Acts 4:32-35
I John 1-2:2
John 20:19-31
Psalm 133
I never know how to start a sermon. I don’t mean the
talking part, but the preparation. I have read guides on what to do and tried
to follow them, but usually that doesn’t work for me. I am okay with public speaking,
and writing essays, but sermons are a slightly different creature because they
require a lot of work in research, close reading, and a little confession.
Working on today’s sermon was no different. This time when Suzanne asked me if
I could preach sometime in April I said okay and then picked a Sunday that I
thought I could do and confirmed it. And then I read the lectionary scriptures
for today, and like always, I noticed a distinct theme. Every single one of
them today has to do with unity except for the Gospel. Or is the Gospel reading
also about unity? I doubted it. Today’s Gospel is about doubt. I doubted I
could use all of those scriptures in a singly themed sermon, but decided that
was ok. I could just pick the Gospel and preach about doubt. Then I doubted I
could get enough material to talk for more than a couple of minutes about
doubting the resurrection because typically I don’t have doubts about that. But
then, not having doubts about things makes me a little smug, and that’s never a
good thing. So, I have decided that maybe I should talk about doubt and I
decided that perhaps doubt is, in fact, a unifying structure for the church,
for us.
What isn’t
in the gospel reading is the first part of John chapter 20. Thomas has always
been given the added nickname, Doubting. It seems derisive, like we are aghast
that Thomas would dare to doubt the other disciples. But earlier in the chapter
it is evident that every single one of them doubted it. When Peter and John
came to the tomb and saw it empty, they didn’t hit their foreheads and say, “Duh,
he’s not here because he’s resurrected,” though they should have. Instead they immediately
jumped to the conclusion that someone had stolen the body. They were all so
convinced of this that Mary didn’t even seemed shocked to see angels, she just
complained to them about Jesus being taken and when she saw Jesus she thought
he was the gardener. They were all filled with doubt and they had to experience
Jesus resurrection more fully than just a couple of angels and an empty tomb,
they had to see him, and even that, of itself, was not enough. They had to
interact with him. I believe Thomas’ nickname is unjust. He just spoke to what
they all felt and had already experienced. Verse 25: “Unless I see the nail
marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into
his side, I will not believe.”
I think
the key for us is to note what Jesus did, more than Thomas’ doubt—he only
doubted, he did not refute the possibility of resurrection, and that’s also
important to note—Jesus, in verse 27 “said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger
here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting
and believe.’” And verse 28, Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” He did
stop doubting and he believed. And, like always, Jesus showed him grace and let
Thomas touch his wounds.
It is a
huge detriment to us, as Christians, to become smug, to label others as Doubting
Thomases because then we forget our own doubts. And we all have doubts. There
is nothing wrong with doubt because it is a simple questioning and only by
questioning and looking for the answers can you really have belief. If you read
something you should be asking questions. When you listen to others in
conversation, you should be asking questions. Not that every question needs to
be one of doubt, but if there is doubt the only way to bring clarity is to
question. Thomas had his doubts and Jesus gave him clarity. Jesus gave Thomas
grace, Jesus gives us all grace.
In verse 29 Jesus blessed those who have not seen and yet
still believe and every Christian in our time believes in that blessing, but I
would also venture to say that most of us have a story that reveals something substantial,
that causes us to believe or confirms our belief. But even the most ardent
believers have moments like Mary where we see the obvious facts right before
our faces (Jesus was right there) and we mistake them for something else, for
the gardener. Jesus brought the clarity to Martha just by saying her name.
While the resurrection may seem complicated, the grace of God is not. He simply
said Martha and she knew.
John states
his purpose in writing the gospel and his letter: Verse “30 Jesus
performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not
recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that
Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have
life in his name.” And I John 1:1-4: “That which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim
concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen
it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which
was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what
we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And
our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We
write this to make our joy complete.” John wrote frequently to answer
the question to our doubts, “to make our joy complete,” to unify our common
purpose of a full, joyful, complete, eternal life. His entire gospel and epistles
were to affirm the complete joy, to counter doubts, not deride us for having
them. Jesus brings the clarity, and in our case, he brought it through the
writings of John. (I know there is debate on whether or not the same John wrote
all of those works, but it really doesn’t matter in regard to doubt or faith or
grace if these two works are the same writer or not. My bias says they are the
same writer because of all the light and word stuff in the John works…)
It is
important to note that we all have doubts about a zillion things, but
definitely our faith. I don’t think that is a weakness, but the nature of our
humanity, a questioning nature. There is no doubt that that can, and frequently
does, get us into trouble, but it also strengthens us because we are able to
question and to seek. And we should always seek answers, and we should never
present false platitudes as answers. What I mean by this is that we should not
expect others to believe things just because we do, we have to explain why we believe
what we do. Saying, “The bible says it and I believe it,” is not helpful for a
non-believer so you aren’t being much of a witness. That’s just being smug. Why
do you believe the witness of the bible? Why do you believe in the resurrection?
