Sermon preached on the Fifth Sunday in Easter: Youth Sunday

Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31.1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-4

To me, and to many others who are Christians, this is an extremely important Gospel. Here, Jesus is telling us that by believing in him, we are believing in God. He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” a very famous line. But in this Gospel, with so much explanation from Jesus, and Jesus telling us about some of the core beliefs of Christianity, we also see doubt. We see questioning from Phillip who wants some kind of proof, visual proof of the father. I believe that every Christian has to face this kind of doubt at some point in their lives, and in the end it makes their faith stronger.

I faced a sort of doubt a couple of years ago. Doubt doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t believe in God anymore, it can just mean that your relationship with God isn’t as strong as you would like it to be. Maybe you haven’t prayed as much as you feel you should, or you haven’t gone to church in the past couple weeks. Well, about a year and half ago, this doubt began to creep up on me. I still loved God, and I still believed in God, but I felt like I could be doing more to be making my relationship with God stronger. That is when our Youth Minister, Charles Murphy, told me about a Episcopal Diocese of Chicago Youth Event called Happening. Happening is an event with around 60 youth from Episcopal churches all around Chicago and the suburbs, who come together for a weekend twice a year to talk about God, in a relaxed, comfortable, and safe setting. Everyone is welcome, whether you are the strongest Christian, or you are having your doubts, or want some proof like Phillip did. Well, at Happening, my relationship with God was strengthened. I saw God in all of these youth, most of whom I had never met before. But, they opened their arms to me, a stranger, and welcomed me. It was an amazing experience. I felt like I began to get to know God, and it was through others. I was doing things that I never thought I would do, and meeting people that I never thought I would.

And although the event that I went to, Happening, was something specifically made for youth, I think that we can all have these moments at any time in our lives, moments when our relationship with God is strengthened, maybe after a time of questioning like Phillip had. It can happen anywhere, especially in the church and our church. It could be at a foyer dinner, or even just talking with a friend at coffee after a church service.   But keeping your mind and heart open is important. Because if you close yourself off, it’ll be tough to have an experience like this. And we do this, keeping ourselves open, by doing simple things. Simple things like listening to what another person is saying, or by caring for someone and helping them when they need help. Being there for people. And don’t forget to talk to God. He is always there, listening. And he will help you, if you need that sign. He certainly helped me when I needed that, and he will help you get a chance too. A chance to strengthen your relationship with God.

I am still participating in Happening today, I’ve been to three others after the first one I told you about, and now I’m on steering committee for Happening. I have now realized what Jesus was talking about at the end of this gospel. That he is the father and the father is in him. It just took some very special people in the church to help me to realize it.

(Sermon preached by Michael Begel on May 22, 2011 at St. Chrysostom's Church in Chicago, IL at 11:00 AM.) 

Looking ahead to the Fifth Sunday in Easter: John 14:1-14

Gospel for this Sunday: John 14:1-14 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

This Sunday’s Gospel is one of the most well known and well loved passages in John’s Gospel. The scene is back on Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus died. It is part of the long discourse or talk Jesus had with his disciples, following the Last Supper, and also following the foot-washing -- when Jesus gave his disciples (back then, and you and me today) his example of loving service.

Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.

So Jesus calls us to trust that there is a dwelling place prepared for you and me, with him, in heaven.

A word about the use of the word “Father” for God.

In traditional classic Christian theology, God is not male. The Book of Genesis states that God created men and women in the image and likeness of God.

I believe Jesus – and then the New Testament writers – use the very human word “father” as a sign of the relationship between Jesus and one he called “Father.” As someone who is both a son and a father I am fully aware of how human and fallible the word is – but I am also aware of the power of the relationships our human words “father” or “mother” or “spouse” or “lover” describe.

Why can’t Jesus just say “God.” Well, as the early church found thinking about exactly this, Jesus was both truly human and divine Son of God. Our picture of “God” includes both what Jesus was getting at using the name Father, and also – in addition – Jesus himself (part of the meaning of this passage).

Well then, we could, theoretically, in this kind of study, make up a word to substitute for “father” – perhaps a long German-style “The-One-with-whom-Jesus-has-a-relationship-at-the-heart-of-God.”

But maybe it is better to stick with the human word, remembering its humanness and remembering it is a sign.

