St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN
Year A - 2 Easter - April 19, 2020
I’ve always appreciated people who ask questions… much more than those who claim to have all the answers. Asking questions allows the chance for discovery and dialogue… It enables a chance to learn… asking questions helps us cultivate a genuine curiosity that leads us to a culture of mature engagement…
It starts with the 150,000 questions that we asked our parents as children… and possibly continues into our adolescence and adulthood and hopefully continues on today… Asking questions is one of the most healthy things that we can do both for our education and for our spiritual life. But, beyond just “asking” questions, I think being able to live with the questions is helpful also…
As you know, there isn’t an answer to every question that we have… but that doesn’t stop us from asking… of trying to understand… of struggling and learning to live by faith. Someone who really wrestles with the questions of faith has a lot more in common with the apostles and a lot more in common with you and with me.
In the Gospel lesson this morning, Thomas didn't get to see the resurrected Jesus at first. He didn't have a newfound faith, based on the first-hand experience of the risen Christ that the other disciples had after they saw Jesus. Thomas was somewhere else. And regardless of how much the others that were gathered in that upper room testified to Thomas that they had seen the risen Christ, Thomas still had his reservations.
Thomas said, “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! It is important for us to notice in the story that the text doesn’t say that Thomas doubted anything. He just wanted to see for himself... so it would be improper to call him "Doubting Thomas"… it might be more appropriate to call him questioning Thomas…
He came forth, He asked to be able to see. He wanted to believe for himself! He wanted a personal experience with the risen Christ. He already believed in Jesus the person… he traveled with him and learned from him. He even saw him die on the cross just outside of Jerusalem. But his struggle was to believe… Believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead.
A week later the risen Jesus appears to the disciples again: This time Thomas is there with them! Jesus tells Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, reach out your hand and put it in my side, Do not doubt that it is me… but see, and believe!” And don't we want to believe like that? Of course, we do! Even on those days when the story of the resurrection seems a bit beyond our grasp... We want to believe. We want to come forth; We want to ask to be able to see the wounds; And… We want to invest our lives and our souls in something real and tangible. We want our own personal experience with the risen Jesus… We want to be able the make that proclamation that Thomas made, “My Lord and My God!
Then Jesus throws a twist in Thomas’ assurance that is based on his own personal experience. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We have not seen… yet we believe… we may question sometimes… but we are here… and we believe…
For centuries, this Sunday (The Second Sunday of Easter) has been called “Low Sunday…” This is done mainly to point out that sharp contrast between this Sunday and all of the “High Holy” festivities surrounding Easter Sunday the previous week. In fact, I think that the folks who make an effort to worship on Sunday after Easter understand this lesson better than anyone else.
You are here because you understand that the resurrection of Jesus and Easter is not just a pleasant springtime tradition to observe with chocolate rabbits, colored eggs, marshmallow chicks, and hiding candy for the children to find. You are here because the risen Christ has invited you into the fellowship of believers…
The risen Jesus has invited you to participate in the mystery of himself and to ask questions that engage and challenge your faith. Us gathering here today (however we're doing it) is acting out the faith that has been handed down through witnesses of the faith like it has been done for 2 millennia. Witnesses like those in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles who were willing to take action and proclaim the resurrection amid persecution and ridicule.
We are all called as Christians to live into our faith to act it out and let it be a driving force in our lives (last Sunday, I called it living into the resurrection…) so that we can continue the witness (to tell the story) to others. To tell the story of God’s salvation… The salvation that comes to us in Jesus the risen Christ. The action of living into our faith strengthens our faith asking questions is part of it… it’s our way understanding and coming to terms with what we have been told and what we experience.
See, faith is not some obscure mental act. It is not something we have to fabricate in our heads nor is it something that we can understand completely. Faith is the state of being… It’s a state of knowing that we are chosen as the beloved of God. And we act on it by telling others, so that they, too, can enter into that state of knowing that they are loved by God. And the best part is, we don’t need to understand God to know that we are loved by God.
The well-known spiritual writer, Henry Nouwen, writes in his short book, Life of the Beloved: “To be chosen as the Beloved of God is something radically different. Instead of excluding others, it includes others. Instead of rejecting others as less valuable, it accepts others in their own uniqueness. It is not a competitive, but a compassionate choice. Our minds have great difficulty in coming to grips with such a reality. Maybe our minds will never understand it.”
I think Nouwen was on to something… You see, sometimes we try and try to understand, but once we know we are beloved by God we can rest in the absence of the answers to all our questions. We can rest in the love of God. This is what I believe… Questions are a good thing… I also believe that questions don’t always need answers.
So I have a few questions for you this morning…
Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ (the anointed one of God)?
Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
Do you believe in life everlasting?
Let us be able to say without seeing – Yes! Jesus is My Lord and My God!
Let us say yes, and Gracefully accept our gift of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that is so freely and generously given to us. And then we can gracefully live into that gift of everlasting life with our God. And, when we are like the beloved Apostle, St. Thomas… and we are filled with questions wanting our own personal experience with Jesus… Let us ask for God to fill us with the power that we need to boldly profess our faith. So, while we are strengthening our own faith, we are also passing it on.
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