Last Sunday's Sermon

(On the Sundays when I preach, I have about 10 minutes, so its really more of a homily and it is also supposed to be tied into life at the Park. Anyway, this is was a crowd of about 20 employees heard from me last Sunday night.)

Doubting Thomas
John 20:24-31

I have been here for about two weeks now and I have yet to see a bear. I've heard stories, I've seen pictures, skats and prints and yet, no bear spotting. I'm beginning to doubt the existence of these "mythological creatures," these "bears." And, if human nature is at all consistant, I'm sure 1/2 dozen of you are so alarmed by my skepticism and doubt that you'll probably pump me full of as many bear stories as you have after the service. But, as Thomas well knows, according to this Bible text, having people tell you about their experience of something is lightworlds apart from experiencing it yourself.

v.24 tells us first of all that Thomas wasn't with the other disciples. It's curious, really, why he was missing in action. Was he angry, upset, disappointed? I would be if I were him. After all, this man he'd been following for a couple of years now, who promised to change the world, to be the long-awaited Savior just died. I don't know if I'd still be hanging around to see what was coming next. I'd probably be busy trying to reconstruct the comfortable life I'd abandoned years ago to follow this pipe-dream that apparently hasn't panned out to well.

v.25 Yet, when Jesus does appear, the disciples (like all of you with your bear stories) are eager to share their news. Isaiah 52:7 says, "How lovely on the mountains are the feet of them that bring good news." It's a pretty uniform human response to big news to want to share it. But Thomas doubts. Maybe he's bitter because he never seems to be in the right place at the right time. If he's already angry, a bunch of yahoos gloating about their spiritual experience isn't going to help. Thomas has been let down, big time. Maybe he figures, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." So he says, "Prove it."

v.26 and so a week later. . .that's right. Jesus didnt' come busting through the door like the Kool-Aid man at Thomas' bidding. God doesn't show up on command, or jump through our hoops to win "Best-In-Show." A week later, Jesus again appears to the disciples only, this time, Thomas is with them.

There are two kinds of doubt
1) As in the case of my skepticism over these bears, I could pack up my stuff, hitch the first greyhound back to my suburban life of Target and Starbucks. Then my doubt becomes self-fulfilling prophecy and I will probably always doubt the existence of bears. OR
2) I could doubt the way Thomas in this passage doubts. He does not use his uncertainty as a license to abandon faith. Despite doubt, skepticism and even anger, Thomas remains where God was most likely to show up. Hebrews 10:25 cautions us, "Do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing but encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching." Thomas uses his doubt to fuel his quest for truth. This is a noble kind of doubt.

v. 26-28 so when Jesus finally does appear and singles Thomas out, in that moment, in that transaction, what had previously only been the stories of others became his own experience with the Risen Savior, Jesus Christ. His response was immediate and unwavering: "My Lord and My God."

And that's the end of the doubting Thomas story. But in the last two verses, the author turns the camera 180 degress onto us. Thomas got to see Jesus in his resurrection body and therefore he believed. For the rest of us, perhaps we are stuck in that week of waiting: between hearing other people's experiences and having our own. The chatter goes on around us:
* Praise the Lord!
* I was praying and I feel as though. . .
* So I read my Bible and realized I needed to. . .
But we don't understand because, maybe we've done the churc thing, religion and spirituality. But we don't understand because we haven't encountered Jesus Christ in this way. So we doubt and, perhaps, rightly so. But doubt doesn't mean you can't also have faith at the same time.

As the Father who asked Jesus to heal his son in Mark 9 said, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. So we, too, are often stuck believing and doubting at the same time. "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." is what Flannery O'Connor calls the most natural and the most Christian of all prayers.

To believe even while we waver and doubt is the essence of Christian faith. Maybe it takes a great deal of courage, a healthy dose of tenacity to have faith when our sght grows dim. Because the opposite of faith isn't doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. It doesn't take faith to assert that 2 + 2 = 4. But Christianity isn't an algebra equation. Christianity is a story. A sotry that becons and invites and welcomes your participation. LIke any story, be it Buddism, Islam, Judaism or atheism, FAITH is required.

So I guess we could, as in the case of my failure to spot bears, deny their existance at all, I could say tat since my experience in life hasn't unearthed the Divine or (more to the point, perhaps) hasn't unearth a God quite to my own tastes and liking, I could say that such an Almighty Being doesn't exist at all.

Or we could, like Thomas, acknowledge the weakness of our own faith, our inability to believe. We could admit our doubt and in the next sentance admit our faith, our desire to believe and ask God to meet us here in the jumble of faith. We could, like Thomas, seek evdence and surround ourselves with the potential to see God- in creation, in other people and at work in our lives. We could like Thomas, choose to hold on with what little faith we have to the belief that:

"Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that, by believing, we may have life in his name."