| May 3, 2009
You are welcome to reflect on this message
Easter was a private event, unlike Good Friday, which was quite public. The resurrection though, is strictly between God and Jesus. So nobody was invited to the cemetery for the viewing and nobody saw it. All we have is a rumor about it, that can only be tested by dying ourselves. Somebody said that somebody saw him. Only it didn’t look like him, exactly. And before anybody recognized him, he’s gone! After Easter Jesus comes and goes like a rainbow on a sunny day: now you see him, now you don’t! “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as we walked along the road?”
In today’s post-Easter manifestation, ya’ll get two for the price of one. A week apart, Jesus had to come back for St. Thomas, for whom I’ve always had a soft spot. Commonly known as “the doubter,” but he was just tardy. Nor did he put much stock in blind faith. But he wasn’t gullible. Some people will believe anything! On Easter night, he was the odd-man out; and no-doubt felt left-out! Nobody likes being the last one to be told exciting news. So there was more disbelief than belief in the Upper Room. Sometimes it’s easier for God to reach a lost soul than it is an easy-believer.
The disciples didn’t believe the women. And Thomas didn’t believe the disciples. Nobody believed anybody at first. “Unless I see it, I ain’t buying it.” That’s Thomas, because he wasn’t where he’s supposed to be. Anybody trying to make sense of today’s monumental challenges and doesn’t have doubts, hasn’t lived long enough. A sense of curiosity is a healthy concomitant of being alive. Critical thinking sets us free of our illusions and enables us to distinguish between what’s true and false.
The opposite of faith is certainty. “Doubt” is a recent movie about that, based on two rival characters: a young priest who may or may not have taken advantage of a young boy at the school; and an aging nun who’d been around; a cold, disciplinarian who suspects that he did. One Sunday Father Flynn opens his confessional sermon on doubt with a question, “What do you do when you’re not sure?” Because of Sister Aloysius’ presence, he later preaches on the evils of gossip! That’s when it becomes open warfare! Despite the lack of proof, she’s convinced the priest is guilty because: "I know people." "I have my certainty." "It's my job to outshine the fox in cleverness." The unsettled issue is between his doubt and her conviction. The strength of skepticism vs. the weakness of certainty becomes apparent because the latter is unprepared to be wrong. That’s why you’re certain in the first place ... so you won’t have to be wrong.
Doubt is not the same as unbelief. Unbelief is a determined, refusal to believe. But doubt is an honest owning up to not being convinced. Thomas had questions. And that’s OK because to be without questions is not a sign of faith, but of lack of depth. When Jesus questioned God: “Why have you forsaken me?” it wasn’t because of his doubt, but because he believed. The scripture says, "Thomas, one of the twelve wasn’t with them when Jesus came." The other disciples, still sticky from the goo-of-God's glory, informed him of what he missed: “We have seen the Lord.” It was “too true to be good!” But Thomas would have none of it. In Luke they called it “an idle tale.” Thomas gets that line in the Fourth Gospel: “Until I see it like you guys did ... it’s just an idle tale." So next Sunday, Jesus appeared again in the Upper Room without opening the door and offered to let Thomas touch his wounds. But he never did. He didn’t need to. He just dropped to his knees: "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus gave Thomas “the benefit of the doubt.” And he’d have returned as often as it took until Thomas showed up. Because the message of Easter is: there’s more grace in God than sin in us. There’s seldom a "no" so definite that God will take it as final. Or a door so locked that Christ can't pick it! No heart so dead that God can’t revive it. And that’s good because there are plenty of Thomases in this world. He’s scurrying all over this enlightened College Hill, looking for a place to belong. He’s the skeptic, who watches people playing church, so they can be used to justify his own lack of interest. We’ve birthed several decades of Thomases, who already made up their minds that the church is more interested in itself than in them. Thomas is all around us, looking for “wounded hands.” He's in our families. He's in the next pew. And, if we’re honest, there's even a little bit of Thomas in ourselves. He’s the kid who was made to go to church and now never darkens the door. Thomas is the husband on the fringes of the faith, who thinks religion is for women and sissies. How do we present the Gospel to those like him? Do we debate him; bribe him; threaten him with hell; nag him about heaven or just leave him alone?
Notice that Jesus doesn’t shame Thomas. Instead of berating him for his lack of belief, John portrays him as a model for all who do their own thinking and believing. Because faith has no proxies. You have to do your own believing and disbelieving. “You gotta walk that lonesome valley.” Nobody else can do it for you. Jesus walked his and we have to walk ours. So Thomas embodies those for whom doubt is not a sin but a means of detecting reality. The church should be as open to those who ask good questions as they are to the know-it-alls with all the answers. People come to worship every week, not only because they believe, but because they want to believe. And we’ve got to give them something worth keeping when they do. Or they won’t come back. This story says faith is not the opposite of doubt. That’s certitude. Faith is the courage to go on in the face of doubt and in spite of questions that won’t go away, still trusting Jesus to keep his promise: “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.”
