us this, so he’ll tell us more when the time is right.”
“You’re suggesting we should wait here,” Thomas said. We’ve already been doing that for two days. Your news changes nothing. We’ll be discovered eventually and suffer the same fate as the teacher. Surely we cannot return the way he has. Why delay the end that’s God’s will? In the meantime, I can pray out there just as well, and I will.” He strode toward the doors before turning to face us. “May the Lord be with you, brothers and sisters. He didn’t slam the doors behind him, but part of me wished he would and hoped, somehow, the sound would result in a visit from the Teacher and instructions about what to do next. If he did, perhaps he would tell us that Thomas acted rightly despite his unbelief. Jesus hadn’t told me to tell the brothers to stay behind the locked doors.
The Teacher did visit us, but not until hours later, when I was helping to prepare the evening meal. I didn’t hear the secret knock and, apparently, neither did anyone else because what I did hear was a collective gasp.
When I looked up to see what happened, I saw the Lord. The ten remaining brothers saw him too. They lay facedown on the floor.
“Peace be with you,” Jesus said.
Gazes lifted one by one.
Touching his wounds told them he was as substantial as he had been before Passover, that he wasn’t a spirit or only a vision.
The men began to talk over each other as they praised God and asked what to do next and what was to become of them.
Jesus replied by repeating, “Peace be with you,” and he added, “As the father sent me, so I send you . . “. (21). Then he breathed like he was blowing out a dozen candles at once and said that in doing this, he was giving them the power to share the Abba’s forgiveness with whomever confessed their sins and seemed sincere in their desire to let go of what was not of God.
For a moment after Jesus spoke these words and gave the disciples this gift, we were all silent. In the midst of our silence Jesus vanished, even though the doors were still locked.
The men began to murmur amongst themselves. Who would believe that after everything that happened the previous week, they had the authority to speak for God, to call people to repentance and to tell those who repented that God had forgiven them?
“Supper is ready.” I called to them over the cacophony of their spoken unanswered questions.
Peter said that hearing me made him aware, once again, of the weakness of his faith.
“Please forgive me for doubting what you told us. I confess it’s so easy to forget so much of what the rabbi has taught us, but now I remember that he said that in the kingdom of God, the last would be first and the first would be last” (Matt. 20:16).
For a moment, my pride resented the implication that I was one of “the last.” I never felt that way when Jesus’ eyes met mine or when he spoke to me. But I Jesus had chosen me as a disciple by name the way the original twelve had. I had begun following Jesus after he freed me from invisible torments that had plagued me since I began to turn from a girl to a woman.
Furthermore, women were not disciples. And now Jesus had asked his disciples to take on a new kind of priesthood, to assure repentant people that God forgave them. Priests were not women.
Yet Peter was asking me for forgiveness. The Holy Spirit was indeed mighty. I dared not presume too much, but I didn’t think it would be doing so to remind the others of something else Jesus had said. “I remember too his words about what the kingdom would be like. And I remember that when he taught us how to pray, he said the Father would forgive us if we forgave those who wronged us (Luke 11:4). I don’t blame you now for your suspicion, given that I saw him die myself and given my troubled past. However, I confess that at first my pride enjoyed that Jesus said come to me at the tomb, and my pride was hurt by your questions. I was wrong. I see that now, and I will do my best to serve my brothers and sisters as Jesus did.”
“In the name of Jesus, my sister, I forgive you of all your sins, and I ask my brothers to forgive me of mine.”
John spoke for the brothers and for the Father in offering Peter forgiveness, and then he confessed his own sins, among which was doubting the truth of my proclamation, and Peter and I forgave him. All of us followed John’s example in seeking forgiveness and offering it.
Then we all sat down to discuss what else we remembered from Jesus’s teachings. We also wondered if Thomas and Judas needed to be replaced. It seemed there needed to be twelve leaders, one representing each tribe. We knew Judas had taken his own life, but what would become of Thomas? And how would the remaining disciples know who should be appointed to replace the ones who were no longer with the group?
It was in the midst of these questions that the familiar knock sounded on the other side of the doors. It might be Thomas, it might be someone else who had discovered our location and method of entering it, or it might be Thomas having betrayed us for his own gain. After all, Judas had done no different just a few days before.
“I’m going to open them,” Peter announced without hesitation. “We’ve seen that no betrayal, no darkness has the last word unless we believe it does and give ourselves totally to that belief. God is distant only if we push Him away.”
The moan of the doors seemed unusually loud as Peter unlocked them and pulled them apart.
“May I come in? Thomas asked. He didn’t look up, and his shoulders slumped.
“What can I do except sit here among friends and wait? I can’t teach the people after everything that’s happened. What he taught us seems like empty promises now. And I can’t go back to the life I had before he called my name. I’m a different man now. I’m not sure I’m a better one, but I know I’m a different one.”
Peter put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Straighten your back, and look up, Brother.” And Peter told Thomas about everything that had happened while he was away.
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (25).
A chorus of protests went up in response to Thomas’s declaration. When these left Thomas unmoved, the protests turned to prayers. Prayers continued over the breaking of the bread for several days. Whenever we broke bread we also sang Psalms, and each of us did our best to recall a different lesson learned from Jesus.
Seven days passed. Then suddenly, though, as before, no one had unlocked the doors, Jesus stood before us, saying, “Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe'” (26-28).
Thomas did what Jesus had invited him to do, and he said, “my Lord and my God.”
I was grateful for these words. They reminded us who Jesus was and that he would still show us the way to Abba. Our challenge was to follow him there by living as he had shown us by example. And what a challenge it was.
When Thomas had expressed his refusal to believe without proof that he could touch, I’d had two reactions. First was anger. That was before I realized that we all might have said the same. We’d had the same disbelief. We had simply expressed it in different ways. Second, I’d feared the wrath of God for him and for all of us — more, I realized, than I had feared any Roman soldier or high priest.
But destruction had not rained down upon us. Instead, Jesus had given Thomas what he had needed.
Still, since the teacher had begun returning to us, he had never seemed to be able to stay for very long. I wondered if our sphere couldn’t contain him now the death couldn’t defeat him. I wondered if there would come a time soon when we couldn’t touch him or see him the way we’d been doing for the past week. If so, would we have to rely on what he’d already given us to keep the doors of our hearts open to the faith that he was still alive and still with us?
Suffering and the fear of it had made it so easy to forget all that Jesus had given us. But Jesus understood this. After all, he had called out to God from the cross asking why he had been abandoned (Matt. 27:46). Yet he had still had the faith to ask why.
Maybe that kind of faith — one that keeps asking while the senses and the mind don’t believe or understand — the faith that keeps asking even when it seems pointless — maybe that’s the one that keeps the doors of the heart from locking Abba and His children out.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Sitting with the Sacred 