The Faith of Demand (or Should One Flee From A Deadly Plague?)
A Homily on John 20:24-31 and Psalm16
by Griff Martin
April 19, 2020
*This document comes from an oral manuscript.
He is Risen! (He is Risen indeed)
Don’t forget we are still in Easter so this greeting is still very much applicable. The church prepares for Easter, the season we know as Lent, for 40 days but we celebrate Easter for 50… ten more days, 1 more Sunday than Lent. Our celebration lasts longer than our preparation.
As I said in the benediction last week, Easter is not a noun; let me add this week, Easter in not a noun or a single day, Easter is a verb and we carry it with us intentionally for 50 days of celebration and newness.
He is Risen! (He is Risen indeed).
Our story starts once again in isolation. The disciples, having experienced the Resurrected Christ, are still together in a locked room, away from the rest of the world, probably still scared (maybe more scared than before… it was one thing to think the Jesus you had spent your entire life following was killed for treason, and should you need to worry about your own life?It’s quite another to think that Jesus who you spent your entire life following was killed for treason and was resurrected as the Living Christ, which presents a whole new host of faith and fear).
So they are gathered together, just the disciples, in a locked room away from the rest of the world. Now the last time Jesus was there with them, Thomas had not been there. We are given no clue as to where Thomas is at this point, we just know he is not quarantining with the other disciples on the first Easter night when Jesus shows up.
And then Thomas gets there with the rest of his people and he just can’t quite figure all this out; they got to see Jesus and he did not. And they are just waiting now.
Now this was new to me when I read the Gospels in seminary. I think I always believed that Jesus is resurrected and he spends the next 50 days with the disciples before ascending to be with the Creator, with God. However, that is not how any of the Gospels tell the story. Jesus is here and there, he appears and then disappears. The Resurrected Christ has the same heart and soul but the body is so much more… here, there, everywhere.
Which is why the disciples are gathered together and they keep telling the story about how Mary saw Jesus as a gardener and how they were gathered together that night and Jesus showed up in their midst, walking through walls, and then disappears. We tell stories to make ourselves believe, to keep things alive. And Thomas has heard the story. And he’s had enough of it. “Unless I see with my eyes and put my hands into his side, I will not believe.” It’s quite a statement.
Now a lot has been written about this line, it’s where we get our nickname for Thomas, Doubting Thomas (make sure and note, nowhere in Scripture is this nickname used). And I do think this statement begins in doubt and listen to this, despite what you may have heard preached before by others, I believe doubt is very important to our faith, maybe one of the most important tools in our faith toolbox. Doubt gives validity to our faith, doubt often leads to faith and leads us deeper into Jesus and into ourselves, into our wounds and our resurrection.
And this statement is the perfect illustration of this truth because the seed of doubt gives voice to Thomas’ demand. “Unless I see with my eyes and put my hand into his side…” That might be doubt and it is certainly a demand.
And then Jesus shows up.
Which means Thomas has a lot to teach us. For instance, Thomas teaches us that we need to demand Jesus to show up, so that our doubts can turn to demands and lead to faith encounters. Our doubts may very well lead us straight into the presence of Jesus Christ.
I need to see Jesus and then Jesus shows up.
It reminds me of a story I have told many times, but it’s one of my favorites. Frederick Buechner writes about the Christmas pageant that he found most profound, one in which things got a little chaotic and not everyone hit the mark they were supposed to hit, resulting in one of the angels, a young girl not having any sight to the manger on Christmas Eve and this got so frustrating to her that she finally screamed out before the last song, before Silent Night, after song after song in which she was supposed to be able to see the little baby but things have not gone according to plan so she can’t see, she finally yells out, “Let Jesus show.” And Buechner got up and dismissed the entire congregation on that, knowing those were the truest words ever spoken on Christmas Eve, demand that Jesus show up and be seen.
It’s a pretty good prayer for all of us to be praying each day. To demand Jesus be seen.
Thomas makes that demand and then Jesus is there among them once again.
“Peace be with you,” Jesus says… Jesus' first words to the disciples in both appearances in John’s Gospel. And being in John’s Gospel, every word is pointed, every word means something, every word is loaded.
Peace…. It’s a key word from Jesus’ farewell discourse in John’s Gospel those 3 chapters from 14-17 in which Jesus prepares his disciples for his leaving; it’s a beautiful goodbye that I think is worth reading slowly this week… and it really plays into this text today. Because the farewell discourse begins with Thomas demanding an answer from Jesus about what he is trying to say to them… and three chapters, Jesus doing pastoral work, reminds us of peace two times….
In John 14:27 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." And then in 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Each time Jesus appears to the disciples and speaks that word, peace. John and Jesus are both pointing us back to John 14-17 and reminding us all of the truths Jesus spoke aloud…. The promise that tough and scary times would always be part of this mess of being alive and being a human being, but so equally alive and present is the truth that Jesus has overcome, that love won, that death is no more, that Jesus’ way is the way, that love is stronger than any force we know.
And that is peace.
And that is the gift that Jesus gave the disciples, that is the gift Jesus gave when Thomas demanded for Jesus to show up. Peace, the peace that in the midst of all the trouble of all the world remembers that Jesus has overcome, that love is stronger.
That is the gift we as the church have to give the world today.
I don’t know if in the last few weeks any of you have found yourself returning to a letter Martin Luther wrote in August of 1527 when the bubonic plague came to Wittenberg, Germany. Maybe you have not found yourself returning to this letter recently, but I would suggest that right now while you have some free time, this is worth your time. It’s brilliant and deeply alive today. You can find it by searching for the title this open letter was given, “On Whether One May Flee From A Deadly Plague.”
The letter is written when the healthy and wealthy residents of Wittenberg were fleeing town. Luther was ordered to leave, but he refused… part of his lifelong brilliant narrative, a constant refusal to do what he was ordered to do and a life of thinking for himself, one reason I think Luther should maybe be baptist, but that is another sermon.
Word got around that Luther was not leaving; another pastor wrote to him to ask, as a Christian minister should I flee or stay? Luther does not outright answer the question, but he does make some demands of the church.
One is to remember that we are, in his words, “bound to each other in such a way that no one may forsake the other in his distress but is obliged to assist and help him as he himself would like to be helped.” Luther brilliantly reminding us that we belong together and that the Golden Rule remains true in a pandemic.
Second is to remember the gift we have to give to the world is the gift Christ has given to us -- peace. In this letter Luther writes this truth: “Christ’s peace is not to remove us from disaster and death, but to have peace in the midst of disaster and death because Christ has overcome it.”
Peace be with you… It’s what Christ promises us and we in turn promise to one another and to the world.
This second Sunday of Easter, I think we need to let our doubts in the midst of all this force us to do some demanding for Jesus to show up. And then we listen carefully to his word of Peace. We let that peace wash over us, let that peace calm us, let that peace empower us and then we find a way to go be peace in the world today.
And we do that by calling and connecting with each other, with praying for one another, with staying away from one another, by finding ways we can contribute and help each other (which often begins by asking, what do you need?), we do it by creating art that speaks hope, we do it with texts and emails of love and support, we send cards, we light candles and make cookies. We do what feels like peace-making today for each of us.
So go… Go and make peace… Go and demand that Jesus show up, but be ready because he is going to speak a demand over you in return -- peace… receive it, become it, make it.
Amen and Amen.
*artwork: Doubting of Thomas by Stas Blinov
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