After Easter Jesus went out of his way to reconnect with his disciples, greeting them with "Peace," replacing their anxiety, doubt, and fear with his presence and forgiveness. In the Upper Room, Jesus used three pastoral gestures: He “showed them his wounds.” The same hands that pulled Lazarus out of a tomb; the hands that reached out to lepers; the hands that blessed the bread and lifted the cup and were strapped to a cross. Then he exposed his side, an intimate gesture not unlike post-surgical patients who display their stitches. Only Jesus' wasn't from surgery!
The disciples’ world was spinning so fast, they needed a tangible sign of confidence. They identified him by his scars, not his muscles. They had heard the women's report about the empty tomb, but words weren’t enough. Hurting people need a touchable Jesus! And into the room with locked doors he came out of nowhere, so they might "See for themselves his hands and feet." Contrary to the gnostic gospels, Jesus was no phantom. He invited them to handle him. This story should remind us how we ought to thank God for those people in our lives who are there when we need them. Church is at its best when it becomes our touchable Jesus. Maybe you've known that touch. Hopefully you've provided it. There is pastoral power in a healing, faith community. Where else are you going to go in this warped world, and somebody asks you to list your prayer concerns? This world won’t slow down one minute for your pain. They’re too busy running footraces! But the church does, continuing to offer perhaps its greatest gift: making Jesus real.
Then Jesus did something else pastoral, he “breathed on them.” This is John’s Pentecost. The Fourth Gospel has no showy spiritual signs, no glossalalia, or dancing tongues of fire. Nobody suspected they were drunk. Just scared. It’s easy to get the biblical Easter confused with the cultural one. With bunnies and colored eggs. We think Easter is something we “get.” The gospels don’t say: “Christ arose, therefore ... you too will arise.” That’s “something-for-nothing-shopping-mall-commercialism.” What the gospels say is: “Christ arose ... now go tell somebody about it!” The only thing God gives us on Easter is “something to do!” Believers receive the breath of the Spirit, in order that we may exhale that same Spirit on those who care enough to show up—who’ve locked themselves away from life or aren’t where they’re supposed to be.
Before it was over, he gave them one other thing to do: to be forgiving people. "For if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:21). In this world of blamers and judges, Easter gives us the opportunity to be blessers and forgivers! Jesus put himself out to make sure Thomas wasn’t left out. The Church sometimes leaves people feeling left out. Left out for not knowing enough or believing enough, or believing differently. That’ll get you left out! And there stands ol’ Thomas, patron saint of “the left out ones,” trying to develop a durable faith that dares to doubt, a bountiful faith that dares to believe, and a sustaining faith that seeks to serve.
But as beneficial as our doubts are, they’re not enough to build a life upon. The positive power in living comes not from what we doubt, but from what we believe; and what we believe in. Whatever it takes to bring us to our knees and declare: “My Lord and my God!” That’s what sets our life’s direction and influences what we say and do along the way. “These things were written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that in believing you may have life in his name.” (V. 31).
Providence Prayers: (5/3/09)
Breathe Thy Spirit into us in this worship that it may lead us to a stronger faith, evoke in us a spirit of peace, and open our eyes to something worse than “swine flu,” and that is the fear of it. We’re constantly aware of the many ways people say “I’m spiritual but not religious.” Let us be as gracious in forgiving the failings of our institutions as we are of ourselves.
We’re grateful for this hour to take a look around and see what the unexpected developments in our world have to offer us. Instead of trying to keep from getting lost, let us engage it as a spiritual discipline instead. Deep suffering makes theologians of us all. May our church help us make sense of the senseless things that invade our lives. We come not looking for miracles but for mercy and strength to leave behind our hiding places. In touching the wounds of Jesus, St. Thomas came to belief. We look around and see many wounds that tempt us to disbelieve. It has made us experts at blaming and worse at identifying woundedness. Believing doesn’t come easy for folks this far removed from Easter. We who have not seen keep trying to get it right. Lord forgive us.
We thank Thee for springtime in Providence, for hills to climb, burdens to bear, temptations to resist and doubts to overcome, signs of your presence in unlikely places, reminding us we’re not alone. Throughout this Easter Season, grant us open minds and hearts as a seed bed for a growing faith, so that we might do our part to fulfill these prayers. We pray in the name of the risen Christ, who makes meaningful life possible and for our church which makes it hopeful. Amen.
Jesus spent the last night of his life teaching his disciples to wash feet and eat supper. When you think of all the conceptual formulations at his disposal ... still he didn’t give them something to “think about.” Rather he gave them something to do...specific ways of being together that we still observe to this day. Something so real it can’t be intellectualized; something so untidy there’s no way to gain control over it. Something they could wrap their hands around and required them to get close enough to touch one another. Something they could smell, taste, and swallow. “Do this,” he said. Not “believe this.” But “Do this ... in remembrance of me.” I invite you to the table. Back |
