A Twin Brother
By Griff Martin
On
John 20:19-31
For
the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
On the
Second Sunday of Easter
April
28, 2019
Incarnate and Resurrected God, we
ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and
breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of your
presence here in this space and in these words, God, for if we are present to
you then nothing else will matter, but if we are not present to you then
nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the
Comforter. Amen.
He
is Risen; He is Risen Indeed.
Happy Easter. We are still in the season of Easter
and we will be for the next 6 Sundays. For you liturgical calendar nerds, that
is one Sunday longer than Lent because we are called to be people who celebrate
Easter longer than we practice Lent; a people who are known more for freedom
and celebration than abstinence, sack cloth and ash.
And to continue with some liturgical calendar nerds
(today is Orthodox Easter), our brothers and sisters of the Eastern church
tradition. And if you remember the Easter sermon, we are trying to learn from
them this year; a resurrection for all people, a stronger Easter that will call
us to more.
So, think of today as Easter Part 2. Happy
Resurrection, First Austin. He is Risen; He is Risen indeed.
In church tradition, today is also known as “Low
Sunday,” because the pomp and circumstance of the last few Sundays are gone; the
lilies have started to wilt, the pebbles are lost in your car, the palms are
long dead, the Godspell choir is
gone, the crowd is much thinner and the organ is not as loud. It’s a Sunday
that fits the poet Jack Gilbert’s line on Eastertime, “Down from that holiday
energy, to the silence of real life.”
Which is a shame because today is a day we
understand. Preaching-wise, I try my hardest to find a place we connect in the
text and then build from there. But you can’t do that with Easter – there is
little common ground for us with that text. The most attended church service of
the year is also the hardest story to relate to, to find a place where you go
“there – I get that line.” Which is sad because today is all about doubts and
wounds (things we know well), and how doubts and wounds can call us to true
Christianity. It’s one of my favorite stories because each time I read it I
discover something new.
This week after reading this text, I began a
conversation with Thomas. He’s always been one of my favorite disciples, but
this week he became more. I began a conversation with Thomas thinking he would
teach me all about doubt and wounds, which he did in a whole new way. You see,
when I went to ask Thomas some questions, I discovered that Thomas had a
question for me, as well. He started the conversation; he did not allow me to
ask any of my questions of him: Griff, why
do you call me doubting?
And then he was all the willing to point out why
that was really not the most appropriate nickname for him…
To start, Thomas pointed out that early on in this
exact text, when Jesus first appears to the disciples, what does he do? Shows
his hands and side – the exact same thing he will do for Thomas, so why does
Thomas alone get this nickname?
And then Thomas pointed out that Scripture has
already given him a nickname: the Twin. In fact, that nickname is in this very
passage, whereas nowhere in this text or all of Scripture is he called Doubting
Thomas. Instead, just “the Twin” … an interesting nickname, because we have no
idea who he is the twin of…
And then Thomas went a bit further and pointed out
to me that I needed to look at the whole of his life, his entire narrative, and
that one should never base an opinion on just one incident (he reminded me what
my theological story would look like if all you had were the prayers I prayed
the night I had my first kidney stones, prayers that make me look like a
fundamentalist Christian if there ever was one: “God, take this pain away and I
will be a missionary wherever you need me and I will never watch an R-rated
movie again and I will tithe 15% and I will pray more each morning.” Thank God
that prayer is not my entire theological story). Thomas had a point. And so I
began to think through the life of Thomas, and Thomas is really something; he
does not speak much, but when he does, it’s profound.
The first time he speaks in the Gospels is after
Jesus has brought Lazarus back. Then Jesus announces that the disciples are
headed back to Judea – the last time they were there, a group tried to stone
and kill Jesus. Knowing that going back to Judea could easily lead to their
death, and with the other disciples arguing to not go back to Judea, it is
Thomas who utters the most amazing commitment: “Let us also go, that we may die
with him.” Hmmm….
It’s Thomas who is the first one in the Gospel of
John to see the resurrected Jesus and cry out, “My Lord and My God.” He’s the
first one in this Gospel to understand the resurrection and all it implies.
Hmmm….
It’s Thomas who is later said to have journeyed
further than any other disciple in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.
Tradition has it that Thomas travels on his missionary journeys all the way to
present day India. In fact, it’s there that we believe Thomas ends up martyred
for his faith, giving his life for the Gospel. Hmmm….
And looking at the whole narrative, I began to
question the nickname of Doubting Thomas. Not because someone who has doubts
could not do those things, but because maybe what Thomas says is a lot more
than simply doubt. Maybe there is more to his statement in this text. Maybe his
doubt was a prayer of holy faith.
And that made me think about a gentleman who wanted
to see me for a benevolence request for some money for groceries once in Baton
Rouge. I had never seen this gentleman before. He introduced himself and he
started his story and before I knew it he was telling me about a double bypass
surgery that was poorly done and bleeding out and a batch of bad blood that he
received as a result and how he was now HIV positive and before I could stop
him, he was lifting his shirt over his head and showing me all his scars from
his bypass surgery and blood infusions and what HIV was doing to his skin and
it was not a pretty picture. It was gruesome, and I was seeing so much more
than I ever wanted to see, and I immediately begin to think one thought: how do
I get myself out of this situation as soon as possible? I needed out of the
room; there was too much gore and physical reality suddenly right in front of
me.
