Listen to the Sermon.
Doubt. It seems like a timely topic these days. In our world, we look around and see one distressing thing after another: dead emaciated whales their bellies filled with plastic waste, children starving on every continent, new border walls being built around the world to refuse sanctuary to refugees fleeing from war and violence, humanity’s basic fears fueled by self-centered hate-mongering. It’s hard to imagine what comes next.
Doubt and her cousin Pessimism say it won’t and can’t get better, only worse. Aunt Nostalgia says we should just look back at the path we have already traveled and wish we were in some idyllic place in the past. After all, they chorus, how will an unknown future provide hope for our children and grandchildren, or enough food for all the people, or the possibility of lives that are full of meaning and joy?
The disciples sat in that locked room, on both of the occasions in our gospel, asking similar, doubt-filled questions through a veil of grief.
We can imagine their grief. Missing Jesus: his laugh, the way he looked at you and you thought he could see into your soul, his stories, maybe even laughing about his grumpy moments just before dinner or when he really needed some time to pray. They learned so much from him. They loved him. And now he’s gone, and what are they supposed to do?
They left their homes, their fanilies, their livelihoods to follow him. And they don’t want to go back to that old life. It pales in comparison to the new life they have glimpsed in their years with Jesus. It’s been exciting and invigorating to be part of Jesus’ life and ministry. They have had front row seats for healings, and casting out demons, and people rising from the dead. Fishing just doesn’t compare.
Best of all, with Jesus they have found a community, a new family where everyone belongs. Sure, there’s some nagging and disagreements from time to time – but that’s just part of being family. We love each other. We are sisters and brothers. Really, we can’t imagine whom else we would want to be with right now as we grieve and wonder about the future.
And, still, the questions abound. What will happen next? Will we survive, or even thrive? Will others join us? Do we have something other people want to share? Will our faith and passion fade without this teacher whom we love? Will we have the strength to carry this message to the world? Are we even sure of the message he was giving us?
Questions echo our friends Doubt and Pessimism, and our desire for evidence and proof. Like Thomas, who says, “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.” How can we believe in something we cannot see or touch? How can we know if something is real and sustainable if we can’t take a picture, or get our hands in it, Google it, or otherwise define it? So many questions. Questions that have potential to become a wall between us and people we love and trust.
Madeleine L’Engle, a 20th century Episcopal writer and mystic, says that living a life of faith IS living a life of many questions, the kind of questions some might call doubt. She contrasts the question-filled life of faith with a life of faith that is filled with certainty. If we believe in a God who is always inviting us into new life, is a life of faith ever filled with certainty? She suggests that when we live with questions, we continually seek to answer them. And thus, we continually seek to know our God more fully.
A life of faith with so much certainty that it has no questions is a life of faith that is not growing. Questions, even, and especially, ones that some would call doubt, become necessary to our faith and our faithfulness.
Thomas doesn’t let his doubt and questions keep him away from his friends and his community. He shows up to dinner. We don’t know where he was that first Sunday night. But he hears about it. “Hey, Thomas, you missed a good dinner on Sunday. You’ll never guess what happened.” And so, when they gather again the next Sunday, he’s there. Even though he’s not sure he believes them, he comes. He brings his questions. He stays present to the possibility, the possibility that God might be revealed again and again and again.
Jesus met people in the midst of the chaos of their lives: on the side of the road, at the town gate, brought to him by friends in the possibility of faith. Jesus did the same thing in his post-resurrection appearances. He met his followers in the midst of the unexpected, messy, and doubt-filled moments of their lives.
The disciples gather behind locked doors and afraid on that Sunday after Easter. And Jesus appears to them and says, ‘Peace be with you.’ He comes to bring peace to calm their doubt and fear. He appears so that they CAN believe, so they will have hope and courage.
He doesn’t tell them they were wrong for doubting or wondering about the future. He doesn’t give them a turn-by-turn GPS-generated map for life and the journey of faith. Instead, he gives them an incredible and enduring gift.
He breathes on them with the Holy Spirit, with the breath of Life. New life. Life in his name. Life in relationship with one another. Life that continues what he began. That breath of new life binds them, us, together. And then he sends us out – together - to do the work God has given us to do, proclaiming forgiveness and healing to the world, breaking down the walls that separate us, and making us one humanity.
So what is our proof? The holes in the hands, the hand in the side kind of proof? Well, it’s 2,000 years later and we’re still gathering, in community, to remember that Jesus appeared to us while we were eating and he sent us out to do God’s work in the world. Of course, we still have a bazillion questions. That’s normal. We should.
Living with questions means that when we find an answer that fills our soul with hope, when we recognize the risen Christ revealed to us, we too can respond with joy and delight and amazement, “My Lord! And my God! It’s really you!” And, in doing so, we help others recognize Christ among us.
We still don’t know the future. No one does. What is certain is that we will not walk it alone. We will be here with one another, asking the questions faithfully, in community. We will break bread together, and pray together. We will have fun and celebrate together. We will feed the hungry and welcome the stranger. We will break down the walls that separate us. And we will walk the uneven and unknown path, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, always in the company of the Holy Spirit. And, because we live with questions and wondering, we will stay open to the possibility that the risen Christ will be revealed in the most unexpected and unplanned ways.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
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