BELIEVE - Second Sunday of Easter
Author: Paster Carolyn Hetrick
April 07, 2024
So I wonder, which is harder to believe- that Jesus Christ rose from the dead or that peace can be among us in this world?
Awhile back, Michael and I became fans of a series called “Ted Lasso.” If you’re not familiar, Ted is an American football coach hired to coach an English team whose owner secretly hopes his inexperience will lead it to failure. You see, the new owner, Rebecca, has recently divorced Rupert, a vindictive and philandering man who cared more about his AFC Richmond team than anything else. Rebecca claimed his prize possession in their divorce, with the idea of running it into the ground so he could hurt like she did. Hiring Ted seemed like a sure thing. Early on, Ted taped a sign on the wall of the locker room with one word: BELIEVE. Short for “Do you believe in miracles?”
BELIEVE. Seven letters, all caps. Handwritten on a piece of yellow construction paper tacked to the wall with athletic tape. Crooked. Not surprisingly the members of this professional team and others were skeptical as Ted comes walking through the door. As they have been struggling to win, they are also struggling with each other. That sign doesn’t seem like much. But later in their time together, a disgruntled team member tears up the sign and it is found in pieces. By the time that happens, they wonder if they can believe without the sign. They are angered by his betrayal. It’s then that Ted comes in and says to them,
“Belief doesn’t just happen because you hang something up on a wall. All right? It comes from in here, in your heart, you know? And up here in your brain. Down here in your gut. Only problem is we all got so much junk floating through us, a lot of times we end up getting in our own way. You know, crap like envy, or fear or shame. I don’t want to mess around with that anymore, you know what I mean? Do you?
You know what I wanna mess around with? The belief that I matter… regardless of what I do or do not achieve. Or the belief that we all deserve to be loved, whether we’ve been hurt, or maybe we’ve hurt somebody else. Or what about the belief of hope? Yeah? That’s what I want to mess with.”
And you know, he could have been talking to Jesus’ disciples in that room, or to you and me. Belief in things like hope and peace are not so easy in the real world, are they? Jesus himself knows that faith is both a blessing and a miracle. 1
Believing in what we do not see takes more than just saying we believe in miracles. That’s what Jesus says in verse 29 that while it was one thing for Thomas to believe with Jesus standing right in front of him, it would one day be quite another thing to believe without such undeniable physical proof standing in the same room. It’s like that
torn up sign.
Belief doesn’t just happen because we are in this room, or in the presence of this cross or some other sign. It doesn’t just “happen’ because of what we do. And yet it is very possible. It is within us because of Jesus.
Yes, when we struggle to be at peace with ourselves and carry out the mission we are given, we can feel it’s just not the same without Jesus in the room. We do not have Jesus in the room the way those disciples once did. We are those who have not seen and yet hope to believe. Who struggle sometimes.
And I won’t be the first pastor to say I wish we had the same people here as last week when somehow the presence of lilies and special music lifted us up to a different place. After all, don’t we still want to be loved? Aren’t we still wanting to hope? Aren’t we still seeking peace this week too?
Taken one step farther, don’t we wish we saw the same amount of people in the room as we did in 2019? When Easter was more Easter-y? It’s just not the same without others in the room we want to see. Sometimes we are not at peace with this either. And maybe we want to chide those who are not here. Or wonder what or who is to
blame for an absence, like we want to do with Thomas. What about us?
You know, at your 10:30 service which we livestream, when I say that we are together in person and in spirit as we confess our faith, I mean it. But…truth be told, sometimes it is hard for me to not see and yet believe too. We’re all only human. But then Jesus shows up and says, “Peace be with you.” Jesus reminds me and us that the world of God’s power and love is so much larger than the lens of our fears, or disappointments or even resentments.
The other week, two folks were here who because of medical treatment often watch at home. They reminded me that when we in the room turn and wave during the sharing of the peace, they wave back, in the belief that we really are all together, just like we say.
Another man stopped in the share that for him and his recently departed parents the livestream was a lifeline. “I see you every week, just on the computer.” People who are virtually present, not because they don’t want to be physically here, but because they cannot. Including the 300 households who watched on Easter as far away as someone in Guatemala for work.
Yeah! This too is a place of hope and peace, the kingdom Jesus announced in his ministry. The kingdom he is now calling all disciples into more fully. “To begin to understand Jesus’ announcement of kingdom (or peace), we must first rid ourselves of
the notion that the world we experience will exist indefinitely.” 2
This is true both in what is good that we long for and what is bad that we pray will end.
“The gospels portray Jesus not only as offering then possibility of achieving what we have until now thought were unachievable goals like peace. Jesus actually proclaims and embodies a way of life God has made possible in the here and now.” 3 BELIEVE.
Funny thing about that BELIEVE sign. When it was torn down, the team members scrambled to find the scattered pieces. Each of them held on to one, until a day when they would piece it all together. But until then, they practiced believing without seeing the way they hoped for or had. They just kept holding on to some small bit and practicing hope. To learned to believe and keep believing. They even came to forgive both their owner who realized how wrong she had been, and the team mate who not only tore up the sign but bitterly competed against them before returning. They stopped
fearing themselves and each other and found peace, just like those disciples. But they would have to do that again and again.
Reassurance comes both in revelation and in the way Jesus encourages those who believe to do so without experiencing the physical presence of the resurrected Christ. The presence of the Holy Spirit substitutes for the presence of risen Jesus and
empowers us. That Spirit breathed into our midst somehow draws us together and holds us together and draws us into God’s future. The same Word and Spirit Jesus gave those disciples are given to us so we can believe even in something as fragile
and even mythical as peace. Believe in God’s providing, proclaim it and embody it. It is real and our world surely needs it. We can believe in miracles.
And although Jesus never played English Rules Football, I think he would agree with what Ted Lasso would add, “Believe that things can get better. Believe in yourself. Believe in one another. Man, that’s fundamental to being alive. And look, if you can do that, if each of you can truly do that, can’t nobody rip that apart.” AMEN.
1 Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, University of Notre Dame Press, 1983, p. 80
2 Hauerwas, p 83.
3 Ibid.
Gospel Text: John 20:19-31
19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my
finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you mayhave life in his name.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
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