Seeing, touching and believing
by the Rt. Rev. Thomas Clark Ely, Bishop of Vermont
Mountain Echo
May 2007

The familiar Sunday Gospel reading for Easter 2 (John 20:19-31) includes two resurrection appearance stories: one to the disciples without Thomas present and another with Thomas in the room. Both stories incorporate a reference to the wounded hands and side of our Lord’s body. In the first story, Jesus shows them his hands and side. In the second story,Thomas is invited to see and touch. In both stories the disciples come to belief through their encounter with the Risen Christ, wounds and all. In these stories seeing and believing go together.

When I consider this feature of John’s Gospel narrative through the lens of my recently completed sabbatical two things stand out most clearly for me. One is that my sabbatical was very much about seeing and touching, and ultimately about believing. The experiences I had in Sudan and El Salvador were very much “hands on.” Visiting Africa for the first time was a very sensory experience, and although I had visited El Salvador on several occasions the experience of living there for a month was likewise a very sensory experience. Especially in Sudan, but also in El Salvador, there was a constant refrain from my hosts encouraging me to “tell people back home what you have seen and heard and experienced here.”

Come and see—go and tell: there is a convincing and challenging pattern to that invitation. For me, it all leads to a deeper awareness and understanding of my vocation as a bishop. Apostolic ministry is first and foremost about witnessing—about telling others the compelling Easter story of the Good News of God in Christ. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

This ministry is not the bishop’s alone, as the Baptismal Covenant makes clear, and yet the bishop is the icon, if you will, of the faith community’s apostolic calling to witness to what we have seen and heard and experienced of the Risen Christ. The invitation and vocational calling that follows from that is to live the new life of Easter and engage ourselves fully in God’s reconciling mission for the world.

The second thought I have when I reflect on this Gospel narrative through the lens of my sabbatical is how truly present Christ was to me through the members of the Body of Christ I met in Sudan and El Salvador. In large part, I think that was because they shared with me their wounds and their scars. They invited me to see and to touch the reality of their wounded lives, and that was a profound gift to me.

But the gift did not stop there. The real gift, the Easter gift I would say, was their capacity to proclaim the hope that lies beyond those wounds and scars. The harsh realities of war’s legacy, political oppression and economic poverty, along with a lack of access to education, health care, clean water and sanitation, all contribute to the wounds and scars on these “bodies of Christ,” and clearly there are no easy answers. Yet time and again I heard and saw a profound witness to faith and belief in the power and possibility of God to bring life out of death, and Paul’s words in Second Corinthians seem especially apropos: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies” (2 Corinthians 4:8-10).

Having received the gift of profound intimacy through the sharing of lives and stories, I find myself wanting more. I’m feeling both a tremendous sense of responsibility and a growing passion to engage myself and our diocese more deeply in mission beyond the very real and pressing needs and concerns of life here in Vermont. I don’t think it is an either/or proposition, but rather a both/and opportunity to deepen our engagement in God’s reconciling mission. I do not know where that journey will lead us. What I do believe is that we need to take that journey and that we will not be alone in that journey.

My deepest feeling as I return from sabbatical is that of gratitude. I am grateful for the opportunity to see and touch the wounded Body of Christ in the lives of our sisters and brothers in other parts of the world. I am grateful for the opportunity to experience the presence of the Risen Christ in those same wounded bodies. I am grateful for all those who accepted added responsibilities during my time away and for the prayers I felt so strongly. And I am grateful for the way God has blessed Ann and me during this time of sabbatical with a profound sense of the Spirit’s presence, protection and grace.

Alleluia,
+Thomas