In all four Gospels, Jesus has sense of relationship with the one he called Father. Twice there is a record in the New Testament of his use of the Aramaic familiar word “abba” – our “daddy” or “papa”. I was walking along Michigan Avenue one day, and happened to be near a family, and couldn’t help but hear a young man – college age? – call his dad “abba”. A sign of the intimacy of the relationship between Jesus and the one he addressed in such familiar loving terms. The great scholar Joachim Jeremias drew out this use of ”abba.”

Jesus invites us into that intimacy by giving us the word “Father” to use in our own prayers. By giving us the Lord’s Prayer. And also remember the Eucharist is a prayer addressed to the Father, in the Name of Jesus the Son.

“if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

Where he is, we will be – for me this is the wonderful definition of heaven.

“And you know the way to the place where I am going."

Thomas is the one who speaks up. So in chapter 11 he spoke up to say let’s go to Jerusalem with Jesus and die with him. So he doubted in the Easter story. And now he asks this great question. May we make the question – and Jesus’ answer – our own: :

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

One of the seven “I am” statements.

“No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Except through the self-giving love we see in Jesus.

“ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

A major theme in John’s Gospel is that we cannot see God, and God sent Jesus so we might see in him what God is like.

Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

What we see in Jesus is that the primary characteristic of God’s nature is self-giving love.

“How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it."

Anything that accords with the Father’s will. Anything of love.

The Bible text of the Gospel lesson is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

(Raymond Webster)

Sermon preached on the Fourth Sunday in Easter

 Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25;  John 10:1-10

There’s power in a Name.  If you doubt this, think about how it feels when somebody gets your name wrong.  Or ask a child what it’s like to hear their full, Christian name spoken by an unsmiling parent with crossed arms.  Names are powerful because something about your core identity, your unique and substantial presence in the world, is communicated by your name.  In fact, you may know that an early Jewish tradition forbade speaking or writing God’s name – it’s why God is always called “The LORD” in the Old Testament, because that’s a more respectful substitute. For the Hebrew people, God’s identity was bound up in God’s name, and wasn’t something to be handled, or grasped at by humans.  It was something only God had the power to reveal.  So, for example, when God confronts Moses in the burning bush and Moses asks, “Who should I say you are?  What’s your name?”  God says, “I am who I am.  I will be who I will be.” 

Given all that, isn’t it interesting that Jesus has a name?  A real, human name that can be spelled and spoken, and recorded on a census in Bethlehem.  Just by virtue of having this kind of a name, we get a sense of what Jesus is about: here’s a guy who wants to share his identity with us.   Jesus is in the world because he wants the world to know who he really is.  His proper name itself – Yeshua, like the name Joshua – sheds light on this.  It means “God saves.”  “God rescues.”  But Jesus gives himself another name today.  He makes his own burning-bush-“I Am”- statement, and gets specific about what it means.  First, he says “I am the gate,” which makes sense.  Jesus is the way to the Father; Jesus opens onto the Father.  So if we were standing around, listening to him say this, we might think that he’s a special person; somebody like a prophet, somebody who has an extraordinary relationship with God.  He doesn’t stop there, though.  Jesus says “I am the gate,” then he says, “I am the Good Shepherd.”  And this is where he crosses a line. 

We hear “Good Shepherd,” and think very romantic, pastel sorts of things about meadows and kindness and sparkling brooks, none of which has anything to do with actual shepherding.  Shepherding is tough work, and shepherds are tough people.  But if they’re good at what they do, then they’re totally wedded to the welfare of the sheep – they have a complete stake in what happens to each one, and they’re skilled at keeping them together, keeping them safe, feeding them and protecting them.  When we talk about Jesus being our shepherd, friendliness and leniency isn’t what’s going on – a good shepherd is fiercely and decisively devoted to the sheep, come what may.  Shepherding means being tenacious and judicious.  It’s something weighty, something authoritative.

