Sermon for Sunday, April 15, 2007

When in doubt…

by

Jerry Herships, Local Pastor

Scripture:  John 20: 19-31

¹⁹ When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the religious authorities. , Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." ²⁴ But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." 

²⁶ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." ²⁸ Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" ²⁹ Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." ³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.” Today we hear about a guy who not only has the distinction of having the worst timing of just about anyone in history, but as a result, gets a nick name that has stuck around for two millennia. And I was upset that that my Junior High nickname followed me to High School.

Biblical scholars don’t know why Thomas wasn’t there. Here is someone who, for all we know, just stepped out for a minute. The doors have been locked. He might have just been having a bout of cabin fever. I can just hear him saying, “Guys, I’m going crazy in here, I am going to go out and get some air. Let me know if I miss anything.” I picture him walking back in and the disciples are whooping it up and Thomas says, “Wait a sec, what did I miss?” And one of the more smug disciples saying, “Oh, nothing much Thomas… just the RETURN OF CHRIST!” And as we now know this has long range implications.

One of the other disadvantages of “Doubting Thomas” is that over time we have dubbed him the bad guy because he is asking for a little proof. And I have a theory, I think one of the reasons we lay it on Thomas so thick is because Thomas reminds us of ourselves so much of the time.  We might be going along just fine, the faith and trust gauge reads full, and then “wham” out of nowhere…doubt. Just when we thought we had it all figured out, doubt rears its ugly head. The really scary thing is that what it comes down to, deep down, is this thought that begins running through our heads, “If I am having a hard time believing in all this…am I really a Christian?

Now we have said it here before many times but it bears repeating, that the opposite of faith is NOT doubt. It is fear. I think God expects doubt to creep into our lives. What God doesn’t want to happen is for this to slip into the fear zone. Many of us have heard that the Bible mentions, “Do not worry.” 365 times. FEAR? Do everything in your power not to let it happen. Doubt? Well, I think that is always going to bob to the surface every once in awhile. There are some pretty good examples of Christians who also had doubt.

There was a preacher that once was so plagued by doubt that he believed that as a result of it he must not have faith and if he didn’t have faith, well, he shouldn’t be preaching. He mentioned this to another preacher who gave him some memorable advice. He told the doubting minister, “Preach faith till you have it, and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.” The doubting preacher followed his advice and we should all be glad he did because if he didn’t John Wesley would not have gone on to be the founder of Methodism. (I know that story had bit of cheesy Paul Harvey, “now you know the rest of the story” vibe to it but it was just too good a story not to tell).

Fast forward a few hundred years and we have another significant player in the world of religion who was an open book about his doubt. His name is Thomas as well–Thomas Merton, Trappist monk who died in 1968. Before his untimely death he wrote many significant works, his most famous probably being, The Seven Storey Mountain. I remember him primarily as being the author of a poem that my mom gave me where he talks about uncertainty and doubt called, The Road Ahead:

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it

            will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think that I

            am following your will does not

            mean that I am actually doing

            so.

But I believe that the desire to

            please you does in fact please

            you.

And I hope I have that desire in

            all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do any

            thing apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this,

            you will lead me by the right

            road though I may know

            nothing

            about it.

Therefore will I trust you always

            though I may seem to be lost

            and

            in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever

            with me,

            and you will never leave me to

            face my perils alone.

Now Merton isn’t doubting God directly in this poem. He is actually doubting himself and doubts if God has a hand in his life. By the end of the poem, he says that he will trust God always—states, “I will not fear”. The point here is that some very significant faithful followers of Christ have had their moments of doubt. Even other disciples. Thomas was not the only disciple who doubted. Back in Chapter 14 we see Phillip say to Jesus, “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” The original Greek word for satisfied is Arkeo which means “content” or “enough” or “sufficient or suffice.” Remember, these are Jesus’ closest friends. They were with him when he brought sight to the blind, turned water into wine, walked on water. I think for most of us these signs would have been “sufficient”. They would have sealed the deal. There wouldn’t have been too many more questions I’m thinking after the walking on water thing. So the next time you feel bad about doubting remember that even monk’s and Jesus’ own disciples had doubts.

So this is the first point I want to make: If you ever have doubt, don’t beat yourself up.  You’re in good company. You are hanging out with monks and disciples.

So let’s note a few things about Thomas before, like so many others, we go throwing him under the bus. First off, Thomas was exposed to nothing more (or less) than the other disciples. Upon a closer reading of the text, we see that it says in verse 19 and 20: …"peace be with you", The disciples are scared. They are in hiding from the religious authorities. Their leader had just been murdered. (20) After he said this, He shows them his hands and side. THEN the disciples rejoice when they saw the Lord. Sounds to me exactly like what Jesus did when he saw Thomas.

