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I am not sure I would want to hitch my wagon to Peter or the other disciples. Certainly not given their track record up to now in the scriptures. They do not look like rocks. But now they are going to be the rock on which Jesus builds his church. We have seen time and time again that the disciples crack under stress and that they do not comprehend what Jesus tells them. However, Jesus calls them. Jesus lets us know that they will be our guides. They will pull the followers together. They will take this disparate and far-flung group and knit them together as one. As one church.
Today’s Scriptures are amazing. They are about God’s overflowing love for Creation, for us. They show us the awesome power of God. They show us a force with an overarching vision for all people. In Paul, we see a beautiful vision of life for God’s people. But then, … We see the vessels that Jesus is going to use. “Really. You are going to use who for the job?” the crowds probably responded. If Thomas is an example of how followers responded to the proclamation of the Resurrection, then we know God is capable of working miracles. God can even be seen through our befuddled minds. Those first leaders had to serve in many roles. They may have needed to be “the rock”. However, they also had to be ministers, teachers, exhorters, leaders and even prophets. They had to have compassion to heal the ill and the injured and to pick up the fallen. That is a lot of roles for a group of scraggly individuals. God makes a habit of picking limited folks to carry the message. God makes a habit of choosing obviously fallible individuals to proclaim salvation. These preachers and teachers, leaders and prophets always point beyond themselves to the One who saves. That is precisely the point. Broken and leaking vessels are the best vehicles for God. It makes it easy for us to not confuse the messengers with the message. It makes it easy for us to believe that the power and words that are expressed come from beyond the speaker. Peter and Paul, you and I are only the messengers. God is making use of our hands and feet, our hearts and minds. They and we are not operating on our own steam. It is God’s power that propelled them into the street. It is God’s brain that creates the vision. It is God’s heart that resonates in us. These disciples and we are qualified for the job of spreading God’s Word and Love in the world just as we are. Warts and all. We have these joyful Scriptures for today. They promise us that God’s power will be used to lift us up. It will place us on solid rock. It will ultimately keep us safe from having the storms of life defeat us. We will suffer from them, but we will not be defeated by them. We will prevail. So, we are joyful and confident. We stand tall and are not destroyed. We will be bowed by grief and loss. We will experience heartbreak and physical pain. We will experience betrayal and injustice. We will witness and sometimes get caught in the middle of humanity’s cruelty to one another. We are witnessing humanity’s destruction of creation in climate change. All of this can send us into rage, depression, and cynicism. They can cause us to despair for today and for the future. Each of us has been touched by one or more of these types of suffering. With school starting up soon, my thoughts went back to my school days. I remember the relentless teasing and the bullying I faced because I had a speech problem. I can still feel the heat in my stomach and the fear of vulnerability that I felt back then. Now, I read the headlines, listen to educators and counselors, and pay attention when children and their parents share what bullying is like for them. Schools and groups have not made much progress in weeding this problem out. In fact, with social media, it seems to have gotten worse. Now we know what the short term and long-term consequences can be for victims (and even for the perpetrator). On the other hand, I remember the simultaneous rage and relief I felt after listening to a reporter share what he learned after a two-year investigation of bullying. He was so horrified by what he learned that he set up a website for parents and others who worked with kids. They could go to this site to learn from others how to effectively address what they were seeing. Teachers, coaches, band directors, youth directors and others could connect to find some solutions. He said that within 2 weeks, he had received over 200,000 replies calling him all sorts of demeaning things and even threatening him. That was even more horrifying. It was horrifying that adults would be just as cruel as the cruelest kids. It revealed that there is a part of human nature that sees vulnerability as an opportunity for cruel behavior. However, people are taking bullying seriously. Finally, it is being seen for what it is. It is no longer being dismissed as “kids will be kids” and “it is just a rite of passage”. It damages and sometimes destroys kids. And finally, there is acknowledgment that it is not something that only happens to kids. It happens among adults. I felt seen and understood. I felt that my pain was finally being seen even if solutions were rarely found. There may never be a complete solution. But people out there are coming together to support one another in the face of it. The isolation that often comes with bullying no longer has to be the norm. Change can also happen on the macro level. For instance, we are already seeing how climate change is leading many of the younger generation to decide not to have children. Many feel that to bring children into the world when the world is on the cusp of environmental disaster is selfish. They believe that they will be leaving their children to a life of suffering. It is difficult to argue with them on this subject. There is no doubt that the future holds many dangers. There is no doubt that for an increasing number of people life is going to get more difficult. Fear, helplessness, even hopelessness are reasonable responses. However, they do not have to be our responses. Most folks and countries still see climate change as a future problem. The present damage still seems to be an ad hoc collection of unrelated incidents. So, it is still somewhat of a cerebral issue to us. In the face of this, we can despair. However, we do not have to. We are seeing solutions emerge. We are seeing groups and communities coming together. We are seeing solutions being implemented on the grass root level. They will be the catalyst and the foundation for large scale action. God is even now using leaky and weak vessels for this work. The church is and will continue to be a part of this journey. In the struggle to address climate change, we will not be alone. Communities will find each other. They will sustain each other and find solutions together. God will weave the church into this movement. We will find God in the midst of our darkest moments. We can and will find hope and joy in the world. We can have hope that we will find our way out of this darkness. Humanity has done it before. With God’s help, we can do it again. God’s promise is for real. The Gates of Hades will not prevail. I still doubt that I would have wanted to hitch my wagon to those early disciples. Their track record in the early days is not inspiring. I also am not sure that I want to trust Science to have the necessary solutions to our existential crisis. But I do trust Jesus. The Gospel today shows us that the followers of Jesus are not blindly trusting either the apostles or Science. We are trusting the God of all to guide both. We are trusting God to work through our broken vessels.
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