Brief synopsis of the readings: We are going to spend a great deal of the Easter Season reading from the Acts of the Apostles. It was written by the author of Luke’s Gospel and recounts the earliest days of the community that gathered around the Resurrection of Jesus. Here we read about how the whole group of believers were united in everything. None claimed authority over anyone else and they all shared what they had. They sold everything they owned and brought the money to the apostles who gave to anyone in need. John’s Gospel recounts the first time Jesus appears to the disciples. As proof that he was truly Jesus he showed them the wounds in his hands and side. Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not present and when he was told that Jesus appeared, he said he would not believe it was Jesus until he saw the wounds himself. A week later Thomas was present with the disciples and Jesus appeared again. Jesus invited Thomas to place his fingers in Jesus’ wounds. Instead Thomas answered: “My Lord and my God!” Jesus then told him that he believed because he saw, but blessed are those who have not seen but believe.

Let us go back to the beginning. If we understand how something started we can understand what we are to do now. I’m an unquenchable student of history and I can’t get enough of understanding what really happened long, long ago. This thirst brings with it an almost inevitable belief that the more we understand about then, the more we will understand now.

It’s true, after all. We continue to study the U.S. Constitution as we debate legal issues today. We read Shakespeare nearly 400 years after his death because of his insights into human behavior and character. And we read these passages from the Acts of the Apostles to gain an understanding of how that first generation of disciples saw Jesus and themselves as they built the first building blocks of what we now understand is the Christian Church.

But there’s a problem here: interest in our history can easily morph into a false nostalgia. We can look at an event in history and believe that this event was the most pure and we need to ignore everything that has happened since and replicate that time.

But it’s not true. Astrophysicists look through elaborate telescopes to “look back in time” to understand the Big Bang, an event that we think took place 13.8 billion years ago in hopes of understanding our current universe. Archaeologists spend their lives sifting through rock and sand to find clues to ancient times to understand why we are who we are. Genealogists (like me) sift through records to find information on our ancestors in our quest to understand who we are.

But this knowledge we gain should never to go back in time and ignore all that has happened since then. Last week I spoke about a progressive understanding of history and how that runs against a belief that we need to remember for the purpose of redoing.

The history of Christianity is littered with communities who read this passage from Acts and falsely decided that they needed to go back and recreate this passage. The opening line, “The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed for his own use anything that he had, as everything they owned was held in common” has become the mission statement for dozens (perhaps hundreds) of failed communities.

Thomas Merton, in his book The Waters of Siloe describes one such event. In 1848 a Trappist Monastery in France decided to send several members to the United States to found a monastery in Kentucky in the United States. The journey was not easy and it involved several legs, including a boat trip across the Atlantic Ocean to New Orleans and then a trip up the Mississippi River. In France they were joined by a group who called themselves “Icarians.” They were nonreligious and believed that they would join a utopian community where all were equals and nobody would want for anything and they were headed for Texas to join an existing community. But when they reached New Orleans the Icarians learned that the community they were to join had already fallen apart. The Icarians then fought among themselves for the remaining resources. One attempted to steal the entire purse and another committed suicide. It became an absolute failure.

We should not see this reading from Acts as a blueprint for our Catholic community today, 2000 years later. We misread this passage when we look at it and say: “They had it right and we have strayed. We should go back to our roots and live as they did.” In fact they didn’t for very long. As we read the history of the first generations of Jesus’ disciples we read how they struggled to find their path in the community where they lived. Acts is not an account of how they had it right and then began to drift; it is an account of how they came together and found their path.

The ideal of a communal treasury where everyone contributes according to his ability and takes according to his need simply does not work on a large scale. This model works in families: the adults who are able to work contribute to the whole and the children (or those unable to work) benefit from that. No family goes out to dinner and expects the children to contribute to the bill or divides up the admission to Disneyland equally among all its members. It’s understood that some can provide more than they take and others take more than they can provide.

But as we read in later passages in Acts and in much of Paul’s letters the community recognized that some were wealthy and some were poor. The rise of deacons, as we see in the 6th chapter of Acts, came out the recognition that some widows were not being supported. Instead of demanding that everyone contribute to a common pool, deacons were appointed to ensure the poor were cared for. This allowed the community to experience generosity and allowed the widows to benefit. The wealthiest among the disciples were still wealthier than the widows, but at least the widows had enough to live on.

This may seem like a bit of a curveball, but I want to use the same point when I speak of the Gospel. Many of you have heard me, in years past, grumble about how my namesake Thomas gets bad press. He is often seen as the “apostle with the asterisk,” the one with just enough faith, but not as much as Jesus wanted.

I don’t think that’s fair. Jesus’ followers were gathered together and saw the risen Jesus and Jesus showed them the wounds from his crucifixion. Later, when Thomas heard about this he told them he wouldn’t believe until he actually touched the wounds. Was this because of a deficit of faith? I really don’t think so. I think Thomas was so devastated by the events of Good Friday that he dared not hope because he could not have lived with those hopes being dashed once again. I simply think he asked for the proof the other apostles had been given.

And I’d also like to point out that when he encountered the risen Jesus and Jesus offered Thomas to touch the wounds, Thomas did not. He simply said: “My Lord and my God.” Jesus’ phrase after that is what most of us find most interesting: “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

Throughout the years we’ve read this line and assumed it meant that Thomas didn’t have enough faith but I don’t think that’s true. Again we are in the first few days of our history as disciples of Jesus. This scene isn’t meant to be the ideal we should all aspire to. I think Jesus was telling the apostles (and us) something different: I think Jesus was telling them (and us) that those who had the opportunity to see the wounds would dwindle and eventually die out over the years. Within a few decades there would be nobody around who had the opportunity to see the wounds. When Jesus speaks of those who have not seen and have believed, he is talking about all of us. We have not seen, two thousand years later, and we believe. And we are blessed.

Today we continue our journey with the resurrected Jesus. Let us celebrate not only those events we read about in these readings, but also the journey that has brought us to today. As disciples we need to look back to these early days but not do so as a way of demeaning where we are and who we are today. These events remind us, and in truth keep us true to our journey, but they are not the “magic time” that we lost. We are not called to be the first generation that knew Jesus but we called the be those who continue to know Jesus two millennia later. We are not called to recreate the first few chapters of the Acts of the Apostles but we are called to act as apostles in our own day.

Let us celebrate the apostles of Jesus’ time, the apostles of today, and all the apostles in the time in between.