Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

4/23/06 - 2 Easter

The Rev. Scott A. Benhase

The other disciples told Thomas, "We have seen the Lord." But Thomas said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." (John 20:25)

Today is the 2^nd Sunday of Easter. It is also often called "Low Sunday" in reference to the attendance compared to the week before. Still another name for it is "Thomas Sunday," because every year, just a week after our Easter Sunday celebration, we hear the Gospel story of Thomas' lack of faith in his fellow disciples' story. Thomas is thus known as "Doubting Thomas," but that's a misunderstanding of the story. Thomas doesn't doubt, rather he had no faith in what his fellow disciples told him. Thomas wanted the certainty of seeing things for himself.

We Christians say we have faith in Jesus. We have faith that in his life he showed us who God is. We have faith that in his death he redeemed us from the consequences of our sin. And, we have faith that in his resurrection he will draw us to eternal communion with God. We say we have faith. The Bible defines faith as the evidence of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen.  We say we have faith, not certainty. Imagine what that would do to the Church's hymns. At Christmas, we'd have to sing: "O Come all ye certain." It just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? And at Easter we'd sing: "We walk by certitude, not by sight." Again, it doesn't sound quite right. But, by its very nature, faith has doubt mixed into it. It would not be faith otherwise. But we often feel like there's something wrong if we have doubts about our faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'd like to definitively answer all the questions you may have about your faith and tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt all the answers to your questions, but I can't and even if I could, I wouldn't. Because having all the answers to our questions, has nothing to do with having faith.

People look in many places for answers. We're obsessed with finding truth. We want the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But, even when truth stares us in the face, we can discount it. When we're confronted with the truth, we often ignore it because it doesn't fit into our belief system. If we don't see something with our own eyes, then we're sure it can't be true. After all, "seeing is believing."

We should have a real problem with this notion of truth and belief. It's so geared toward our own perception of what's true and what we ought to believe. Let's put ourselves in Thomas' place. Would we believe what the other disciples say or would we doubt it? Thomas just wanted a definitive truth for his belief system. Maybe if the disciples had shown him an 8 X 10 color glossy of Jesus, then he might've believed? But we know that photos can be doctored up, so we might be suspicious.

This need for certitude isn't all it's cracked up to be. This need for certitude is explained away easily in our modern world. This need for certitude provides us only with more doubt and further questions. It doesn't address the hunger in our souls for God. This need for certitude will always bring us up short, if it's based on a need for definitive answers beyond a shadow of a doubt. But Jesus doesn't offer that sort of proof. Jesus simply breathes his Holy Spirit on us. We're given faith by the power of his Holy Spirit. And that faith doesn't fit into our commonly held perceptions about truth.

Faith isn't about this sort of truth or the need to believe only in what can be proved. In this way, belief and faith are far apart. Belief demands signs, wonders, and certitude. It demands concrete facts. It demands definitive answers. Faith, however, doesn't demand such things. Faith demands only that we open ourselves to God. It's centered on God's grace and merciful forgiveness. Belief is centered on our own needs for truth and fact. Thomas searched for something to believe in, but Jesus offered only faith in his resurrection. Fortunately, Jesus also gave him an eyewitness appearance. But would Thomas have had faith if Jesus hadn't been so gracious? We don't know. We only know that, unlike Thomas, we live by faith.

Recently, scholars have tried to rehabilitate Thomas. They glorify him as a modern "man of doubt." But Thomas wasn't a "doubter." Thomas was a believer in certainty. He needed that kind of certainty before he could find faith. Because his relationship to the Lord was based only on what he could prove by his belief, he had no room for faith. We're called not to believe in the way Thomas defined belief, but to believe through our faith in the ongoing presence of God's Holy Spirit. Jesus simply breathes his Holy Spirit upon the disciples and says the blessing, "Peace be with you." This blessing of peace allows us to open ourselves to faith in God.

In order to have such faith, we need to do just that - open ourselves to faith. And that requires us to see ourselves and the world around us through Gospel eyes. To do that, we need, as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has said, to appreciate the ironic nature of the Gospel. Irony runs right through it. Everything Jesus preached and taught, even his cross and resurrection, is full of such irony. You have to be dead in order to be raised. If you want to be first, you have to be last. If you want to be great in God's Kingdom, then you must be a servant. If you want forgiveness from God, you have to forgive others.  Love your enemies rather than hate them. Pray for those who persecute you rather than seek revenge. Now, if all that is not irony, then I don't know what is. It is what many folk have called the upside down truth of God's kingdom. We are invited to have faith in such a God who calls us to live in such irony.

Trouble is, people can get confused by such irony and begin to take it in the wrong direction. Through serious investigative journalism (actually I just googled it), I recently discovered something called the Christian Wrestling Federation. It's made up of folk who do that fake wrestling one can see on TV.  Only these folk do it as Christians. They have interesting stage names. On their website, I read about one wrestler who calls himself "Apocalypse." He said (and I promise you I am not making this up): "we go out there in the ring for a couple hours each night and beat the hell out of one another all for the love of Jesus." That, too, is an example of irony, but not in the way I read the Gospel's irony.

My sisters and brothers, the Gospel message is to have faith, not belief; to place our lives in the power of God's Holy Spirit. In doing this, we'll have our doubts. That's OK.  Our faith isn't upset by doubt. But if we insist, as Thomas did, on belief beyond a shadow of a doubt, then we'll always be brought up short.  Our faith rests in a God who is powerful to save; a God whose existence isn't dependent on whether we believe or not. We must know that God doesn't need defending. God doesn't need us to prove his existence to others before they will come to belief. God doesn't even need our belief.

We, however, need faith. We need faith in a God who is always present with us in the person of Jesus Christ. We need this faith to become what God intended us to be: people who are at peace with ourselves, people who can forgive ourselves and others, and people who can share God's vision for the world. We need a faith that will call us to a common hope, a hope that does not rest on our ability to muster up enough belief, but a hope that rests in the power of God. This is the life of faith. It doesn't rest in our own power to believe; rather it rests in the power of God to believe in us.   AMEN.

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