Skeptics Welcome

John 20:19-31

March 30, 2008

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

So what do you think: did Thomas actually stick his hands in the sword-wound in Jesus’ side or put his fingers in the nail holes in Jesus’ hands? I did a little Internet search to look at how painters have pictured this moment in John’s gospel, and many of them actually show Thomas touching the risen Jesus. If you were listening closely to Kassie read this morning, you will see that the Bible does not tell us whether Thomas actually touched Jesus. All John records is Thomas’ verbal response to Jesus’ invitation to touch and believe.

The answer to this question is actually more important than it might seem, because it gets to the heart of our response to the invitation to faith for those of us who have not seen Jesus in the flesh. If Thomas actually needed to touch the wounds of Jesus before professing faith, then he really was the ancestor of the residents of the state of Missouri, whose state motto is “Show Me!” If Thomas actually touched the wounds, then he needed irrefutable proof that what he saw standing in front of him was the living body of one he knew irrefutably to be dead. In touching the wounds, he could evaluate the truth of the claims of his dearest friends that, indeed, the Lord had risen, claims he had been doubting for a week. If his dramatic faith acclamation, “My Lord and my God!” was based on material proof alone, then Thomas has little to do with those of us who have no access to that kind of proof.

That’s right; we cannot prove that the man whose body hung on that cross until he breathed his last physically rose from the dead in the same body. I’ve been to Jerusalem and seen two tombs which claim to be the one in which Jesus was laid. No body is there, but that doesn’t prove anything, especially since it is entirely possible that neither of those tombs ever held Jesus’ body. All we really have is the second hand testimony of witnesses, not to the Resurrection itself of which we have no record at all since it happened out of sight of anyone but God, but witnesses to the appearances of this man who they believed was Jesus.

None of this would hold up as evidence in any kind of court or scientific experiment. And so for many centuries, many people have held a healthy skepticism about all this resurrection stuff. And many religious leaders have tried to convince the skeptics by putting together complicated explanations and watertight theological arguments. Or religious leaders have put together belief systems and church structures that either discourage or forbid questioning any of this at all! If you can’t prove it, then by all means don’t let people question it. Tell them they have to believe it or they will go to hell or maybe we’ll call the questioners “heretics” and burn them at the stake. Tell them that Jesus’ words to Thomas here (“Have you believed because you have seen? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe!”) are actually a condemnation of questions, of doubt, of skepticism? That ought to do the trick.

Is Jesus condemning Thomas for his questions and doubts? I don’t read it that way. Jesus did not condemn the other disciples for doubting the story of Mary when she came announcing she had seen Jesus (Luke’s gospel says the disciples dismissed the words of the women as “an idle tale.”). Jesus did not condemn them for hiding in the room rather than awaiting his predicted resurrection at the tomb. He said to them, “Peace be with you.” He said the same thing when he came into the room and saw Thomas. He did not berate Thomas for doubt, but invited him to do whatever he had to do to believe, and then Jesus pronounced a blessing on all of us who would not have the option Thomas had, that we might, nevertheless, find faith.

Church of the Redeemer’s motto is not, “Show me!” but rather “Skeptics Welcome.” We are a congregation, and we are part of a denomination, which is full of Thomas’s. I think that many of us here hold deep and abiding faith; I also think that most of us have times of doubt and have lots of questions about many aspects of our faith, the meanings of things in the Bible, and who God is for us and for the world. Am I right? Do you all have questions? Doubts about any of the things we talk about here?

There are days I feel like I have far more questions than I have answers. I believe, however, that those are precisely the times Jesus comes to me most clearly, as he did to Thomas, not always with answers, but with presence and love and peace. A writer named Sean Gilbert, in reflecting on this passage, asserts that “What is critical for the contemporary church is not a pure and watertight belief system, but a radically open heart and mind.” Jesus does not require certainty from me, but an openness of spirit and a willingness to tolerate mystery.

That’s why I believe Thomas did not touch Jesus, not, at any rate, before he made his faith statement. Listen to what Thomas says. He does not say, “Oh, now I have touched you and so I believe it really is you.” He does not say, “Okay, guys, now you’ve proved it to me and I am satisfied.”

He does say, “My Lord and my God.” This statement is not an acknowledgment that anything has been “proven,” nor is it a doctrinal discourse. It is an affirmation of recognition and trust, a renewal as well as a redefinition of a relationship. Thomas does not say, “I will never have another question about anything.” He simply affirms that he gives his loyalty and love to the one he feels to the depths of his soul somehow is God. Though he does not have all the answers, he is moved to belief by his experience of the presence of the risen Christ. Though he may continue to have questions, it is enough to be in relationship with the other believers and with Jesus in order for him to obey the call of Jesus to go and tell. There is a Christian denomination in India called the Mar Thoma church, and they claim to have descended from those to whom Thomas preached in India in the first century. It wasn’t proof that sent him on that journey, but love and trust and Christ’s blessing of peace.

So to those among us this morning who would identify themselves as skeptics, and to all of us in our moments of skepticism and doubt, when we find it hard to believe or trust and feel God to be distant if God exists at all, I say, with Jesus, peace be with you. If you come to these stories, and to the possibility of a relationship with God, with an open spirit and a willingness to tolerate some mystery rather than a need for certainty about all things, then we will hold each other for a week or a lifetime, awaiting those moments when the fog clears and we feel for sure that we are one with our Lord and our God.

Peace be with you, the questioning, the doubtful, the skeptical, the cynical. Peace be with you, seekers for truth, those who have many questions and those who need answers. Peace be with you who are wounded, for the risen Jesus still carried in his body his wounds. Peace be with you who hope against hope that something in all this is true enough to get you through the week. Peace be with you who are arrogant and so certain about anything. Peace be with you who just don’t care. Peace be with those of you who are taking baby steps on the way to faith, and with those of you who are, as the letter of Peter says, “rejoicing with an indescribable and glorious joy!” You are all welcome in this company of disciples. Peace. Amen.