May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
Now, for all of you that thought Easter was last Sunday…
Today is Easter…too, or 2.
Easter is not just a single day on the calendar. We are still celebrating Easter and we are in Eastertide until the day of Pentecost, this year falling on June 8th.
In truth, we are always in Easter – we are, as I said last Sunday, a resurrection people. But, the celebration of the life that grows out of death at this time of year – in the story of the resurrection, in the new flowers and budding trees, in the freshness of the Spring air, especially following the coldness of winter and the contemplative quiet of Lent, makes this time of year particularly invigorating and refreshing for our faith, and our lives.
It’s a funny thing about faith – many people claim to have it, but what exactly do they have? I remember a poll that came out a few years ago that found that the percentage of Americans who believe that heaven exists was 77. And the percentage of Americans who expect to get in was 67. So, apparently faith abounds in some degree or another.
Now, when I was growing up, there were certain things expected of me, as is true for a lot of kids I suppose: clean your room, do your homework, and go to church. I was raised Baptist, so at least I was sort of guaranteed to do one of those three, because getting up and wearing your Sunday best wasn’t an option. And the truth was… I enjoyed church.
Going to church for me when I was young meant Sunday School, church choir, and most definitely in the summer, – Vacation Bible School. Everyone carried a bible to church, you memorized passages and the books of the bible, sang songs about how Jesus loved the little children…and nobody ever wanted to be known as a “Doubting Thomas.” A label that we all know, coming from today’s gospel reading.
Poor Thomas. I mean, the guy goes out to use the “little disciples room” or a smoke break or whatever…and what do you know, the Lord drops by for a cup of coffee. But let’s think about this a minute…the gospel says that all of the disciples were essentially huddled in a room, afraid for their lives. Now Mary had already told them that Jesus had appeared to her, and by some accounts, the disciples didn’t believe Mary when she told them about Jesus. And this morning, we hear about Jesus coming into the locked room in which these disciples cowered, greeting them, and they even didn’t bother to say “hey, good to see you,” or “Mary mentioned you might be stopping by,” So, Jesus showed them the marks in on his hands and his side. Now let me say that again… Jesus showed them the marks on his body, and then they greeted him as Lord. Even Peter and the Beloved Disciple had to see the marks to believe what Mary had said was true. Yet, look what we do to poor Thomas. We have turned him into the biblical equivalent of Vinko Bogataj.
Don’t know who Vinko is? How about this: The Thrill of Victory….and the Agony of Defeat! Yes, poor Vinko was the Yugoslavian ski jumper depicted spiraling out of control in mid-air every Sunday for many years on ABC’s Wide World of Sports as the voice over said “the agony of defeat.” The guy makes one little mistake and for the rest of his life…well, anyway, back to Thomas.
And… why isn’t Thomas there in the first place? He wasn’t hiding behind a locked door. Maybe he was still out there looking for answers for himself about all that had happened. Maybe he was doing as they were before – teaching as Jesus told them. Or maybe he realized that if they were going to hole up there for awhile, that some food and drink might be in order.
We will never know why he wasn’t there, but when he did return, he finds out he missed out on the big return of Jesus. Now, imagine how you would feel – hurt, left out, suspicious, angry. Seems everyone now has had a glimpse of Jesus but him. This is the same Thomas who earlier in this gospel had been willing to die with Jesus when he went back to Bethany to heal Lazarus, while the others had been warning Jesus to not go – since the folks there wanted to stone him last time he was in town. And, as Thomas might have been thinking – if the Lord was risen, then he certainly knows all things, and had to have known that one of his disciples had “left the building.” So, why appear then? Why not wait till he got back?
As I said, poor Thomas. I feel for him. I think we all can relate to him. That is why I believe that Thomas, who was called “the twin” was indeed a twin…to all of us. He mirrors what we all sometimes feel about our faith – only his faith was strong enough to say it.
I say strong faith, rather than weak faith, as I was taught when I was young, because the opposite of faith isn’t doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. When we stop doubting, our faith becomes cemented, grounded in fear, and supported by walls of doctrine and dogma within which one can hide from challenges.
There was a story I heard about a Sunday School teacher who told a child, who had been asking a lot of questions in Sunday School that it was wrong to ask questions and have doubts. So the child asked yet another question: “Is God afraid of my questions and doubts?” The look on the face of the teacher gave the answer – That God’s not afraid of the question, but the teacher sure was.1
Like the disciples hiding behind the walls, we can do the same to our faith. Because our faith is something that brings us great comfort in times of distress, we cling to it like Linus clings to his blanket, unwilling to really shake it out and really give it a good once in awhile – instead wanting to keep it firmly tight in our hands, and close to us. So close, we are almost choking it off of any life.