Second, we should remember that Thomas was the one who had the guts to question Jesus when Jesus gave his famous, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms” speech a few pages back again in chapter 14. In that teaching, Jesus says “…you know the way to the place that I am going.” Thomas pipes up and says, “Lord we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way.” I LOVE that. Thomas is not going to pretend he “gets it.” Even if it means he might look stupid. He just wants straight talk.  I totally appreciate that. I think there is a lot of people that “pretend” they get it. I’ve done this.  I have a teacher at Iliff who is freaky smart. Like alien smart. Three masters AND a PhD. And…here is the topper, I found out we are the same age…..whatever. Anyway in class he will give these great lectures, but sometimes he will close an idea with the phrase, “do you see where I am going with this?” He always says that, and I never do. But I usually nod and go, “ohh”. And I’ll pretend to write something down. Usually I’m writing, “I don’t get this.”  I am not as gutsy as Thomas to stop him and say, “Ah, no, I don’t see where you are going.” Well, I won’t say his name but he has taught classes here at St. Andrew and his name rhymes with Halbert Mernandez. Great teacher, one of my favorite teachers. I am not honest enough like Thomas to simply ask what I need. The Bible tells us to do that. That is what Thomas does. He states his needs to the disciples and to Jesus. And what does Jesus do? Does he say, “you are banished forever…go out to where there is darkness and gnashing of teeth” (I still don’t know what gnashing of teeth is but clearly the Bible frowns on it.) Does Jesus say, “I am not going to comply with your demands. Who do you think you are?” No, Jesus does neither one. He says “peace be with you” (just like he did when he made his first surprise visit.) That is what he wanted for the Disciples, that’s what he wanted for Thomas and I believe that is what he wants for you and me. After he said this he made Thomas’ doubt vanish. By the way, Thomas didn’t actually do what he said he needed to do to believe. He believed with the same evidence that was provided to the other twelve disciples. He saw Christ. I believe this is what helps to remove the doubt. When we see Christ, usually in other people’s words and actions, our doubt begins to vanish. This is my second point: Look for Christ in other people and your doubt will begin to vanish.  

Thomas was actually the exception to the rule of his day. It wasn’t until the enlightenment that people began to identify truth with factuality. It wasn’t until then that people understood truth to be something that had to be verified as factual. Marcus Borg says in his book, The Heart of Christianity that modern western culture is the only culture in human history that has made this identification. One of my favorite Marcus Borg quotes is, “the Bible is true and some of it actually happened.”

Thomas would have fit in just fine with modern day followers of Christ. Like Thomas many of us just want some solid answers—things that we can bank on. As I said before, I don’t think this bothers God. God knows that we are a product of our times. God just doesn’t want this to lead to worry.

People often think of Thomas as being behind the other disciples in his faith when actually it is the other way around.  Thomas is ahead of the pack. Rather than be the one that gets the bad rap about not believing, Thomas is the first person to recognize the God that is Jesus.  Thomas’s first words after seeing Jesus are, “My Lord and my God. He is the first one to recognize that holy mystery that is the trinity. This is my third point: Get comfortable with the idea of mystery. Theologian Rudolf Otto calls this, Mysterium Tremendum, the Wholly other. It is beyond our comprehension and it is everywhere. Not everything can be answered with reason and logic. You see some famous, smart people on the cover of your bulletins comment on that.

The other disciples weren’t where Thomas was. They come to us in the text from a very human place, which is great too. Remember when the other disciples saw Jesus the first time the Bible tells us that, “the disciples rejoiced.” This is understandable. For up to this point, the disciples had given their all to this new movement, only to watch their leader get executed. They thought they had a sure thing and bet it all and ended up losing everything. At least that is what they thought.

Has that ever happened to you? You thought you knew how this was going to end for SURE. Then, the carpet came out from under you.  Maybe it was a sudden death in the family. Maybe it was an affair. Maybe you lost promotion. Didn’t get a job that was “a done deal”. It was devastating.  THAT is where the disciples were minutes before Jesus came into their room. They had to be so thrilled to see Jesus. And I think Thomas was thrilled too. I don’t think Thomas wanted to doubt. I think we all want something to hold onto. Something we can have assurance in. This is my fourth and final point: You can have assurance in Christ without proof. And just like the disciples who didn’t actually ever get their “hands on” physical proof, we too can believe without actually touching Jesus. The truth of the matter is Jesus will touch us, but it will be in here (touch chest) No doubt in my mind. Amen.

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