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| The Resurrection Window Above the Altar in Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston |
Gospel: John 20:19-31
To begin, let's look at the setting for today’s Gospel reading. The disciples were scared and huddled behind locked doors, and it is the 1st day of the week. The Jewish “day” began with sundown, so this would be our Saturday night. Thomas was not present the first time and did not believe what they were saying to him about Jesus having appeared. But, it does not end there. Jesus appears one week later and this time Thomas was present and comes to believe as the others have.
The overarching theme for today is Faith. I want to say 3 things about Faith:
First, there are 2 ways of thinking about “believing.” On the one hand, there is what I call faith with a little “f,” that is “belief” as a noun. This faith means something or a list of somethings or “beliefs” to which one subscribes. For Episcopalians the list would include things like the doctrine of the Trinity, the apostolic succession of bishops, and the place of reason alongside scripture and tradition as a basis of authority in the Church. This usage of faith is not very common in scripture, and it is not what is meant by belief in the Gospel According to John. On the other hand, and almost always in scripture, “believe” is a verb which means to trust. This is what I call Faith with a capital “F.” It is nothing less than betting your life on God, betting your life that God is with us, that death did not snuff out the life of Jesus. ...betting that Jesus can and will do what he has promised.
Second, faith is not the same as certainty. We could say that certainty is even the opposite of faith. If a person is certain, he or she does not need to trust, because he or she already “knows.” This is not Faith because Faith requires vulnerability and there is no vulnerability in certainty….there is no “leap of faith,” no mystery. Instead of certainty, Jesus invites us to be open to him, with hearts inspired by the reading of scripture, formed by participation in worship, and guided by pondering in our own minds and thoughtful discussions with our fellow Christians. Certainty distorts our religion...Brené Brown, well-known researcher, author, and fellow Episcopalian in the Diocese of Texas, writes “The Church should be a place of mystery where together we find the courage to believe what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of being uncertain.” (See Brown's book The Gifts of Imperfection, Guidepost #5 "Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith.") Many forms of extremism are about choosing certainty over Faith. Certainty takes dogma and beats other people over the head with it...or worse...and you find this in religions all over the planet. Faith as trust means having an open heart, trusting that God is with us even if we remain reverently agnostic about how this could possibly be. Trust in this way also means accepting the possibility that God has spoken to others who worship differently than us and who subscribe to different things than we do.
The final and 3rd thing to note about Faith is that it is itself a gift that comes to us from beyond us. We do not create Faith ourselves but God gives it to those who ask. Faith is Grace. My experience of Faith has been that it stays with me even when, out of despondency, I walk away from it. That makes sense, because Faith has a life of its own...it is a mystery...as John says of the Spirit, it is like the wind.
How does Jesus respond to us in those times when our hearts are less than open, when our trust seems to falter? John's Gospel shows that Jesus reponds with compassion! I'm contrasting Jesus' reaction with a scene from Star Wars, the original film that we later learned to call Episode IV, A New Hope...this movie that came to theatres in 1977, when this “high mileage priest” was in high school. The scene is on the infamous Death Star. There is a meeting of officers who are discussing the power of the Death Star...Admiral Motti makes the claim that their new weapon is now the ultimate power in the universe. Darth Vader rebuts Motti with reference to the power of the Force, and Motti makes a snide comment about Vader’s sad devotion to that ancient religion. Responding to this Vader lifts his hand to place that officer into some kind of force-powered invisible chokehold. As Motti is being strangled, Vader comments, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
With this scene in mind, now think back to Jesus’ interaction with the "doubting Thomas" of our Gospel reading. By way of contrast, Jesus did not find Thomas’ lack of faith disturbing….He responded with compassion. He was not personally offended but offered his hand and his side for inspection... He met Thomas on his level. But by this point Thomas did not need to inspect. His heart was opened and the Spirit of Faith entered.
The author of John closes this section by stating the reason that of all these stories were written about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They were written so that we might have Faith….so that we might be empowered to bet our lives on God...written that we who live in a subsequent day and age might also come to have our hearts opened. And, with hearts opened, the Spirit of God enters us, giving us Faith with a capital “F,” the power to trust that no matter what happens, or what our imaginations might "cook up" in the middle of the night, we might have a sense of peace knowing that it’s all in God’s hands. Amen.
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