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“Doubting Thomas?”

Sermon by Chad Miller
on Scripture: John 20:19-31
given March 30, 2008

This morning, we need to reform an old traditional thought of the church. Hopefully, we will reform a few other thoughts along the way, but we will focus on just one for the moment. The thought that needs reforming concerns Thomas—the doubting disciple.

For nearly two millennia poor Thomas has been known for being a doubter and probably absolutely nothing else. Thomas is usually put down and used as a model of who not to be. The traditional thought being, “You should believe without seeing, and not be like Thomas who demanded proof. As a Christian, the last thing you ever want to be is a Doubting Thomas!”

In fact, Thomas has become so indistinguishable from a negative presentation of doubt that even Microsoft Word will give you “doubting Thomas” as a synonym for both the words doubter and skeptic.

Clearly, there are some elements of doubt in the story we just heard. But I think we are misguided if we assume this story is telling us to not be like Thomas.
Who do I say this? Well, what did you hear? Did you hear a story that demeaned, dismissed or even corrected our so-called Doubting Thomas.

First, let me tell you what you did not hear. You did not hear Jesus berating Thomas. You did not hear Jesus shaming Thomas. You did not hear Jesus reprimand Thomas for wanting proof. And you did not hear Thomas ask for anything that the others had not already seen.

What you did hear, was Thomas asking for the exact same experience the other disciples had had the week before, when Jesus showed them his hands and side. What you did hear was Jesus greeting Thomas graciously, “Peace be with you.” You heard Jesus invite Thomas to touch his hands and side in order that he might believe. And you heard the only proclamation in John’s Gospel of Jesus’ unique relationship to the divine on the lips of the so-called doubter, “My Lord and my God!”(i)

Jesus meets Thomas exactly where he is, with the proof he needs to believe. Thomas’ doubt is answered not by reproof but by an encounter with the risen Christ.

The only line you heard that might be construed as negative, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” is at best an exceedingly soft and gracious criticism.

All this leads me to think that on some level, Thomas was right to doubt. At the very, very least, his honesty about his doubt was completely acceptable. And I think that when we are talking about people coming back from the dead; that really is something that needs to be seen and experienced first hand. Let’s be honest, the resurrection is a hard thing to understand let alone believe. Most of the stories we claim as our own as Christians are hard to accept.

Each time Scripture is read and we have our “The Word of the Lord...Thanks be to God” response, part of me keeps waiting for that one honest person who will be brave enough to cry out what we all think from time to time.
We live in a Thomas world—the world where people doubt and where people need experience. People will not go to church if going to church is not relevant to one’s daily existence. We live in a world where everything is questioned and if you are judged irrelevant, you are flatly and thoroughly rejected.

And our relevance, the Church’s very relevance, is in doubt in many people’s minds. People outside the church look in at what we say and what we do, and they are asking, “You Christians say you believe all these really strange stories that shape your lives, so why do you look and act just like everyone else? What is the point of being a Christian or follower of Jesus, if you are in no way different than I am?”

In the world in which we live, people will not believe and follow Jesus unless they can see and touch the faith we profess.

In my opinion, this is a very good thing. I would in fact say that this shift to a doubting and questioning world is an absolute blessing from God. It is a blessing because if we are going to survive we have to quit playing church and we have to become the Body of Christ. It is a very good thing because the days of the church behaving like a country club are over. The time of truly and authentically living in the way of Jesus the Christ has come.

In the death of Christendom, God is inviting us to experience resurrection to a new way of being church. God is inviting us to make the Risen Christ visible and tangible. It is we who must engage our own doubt and the doubt of those surrounding us. It is through our shared life as a community focused on living in the way of Jesus the Christ that the world will be able to see and touch our faith.

Teresa of Avila, a 16th century mystic wrote, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world. Yours are the feet with which Christ is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which Christ is to bless all people now.”(vi)
Even though most Presbyterians think that spontaneity and improvisation are abominations unto the Lord, part of me still hopes beyond all hope that someday someone will on impulse respond to the Scripture lesson with complete honesty: “The Word of the Lord...You have got to be kidding!

Whether you take the stories we read literally or figuratively, whether you see Scripture as myth, absolute fact, or anything else between those two extremes, you have to admit that the stories, that we Christians claim shape our lives, are really, really weird.

Doubt is the natural response to these peculiar stories. And a first hand experience with the risen Christ is often the only thing that can quell these doubts.

If I am to be honest, I have to confess that I need a religion or a faith that I can see and touch. “Those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” might be blessed. But I am not one of those blessed people and I would confidently venture the assumption that most people aren’t either. For me faith and doubt are inseparable. It is my doubt that drives me to new experiences of faith.

I am a Christian because I have a mystical, tangible, experiential encounter with God. And since that time I have been filled with doubt and as I have questioned and struggled with God I have seen and experienced the resurrection again and again and again—not in more mystical visions but in the people who really live as Christ has called his followers to live.

One of the ways I have experienced the Risen Christ is in my good friend Karen. Karen runs a mission organization in Guatemala. She is a devoted follower of Jesus; but she doesn’t really talk that much about her faith.

Instead, she lives it.

About half of each year she lives her faith in the poorest state in Guatemala, Zacappa. There her organization does life changing and life saving work through short term medical mission trips, firefighter and EMT training, and there is even a permanent clinic for fitting amputees with prosthetic devises.

In a very literal way she does the work of the risen Christ, for in her efforts “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”(ii)

When she is here in the US the other half of the year, she is busily resurrecting old medical equipment, computers and discarded prosthetic limbs, all of which are used to bring new life and new hope in Guatemala. When she isn’t focused on her work in Guatemala, she is helping to give brighter futures to children in at risk situations. She has, in fact, adopted 8 children out of situations that you would never want to even imagine.

Does she do this because she has a deep and unquestioning faith in God? Not really. When we talk about faith in God, she usually says something offhanded like, “All the proof I need is the simple fact that my faith in Christ has kept me from killing any of these wild kids. Besides faith in Jesus Christ is not so much about belief as it is in action.”

Her response reflects a growing movement in Christianity. Not the part about killing children, the part about faith being not so much about belief as it is action. This movement is being best articulated by people like Marcus Borg, Diane Butler Bass and Brian McLaren.(iii) They focus on a Christianity that can be seen and experienced in the daily lives of people who claim Jesus Christ as Lord. The movement is often called Emergent or Emerging Christianity.

One of the key concepts of this movement is the redefining of what faith is. In the Emergent movement, faith is no longer seen as a belief in something that cannot be proven. Rather faith is loyalty to the unique way of life made known in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.(iv) In the more traditional understanding of faith, doubt is not acceptable. In the redefinition of faith, doubt becomes part of the experience.

I think this movement is really important because as I am sure you have noticed the world has changed. “Going to church” does not have the appeal it used to have. That Lawrence Welky, Leave it to Beaver, go to church on Sunday world, just isn’t part of the majority of people’s reality anymore. The old rationale of duty and the reason to be Christian is simply “because you are supposed to” is a thing of the past. Like it or not that world of Christendom is pretty much dead.(v)
In a very literal way she does the work of the risen Christ, for in her efforts “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”(ii)

When she is here in the US the other half of the year, she is busily resurrecting old medical equipment, computers and discarded prosthetic limbs, all of which are used to bring new life and new hope in Guatemala. When she isn’t focused on her work in Guatemala, she is helping to give brighter futures to children in at risk situations. She has, in fact, adopted 8 children out of situations that you would never want to even imagine.

Does she do this because she has a deep and unquestioning faith in God? Not really. When we talk about faith in God, she usually says something offhanded like, “All the proof I need is the simple fact that my faith in Christ has kept me from killing any of these wild kids. Besides faith in Jesus Christ is not so much about belief as it is in action.”

Her response reflects a growing movement in Christianity. Not the part about killing children, the part about faith being not so much about belief as it is action. This movement is being best articulated by people like Marcus Borg, Diane Butler Bass and Brian McLaren.(iii) They focus on a Christianity that can be seen and experienced in the daily lives of people who claim Jesus Christ as Lord. The movement is often called Emergent or Emerging Christianity.

One of the key concepts of this movement is the redefining of what faith is. In the Emergent movement, faith is no longer seen as a belief in something that cannot be proven. Rather faith is loyalty to the unique way of life made known in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.(iv) In the more traditional understanding of faith, doubt is not acceptable. In the redefinition of faith, doubt becomes part of the experience.

I think this movement is really important because as I am sure you have noticed the world has changed. “Going to church” does not have the appeal it used to have. That Lawrence Welky, Leave it to Beaver, go to church on Sunday world, just isn’t part of the majority of people’s reality anymore. The old rationale of duty and the reason to be Christian is simply “because you are supposed to” is a thing of the past. Like it or not that world of Christendom is pretty much dead.(v)

Notes:

(i) Morris, Leon The Gospel according to John (The New International Commentary on the New Testament, Eerdmans 1995, pg. 753.

(ii) Luke 7:22

(iii) Borg, Marcus The Emerging Christian Way, Cooper House 2006; Butler Bass, Diana The Practicing Congregation, The Alban Institute 2004; McLaren, Brian The Secret Message Jesus, W Publishing Group 2006.

(iv) Borg, Marcus The Emerging Christian Way, Cooper House 2006, chapter 1.

(v) Willimon, William and Haurwas, Stanly Resident Aliens, Life in the Christian Colony, Abingdon Press 1989, chapter 1.

(vi)http://www.journeywithjesus.net/PoemsAndPrayers/Theresa_Of_Avila_Christ_Has_No_Body.shtml

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