Those are the questions we must return to frequently to actually be of any use
to others or ourselves. Faith requires some thought. And faith also accepts
grace, it isn’t our place to be the smug know it all. Jesus appeared to those
disciples and John very specifically shared it with us by writing it down. I
realize that people in the ancient world had different experiences and might
have explained things differently than we do now, but they did not believe
people were put to death and then just rose from the dead three days later any
more than we do today. Why else do you think Thomas said he wouldn’t believe it
until he saw the nail prints and touched the wounds? The grace of Jesus comes
when he lets us see for ourselves. I have no reason to believe John was making
up an elaborate story, and I certainly believe in miracles because I’ve
experienced them, and there are plenty of miracles that we often write off because
we can explain them like the sunrise, or the return of daffodils every spring.
I am not one who has to doubt the miracle of the resurrection, but I do believe
that I need to be gracious to those like Thomas or Mary, or Peter and John, for
that matter. What I am saying is that as Christians we need to be unified in
our belief in the resurrection and be gracious to those who might doubt it. We
don’t need to be smug about our faith, we need to be thoughtful about it. The
church has presented a lot of infighting about trivial pursuits from whether to
have musical instruments in church or whether or not we should drink wine or
grape juice during communion. None of that is evidence of the faith we have in
the resurrection, and it doesn’t offer grace to our brothers and sisters who
have doubts. It only feeds the doubt.
But I
did say we need to be thoughtful about our faith. We do need to consider those
trivial pursuits, but they are not what we present to those who need to see and
feel the resurrected body of our savior. First things first: we believe in the
resurrection of the dead and we believe this because of the resurrection of
Jesus along with all denominations of Christianity. We must be unified in this
belief and take care of those who are doubting. In Acts the early Christians pooled
their resources, even sold their houses to distribute to those who had need.
That kind of grace is what Jesus was showing Thomas when he told him to put his
hands in the nail prints and to stop doubting and believe.
The hard part about a sermon for me is that I want to
tell you what I believe about the scripture I am preaching on. I want to share
my belief, but the difficulty for me this last year has been that I haven’t had
the usual opportunities to do what I have always done. I have not minded
retirement because it is nice not to always feel the nagging burden of work, but
the way I have always shared my faith has been through my work as a teacher. I
developed relationships with students, parents and teachers. I experienced
times of need and I did what I could to offer that grace I have received through
the forms of help that I have been gifted with, namely teaching and building
relationships through that job. Most all of that has been stripped away through
retirement and the typical ways I could have replaced it have been put on hold
because of the pandemic. I haven’t even put a tie on in over a year (not that
that has anything to do with my faith…). This year has proven to be difficult
for everyone for very different reasons. I’m grateful that I have the means to no
longer have to work, I’m not hungry, or without shelter. And this year one
could easily feel guilty about that, because even that was stripped from many
people. Even church has been spotty because the human connections have been
less frequent. What I’m telling you is that there is always room for doubt
about something, namely safety and protection, and people often rely on that
more than they think. When those things are removed, faith can get shaky. More
than ever we need to be unified as agents of Christ’s grace. For me that’s
causing me to search my tool kit for how to do that. Certainly, standing up
here presenting the gospel helps, but only in part. I’m telling you this
because I know I am not alone in these feelings, even if I am newly retired. We
have all been isolated in one way or another and some of us can deal with that
better than others.
I have not made my typical three strong points this time.
Instead I have put forth one very strong point in being graceful to doubt, to
the doubt of others and to our own doubt. None of us here have probably been too
shaken in our faith, but we have seen where the seeds of doubt come from. We
hold our faith together by coming together to worship and fellowship and pray
and just see each other. The early disciples went through a very dark three
days of intense grief but by the power and grace of the resurrection they were
able to get it together enough to pool their resources and take care of people
in need. We too, have been through a pretty dark time and it’s certainly not
over. Well over half a million people have died in our country alone, not to
mention the rest of the world. So, we need to be gracious, not only through
pooling our resources, but by being unified in our belief in the resurrection,
by helping the doubters and being merciful in any way we can. This is the time
to be gracious and aware of the difficulty that we are all facing with the
economy, work, and isolation. Sometimes that might just be to stop and say
someone’s name, to talk to them when they are panicky like Jesus did to Martha.
So, I want to close with some more of the scripture, to
give clarity to our purpose and our mission as believers: I John 1: 1 That which was from the beginning, which we have
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our
hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The
life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to
you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We
proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have
fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son,
Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
And finally,
Psalm 133: Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity! 2 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that
ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of
his garments; 3 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon
the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing,
even life for evermore.
The peace and
grace of Christ be with you all.