<html><body>Draft:<div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY 2 EASTER c<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">ACTS 5:27-32 3<sup>rd</sup> APRIL, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">REVELATION 1:4-8 PSALM 150<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">JOHN 20:19-31<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “I doubt it!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> People say this all the time, mostly as a playful response to something another has said. It may be a way of telling another that she’s teasing, or making an off-the-cuff, humourous remark. Of course it <b><u>CAN</u></b> be what you or I say when some distasteful, or dangerous, or inappropriate comment is made and our support is sought.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> We’ve heard the stories about Thomas, so-called “doubting Thomas”, as if he were someone to be pitied, someone who was more than a couple of bricks short of a load. Thomas is taken as the epitome of weakness, for instance. I had a friend who named her son Thomas, and the friend’s mother responded horror, as if Thomas – or Thomas the apostle, it didn’t matter which – as a name was like the kiss of death for the poor boy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Doubt gets such a bad press, though. In my book, however, it’s one of humanity’s most prized attributes. It means that a person doesn’t take anything for granted, that the woman or man uses the God-given power of reasoning embedded in her or him, and is willing to debate any and every statement either internally, within the individual’s own mind, or externally with the person who made the comment or asked for something.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> So, consider this interesting statistic. “A survey found that nine per cent of Americans believe in zombies – which don’t exist.” <sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Nine per cent! That may not sound such a large number, but that’s twenty-eight million, seven hundred and one thousand people! How would you like one of those twenty-eight million odd people driving a school bus?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It’s important to ask questions, <b><u>REALLY</u></b> important. And it’s vital to ask all the ultimate scientific questions. Otherwise we’d be in a mess. Everyone would function as the ultimate, one-person authority on anything under the sun.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> At Roger’s funeral yesterday, I quoted Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London on the subject of what function atheists have in our society and how we, as Christians, ought to view them. This in itself is an interesting question, because it presupposes that we can tell who’s an atheist by the way we perceive a man or a woman. On a darker and much more frightening level, it also suggests that we may consider responding to such a person in a less than charitable manner, if we discover her or him in our midst – something that is scarily present in our society right now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> The Bishop of London wrote positively about atheists that they provoked others, including people of faith, to think about “the human response to the mysteries of life, death, beauty, love, and ideological passion.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> He went on that, “Healthy, opportunistic attacks by atheists on believers are as essential to the good estate of religion as an effective opposition is to any democratic government. They help preserve us from cant, from irrational fundamentalism, and from self-absorption.” <sup>2</sup><span class="textexposedshow"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Bishop Chartres was writing in the Foreword of a book entitled “The Unknown God”, which in turn is a series of sermons preached at Jesus College Chapel in the University of Cambridge. The Dean of the Chapel and Fellow of the College, John Hughes, was concerned about how various western cultures were responding to the increase in the number of those who claimed to be atheists and, particularly, by the way that Christian communities in these same societies were reacting to this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “Many of the (people who preached during term in 2011),” Hughes wrote, “note with alarm the peculiarly violent tone of the debate, the visceral loathing of religion and desire to eliminate it from the world.” The scholars who participated in that term’s preaching offered “some suggestions as to the possible causes of this tone and (pled) for the importance of greater mutual understanding, as much from believers as from atheists.” <sup>3</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I find this last qualifying statement as important as any. The scholars sought a spirit of mutual understanding, of respect, of critical honesty – from Christians. Not from atheists, not from Muslims, not from Jews, not from Buddhists, not from Hindus – <b><u>FROM CHRISTIANS</u></b>. After all, <b><u>WE’RE</u></b> primarily the ones being addressed by the sermons, either at Jesus College Chapel or at St. Alban’s. <b><u>WE’RE</u></b> the ones who can do something about our attitude, our personalities, our actions, our words. Yes, of course it would be nice if any with whom we’re having a debate, even an argument, were civil, and polite, and level-headed. But, ultimately, <b><u>WE</u></b> have the potential to control ourselves, not the other. So, like any situation, it starts with us, and then, we hope, by example, by attitude, it spreads to everyone else.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I read this past week that someone described as a poem the Gospel incident read to us this morning. If we need reminding, a poem is “a work in verse, a composition of words expressing facts, thoughts, or feelings in poetical form … (something whose) theme and its treatment must possess qualities which raise it above the level of ordinary prose.” <sup>4</sup> A poem is something which raises a thought of series of thoughts above the level of ordinary prose.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I don’ know about you, but that’s what I need so often. I get so used to the sound of someone’s voice, even someone I really respect and admire; I become so accustomed to knowing what sort of a vocabulary that person uses; to the way that the person thinks; that I allow the words to pass through my brain with barely a second thought, only hoping that I’ll pick up on the last word and figure out what the person was saying; even the Gospel, even other verses and chapters in the Bible can be received by us in this way. All of us need at least a little poetry in our lives, every day, so that we’ll be wakened up, be made aware of God breaking into our lives, hoping that we’ll pay attention.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> So with this episode about Thomas: how often we really need to think before we speak, think before we think, even. How often do we need to say, wait a minute. Is that true? Did that really happen? Is that what this person or that, this group or that, this nation or that really believes?