Readings

Among the characters in Winnie the Pooh, one of my favorites is Eeyore. Eeyore knows that the glass is half empty. Among the apostles, Eeyore’s stand-in is Thomas, center-stage in the second half of today’s Gospel.

The story starts —as Thomas expected— with a crucifixion. On that last journey up to Jerusalem most of the disciples had been arguing about who’d be greatest in the coming kingdom; Thomas’ contribution was “Let’s go up to die with him.” And it wasn’t just Jesus hanging up there; it was the last three years of Thomas’ life, and a lifetime’s worth of hopes and dreams.

Now the other disciples are telling him that Jesus appeared to them the evening of the first day of the week. If they’re to be believed, it was quite a meeting: Jesus showed them his hands & side. He breathed on them: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (“Like the Garden of Eden”). “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Thomas: I need to see, insert finger, hand…

By the disciples’ telling, Jesus had given them the Holy Spirit & their marching orders, so there was no reason to think Jesus would appear again. Nevertheless, a week later Jesus appears again and offers Thomas the proof he demanded. Thomas responds with a confession unparalleled in the NT: “My Lord and my God!”

There are two extraordinary elements in the story: the encounters with the Risen Christ, and Thomas being with the other disciples at that second meeting. It would have been so easy for them to split. Imagine: eight days of the others celebrating Easter & Thomas still observing Good Friday. Altar Guild: what liturgical color would you use to keep everyone happy? Thomas could have written them off as gullible; they could have written Thomas off as faithless.

Why did they stay together? Simple garden-variety virtues —I think— like faithfulness, patience, humility, the virtues that keep us going when all else falls away.

Humility: not having an artificially low opinion of oneself, but an accurate opinion. Not incidentally, this is precisely what the writer of 1 John is aiming at: ⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

While the obvious connection between 1 John and our Gospel is the business about “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands,” it was, I think, something of the shared ability to recognize themselves before each other as sinners that helped them stay together.

How much might have been lost for both Thomas & disciples if they’d split. Thomas might never have encountered Jesus; the other disciples might never have found the words Thomas found to capture their experience: “My Lord & my God!”

The point is that if we’re to encounter the Risen Christ, we do so in the midst of the disciples, in the midst of each other, warts & all. And that requires these mundane human virtues: faithfulness, patience, humility. These virtues, it turns out, are necessary not simply for human community, but for any sustained encounter with the divine.

Our texts speak to us pretty directly in a variety of ways. On the day to day, the living together in unity that the psalm celebrates and that the apostles achieved turns out to be remarkably difficult. The difficulty sometimes is over big issues (is the Lord risen or not?); more often it’s over small issues of the “squeeze the toothpaste in the middle or roll it up from the end” variety. But as anyone who’s lived in a family knows, it’s remarkably easy for these little issues to transition into big issues, and suddenly the toothpaste tube is about who always gets their way, who is being inconsiderate —you fill in the blanks. This is where humility and its twin, a sense of humor, help enormously.

What is at stake here is captured in the first two verses of our reading from Acts: Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

The unity among believers is important because it makes the economic solidarity possible, a solidarity that historically speaking formed part of the appeal of the Gospel. Listen to the pagan emperor Julian complaining about the Christians: [I]t is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Christians support not only their own poor but ours as well, all persons see that our people lack aid from us.

And that in turn makes me wonder about Luke’s next statement: With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. That “great power” and “great grace” —something unconnected to the disciples’ unity and generosity, or its natural result?

God knows we could use great power and great grace in our testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. But if I’ve read Acts correctly, great power and great grace are not brought by the stork, but flow from unity among believers.

We cannot heal the divisions among Christians at the international or national levels, although, God knows, most of us ought to be devoting more prayer to this than we presently are. We can pay attention to our own attitudes and actions, and so, by exercise of humility, at least not contribute to these on the local level. From whom have you become estranged? You do not need to wait until the next penitential season to seek reconciliation.

For who knows, who knows how we may yet together encounter the Risen Christ?