God of limitless and unbounded love, you came into our midst as one who overcame every boundary and barrier, even that of death. Move among us now as one who can speak healing through wounds, hope in despair, and faith despite our doubts. Breathe resurrection power in the dead places of our hearts and strengthen our witness so that others may come to see because of what we have seen and heard. Amen.
Centering Words (Acts 2, Ps 16, 1 Pet 1)
All the doubt in the world cannot wash away our inheritance from God—an inheritance of love, refuge, and strength.
Call to Worship
Christ is Risen!
Christ is Risen, indeed!
Even when we struggle to see the good news in the face of poverty, injustice, conflict, and woundedness,
Christ is Risen, indeed!
Even when our hearts hurt and we struggle to find hope to get us through another day,
Christ is Risen, indeed!
Even when we are faithful and yet we see little proof of our labor,
Christ is Risen, indeed!
Glory be to God who has overcome death and gives us faith, hope, and love that overcome all things. Amen.
Sermon
Several miles outside of the city of what is today Chennai, India, lies a sacred memorial called the Saint Thomas Mount. It is the traditional place where Thomas the Disciple was martyred after having journeyed there to plant one of the early churches and spread the good news of Jesus Christ. The courage it took to journey so far from home and to sow seeds of the gospel in what is today southeastern India must have required great faith. South and Southeast Asia have a combined population of over 2 billion people today. Around India, many countries are characterized by huge cities containing neighborhoods that contain millions of people living close together in often highly unhygienic conditions. Even the most basic protocols for warding off COVID-19, such as hand-washing and social distancing, are all but impossible to practice. “India is a hugely populous country. The future of this pandemic will be determined by what happens to densely populated countries. It’s important that India takes aggressive action at the public health level and at the level of society to control and suppress this disease,”
In India, the world’s second-most populous nation, churches across the country finally closed their doors March 23, more than a week after the Vatican decided to have Holy Week services behind closed doors.
On March 24, the Indian government ordered people not to leave their houses for three weeks.
Yet already, many have chosen to ignore government directives, underscoring the task Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ahead of him. Assuming the World Health Organization’s 3.4 percent fatality rate compared to confirmed infections, India could have almost a million confirmed cases by the end of May, with more than 30,000 deaths. Some estimates are as much as double those numbers. Yet in India like in the United States this is a time for the Faithful to take the journey of Faith. This is a time for us to understand that if sickness and death must come, we are called to face both on the battlefield serving the Lord. But the Hope of the Faithfull is that Jesus brings life not Death in his resurrection and that the real miracle of the Empty Tomb and the seeing of the Resurrected Christ is Power and not fear.
Van Gogh is reported to have said this: "If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."
Thank goodness he did.
Chances are you sometimes get into psychic wrestling match with a little voice in your head that chips away at your confidence and dials up your doubts.
What if you mess up? You'll make a fool of yourself? What will people say? You're just not smart enough, talented enough, capable enough, experienced enough?
Self-doubt is part and parcel of the human experience. As it should be. We don't have to look too far to see that too little self-doubt can be outright dangerous. Yet left unchecked, the fear that fuels our doubt can drive us to be over cautious and keep us from taking the very actions that would help us and serve others. I see far too many capable and talented people selling themselves short because they fear they don't have what it takes to succeed. Doubt sits triumphant. Actions go undone.
We don't pick up the phone and make the call. We don't extend the invitation. We don't raise our hand for promotion. We don't say "Enough!". We don't push back, say no, say yes, move on, dive in or pick up the pen.
Doubt is often seen as the opposite of safe.
But in John 20:19-31, we see that doubt can be a pathway that opens up and ultimately leads to great faith.
Just one week after we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we are faced with the timeless story of “Doubting Thomas.” Jesus appears to his disciples, and they get to see physical proof of his resurrection.
Yet, later, when Thomas asks to see proof because he was not there when Jesus appeared the first time, he seems to be chastised by Jesus and, in our tradition, branded as a doubter.
What Thomas was asking was for Jesus to “Do it Again” and we need to be clear in life you are not always going to get a second chance. I know in the fairytail life that a lot of us want to live in, if we miss something folks are going to jump to give us a second or third chance. In reality Rev and Friends many times in real life if you are not at the meeting if you are not at the table if you are not on the zoom call or the Conference call you might Just miss what the holy Spirit is doing.
And I agree with the traditional understanding that maybe the reason Thomas was not in the upper room was he had subcume to his fear and doubt.