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> John Hughes wrote that “This collection has been titled ‘The Unknown. God’ with reference to Paul’s debate with the philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17). That story shows the importance of Christians engaging sympathetically and critically with those who hold differing religious and philosophical views and who shape the patterns of thinking within a culture. St. Paul uses the altar to the unknown god as the starting point for this conversation, …” Paul looked around, as Jesus did so often before offering an explanation of God’s love and God’s reign. Jesus, if He was by the lakeshore, would look to see if there were boats, or net-menders, or disheartened fisher folk, and then tell a story about where and how to catch fish – and where and how to interest and enlighten people about God. Paul looked around, saw this undedicated altar, and knew that he could use this to reach the minds of the folk around him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> We can look around – in here, perhaps, at the flowers, or the sunshine playing through the stained glass, or the music to which we can listen quietly and reflectively; we can look around, and find there a word or sign of God’s Presence. Of course, supremely, we can look to the altar and see the Bread, see the wine; we can come forward at the invitation and actually take it into our hands. And n all of this we <b><u>CAN</u></b> and <b><u>MUST</u></b> ask questions. What did that person say? What does that image symbolize? What does this taste represent? And is it of significance and, if so, what? What will any of these do for my life this morning, and for the rest of the week.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> We all know that God can never be grasped fully, in this life. We talk and pray about the life experienced now by those who’ve left this earthly shore, and how they know God – <b><u>REALLY</u></b> know God! But despite our inability to grasp God in the here and now, God continues to offer revelations which give us knowledge in an through all things and all people, even the craziest of situations, the most awkward, the most difficult, the least understandable people. In these, in all of life and all our encounters we’re offered the possibility to say, “Wait a minute. Is this really so?” And how often have I been stopped dead in my tracks, in humility and horror, to discover that God is speaking to some direct situation in my life through one of the people for whom I have so little time and respect?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Think for a moment about what our Easter faith, which <b><u>IS</u></b>, basically, the faith that carries us through every day; think about what our Easter faith describes. Torture, criminal injustice, utter self-absorption, death itself – they <b><u>CANNOT</u></b> win. They <b><u>CANNOT</u></b> overwhelm us, despite the confusion and pain that still attaches to human life. Even in the worst experiences, we can find God speaking, God crying, God reaching out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> If we <b><u>DON’T</u></b> ask questions; if we <b><u>DON’T</u></b> allow ourselves to be challenged and don’t ourselves challenge; if we don’t think; if we don’t ask questions; perhaps if we assume that we know what’s happening and that we have the a complete grasp of what’s going on in our lives and in the world; then I think that we’re opening up the potential to making our faith more shallow.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> If we shut out the possibility of the totally unknowable power of God, the unimaginable love and compassion of God for us being there, in front of us, in any and every situation, then we’re diminishing God <b><u>AND</u></b> ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “In the seventeenth century, defenders of religious toleration like John Milton believed that the truth could only emerge if there was a peaceable public space in which citizens could disagree with one another without coercion or civil war. ( … only in) an honest exchange of opinion could greater wisdom be found.” <sup>5</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> This seems only common sense, but then, common sense can seem in short supply some of these days. And we pass on opportunities by demanding that others – be they atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Baptists, other Episcopalians – <b><u>HAVE</u></b> to make the first move. <b><u>THEY</u></b> need to provide the peaceable public space before we’ll engage them in debate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> But look at this poem from near the end of John’s Gospel. Thomas was free to ask questions, to doubt, possibly to raise his voice to the point of the veins bulging out on his neck, only because the other ten let him. <b><u>THEY</u></b> provided the peaceable place. It’s easy to say that Thomas had been among them for a while, and that made all the difference. But they were in such a fragile state of mind that they could have pitched Thomas out on to the street rather than let him upset them with his scientific reasoning or his upsetting opinions. Yet they didn’t. The ten took on the mantle of the Church that Jesus envisaged, They made themselves vulnerable so that Thomas could ask what he liked, could express himself as he felt he had to, could debate to his heart’s content.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> The Good News is that not one of the eleven in the room that night said to each other or to anyone else, or about anyone else, “You’re nuts! You’re dangerous! You’re impossibly wrong! We have to get rid of you!” In Jesus’ power, they told their story, they expressed their faith, and they listened to Thomas, knowing all the while that Jesus, in His own good time, would straighten out the situation, and that no harm would come to them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> And, when He did come, Jesus said to Thomas, “Thank God, Thomas! You always have questions! That’s what I love about you. Never give it up! We all come to faith by our own roads. And God loves us all!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “P.S. Don’t worry about zombies. They really don’t exist. Not even on the political circuit. You’ve got My word on that!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">NOTES:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px;">[1]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “The Toilet Paper”, distributed on the campus of Willamette University, Salem, Oregon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">2</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> Richard, Chartres in <i>Foreword</i> to <i>“The Unknown God”</i> edited by John Hughes. Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon. © 2013. Page ix.<o:p></o:p></span></h1><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Hughes, Op. cit. p xiii.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">4</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <i>“Poem”</i> in Oxford English Dictionary <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">5</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <i>“The Ethics of Being Reasonable”</i> by David Fergusson, in John Hughes, Op. cit., p. 12.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>