Sermon delivered at Holy Trinity Parish in Decatur, Ga., where I serve as communications coordinator.
Just a week ago, this place was filled with shouts of "alleluia," with ringing bells, and even a cymbal crash or two, proclaiming joyfully and confidently the Resurrection of Jesus. I enjoyed attending the Easter Vigil with you all on Saturday night, where we celebrated the new life of baptism. And on Sunday morning, Fr. Deneke invited you all to reflect on the ways in which, like Mary Magdelene on Easter morning, "we have seen the Lord" in this place.
But this week, the glow is off the Easter lilies.
This week, we meet Thomas. Thomas, who says not "I have seen the Lord," but "yeah, riiiiiiight."
It is significant that the "Doubting Thomas" passage always falls on the Second Sunday of Easter, no matter which of the three lectionary years we are in. The week after Easter, we are always confronted with doubt.
Doubt can be a touchy subject among people of faith. Somewhere along the line, we have been told that doubt is the opposite of faith, and so we get a little nervous, even threatened, when it rears its stubborn head. It seems to beg a response; we think we must say something about it, do something about it, explain it in some way. We see this impulse in the usual responses to the story of Thomas.
In general, it seems people want to read the story of Thomas as a commentary on the inherent value of doubt. Thomas is either vilified for having doubts or praised for being a "thinking Christian." Those who see Thomas's doubts as an indication of his weak faith point to Jesus's words to Thomas - "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." - while those who see Thomas's doubts in a positive light wax philosophic about how the fact that one of the disciples – a disciple who church tradition holds goes on to spread Christianity as far as India, by the way - the fact that even THIS disciple doubts the Resurrection surely means that we, with our sometimes shaky and doubtful faith, can accomplish such great things ourselves. If I had to choose, I tend to fall in the latter category, but really, I think both of these attempts to evaluate the worth of doubt really miss the point.
The fact of the matter is, doubt is neither an indication of a weak faith nor an indication of a strong faith; doubt simply IS. Doubt is a fundamental part of the human experience. The question is not whether we SHOULD have doubts - it is inevitable that we will - but in how we should respond. And in this sense the Thomas story can prove useful, for it provides a model for how to live with doubt in a community of faith.
Let's look again, closely, at the actions of this "Doubting Thomas." The other disciples tell him that Jesus has been raised from the dead, which strikes him as preposterous. "Yeah, right," he says. "Unless I see it for myself, I will not believe it." And here is the first lesson that Thomas has for us: Thomas is HONEST. He is up-front and open about his doubts. He does not go along with the crowd, does not say what he or others feel he SHOULD say. He is HONEST about where he is -- in a place of extreme skepticism about this whole Resurrection story.
The second thing Thomas does is choose to return to the community of the faithful, even with his doubts. He shows up. Somehow in all my readings of this story, I have always missed the fact that Jesus's appearance to Thomas actually comes a week after the disciples first tell Thomas of their encounters with the risen Lord. Thomas had a week's time to chew on this crazy news, to decide whether he was going to return to the next gathering of the disciples or jump ship from this bunch of loonies he had somehow gotten tangled up with. And he chooses to return. And because he chooses to return, because he chooses to show up, he is present the next time Jesus appears to the disciples -- he doesn't miss it this time.
We are not so far from Thomas, you and I. At least I know I'm not. Thomas's story, his rational skepticism and stubborn-headedness, are all too familiar to me. How many times have we echoed the words of Thomas in our own lives: "Unless I see it for myself, I will not believe"? A new acquaintance must prove their trustworthiness before we will open up to them. We must scrutinize a politician's voting patterns before we decide whether or not we will support her. We are sure that a family member who has fallen back on his word numerous times will continue to do so. In all these things, we say, "Unless I see it for myself, I will not believe it." Mere words, without an experience to back them up, ring hollow for most people. We demand to confirm with our own senses what others tell us to be true.
And herein lies the difficulty for those of us who struggle to be people of faith: We cannot FORCE the experience. We cannot MAKE ourselves believe any more than we can MAKE another person trust or love us. We cannot, out of sheer willpower, conjure up a vision of the risen Lord will dispel all doubts we might have about the veracity of the Christian story. Faith is not an intellectual proposition, a matter of agreement or disagreement over which we make the ultimate decision, but a relationship with that very living Force of Life that we call God. We are not the only ones in the equation when we talk about faith – faith is a two-way relationship that relies on the active participation of both parties. We have control over our actions, but we are at the mercy of God to grant us moments of insight, to grant us experiences of faith that reveal God's presence to us over time.
So what CAN we do, on our end of the relationship? Perhaps we can take a lesson from Thomas: to be honest about where we are, and to show up. To show up, even when we're not so sure about this whole faith thing. To show up, even when things don't seem to make sense. To show up, and in doing so, to open ourselves to the possibility of encounter with God.
In his skepticism, Thomas declares that if he can touch the body of Jesus, if he can touch his hands and his side, then he will believe - and when Jesus appears to him, he offers him the opportunity to do just that: "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." The blessing and grace of the Christian life is that Jesus extends that very same invitation to each one of us each time we gather together as the Christian community.
Every week that we enter this place, we have two very real and tangible ways available to us that we can touch the body of Christ.
The first is up front and center, at the climax of our liturgy: the celebration of the Eucharist. When you come forward to the altar, the ministers place into your hands "the body of Christ, the bread of heaven." If we are to take seriously our Eucharistic theology, we must affirm that Christ is really present to us in the breaking of the bread, that in touching the elements of communion, we are touching the body of Christ.
The second way we can touch the body of Christ is right next to you – and all around you – and within you. The apostle Paul writes beautifully in many of his letters about the Christian community as the living body of Christ, with the different people compared to different parts of the body, each having different skills and uses, but all coming together to form the whole. WE are the body of Christ! YOU are the body of Christ. Your neighbors in the pews are the body of Christ. In a few minutes, when we share the peace with one another, remember that for each person you reach out and touch, you are touching the very body of Christ.
And when you come forward for Communion each week, remember Jesus's words to Thomas, those words that he still speaks to you and to me: Reach out your hands and touch my body. Do not doubt but believe.
Amen.
