Date: April 21st and 24th
Preacher: Pastor Ashley Rosa-Ruggieri
First Reading: Acts 5:27-32
Psalmody: Psalm 118:14-29
Second Reading: Revelation 1:4-8
Gospel: John 20:19-31
Have you ever had a nickname that you were not fond of? Personally, I do not like being called Ash, though a few of my close family members are allowed to do so. Still, I think it can be common to have a name we are called that we are not always happy about. With that in mind, I always tend to feel a little bad for Thomas this week of Easter because he is nearly always referred to as, “Doubting Thomas.” My problem with this is not that Thomas has doubts that are exemplified in this passage, but the fact that this nickname has turned into a negative attribute. A slippery slope then follows when we demonize the practice of doubting and working through those doubts. Humanity was not made to believe without ever having doubts. I have had doubts in my faith, and I worked through them not by being shamed, but by talking about them. When we create the illusion that doubting is unfaithful rather than a common and understandable response, those who have doubts feel the need to hold them inside rather than discuss them with others and risk being shamed. But, even if we were to take out the negative connotation that comes with “doubting,” I still think that Thomas is unfairly treated in the common interpretation of this passage.
First of all, Thomas is put down because he does not believe the other disciples have seen Jesus resurrected. Unless he sees and touches Jesus himself, he will not believe, because he does not believe their story. For those of you who were here on Easter Sunday this last week, perhaps that sounds familiar to the Gospel passage we read from Luke. The women, first witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection, went to the other disciples, told them their story of hearing Jesus was alive, and were dismissed as women telling idle tales. Peter, at least, gets up and runs to the tomb, to check out their story with his own eyes, but for the most part, the story of Jesus’s resurrection told by the women was brushed off by the disciples. In other words, the disciples said, no, we do not believe your story, we need to see for ourselves. They can react like this to the women telling the resurrection story, but when Thomas isn’t there and Jesus shows up, he is the unreasonable one for wanting to see for himself? Seems like doubting Thomas was just one of a whole group of disciples riddled with doubt.
We can take this one step further with the knowledge that the disciples locked themselves away in a room in our Gospel passage because of their fear. They were afraid of the outside authorities because they were followers of Jesus, and still believed Jesus to be dead. Again, if the women have already told them that Jesus was alive and we are to condemn their doubt, then there should have been no reason for fear. Instead, they should have been out, seeking the Lord and whatever he might have them do now as our resurrected savior. But they did not believe, they had doubts, understandably. So, they locked themselves together in a room for fear of the retribution they might face for being known followers of Jesus. Lucky for them, Jesus enters their locked room and appears before them fully resurrected.
Now, this brings us to another point for why Thomas was not the only one with doubt, which is that the other disciples had an opportunity to see before believing. Our Gospel readings says that Jesus appeared among them, said “Peace be with you,” and then showed them his hands and side, the wounds there. After all of this, THEN the disciples rejoiced when they saw Jesus. At first, though Jesus had entered the room and spoken to them, though they had heard from the women that he was resurrected, the disciples could not understand that Jesus stood among them. And so, he shows them his scars and THEN the disciples know who he is and believe what they have heard—that Jesus is alive.
The story continues that some disciples tell Thomas, who was away during this encounter, that they saw Jesus. And Thomas’s reply is that he has to see for himself. Thomas and the other disciples then just have to wait. A full week passes before Jesus appears among them again, this time with Thomas in attendance. Jesus offers Thomas his side and his hands, and tells him to touch and see and believe. Jesus’s reprimand is then, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe.” I think this response from Jesus, written down by John makes sense when we then consider the next lines of the passage. John writes that these are not the only signs Jesus did, others were not written in the book of John, but these ones were written down so that we (the readers) might come to believe. Since Jesus walked on the Earth some time ago, WE do not have the luxury of being able to see in order to believe. Instead, we base our belief on God and God’s promises, on the words of scripture, and on our experience of God in our own lives.
John would have written this Gospel after Jesus had already ascended, and so he knew in writing this that those who would read it, in any time or place, would not have first person opportunities to have Jesus among them. So instead, he tells the reader that these words are written so that we might believe. Often this is interpreted as—we must believe, no questions, doubts or exceptions, but I offer a different message given to us this morning. The message of our Gospel is not that we should never doubt, it is that we should listen to one another’s stories openly rather than with dismissals. And with hearing the stories and testimonies of others, including those we have in scripture, we might find some opportunities to ease our own doubt. We know doubts will come, they are a natural reaction, especially when we have questions. The trick is knowing that we do not have to be free of doubts in order to follow Jesus. All the disciples had doubts, and they were still followers of Jesus. Thomas had doubts and was still a follower of Jesus. And so we, in modern day Ohio, can certainly have doubts, we can share them and discuss them, and none of that excludes us from continually following the way of Jesus in the world. Thanks be to God.