And authority is the problem here – it’s the line that Jesus crosses.  Where his flock is concerned, a good shepherd has implicit authority.  And the people Jesus is talking to definitely understand that fact – because they already have a good shepherd … somebody else was called the Good Shepherd way before Jesus, and that somebody was God.  Yahweh was the Good Shepherd.  Right there in the writings of the prophets, it says, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down.”  It’s in the famous words of this morning’s Psalm.  So when Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd,” he’s naming himself with the name of God; he’s naming God with his own name, and he’s claiming a power and an authority that belong to God alone.  Because of this, Jesus provokes the people around him to grumble a question – an awful, destructive, yet very familiar question about identity, “Who in the world does he think he is?”  “Jesus, you just called yourself the Good Shepherd … who do you think you are?”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have to ask anybody what it feels like to hear those words.  “Who do you think you are?”  This is the pernicious little question that lies at the bottom of all of our shakiest feelings about ourselves.  It’s the question everybody has to face and conquer, in some way, if they’re going to do anything that God put them on this planet to do.  We hear this question – our kids hear this question – in so many places and so many ways, spoken and unspoken.  Think about people like Martin Luther King, Jr.,  or Mother Teresa who heard “Who do you think you are?” hurled at them, and uttered in their silent thoughts again and again as they worked for justice and cared for the dying.  Think about the nameless numbers of people for whom racism, sexism, homophobia, or poverty has taken root in that question, put to them by the world: “Who do you think you are?”  But think about yourself.  Even if your own life feels pretty normal, how often have you thought about what you’d like to do with it – some change you’d like to make or some dream you want to fulfill – and heard that question, aloud or silent: “Who do you think you are?”  How often has there been a person you’d like to get to know better, and before you could talk to them you had to answer that question in the back of your head, “Who do you think you are?”  How many of you think about the church, and what you want from it, and what you need from it, or about God and what you’re wondering or seeking, even what you’re angry with God about, and ask yourself, “Well who do I think I am?” 

The good news, the Gospel truth, is that we know who we are.  There’s this strange, breathtaking sentence buried in the book of Revelation, where Jesus is speaking to John in a vision, and he says, “To everyone who conquers … I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.”  This is your true name, your most authentic identity.  When Jesus was being audacious, and calling himself the Good Shepherd, provoking confusion and anger for some people, those who were really listening to him would have heard him say that a good shepherd calls his own sheep by name.  This name, the name that the Shepherd knows you by and that he uses to speak into your heart and into your life is your true name, known only to God, untouched by any entity who would seek to undermine you with that question, “Who do you think you are?” 

Who you are is a child of God, a sheep of Jesus the Good Shepherd whose identity is God and whose authority is real because he is God’s revelation, he is God’s “I Am who I am.”  He is God’s name in the flesh and he shows us that God’s identity is self-giving love, the kind of totally invested love that causes a shepherd to lay down his life for the flock.  Who you are is a person who has been named, by God, to work for justice and care for others.  Who has been named, by God, to live unharmed, free from any ‘ism’ that would hem you in.  Who you are is a person who has been named, by God, to be in community with other people and with the very God who created you – to live and love and pray without fear, and without limit.  All you need to be that person is a shepherd – and you’ve got him.  All you need to do is listen for him to call you by name … and there you will find the power of God.

(Sermon preached by the Reverend Danielle Thompson on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL at 8:00 AM, 11:00 AM, and 5:15 PM - the above version reflects changes made before the evening service.) 

Looking ahead to the Fourth Sunday in Easter: John 10:1-10 ("Good Shepherd Sunday")

In the sermon this week, I think I will focus on the issue of “identity.”  The verses that are coming back to me again and again are these: “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:3b-4). 

The whole passage of Scripture also contains two of Jesus’ important “I am” statements, which lend themselves to the theme of identity.  But let’s look at them on their own for a moment, apart from any theme, and consider the images that they paint.  As I’ve said, this blog is a good place to explore some of the details or research that inform the sermon, but won’t be evident in the sermon.

First, Jesus says “I am the gate” in verse 7.  This is a pretty intriguing statement, and one we tend to forget about when it’s paired with “I am the good shepherd.”  When Jesus says that he is a gate, he indicates that he is the way, the means by which a person finds God – or in the context of John 10, the means by which one enters “abundant” life (v. 10).  Notice the freedom that a person gains in relationship to Jesus: the person for whom he is the gate “will come in and go out and find pasture” (v. 9).  When one draws close to Jesus, he or she discovers true freedom and finds pasture everywhere. 

Jesus also says, famously, “I am the good shepherd” (v. 11).  He defines this in a positive and a negative way.  On the positive side, the good shepherd does something – he “lays down his life for his sheep” (v. 11).  This is the definition of self-giving love, which Jesus exhibits in his death.  On the negative side, the good shepherd is not something – he is not a “thief” or a “bandit” whose interests are not only selfish, but are destructive.  In John 10, Jesus is still speaking to the leaders gathered around the man born blind, who are refusing to celebrate that person’s health in their quest to undermine Jesus.  He is pointing to them as bad shepherds.  One biblical scholar, Jay Wilcoxen (an American Baptist pastor who lives here in Chicago), notes that by the time people would have been hearing and reading John’s Gospel, they would have had in mind various rebel movements that ended disastrously during the Jewish War of 66-73.  People may have questioned whether every zealot had the overall community’s best interests at heart. 