And then it got me to thinking about Thomas and his
request of Jesus involving the scars and wounds. And what Thomas ended up
asking me was this question: “Why do you think ‘I won’t believe unless I touch
him’ is a statement of doubt? Maybe it’s a cry of courage, and a statement of
intense faith, of insane vulnerability…I won’t believe unless I can place my
hands in his wounds…. I can’t be a believer unless I am willing to get fully
lost in this messy reality of crucifixion and resurrection.”
Perhaps Thomas’ statement of doubt is actually an
incredible statement of what it means to believe – as if Thomas is telling us that
to believe is to become intimately involved in the crucifixion and resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
Because here is my confession: if you told me I
could believe from a distance or I could place my hands inside the wounds of my
Jesus, well, I know which one I am choosing and I know I will be making the
safer and less gory choice. The one where I can be involved from a distance.
The one where I can safely pretend that “follow me” has a footnote attached to
it that says: “follow me until I head to the cross and then you don’t have to
go there.”
And that is the problem of our faith today; we have
fooled ourselves into believing that we can be Christian without getting
involved in the cross and resurrection. We think that we can believe from a
distance and not have to get intimately acquainted with a Jesus who was
crucified on our behalf. We want Easter Sunday without Good Friday. In crude
terms, we want the glory without the guts and pain and mess.
We view following Jesus like we view the line at the
Piccadilly or a church potluck; I want some of this, but none of that, and some
of this, but none of that…. We start at the beginning of the church potluck
line and we pile our plate with fried chicken and brisket and deviled eggs and
potato salad and rolls and macaroni and cheese and the dessert that involves
chocolate and peanut better… and we glance at the Jell-O salads and the store-bought
cookies and orange fluff and egg salad… we glance and think “Not for me, I will
save that for someone else.”
And if you have never had the privilege of being
part of the clean-up team after a church potluck, well, there tends to be a lot
of Jell-O salad and store-bought cookies and orange fluff and egg salad left
over.
And that is exactly how we treat Christianity, as if
our faith were a walk down the Luby’s cafeteria aisle and we are picking
and choosing what we want and what we would rather not have.
“Yes, today I would love a huge heaping of grace
with a bit of mercy on the side, I don’t have to share that right? … oh, I
don’t want that whole forgiveness helping yet, I mean, there are some people in
my life that I am just not ready to forgive yet… and sure, I would love some of
Jesus’ parables, those always hit the spot… no, I am going to pass on that
whole ‘giving more away’ thing, maybe I will take a side of that around the
holidays but not right now... and I would love a little resurrection but
without the crucifixion, if possible.”
“Yes, First Austin, I want to be part of that
community… but no, I don’t want to deal with the complexity of homelessness and
the calling of friendship there, I prefer my mission work a bit more just write
a check and feel good… Oh I like the music so I don’t want to introduce music
that might be more inclusive to someone else but it’s not my style… Oh I like
this element of church but I would prefer not to tithe… Oh I like these programs but those are not convenient to me…”
We have fooled ourselves into thinking Christianity
is a cafeteria line faith, and that is exactly what the words of Thomas call us
away from: I can’t believe until I get intimately involved in the very body of
Jesus Christ.
Thomas refuses a faith where he can believe from a
safe distance.
Do we?
Are we willing to say to Jesus, “We can’t be
believers until we get personally involved in all of your life including the
cross and the resurrection?”
Because when we utter those words, that is when our
faith gets difficult, because that means we are going to have to forgive people,
and not just the easy ones. It’s going to mean forgiving the people who have
wounded us so deeply, we think we might just die. And it’s going to mean giving
away a lot more than most of us are comfortable with giving. It’s going to be
striving for a life of scarcity and not abundance; a life where we give away a
lot more than we ever keep. And it means a life where we go and live on the
margins of society, and we share meals with those that most of our world would
rather ignore. And it means that we put our own agendas to the side and say
over and over again, “Not my will,
but Your will be done.” And we keep
saying that until those words become our very heart beat. And it’s going to
mean using our whole lives to tell the love story of God. And it means that we
are going to follow Jesus all the way up Calvary and onto that cross.
And that is when our faith gets difficult, but that
is also when our faith gets real.
And what we have always called Thomas’ doubt might
be instead the very confession each of us needs to make: Lord, we can’t be
called believers unless we are truly willing to get involved in all of your
life, including your very wounds.
The confession that Christianity requires us going
all in with every hand we draw.
Maybe Doubting Thomas is actually Believing Thomas
or Faithful Thomas or Committed Thomas, or maybe we stick with the nickname
Scripture gives him, the Twin.
Because maybe that is the most fitting nickname for
our Thomas.
If you have never been around a bunch of guys, like
11 guys who are extremely close, you need to know that guys do nicknames, it’s
one of our things. And these nicknames fall in two categories: they are either
based on something absurd and probably inappropriate, or they are deeply
significant and talk about character. I think this one is all about character,
and it’s a nickname of deep significance.
Maybe the disciples figured this out early on, and
they saw that Thomas really got it. That Thomas was truly willing to imitate fully
the life of Christ. Maybe it was when he uttered those words, “Let us go also
with him, that we too may die.” Or maybe it was when he was the first disciple
after the Resurrection to fall to his knees in front of Jesus and call out “My
Lord and My God.” Or maybe it was when he was willing to journey so far for the
cause of Christ, or even when he laid his own life on the line for Jesus. At
some point, they got it. Thomas is imitating someone… he does remind us of
someone…
And maybe he is a twin; the twin of our Jesus.
Could the same be said of you and me?
Amen and Amen.
*artwork: The Doubt of St. Thomas, Painting by James He Qi, heqiart.com
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