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Sermon 04/03/2005
Through Believing You
May Have Life ~ by Tom Kinder
April 3, 2005, Second Sunday of Easter
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont,
UCC
Psalm :16; John 20: 19 - 31
Earlier in the service I told the joke about people
reading ahead in the hymnal to see if they agree
with the words before they sing. It makes for
poor singing and it makes for a good joke, but
the truth is I admire people who take their belief
and their life so seriously that they will not
sing what they do not believe. I am not that careful,
myself. I tend to focus on the parts of hymns
I do believe and ignore the parts that reflect
a theology different from mine. But I believe
in the importance of belief.
At the same time, I would argue with what many
Christians believe about belief. I may be wrong
and they may be right—after all, by definition
belief is all about things we cannot know for
certain—but I believe differently from those
who say that all we need in order to be saved
is to believe in Jesus Christ, or those who say
that only people who believe in Jesus Christ will
be saved. If saved means to be helped in life
and welcomed into the realm of God’s light
at death, then I believe that God will not limit
help and welcome only to those who believe in
one narrow definition of one religion. And I know
that it is possible to believe and yet still not
walk in the light.
But while I do not agree with some beliefs, I
do believe that belief is vitally important, and
that it plays a very practical role in our lives.
I believe belief can make the difference between
life and death.
The Easter story from the gospel of John concludes
with a teaching about belief. It blesses those
who believe without needing the visible proof
that the disciples needed. And then it ends with
these verses: “Now Jesus did many other signs
in the presence of his disciples which are not
written in this book. But these are written so
that you may come to believe that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing
you may have life in his name.”
Through believing in Christ you may have life.
That is something I do believe. Last week I told
a story about a couple named Nathan and Louise.
They were threatened in their home by an escaped
convict pointing a loaded shotgun in their faces.
Louise disarmed the man by telling him that she
was a Christian lady and did not allow violence
in her home. Louise had a vision of what kind
of messiah Jesus was. She believed that the realm
of God excludes violence and includes love for
all people. She had no visible proof of this realm,
but through believing she had the vision and courage
to act as if it was real. As a result, through
her actions, she made it real. She turned a deadly
situation, full of violence and fear and hate,
into a blessed situation that saved life and gave
new life and filled her home with light and love.
The realm of God is always present as a possibility
in every situation, although sometimes it is hard
to see. The realm of God is always present, but
sometimes it takes our faith and actions to make
it visible. It takes our believing to make it
visible to us—because although some things
need to be seen to be believed, other things have
to be believed to be seen.
Once we see the way of Christ or the realm of
God, it takes our actions to make it visible to
others. We do not create the realm of God but
we make it visible the way a sheet on a laundry
line makes the wind visible. We make it visible
the way a light bulb makes electricity visible.
We may not have the power to light up the whole
dark world, but all who come near will see some
of God’s light and feel some of God’s
love and take in some of God’s life. Our
job is to believe that the way of Christ leads
through every situation and, because we believe,
then try to find it and try to walk it so that
we may walk safely and others may see the way.
For Louise and Nathan and the escaped convict,
one person’s believing and acting on her
belief saved all three lives. This was only an
extreme, dramatic example of what can happen every
day in the life of anyone who believes. Through
believing we may all have life—a better life,
a life that has the light and love that evil cannot
corrupt and death cannot end.
Through believing we may have life if we live
what we believe. The Psalm we read today talked
about keeping the Lord always before us, about
getting counsel from God, about our heart instructing
us in the night, about keeping the Lord on our
right hand. Believing made the Psalmist look to
God for guidance and refuge. The Psalmist lived
what he believed. He believed God would help,
and so as he went through life he looked for God’s
help. And because he looked he found it.
It is such a simple, common-sense thing, and yet
how often do we forget to look to God as we go
through our days? How often do we get all wound
up or bogged down and lose sight of our belief
about God’s help? We forget to stop and breathe
and let go and pray.
It happens to the best of us. The difference between
the greatest saint and the least of us is that
the great saints catch themselves forgetting God
more quickly and they return to God sooner than
the rest of us. They fall and get up, fall and
get up, fall and get up. The best simply remember
to get up, remember to look to God again, remember
to live what they believe, a little more quickly.
Not long ago a minister was talking to one of
her parishioners. He had asked her how she was
doing and she answered truthfully that she was
depressed. She explained that it was situational—there
had been many deaths in the parish recently, and
many people in crisis, and she was tired and needed
a break, but there was no break in sight. The
parishioner responded by saying that he thought
that if people believed in Jesus Christ, they
wouldn’t get depressed—meaning that
if she really believed, if she was really as good
as she should be, she would always be happy.
Maybe if there were such a thing as a perfect
human being in a perfect world and with a perfect
faith, that person would never fall into a situational
depression. Maybe. But the fact of the matter
is that the perfect person and faith and world
do not exist. Believing does not lead to perfection,
but it does lead to life, however imperfect or
intermittent that might be.
The Psalmist was writing on a good day. He said,
“The boundary lines have fallen for me in
pleasant places…My heart is glad and my soul
rejoices and my body rests secure.” He said,
“You show me the path of life. In your presence
there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are
pleasures forevermore.”
I don’t know about that other pastor, but
I know that I have good days or good moments like
the Psalmist. I find that when I am down or over-whelmed
and I turn to God believing that help can come
from God, help does come. Maybe not quickly, and
maybe not all the help I think I need, but I can
feel things improve. And when I am lying awake
in the night, prayer brings peace to my overworking
mind. And when I am so tired I do not feel I can
do what still needs to be done, turning to God
and asking for the power and wisdom I need enables
me to relax. I can feel something shift inside.
I gain a second wind. If I did not believe, I
would not ask. If I did not ask, I would not receive
that new life.
My guess is that most people really do not know
what to make of the Easter story. Should we take
it literally? If so, which of the conflicting
versions do we take as literal truth? The resurrection
may be challenging to believe as we read about
it, but if we have felt that we have gained life
through believing when all hope seemed to be lost,
if we have emerged from sickness or depression,
some dark night or winter of the soul, into a
vibrant, bright new spring, then we find that
we don’t have to get hung up on which gospel
account to believe, or how any of it could be
possible. We know the truth of resurrection because
we have felt it. We don’t need to read ahead
to see if we agree with the specific words. We
can sing with joy at the underlying truth that
we know in our bones.
And that is why we can laugh today, even if at
this moment we happen to feel more in the tomb
than in the light. We can laugh because we believe
that there is a power that will help us, and there
is a way, a path that we can take to renewed life,
and that way leads through believing and living
what we believe. We know that though we are fallen
now, there will be a reversal, a getting up.
So three pastors were feeling down and needed
a day off. They decided to go fishing. They got
a little way from shore and realized they had
forgotten the bait. So one of the pastors hopped
out of the boat and walked across the water to
get it. He came back and his feet had barely gotten
wet. Another pastor decided he wanted his sunglasses
which were in his car, so he got out and walked
across the water to get them.
Then a little later they realized they had left
the cooler with lunch in it on shore as well.
The third pastor said, “I’ll go.”
He was eager to walk on water, too. He stepped
out of the boat and went right down. The first
pastor turned to the second and said, “Do
you think we should have told him where the rocks
are?”
Maybe it is not a great joke, but if you live
what you believe, and people see you overcoming
problems or laughing in the face of them, you
should be kind enough to explain to them what
it is that has helped you. Show them where the
stepping stones are for you, make the realm visible
and the way plain to see, so that through believing,
they too may have life.
Let us pray in silence…
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