The Second Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2020, is the Sunday the church recalls the story of Thomas. Thomas was not present with the other disciples on Easter when they first encountered the Risen Jesus. For declaring what he must see in order to believe, Thomas has been labelled as “Doubting” Thomas. Perhaps it is an unfair attribution, but it has stuck. Thus, Thomas has become the leader of a tribe of people who live with doubt and long for faith. Rather than seeing doubt as the opposite of faith, Frederick Buechner has reminded us that “doubt is the ‘ants in the pants’ of faith” as doubt is the guarantor that faith remains lively and not deadly certain.
This Sunday is also the 50th celebration of Earth Day. The actual day is Wednesday, April 22. I was a high school senior in April of 1970 when Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin urged students across the country to participate in a teach-in on the environment. Remember teach-ins? Over these 50 years the challenges have changed, even deepened, but the goal Senator Nelson proposed remains:
“Our goal is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all human beings and all other creatures—an environment without ugliness, without poverty, without discrimination, without hunger and without war. Our goal is a decent environment in its deepest and broadest sense.”
Join us this Sunday online for the Second Sunday of Easter and Earth Day 50 with the Congregational Church of Weston UCC. Links will be sent by email and posted on the church’s Facebook page on Sunday mornings at 12:01am. So, you may choose the time of your Sunday morning worship! If you go through Facebook, please share! There is also a link to an “Earth Day Actions” flyer from the SNEUCC Environmental Ministries with which Paul Schendel participates.
Congregational Church of Weston, UCC 