Sermon: "Thomas... Again" April 1, 2021
“Doubting St. Thomas,” Béla Iványi-Grünwald
This Sunday we were delighted to host the Rev. Foster Freed as our guest preacher. Foster is a retired United Church Minister, most recently Minister at Trinity United Church in Nanaimo.
Preacher: The Rev. Foster Freed
Scripture: John 20:19-31
Permit me to begin with a confession.
When Ryan first invited me to be with you today, my immediate reaction was delight. However: as soon as it dawned on me that today would be the second Sunday of Easter...my next reaction was: “Oh no! Not that again! Not the story of Thomas yet again!!!” A reaction which may strike you as a wee bit harsh...but a reaction that is quite understandable. You see...
In the United Church of Canada--along with many other mainline denominations--we follow a lectionary, a set of Sunday scripture readings that rotate on a three-year cycle. Most Sundays--including Easter Sunday--present three different Gospel selections over the course of the three year cycle. But on the Sunday immediately following Easter, it’s the same story year in and year out: that of Thomas, perhaps better known as “doubting Thomas”. While I am not entirely certain as to why that story features so prominently on this particular Sunday...
...quite possibly because its closing episode is precisely dated to this Sunday, the only Easter story in which this day is specifically named...
...what it does mean is that I have now had pretty close to 30 opportunities to preach on this particular passage over the course of the past 30 years! No wonder lots of clergy take this Sunday off! Looking at you, Ryan!
At any rate: as soon as I awoke to that connection, I began looking for the exit ramp which, in this case meant reading the other suggested readings for this Sunday: including terrific passages from Acts, from 1st John...I even had a quick look at one of the most beautiful and also one of the briefest of the Psalms, the 133rd. Why not preach on one of those? Why not dare to be different? But then, in the midst of all that restless seeking and searching, something happened.
***
Some of you may be familiar with the name Tim Keller. Keller is a remarkable--and in some circles controversial--Presbyterian Pastor down in the States: perhaps best known as the founding Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City: a congregation which began with 50 people in 1989 and eventually grew to a congregation of over 5000. (Those of you thinking--what’s the big deal, there’s 8 million people in New York City and 20 million in the greater New York area--trust me as an ex-New Yorker: growing a congregation of 5000 souls is a big deal even in New York, perhaps especially in New York). At any rate: Keller is also a popular writer, producing the kind of books C.S. Lewis once wrote, apologetic works which seek to introduce the Christian faith in ways that outsiders to the faith can grasp. Nor does he only write for in-house publications such as Christianity Today. On the contrary, his articles can be found in places such as the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly.
As a matter of fact, it was when I was knee deep in my “let’s preach on anything but doubting Thomas” mode that I came across an article by Keller recently published in the Atlantic Monthly. In that article he reveals that--having just published his most recent book, bearing the rather ominous title “On Death”--Keller’s doctors unexpectedly informed him that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. Most of us will realize what the words “pancreatic cancer” mean in terms of life-expectancy. Keller--who is just a few months older than me having turned 70 last September--is a pretty typical 70 year-old Baby Boomer: taking for granted at least another decade or so of reasonably good health, an expectation that appears to have now been shattered. That launched him on some serious self-reflection: which he shares in that article. While the word doubt is not explicitly used by Keller, it certainly provides the backdrop to everything he has to say.
He writes: “One of the first things I learned was that religious faith does not automatically provide solace in times of crisis. A belief in God and an afterlife does not become spontaneously comforting and existentially strengthening. Despite my rational, conscious acknowledgment that I would die someday, the shattering reality of a fatal diagnosis provoked a remarkably strong psychological denial of mortality....Death is an abstraction to us, something technically true but unimaginable as a personal reality.”
Drawing upon his experience as a pastor, he also has this to say: “A significant number of believers in God find their faith shaken or destroyed when they learn that they will die at a time and in a way that seems unfair to them. Before my diagnosis, I had seen this in people of many faiths. One woman with cancer told me years ago, “I’m not a believer anymore--that doesn’t work for me. I can’t believe in a personal God who would do something like this to me.” As Keller concludes: “Cancer killed her God.”[i]
And yes: reading that article also killed any desire on my part to speak, this morning, about anything other than Thomas and his defiant expression of his doubts. That article, in effect, was a wake-up call: a sharply worded reminder...better still three interconnected reminders. First reminder: as Christian disciples when we come face to face with of death, the truthfulness of the resurrection--both Christ’s and ours--is a big deal. Second reminder: in the face of death, embracing the truth of the resurrection will always pose a challenge for us, no matter how strong our faith has been. Third reminder--and this was the hard one for my ego to swallow: maybe, just maybe, the lectionary planners knew what they were about, when they decided that the story of Thomas was one that we could stand to hear not just once every three years, but once each and every year. Without exception.
***
I began with a confession about my initial response to the prospect of preaching, once again, on the story of Thomas. Here let me share the irony of that initial response: namely, that I actually quite love this passage: it’s a story of which I am inordinately fond. I love it because I find it to be remarkably relevant, because it provides a comforting and sobering reminder to us as thoroughly modern Millies, and finally because it is theologically profound. Let me take each of those three in turn.