The failure of the leaders in John’s Gospel and the failure of the rebel leaders John may have wished to evoke point to the important thing about these “I am” statements: Jesus is the one making them!  His shepherding ministry is the pattern of all spiritual leadership, and his authority – grounded in self-giving love – is our only hope for living authentically with God and with one another.   

(Danielle Thompson)

Looking ahead to the Third Sunday in Easter: Luke 24:13-35

That very day, the first day of the week,

The first Easter Day

two of the disciples

What you and I are – disciples, followers of Jesus.

were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

It is characteristic of these beautiful stories of the visible presence of the risen Jesus, that the disciples do not at first recognize him. The writers seem to be saying, it is really him, it is Jesus – however he is (to use the great word of Paul) changed.

And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas,

It is not surprising we do not recognize the name, because there was a wider group of disciples of Jesus beyond the original twelve – a wider group of men and women.

That wider group includes all those who have followed Jesus as disciples down through the centuries. And includes you and me today.

answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him."

Then (Jesus) said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?"

“Was it not necessary” – characteristic of the Gospels to say that Jesus “must” do what he did. I believe the “must” – what was necessary – was that Jesus face what came in self-giving love, not running away, taking on suffering inflicted on him.

Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

Jesus had a profound sense that in his ministry of self-giving love he was fulfilling all that had been spoken and written about who God is, and who the Messiah was to be, and what faith means, in the Hebrew Bible.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over."

For me these simple words “stay with us” are among the most beautiful in the New Testament. They were not sure who this was, but asked him to stay with them. So we ask the risen Lord, who we cannot see, to stay close to us.

So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

This was evening on Sunday, the first Easter, and on the evening of the Thursday before he had done exactly the same thing – he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them” – and it was when he did it again that they recognized him.

Just so in the Gospel on Easter Day (John 20:1-18), when Jesus was present with Mary Magdalene, it was when he spoke her name, when he said simply “Mary” as he had so often before, that she recognized him.

They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"

I believe the risen Christ draws near to us when we read the Gospels, when we read the Bible. I believe God the Holy Spirit – dwelling within us – lights up passages and phrases and images in the story as we read it. Not always, not everything, but we should pay attention to phrases or images that catch our attention.

That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Risen Jesus, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.

(Raymond Webster)

Sermon preached on the Second Sunday in Easter

Acts 2:14a-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-31

Back in my hometown, there’s a church that stopped saying the Creed.  Not as in they left it out one Sunday, or banned it from their worship services – they actually stopped saying the Creed in the middle of saying the Creed.  Somewhere between “We believe in one God” and “We look for the resurrection of the dead,” this big group of people ran out of steam, collectively, and instead of picking back up and finishing, everybody just turned and looked at one another.  Somebody who was there explained it like this: “we didn’t know if we actually believed what we were saying, and we realized it all at once.”   

There’s no better time of the year to tackle issues of belief than Easter. During Easter, everything we claim to believe is right there, in our faces, every time we walk through those doors.  At Christmas, we focus a lot on family and friends, and on themes that are very comforting and affirming, like birth and adoration.  But Easter packs a big theological punch with less of the softening effects of cultural celebration.  Easter is all about church, and church at Easter is all about death and resurrection, or in those creedal words: “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.  He suffered death and was buried.  On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.”  Each of our readings today is pounding home this message of resurrection and the imperative to believe: Peter tells a crowd about the resurrection and persuades them to join the community of believers.  Then he writes a letter to another group of Christians, reminding them that Jesus’ resurrection means hope and commending them for believing in him even though they weren’t there to witness his ministry or see his resurrected body. 

And then there’s Thomas, the church’s poster child for doubt and belief, who misses out on Jesus’ appearance to the disciples, and has to hear about it second-hand.  When he does, Thomas doesn’t hug his friends and jump up and down, laughing because things are working out just like they’re supposed to.  No.  He says, “Show me.  Let me see.  In fact, let me touch Jesus, and I’ll believe, too.” 