But, the very essence of faith is uncertainty. If we know then it’s not faith, but fact. Uncertainty is the doubt that shadows faith. Faith and doubt are intertwined like darkness and light. I would argue that if one doesn’t allow for doubts in faith, one doesn’t really believe that light overcomes darkness – the very essence of resurrection.
So many people today have doubts about their religious beliefs, but are afraid to voice them for fear that it will show a lack of faith, a weakness in their commitment to God. We become like the disciples, locked inside the safety of our church walls, our church doctrine. But we need to look at what Jesus is doing here – he sets the disciples free from a “locked room” of fear. And he returns to allow Thomas to join them.
To be the church in the world, we need to be a church of Jesus, the Jesus that did not cast out Thomas or the others, but welcomed them to touch him and be touched by him. A church that recognizes that because it is impossible to box God into our limited human understanding, there will always be things we don’t know, things we wonder about, things we grasp for, things that make us question what we believe.
Joan Chittister, the Benedictine sister and prolific author once wrote, “Doubt is that moment in the faith life when we put down everybody else’s answers and begin to find our own.”
I think in many ways, it is a willingness to risk – to question and reason out, that drew me to the Episcopal Church. We proclaim our faith to be grounded in Scripture, Tradition and Reason.
The comedian Robin Williams, an Episcopalian, once said that the top ten reasons to be one were:
“10. No snake handling.
9. You can believe in dinosaurs.
8. Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.
7. You don’t have to check your brains at the door.
6. Pew aerobics.
5. Church year is color-coded.
4. Free wine on Sunday.
3. All of the pageantry – none of the guilt.
2. You don’t have to know how to swim to get baptized.
And the Number One reason to be an Episcopalian:
1. No matter what you believe, there’s bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.”2
And if you want to see that list again, it is available on our church website – and why shouldn’t it be. Robin Williams really does have some important things to say about what it means to be an Episcopalian, and while funny, there is a fabulous golden truth through that list.
I love that he said, “You don’t have to check your brains at the door” and “No matter what you believe, there’s bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.” It is this that will allow us to continue to be a community of faith in an ever changing world. We allow for a mosaic of faith grounded in the roots of our tradition and our sacred texts.
Now, there was a gathering of atheists a few years ago in Washington DC that bothered me. It wasn’t that I object to atheists. It’s that they called their event the “Reason Rally” suggesting that reason and faith are incompatible in some way. And, while I am annoyed at them for asserting it, I realize that it is the larger church that created that notion in the first place, and even our church, the one who claims reason to be a leg in our three-legged stool of faith, can fall into that same trap.
“Don’t be a doubting Thomas!” we are told. Over the centuries and still true in many ways today, anyone who challenged the doctrines were heretics, and those who came to different conclusions were cast out. It is if we fear that somehow their doubts are a disease that we all might catch.
We forgot to be like Jesus and allow everyone to have their own experience of the risen Christ.
When Thomas was given that opportunity, he shouted, “My Lord, My God!” – the most emphatic statement of who Christ is in the bible, and it shows how wrestling with one’s faith will often lead to greater insight, clearer vision, a stronger belief. We need to search for answers, to ask questions, to explore possibilities. And then we need to keep our hearts, our minds, our spirits open to whatever answers come – because Christ will always return for us.
We need to also remember that Thomas did not have this experience outside of his community. Christ did not find go out and find him, but waited for his return to the group. It was in the context of community that Jesus came back for Thomas’ sake.
Each of us are different in our humanity. We come from different backgrounds, different geographies, different faith journeys. We intersect here, in this place, and with Christians around the world, as the body of Christ. We will reason each in our own way, and wander this faith journey uniquely. We don’t need the walls to hold us in. We are strong in faith because we are not alone in it. In our community we can create a safe place for people to believe, question and explore.
We as a church need to be a community that welcomes doubts, rather than casts them out, because it is the context of community in which we truly experience the risen Christ. When we are gathered together, Christ is with us, as he was with Thomas and the others. We cannot and should not push aside the Thomases in our midst, and if we are a Thomas, we must stand firm in our right to be who we are, and to question whatever we need to. Because if we can do that, if we truly can not only acknowledge, but embrace, the doubt that is inextricably connected to faith, than we will live in the light Christ, rather than cowering behind closed doors. We will be true believers in the resurrection that proclaims that light will always overcome darkness, because we will have no fear of doubt or darkness. And it is then that we can claim proudly our Thomas nature, and exclaim with loud voices – “My Lord, My God!”
Amen.
[Please note: All sermons are as written, not necessarily as delivered on that Sunday]
The Rev. Diana Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
April 27, 2014
Second Sunday of Easter – Year A
1st Reading – Acts 2:14a,22-32
Psalm 16
2nd Reading – 1 Peter 1:3-9
Gospel – John 20:19-31
