John 20:19-31
So, let me ask: Do you believe in miracles?
We usually use that word “miracle” to
describe fairly non-miraculous things, honestly – fourth-quarter comebacks or
walk-off home runs. But I think today’s Gospel
reading might make us stop short and ask whether we believe in the more amazing
kind of miracle, when God empowers a change in the created order and makes a
new reality possible in the here and now.
To me, miracles are theologically messy. We’d like for them to work in ways we can
control or at least understand. We like
certainty or, failing that, at least predictability. If I believe deeply enough or say the right
prayers, it would be great if I could know
God was going to do something miraculous in response. We’d like miracles to follow the rules of
physics: for every spiritual action, there should be an equal and opposite spiritual
reaction.
Of course, miracles don’t work that
way. Sometimes healing comes, and sometimes
it doesn’t – at least not in ways we see.
Sometimes God’s power changes lives; sometimes those lives remain the
same. And like the disciple Thomas, we’d
find it much easier to believe in God’s astonishing power if we could see it
and touch it for ourselves.
Now, Thomas gets a bad rap, being called “Doubting
Thomas” because he demands evidence of resurrection. In fairness, he wasn’t asking for anything
the other disciples hadn’t already received.
The rest of them were together on Easter night, hiding out after hearing
Mary Magdalene say that morning that she had “seen the Lord!” (John
20:18). If they’d believed her news, they
wouldn’t have been hiding out from the authorities; they would have been out in
the streets, telling everyone Jesus was alive.
Instead, they were hedging their bets behind a locked door until Jesus
himself passed through it and stood among them, showing his friends the nail wounds
in his feet and his wrists. Thomas just wanted
the same proof the other doubters got to see.
So, I think we might be forgiven, too, for
wanting to see some evidence that resurrection happens. Even though Jesus explicitly blesses “those
who have not seen and yet have come
to believe” (John 20:29), it doesn’t hurt if you get to see a miracle every now
and then. So, let me share a couple with
you.
One involves someone we see here at St.
Andrew’s pretty much every week. First, a
little background: One of our outreach partners is Welcome House, a place here
in Kansas City where men struggling with addiction can begin a solid recovery. It’s a refuge of last resort for most of the 80
men living there at any given time. Guys
come to Welcome House when they have no other option, once their disease has
cost them homes and livelihoods and spouses and kids – and they go there seeking
nothing less than a miracle, the gift of a new life.
So, Welcome House had its annual fundraising
breakfast last Tuesday. I was there, along
with other St. Andrew’s people. Each year
at this breakfast, the organization honors someone who’s made a huge difference
for the men Welcome House serves, someone whose story of enabling
transformation for others qualifies him or her for what they call the “Miracle
Award.” This year, the miracle story
they highlighted belongs to our own Harold House.
As I said, we see Harold just about every Sunday,
but St. Andrew’s is not his first stop. That’s
because every Sunday, Harold begins his morning at a meeting at Welcome House,
providing presence, support, and two dozen donuts for the men there. He’s done that for 25 years now, after graduating
from Welcome House himself. And Harold is
the one responsible for connecting St. Andrew’s with Welcome House, the one who
brought our partnership into being.
Harold does this holy work in the world because
he is a witness of the miracle of resurrection.
He found new life through Welcome House, and he’s committed himself to
sharing that hope with others on the same journey. If a miracle is, indeed, God empowering a
change in the created order and making a new reality possible in the here and
now, then I would say Harold’s story is nothing short of miraculous. And 25 years later, he lives that miracle by serving
the guys God gives him to serve, week after week.
Here’s a second miracle story for you, one
more distant geographically but close to our hearts. For more than 25 years, St. Andrew’s has had
a partnership with St. Augustin’s Episcopal Church and School in Maniche,
Haiti. The Diocese of Haiti started the school
to serve families living on the other side of the river from the main
population of Maniche, a community with no bridge across that river. For many years, St. Andrew’s provided financial
support for the school’s operation, teaching maybe 100 kids a year in preschool
through sixth grade. When we would go to
visit, on mission trips, we’d see red-tinged hair among the kids there, a sign
of protein deficiency. But you didn’t
have to be a physician to notice many of the kids were listless and struggling
to learn, simply because they were hungry.
So, 14 years ago, we took a risk. We decided to increase our support for the
kids at St. Augustin’s by providing a hot lunch every day: nutritious beans and
rice, a complete protein. Honestly, we
didn’t know whether this effort would work.
Would the supplies get there consistently? The road up the mountains to the village was
demanding, and our partner priest had five other congregations and schools to
oversee, too. Would the money be enough? Haiti is a place where food prices sometimes
skyrocket unpredictably. Would the
effort be sustainable? I mean, a single
fundraiser for hot lunches is one thing; asking people to give over and over again
is something else.
So, here’s the miracle. Over the past few years, the quality of the
education at St. Augustin’s has earned it a strong reputation among the families
there, and parents want to get their kids into it. So, enrollment has risen to 470 students in preschool through ninth grade. That’s
almost five times more mouths to feed – 85,400 lunches each year. 85,400 lunches. But you all have come through, every year, with
the Haiti Benefit Dinner, which happens tonight. Through ticket sales and your contributions,
we’ll fund the hot-lunch program for another year, bringing hundreds of kids the
opportunity for a life beyond subsistence agriculture.
If a miracle is God empowering a change in
the created order and making a new reality possible in the here and now, then I
would say the school’s story is nothing short of miraculous. And the participants in that miracle are
sitting right here, right now; and we’ll gather again tonight for a fantastic
celebration of life made new. As the
years of this partnership go on, we’ll keep living out this miracle by serving the
families God gives us to serve.
Now, I do not doubt God’s power to intervene
in the created order and change things suddenly, with no rational explanation. After all, God is God, and we are not.
But still, I think most often in our world, new life is a collaborative
enterprise, with us blessed to take part in God’s miraculous work. That's not exactly the most efficient approach. So, why would God choose to do it like that? I think it must be because God likes it that way. Sure, God has the power to flip a switch and change
hearts and lives at will. But how much
more fun must it be for the One who creates us and redeems us and sustains us
to draw us children of God into the miracle-working? As every parent knows, it’s much more
rewarding, and much more formational, to let your kids do the work on their science-fair projects, rather than doing it
for them.
In theological language, we might put it
this way: Resurrected life is the
mission of God in the post-Easter world.
And amazingly enough, God invites us to carry out that mission, asking
us to be agents of new life ourselves. The
lives of the guys at Welcome House don’t change without the people who fund its
operation, as well as people like Harold House who live the story of resurrection
day to day. The future for the kids at St.
Augustin’s doesn’t change without that school, and its teachers, and you providing
the wherewithal for almost 500 kids to learn and eat well at least once each school
day. Resurrection happens most often not
by singlehanded divine magic but by divine collaboration. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus breathes the
Holy Spirit on his friends, and he gives them his peace, and commissions them as
his apostles, the force of new life in the world. “As the Father has sent me,” Jesus tells his
friends, “so I send you” (John 20:21).
And, so God sends us on this mission –
making life new by creating and redeeming and sustaining our world. Remarkably enough, it’s you and I whom God
asks to do the work, blessing us richly, too, in the process.
So, do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in God’s power to make life
new? I do. We may not see the marks of the nails today,
but I see the Body of Christ here before me, living and active in the
world. Just look around. Just come tonight. And just like Thomas, you’ll see Jesus’ hands
and feet in the flesh.
No comments:
Post a Comment