Ray does a good job of dispelling the image of Thomas as a doubter.  A couple of weeks ago he called him Courageous Thomas because he was willing to go to Jerusalem and be killed with Jesus.  And sure enough, here in our story we can see that the popular image of Doubting Thomas isn’t quite right.  Thomas is more needful than doubtful.  Notice that he doesn’t say to the disciples, “You’re lying,” or “You’re drunk.”  He doesn’t ask them to prove how they knew it was Jesus.  He just says, “I need to see him.”  Thomas needs something tangible.  And frankly, this was true for all of the disciples.  It doesn’t seem that the report of the women at the tomb had fully convinced this nervous group of people locked away together on Easter night.  But nevertheless, Jesus appeared to them.  He didn’t write them off for requiring something more.  He didn’t send a mole to tell them that he was alive, testing to see if they’d accept the news without balking.  Jesus came to them and showed them his hands and his side.  They got to see him, and believe.  Thomas is asking for the same thing. 

We can’t escape the fact, though, that despite whether or not the disciples could believe one another’s testimonies, what happened to Jesus – his resurrection – is something that he had told them to watch out for.  Before he was ever arrested and crucified, Jesus said that he would die and rise again on the third day.  So it’s Jesus’ own words about himself that his appearance to his disciples literally substantiates.  Jesus understands that these physical people need to see his physical body in order to believe in the resurrection.  And this isn’t some instance of divine condescension, God getting down on our level so that we get it.   Jesus came back as a body.  Jesus didn’t come back as an idea, or a thought, or even a ghost but as a person with arms and legs and hair, and a person is meant to be seen and touched.  Jesus wasn’t a vending machine of signs and wonders who simply gave anybody what they wanted whenever they asked for it.  Jesus appears to the disciples and to Thomas, not because they demand it, and not because they can’t believe, but because that’s how they believe.  When Jesus says, “do not doubt, but believe,” he’s not chastening Thomas for needing to see him; he’s acknowledging what Thomas needs.  

But then Jesus nods in our direction, doesn’t he?  He throws in something for those of us who are left, two thousand years later, standing up every Sunday and reciting our belief in the resurrection with no wounded man standing in front of us, holding out his palms and turning to show us his side.  Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  So if the disciples get to see, if Thomas gets to see, if Jesus doesn’t begrudge them their need to be in the same room with him, in the flesh, what about us?  What do we get?  We’re every bit as human as they, so we still need to encounter him – we can’t go on thoughts and ideas alone.  But how?  How do we see Jesus?  How do we believe? 

Well … it’s different for us.  It’s not harder, because seeing Jesus wasn’t the whole picture, even back then.  The disciples could look at Jesus, but they still had to see him for who he was – they still had to recognize him as “Lord.”  We have the testimony of all of the Peters and Thomases who stood with this man and knew him to be God, so when we look for Jesus, we know what to expect.  Here, incidentally, is how our job is different: we have to look for him.  We have to seek him out, and to be aware of when he is seeking us out.  And there are some things to know about this.

For one, it isn’t easy to do.  It requires looking at our lives in a different way.  It requires a paradigm shift, where we stop seeing the world in terms of failure and success, profit and loss, beginning and end - all of the ways we’re used to thinking about things - and start seeing the world in terms of death and resurrection: dying with Christ and rising with him to a new kind of life. 

It also requires cultivating, nurturing within ourselves a constant sense of expectancy.  It means we’re ready and waiting for Jesus to appear in any situation at any moment.  In the room where an infant is being born and in the room where an aged person is dying; on a street bright with morning light, and on a street where a man is wandering without purpose, alone and ill.  In the promises that two people make in a marriage ceremony, and in the tired shoulders of the spouses whose partnership is floundering.  Jesus isn’t the infant; he isn’t the man or the couples or the dying person.  But this is where he shows up.  This is where he is waiting for you, in the flesh, asking you the only question that really matters: “Do you believe in Resurrection?  Do you believe that I put death to death?  Do you believe that all of this can live again?  Do you believe that my risen body means eternal hope?”     

This is how we see Jesus.  Our answer to his questions is how we believe.  Think what you want to about the church that stopped saying the Creed – if nothing else, they make a point that belief is not robotic assent to a list of propositions.  Belief is living your life – your new kind of life, risen with Christ – committed to hope, committed to healing, committed to reconciliation … committed to resurrection.  Belief is hearing the news that Jesus is risen – just like you heard in these Scripture readings today, and you’re hearing in this sermon now – and also seeing it.  Also opening your eyes and your heart to the people and places all around you that need your hope, your health, your peace … your belief … and looking there for the body of the resurrected Jesus. 

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  Blessed are we because we see him differently – we see him all around us, he permeates our world – and where he is, there is our belief. 

(Sermon preached by the Reverend Danielle Thompson on May 1, 2011 at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL at 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM)