Easter 2, Year A – March 30, 2008

Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; I Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

St. Giles Church, Northbrook IL – The Rev. Cynthia J. Hallas

I was not an English major in college, but I’ve been a fan of Garrison Keillor for years.  I’ve read books and articles, I’ve listened to A Prairie Home Companion for decades (even attended a couple of live performances), I’ve seen the movie.  One of the things I admire most about Keillor is his understanding of the importance of religion, specifically Christianity, in the lives of ordinary folks.  He comes at faith from a cultural and sociological perspective, which is often a refreshing corrective to the political, evangelical, and even – dare I say it? – to the orthodox theological viewpoints that that the media is rife with.  Not that Keillor isn’t a theologian.  But

from his young days as a member of the Sanctified Brethren church in small-town Minnesota

through his experience among the “Dark Lutherans” of that state to his joining the Episcopal Church in midlife, Garrison Keillor displays a knack for examining and presenting religion as a gentle yet significant driving force, as well as a practical need and a downhome comfort, in the lives of regular people who are making their way through life and trying to be good, decent, God-fearing folks as they do so.  When Garrison Keillor writes or speaks about religion, I pay attention. 

And I found myself paying particular attention to his column in the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday of Holy Week (3/19/08).  The column was entitled “A pagan’s thoughts at Eastertide” (did anyone see/read it?), and in it Keillor detailed an experience he had at the previous Sunday’s Palm Sunday service.  He confessed to ‘[coming] to church as a pagan this year’, where he sat in the rear pew, ‘a skeptic in the henhouse,’ as he put it, ‘thinking weaselish thoughts.’  He went on to explain how his reading of the gospels ‘in one fell swoop’ had caused his faith to be shaken, perhaps, as he admitted, because it had been based on visuals like Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus gathering the little children to himself, etc.

and then he discovered the ‘contentious political process’ by which the canon of Holy Scripture had been put together and the combination of those discoveries brought him to a place of doubt – not in God’s existence, but rather in God’s interest in and intentions for humanity, specifically he himself.  Keillor concludes his column by stating, ‘So I will sit in the doubter’s chair for a while and see what is to be learned back there.’

Keillor’s column, of course, clearly referred to the Passion of Christ, not his Resurrection. 

It was occasioned by the Palm Sunday liturgy, not that of Easter or a subsequent Sunday. 

The featured disciples that day were Peter and Judas, not Thomas.  But I think Garrison Keillor would find, if not a kindred spirit, at least a companionable acquaintance in Thomas, whose ‘big scene’ on the stage of the New Testament drama we watch today.  I can imagine a conversation between the two of them, a conversation that revolves around just what it is that faith in the risen Christ calls out of us and how sometimes we can’t quite get our minds – or our hearts – around it. 

Today’s gospel provides us with a couple of insights to ponder.  One is that we tend to isolate the story of Thomas out of its proper context as a part of the complete post-Resurrection narrative of the Christian scriptures.  After all, Thomas’ first encounter with the risen Christ was simply one part of a systematic progression of witnesses to that resurrection, a progression that has a ripple effect, if we look back at it. 

It goes from the tomb, discovered to be empty; to the discarded shroud and head cloth; to the garden, where Jesus is mistaken for a gardener; to sightings on the road to Galilee and in that ‘upper room’.  Next week we ripple out a little further, to the Emmaus road; but that will be left to someone else to explore.  Thomas asks for nothing more than what the other disciples had been given voluntarily the previous week, and he insists on it before he sees Jesus, not when he finally does see him, and apparently does recognize him at that point.  It’s Jesus himself who then voluntarily offers the wounds in his hands and side for Thomas to examine.  It feels more like a gift, to me at least – something along the lines of Julian of Norwich’s revelation of the ‘fair and delectable place’ she saw when she gazed into the wounded side of her Lord.

It’s a long and tiring journey from Palm Sunday, through Holy Week and on to the Vigil and Easter morning - even rejoicing can be hard work!  These are such rich, full experiences that they can leave anyone just plain exhausted. 

So maybe it’s tempting to just lean back and take it easy and maybe not think too much about all these Jesus sightings that we’re going to be hearing about for the next several weeks.  And if you weren’t part of those observances and celebrations over the previous two weeks, and you’re only just now coming on board, one week later can be a hard place to sign on.  This is where Thomas signs on – one week later. 

So here we are, confronted with our own doubts and needs and insecurities in the person of Thomas, the one whose fate seems sealed by his failure to get to the upper room just when the news was breaking. 

“There is comfort for the doubter in the Passion story,” Keillor notes.  “Jesus’ cry from the cross was a cry of incredulity.”  Incredulity.  Disbelief.  From our studies in etymology we know that the word creed, which is among other things the name we give to those documents stating the Church’s belief that were hammered out in a similar fashion to our canon of scripture, originally meant something that one gives one’s heart to.  We don’t just believe it’s true; we own it for ourselves and are confident of its truth.  A cry of incredulity is a cry that says “I cannot give my heart to this!”  This is the uncomfortable terrain of the faithful doubter – being asked to give what one cannot, at least temporarily, bestow.  Thomas reacts to the news “We have seen the Lord!” with a temporary inability to give his heart to that news.  He wants to believe but he needs to see some evidence.  And both Jesus and the evangelist are very clear in saying that the evidence is given so that whoever hears the story, can come to believe.  It’s a process.  We aren’t born believing; belief doesn’t suddenly descend on us fully formed, never to change or grow or waiver.  We come to believe.

The other insight to be gleaned from this passage from John is that we tend to underestimate the importance of doubt in the life of faith.  That may sound counterintuitive, but keep in mind that doubt is not the opposite of faith; we all know, or ought to know, that the opposite of faith is fear.  Fear paralyzes us but doubt is a catalyst.  Doubt makes us question.  Doubt makes us think. 

It makes us struggle.  And true doubt, unlike indifference, will gnaw at us until it forces us to figure something out. 

Historically, the Church has not been kind to doubters.  We’ve tended to vilify those who question – especially those who question the Church, especially those who question the Church’s authority.  And as individual believers, we may have convinced ourselves that it’s somehow unchristian to doubt, or question, or debate, or sometimes even to discuss, our own misgivings about our faith and even about God.  We don’t want to appear weak or unfaithful.  But it is our doubts, our struggles with belief and disbelief, that ultimately strengthen our faith.  To quote Garrison Keillor one more time, “Skepticism is a stimulant, not to be repressed.”

Thomas represents the tension between the faith many of us wish we had, and the evidence we need to believe.  In so many, many ways, “Thomas is us”.  Maybe we need to substitute some of our Garrison Keillor-type visuals of the “nice Jesus” with one or two of those from this morning’s gospel. 

I think there are many more Thomases among us than we’re aware of or want to admit to.  I confess that as I’ve gotten older and gone deeper, my “Thomas moments” have increased, not decreased.  And I think all of us, at some or many points in our faith journey, come to a place where we just need to see some evidence; we want something that we can see or hold onto, or put our hands into, that will substantiate the claims.  And we do get them; but not always in the way we may have imagined. 

But for all of us who find ourselves, from time to time, joining Garrison Keillor back in the doubter’s chair, it doesn’t mean the journey is at an end.  Far from it.  The process of coming to believe will often put us back in that chair, where there is much ‘to be learned’ from the experience.

Easter 2B (2009):

Perhaps if the Church were a little better at claiming, a little less reluctant to recognize, a little less squeamish at acknowledging the wounds of Christ, our true mission would not only have more credibility in the world, it would actually blossom.  Maybe the entire world is populated by doubting/honest Thomases, who need to see the evidence that it truly is the wounded Jesus Christ, not the church’s interpretation of a gilded, triumphant Christus Rex in priest’s robes, to make both the tragedy of crucifixion and the miracle of resurrection a believable reality.