May Chimes

Dear siblings in Christ,

During the Easter season, our readings in church follow a very prescribed order. The gospel on Easter Sunday is always an account of the Resurrection. On Easter 2, it is the story of Doubting Thomas. Easter 3 gives us a story of the resurrected Christ sharing a meal with his disciples. Easter 4 is a passage from John 10, on the Good Shepherd. The first readings during the season of Easter are always from the book of Acts, sharing the stories of the early church. And the second readings always go sequentially through an epistle.

This year, that epistle is 1 John. It’s a great book—a short one, too, if you’re ever inspired to read a whole book in one sitting—written to and for a community living through changing and challenging times. This group of early Christians was trying to figure out who they were and how they would follow Christ when things that they’d once taken for granted—their faith community, their neighbors, their families—all suddenly looked very different.

My favorite verse from 1 John is perhaps its most famous: “Little children, let us love, not in word or in speech, but in truth and action” (1 John 3:18). As author and former Peace Corps director Jerry Sternin said, “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting.”

I love this idea that our habits and our actions influence our beliefs, because so often we assume it’s the other way around! But when we’re struggling, when we’re not sure what we believe, when the whole world seems confusing and scary, this is when we continue to walk the walk. When we continue doing the things that Christ bids us do: loving our neighbors as ourselves, sharing his love, being people marked by forgiveness and mercy.   

In some ways, it’s almost a “fake it ‘til you make it” mentality, which can seem flippant when talking about our faith. But I love the idea that we don’t always have to have it all figured out to be doing the stuff of discipleship. That it’s okay to have questions and doubts, and at the same time, we are still active in following Christ. One does not negate the other.

So, beloved of God, let us love, perhaps not just in word and in speech, but also in truth and action. And may we be drawn ever closer to the one who appears despite our doubts to share with us the resurrected life of God.

In Christ,

Pastor Laura

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