Doubting Thomas

Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16

1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

Poor Thomas! Or should I say doubting Thomas for, indeed, that is the name we hear most often.

I saw a cartoon this week that features Thomas, hands on hips, saying, “it’s just not fair, it’s not like people go around saying Denying Peter.”

It’s a dreadful mislabeling of the man, if you ask me. Thomas only wants what everyone else has already received – a glimpse of Jesus resurrected. In fact, the word doubt doesn’t appear in the story if you go back to the original text. The NRSV renders the text “do not doubt but believe” But Jesus doesn’t say to not doubt, he says “do not be unbelieving.”

Maybe “Doubting” is not a mislabeling as such because doubt, after all, is an element of faith not a sign of unbelief. Moreover, I don’t think Jesus need have worried about Thomas being an unbeliever. Because if Thomas were an unbeliever, Thomas would have been off living his life. He wouldn’t have been sitting up there with the rest of the disciples hoping Jesus might show up again. No, indeed, Thomas was because he believed …because this was the place where Jesus had last been seen. He’s up there waiting, wanting to see evidence of this amazing thing that has taken place. This isn’t the action of an unbeliever. No, this is someone still engaged with the push and pull of his faith who is willing to struggle and wait and watch and hope.

Thomas means the Twin. As a dear friend likes to conclude when he preaches this text, “And, he is you twin if you want him.” I know he is the twin of many of us here because so many of you have told me that you have struggles and questions and doubts. He’s a twin that folks would be blessed to have. I would be more than happy to write him into my family tree.

Maybe “Doubting” is not a mislabeling but we do use it to diminish Thomas and his belief. In this case, it is a mislabeling. Instead, might I suggest today that Tomas has perhaps the most robust faith of any of the disciples – save, maybe, Mary Magdalene. He doesn’t grandstand like Peter, “Watch me walk on water!” “Jesus, you will never wash my feet.” “I’ll just jump in the water even though we are close to shore.” And he doesn’t jockey for position like James and John who elbow each other out of the way to see who might sit at Jesus’ right hand.

Consider the places we meet Thomas in the gospel of John. We see him in the story of Lazarus, in chapter 11 - the story about the man whom Jesus loved and who is ill and later dies. Lazarus’ sisters have called for Jesus, who is game to go to Judea; but, the disciples say, “No, Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, that’s the last place we want to be.” But Thomas, notably, does not join the chorus of people eager to save Jesus’ skin and their own. Instead, Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

And we meet Thomas again a few chapters later, in chapter 14, when Jesus is teaching about God’s house with its many rooms. ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says. “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?... And you know the way to the place where I am going.” And Thomas answers, “How can we know the way?” Now we might ding Thomas for interrupting what might be one the most eloquent discourses of Jesus except that his question is vital if you care about following Jesus. You don’t ask the question unless you intend to go where Jesus wants you to go.

That’s Thomas in chapters 11 and 14 and then we have chapter 20 to round out our character sketch.

We just heard that when Jesus appeared for the first time post resurrection, Thomas was off somewhere. Sometimes I think that Thomas should be the patron saint of the day-late and the dollar-short. Everyone else go to see Jesus while Thomas was off buying Cheetos and Mountain Dew at the 7-Eleven. But that’s not right either. Where is Thomas? What is doing while Jesus appears the first time. Well, it seems obvious. Doesn’t it? He not on a beer run! He looking for Jesus. Mary Magdalene said, “He is risen”, so Thomas is going find him. He is certainly not going to cower behind a locked door, quivering with the other disciples for fear of the religious authorities. He’s the one brave enough to be on the outside. Let’s start calling him courageous Thomas instead of doubting Thomas.

In the years to come, after Jesus is no longer with them, the disciples will go on to spread the good news and found churches. And Thomas has a special distinction, he’s the only one of the disciples to have ventured beyond the Roman Empire to spread Christianity. The tradition tells us that he founded churches in southern India, for heaven’s sake. Thomas is a man of movement. Let’s go to Judea even if it means our death. I don’t know the way Jesus but I want to know so tell me. I’m not going to sit in the upper room with the door bolted. If Jesus is alive I’m going to go find him and aim not going to be afraid. That search, that movement takes him all the way to India, further than any other disciple was willing to go.

Now, that is a bold and robust faith. It is a similar faith found in Peter in our first lesson assigned for today, from the book of Acts, chapter 2. All week I was wondering how to connect the Thomas story to this snippet about Peter. It starts, “Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them” (it’s from chapter 2:14a). How in the world am I to make a connection and then it hit me – through a simple question at our Wednesday morning bible study. “What would make Peter, a fisherman, just get up and start talking in front of such a large crowd?” It’s a good question. Peter was a simple fisherman, not accustomed to public roles.

So why does he suddenly get up and proclaim God’s salvation. I will attest that I think it is because Peter has experienced the resurrected Christ and in that experience he has come to know even more intimately the love of God. And it is a story that he is now empowered and compelled to tell. That is the very narrative arc of the Acts of the Apostles – telling the story of the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the story of Stephen’s courage in the face of death…of Philip’s baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch…of Paul’s conversion and mission….of a community which shared everything in common….and of Peter’s sermon. It’s the same narrative arc of the early Church and the Church down through the ages.

It’s the same narrative arc that we are invited to participate in. It’s the story of an alternate vision of what life might be with God in Jesus Christ. It takes a robust faith to lift it up. And if Thomas is our twin, maybe we have the power and the faith to do just that.