“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not not believe.” The week after resurrection, the week of doubting Thomas. We have been here before and often, the balance of doubt versus belief. As I was going through this week’s readings I was drawn to Reverend Linda’s sermon from last Sunday and the many resonating messages she shared. If you did not have a chance to hear it, it is still as resounding in video – I know, I rewatched it.
And I thought about how love wins and ways we can live out loud, big and proud. And about being Prisoners of Hope. Hope that recognizes the transgressions on earth, that believes despite that, not ignoring it. That we are free in our belief and hope. Yet sometimes, maybe more often than not, that hope can be shaken. Shaken through what may seem as doubt or fear. What if we are wrong, if this is all for naught? I will admit I do not like being wrong and it is a challenge. Yet, if we are not willing to challenge what we know, how do we grow? And maybe that is the fear, not knowing what changes we need in our own lives in order to fully live it according to God’s will.
The day after Easter I was going through my emails, trying to clear out the multitude of messages from the weekend and I paused on the New York Times Morning edition from the day before. It’s the really short synopsis that I sometimes will look at, although more often than not these days just delete. The title of the Easter edition was “The Morning: America Wants a God.” I didn’t read it right away because so often over the past decades we hear of the trend away from religion and in theory then God. I did eventually go back to it and there was a short summary of “Believing,” a yearlong project from The New York Times exploring how people experience religion and spirituality now. The highlights from the email, because I still have not found it in me to subscribe to the New York Times and engage with all the other news, however I am intrigued in part to understand this a little bit more. The highlights though, Americans believe. Based on the reporting – “Almost all Americans — 92 percent of adults — say they have a spiritual belief, in a god, human souls or spirits, an afterlife or something ‘beyond the natural world,’…”
Yet the article points out that, “Over the past few decades, around 40 million Americans left churches, and the number of people who say they have no religion grew to about 30 percent of the country.” Yet studies continued to show that those who practiced a religion tended to be happier, healthier, and connected, giving what “sociologists called the ‘three B’s’ — belief in something, belonging in a community and behaviors to guide their lives.”
Something is shifting though. Although most people may not be going back to religion, many do want spaces to discuss and explore their spirituality. The last piece of the summary highlighted that “Americans are looking to believe in something.” The conservatives have been better at using the infrastructure of evangelical Christians to bring more people in. And there doesn’t seem to be other alternatives, with many liberals ignoring this American quest for spirituality.
So then what do we do? We have recognized fear and chosen Hope by coming together here physically or virtually to continue to nourish our souls. To share in a common belief and belonging that takes us through the weeks, months and years. How do we translate that to others? Maybe by changing how we look at it.
Mondays through Thursdays I listen to motivational talks through the fitness community I joined last year. This past Thursday the speaker was talking about new lenses – physical glasses with a new prescription that was literally giving him a new way of looking at things. For anyone who has needed glasses, you may recall and for those of you blessed with excellent vision – let me tell you a new set of glasses can be disorienting. The world you look at is different and at first you may not be convinced you answered correctly to the lens fitting while your eyes adjust to seeing the world a little sharper than before. That initial adjustment time frame can be challenging and if the strain on your eyes is too much can even have you thinking of going back to your old glasses. However, if you’re willing to acknowledge that bit of discomfort and give yourself time, you literally see the world better.
And much like physical glasses, we switch around how we look at the world all day long, based on how we feel, our perceptions, our fears, and sometimes our own self doubt. When things don’t always go our way, we can easily begin to doubt ourselves, our way of life, and sometimes God’s love. And that doubt or fear that maybe we aren’t good enough for the things that may come our way. However we are given guides and a community where we can bring together our doubts, our sadness, and woes, yet continue to strengthen our hope and how we live it. And it is a continual challenge to live God’s will and care for all of God’s creatures.
Pope Francis, even in his last requests, continued to challenge human authority, the authorities themselves that gave him his position as the head of the Catholic church. For all the many structural, ideological or political reasons that Pope Francis was selected, he continued to live his life the way he always had, as a Jesuit. Pope Francis challenged the Catholic church – he was an advocate for not only the people of this earth but the earth itself and all its living things. He bent the strict orders and gave a little more room for love to win. “‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said of the late pontiff, who often pushed against the tides of geopolitics. – That was a tagline from one of the headlines from NBC News Now of the funeral coverage for Pope Francis.
Pope Francis was one of the examples we witnessed in our lifetime of the first lesson from Acts. “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” In our weekly gatherings that is what we come together to do. To receive the Holy Spirit together so that we can carry the light brightly when apart. I don’t necessarily go out and regularly try to recruit people to the church – although that is something I need to work on. However I believe it’s in the ways we live our lives with purpose, belief, hope and the knowledge that everlasting life and love is ours that we can begin to give a new lens to those who may seek to question spirituality and find a higher truth. Despite or in spite of the challenges of those who are in authority, be willing to continue to live a life where love wins. Where we care for our neighbors and embrace all those willing to come to God’s fold. Our lens that Hope is real, that there can be light and doubt and our everlasting belief that love will win, is a way of viewing the world that is worth sharing. A lens that maybe others who view our actions are yearning to also get a glimpse of, to move past the initial discomfort of seeing something new so that life is a little clearer.
