Christ's peace is sufficient: I think...

This has been an intentionally "slow" week for me - a mini-retreat after the fullness of Lent and Holy Week - and I've been savoring each moment.  Here are a few thoughts that have been simmering in anticipation of Sunday's simple Eucharist. Like many I'll be grounded this week in the story of Thomas and his questions/doubts and their implications for us:

+ First I am curious about why Thomas has received such a bum rap: not only does he raise questions that each of us have asked, but it would seem that EACH and ALL of the disciples are a combination of doubt and trust in the days and weeks following Easter.  Following the arc of the story as shared in John's gospel, it might be fair to say that those who follow Jesus are always living in some type of tension between trust and uncertainty.  On Easter Sunday the text tells us that even after Magdalene and Peter had found the tomb of Jesus - and after the Lord had spoken words of reassurance to Mary - the disciples were still living behind locked doors in fear.  What's more, even after Christ's first Easter appearance in the upper room where the disciples were blessed and filled with the Holy Spirit of the Lord's peace, apparently they continued to live behind doors that were locked for fear of the religious authorities. 

Hmmm... a week after they had encountered the risen Christ they were still  plagued by fears and doubt.  Apparently Thomas was not the only one, yes?  As one theologian has written, "The disciples seem to embody a belief that reaches towards but never quiet achieves complete understanding of Jesus."  Sounds pretty familiar to me.  Could it be that living by faith has something to do with accepting our doubts and finding ways to wrestle with them honestly?

Like the theologian, Peter Rollins, says so clearly:

Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think… I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system. However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.

+   Another interesting question has to do with the PEACE Jesus offers his friends and

followers:  what's going on here?  Again it seems to me that we might be more faithful by considering varying dimensions of this peace rather than assuming that there is only one true meaning.  I think of the peace - or serenity - that comes from resting or trusting in the Lord.  Is Jesus sharing this with his loved ones?  I think so.  This doesn't mean that thee won't be troubles or suffering; he clearly is NOT speaking about the absence of conflict or trials.  But rather an assurance that God is God so we don't have to make everything turn out right.  We don't have to try to be control of every outcome.  How does the Serenity Prayer put it? 

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

Another aspect of this peace has to do with living according to kingdom values:  no longer are we to operate according to the rules of the status quo.  Now, when we come together, we are to move towards harmony and respect, love and cooperation.  We are to aspire and strive for... peace.  Clearly that is what Jesus taught his disciples when he was with them on earth:  he brought VERY different people together - tax collectors and zealots, fisherman and farmers, women and men, rich and poor and invited them to live together in peace.  They had to do the hard work of making love real in flesh and blood settings rather than dwell in philosophical abstractions.  They had to listen when they wanted to scream:  SHUT UP.  They had to share when they really wanted to hoard.  They had speak when they were afraid.  And trust when they were confused.

And over and over again they had to practice - and receive - forgiveness.  One of the key ingredients in Christ's peace is forgiveness.  The writer Robert Capon put it like this when he wrote that believers are:

.. not in the morals business. The world is in the morals business, quite rightfully; and it has done a fine job of it, all things considered. The history of the world's moral codes is a monument to the labors of many philosophers, and it is a monument of striking unity and beauty. As C.S. Lewis said, anyone who thinks the moral codes of (humankind) are all different should be locked up in a library and be made to read three days' worth of them. You will be bored silly by the sheer sameness.

What the world cannot get right, however, is the forgiveness business – and that, of course, is the church's real job. She is in the world to deal with the Sin which the world can't turn off or escape from. She is not in the business of telling the world what's right and wrong so that it can do good and avoid evil. She is in the business of offering, to a world which knows all about that tiresome subject, forgiveness for its chronic unwillingness to take its own advice.  And the minute she even hints that morals, and not forgiveness, is the name of her game, she instantly corrupts the Gospel and runs headlong into blatant nonsense.

So that's what I'm thinking about as this week gently moves towards Sunday.  All around me are stories of sin and stupidity - brokenness and tragic human frailty - and they are real and hard and true.  At the same time, there is the still small voice of Christ's peace - and the promise of forgiveness - and for at least today I trust that it is sufficient.