When I speak of the relevance of this story--its relevance to the life of faith you and I lead--that has to do with the close parallel between our situation and Thomas’ initial situation, vis a vis the good news of Christ’s resurrection. Recall that our story begins on Easter Sunday: when Christ appears to the gathered disciples. Thomas, however, is “missing-in-action” and so he has no choice but to rely on the testimony of his friends which, of course, is precisely what he seems unwilling to do. And--yes--over the past 20 centuries--testimony (above all the testimony of those who encountered the risen Christ in the immediate aftermath of the first Easter) testimony continues to play a key role in the life of faith. To be fair testimony plays a big role in every aspect of our lives; in most matters, we are only happy to accept someone else’s word rather than verify each and every claim for ourselves. And yet--to be fair--given the enormity of what we claim at Easter--given the nature of the news his friends shared with Thomas in the immediate aftermath of their encounter with the risen Christ--it’s not surprising that both he and we find ourselves harboring at least a wee bit of hesitancy in the face of the Easter story. And yes, that’s part of what I love about the story of Thomas: its remarkable relevance to our lives of faith, yours and mine.
Side by side with its relevance, I want to name what I have described as the comforting and sobering reminder this episode provides for us: specifically as those who continue to live in the modern-world, a world in which countless people regard science not only as the “royal road to truth”, but as the “only” road to truth. I am reminded here of what may well be the most famous quote from the great 20th century New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann. “We cannot use electric lights and radios”, writes Bultmann...”We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medical and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament”.[ii] And yet--while it is certainly the case that the authors of the New Testament were familiar with neither Francis Bacon nor Isaac Newton, these ancient people did have a pretty good inkling that when one of their friends was dead and buried on a Friday afternoon, that you didn’t need to set a place for them when you were getting ready to serve Sunday dinner. That’s why I so value the story of Thomas and his doubts, much as I value the story of Paul preaching in Athens (you’ll find that story in the 17th chapter of Acts) where his sermon is greeted with derision as soon as he mentions the resurrection. With all due respect to Professor Bultmann, to whatever extent the challenge of faith is different now than it was way back then, it is a difference of accent, not of substance. From the outset, resurrection faith always has been--and always will be--a contested faith. And yes: that sobering and comforting reminder, is a second reason why I am grateful for the story of Thomas. But there’s one more thing about this story that I highly prize, and for me it holds pride of place. Not just its relevance, not just its comfort but also...also its theological profundity.
Consider! Consider that we know him as “Doubting Thomas” which only seems fair. But perhaps we should also call him “Profound-theologian Thomas”! You see: wittingly or unwittingly, Thomas points us in precisely the right direction in terms of dealing with our lives of faith, including all of the inevitable doubt that will accompany our lives of faith. Ponder, if you please, the difference between what Thomas asks of the risen Christ and what the devil--in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels--asks of Jesus at the outset of his ministry. Offering him the power to turn stones into bread, Jesus tells the devil no. Offering him the power to rule the nations, Jesus says no. Offering him the power to perform neat magic tricks such as safely crash landing from a tall building, Jesus says no. Think of how different Thomas’ request turns out to be! “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
Is that an expression of doubt? Let’s not waste time disputing that. And yet it is so very different from the magic tricks with which the Devil sought to entice the Lord. Thomas, you see, does not wish to hear ghost stories from his friends! And he refuses to be swayed by high-sounding talk of signs and wonders! What he is insisting upon is that the risen Christ be none other than the crucified Jesus. What he yearns for is to see the face and yes to touch the wounds of the One who only three days earlier, had stripped off his outer garments, had taken cloth and basin, and washed the feet of his friends! Accept no substitute! That’s the encounter for which Thomas yearned and yes: when push comes to shove that’s the encounter for which we too ought to yearn. Not signs and wonders! Not magic tricks and demonstrations of raw power! Simply a face-to-face encounter with the Wounded Healer. A face to face encounter with the One who bears the scars of God. In short, an encounter with the One whose power is love...and whose love knows no bounds, no limits, no barriers He is unprepared to push to the side in His unrelenting quest to embrace each, to embrace us all.
In the Church, of course, we have a fancy name for that sort of love and for that sort of power. We call it grace. Much as Christians--perhaps especially we Protestants --like to speak of being justified by our faith: God help us, certainly God help me, if my justification, if my salvation hinges on my faith. In the end, my faith is only as strong as the grace that undergirds it: the grace revealed so beautifully in God’s gift of Jesus Christ!
I love the way Father Richard Neuhaus puts it in his classic book: “Death on a Friday Afternoon”, a book of reflections on the seven last words from the Cross. In his reflection upon the second of those words--the words spoken to the so-called “Good Thief”: “this day you will be with me in paradise”, Neuhaus ponders that which motivated the “good thief” to turn to Jesus unlike his companion who joined the crowd who were mocking Jesus as he hung on the Cross. From whence does such faith arise? How might such faith be sustained? Here’s what Neuhaus has to say.
“We are [Christ’s] friends not because we have befriended him, but because he has befriended us. Jesus had said “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” And so it [still] is with us. Look at him who is ever looking at you. With whatever faith you have, however feeble and flickering and mixed with doubt, look at him. Look at him with whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself a sign of faith. Do not look at your faith. Look at him. Keep looking, and faith will take care of itself.” [iii]
[i] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/tim-keller-growing-my-faith-face-death/618219/
[ii] This quote, which I located on Wikiquote, is originally found in a collection of Bultmann’s writings: New Testament and Mythology and other Basic Writings.
[iii] Given the number of books I have yet to read that I would hope one day to get to read, I rarely read any given book more than once. Neuhaus’ Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on The Last Words of Jesus From the Cross is a happy exception to that rule. Highly recommended as a piece of devotional literature that feeds both head and heart.