I also want to announce that one of the most powerful forms of Doubt is Self-Doubt
Yet while none of us are immune to self-doubt (with the exception of some serial narcissists that come to mind), we all have the ability to keep it from directing our decisions, continuing our silence and shaping our lives. So how do we banish the doubt? We don’t. What we do is learn how to reclaim the power it has held over us. Let’s look at some ways this Sunday you can unlike Thomas overcome your Doubt during this season of Quarateen.
1. Embrace Doubt as Part of Being Human
As you think about the things, you’d most love to achieve or change in your life right now, just know that self-doubt is there to protect you from the humiliation of falling flat on your face. So, follow the advice of Dr Kristen Neff, self-compassion expert and "Don’t beat yourself up for beating yourself up." Far better than beating up on your inner critic is to befriend it; to acknowledge that it's just trying to keep you safe and spare you humiliation. Embracing self-doubt as an intrinsic part of the human experience is crucial to reclaiming the power it has held over you... until now. You are human. You will mistake. You will doubt yourself. It's what you do next that matters. Which brings me to the second step…
2. Doubt Your Doubts
Self-doubts are just your fears made manifest in order to protect you from loss. Yet the irony is that, to paraphrase Shakespeare, doubt often makes you lose out on what you may have gained by fearing the attempt. Your doubts are not the truth. Rather they are fear-fueled stories you create about who you are, what you’re worth and what you’re capable of achieving. So, let me repeat just one more time to make sure you got it:
Your doubts are not the truth.
In fact, more often than not, they’re just the opposite. So the next time you start to doubt yourself, take a moment to challenge that thought; to doubt your doubts! Ask yourself “What if just the opposite were true?” What if, in fact, you were more than prepared for a bigger role? If you had everything it takes to build that business? If what you had to say was extremely important? If you were more than talented/worthy/clever/(fill-in-the-blank) enough to pursue this goal?
3. Call Out Your Critic
Often, we hear our doubts relayed through the voice of our ‘inner critic.’ You know the one… it’s constantly pointing out your faults, questioning your worthiness (it’s the chief culprit for the Imposter Syndrome), and urging you to play it safe. While you can’t permanently silence it, you can dilute its power by giving it a name. Doing so helps you distinguish who you are from the fear and doubt you feel. Think up a name the best describes the scared part of you that wants you to live small and stay safe. You may even want to write a short letter to it to tell it you're no longer going to let it run the show. "Dear Doubting Deborah, it's time..."
4. Make Your Mission Bigger Than Your Fear
Why would you bother to speak up and risk rocking the boat or being rejected? Why would you lay your reputation on the line? Why would you take a chance on that dream? Only when you are clear about your big ‘Why’ can you find the courage needed to step through your doubts and risk failing. You need to be able to find a clear and compelling answer to the question “For the sake of what am I willing to be brave?” Doing so will help crystallize why you must take action despite your doubts, knowing that if you let them win, you will run the bigger risk of one day looking back and wondering ‘What if I’d tried?’ Letting self-doubt sit in the driver’s seat is a sure-fire recipe for regret and resentment.
5. Build A Tribe of Believers
You shape your tribe and your tribe shapes you. After all, mastery of life is not a solo endeavor. When you surround yourself with people who bring out your best and embolden your thinking, you can do more, be more and give more than you ever could otherwise .
The people you hang out with will either fuel your self-doubt or fuel your confidence. So, if you’re ready to make a change or take a chance, make sure you surround yourself with people who will help you to stay in action despite your doubts. Avoid those who won’t!
If we look closer, particularly to the end of the passage, we see that in fact it is about the reader and not Thomas himself. Because, like Thomas, the reader will not have had a physical encounter with Jesus, nor will they have an exhaustive memoir of his life. What the reader has is the gospel, the story of the good news of God through the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The reader or hearer of the gospel fills their faith because they believe without the need to see. Nobel Peace Prize recipient and author Elie Wiesel famously spoke of his experience interviewing Holocaust survivors noting, “When you listen to a witness, you become a witness.”
This Easter season, we are witnesses to the resurrection power of God’s love.
Benediction Go and be a witness because of those who risked and journeyed, struggled and loved. Go and be a witness to what God’s love can do in the world to overcome broken systems, strained relationships, and human greed. Go in the love, grace, and peace that God gives, and may we be the church in a hurting world. Amen.
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