Who Were These Guys, The Apostle Thomas, 4-27-14
By The Reverend Connie Frierson
John
20:24-29 Jesus and Thomas
24 But Thomas (who was called
the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him,
‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘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.’
26 A week later his disciples
were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were
shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ 27Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your
finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not
doubt but believe.’ 28Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and
my God!’ 29Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed
because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come
to believe.’
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I
have a ton of people in my life.
Not only do I have a great family and extended family, I have a great
church family. I even have a few good friends outside of church. Plus I have
former teachers and past and current mentors and associates and colleagues and
acquaintances. But the really
wonderful thing is that I am not limited in the people in my life to just the
living. I count the lives and
spirits of lots of people who are currently dead. But that’s not all; my life is peopled by people I have never
actually met. When I read about Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King or Gandhi
or a thousand other people that I read about, they change me. My life is
peopled with people who aren’t physically here. In fact the people who aren’t here, (pointing out) are often
the people who matter most here, (pointing inward). That is one of the reasons for this sermon series. If we can understand some important
things about these apostles, then we can be formed, changed and deepen by them.
So
I got to pick my favorite, Thomas. What do we know about Thomas? Well you would think we know all about
him, He was Doubting Thomas. You would think we know what his name was
right? But like so much of ancient
texts it’s not always so simple. Thomas was Thomas (called the Twin). Right? But maybe not. The name Thomas
comes from the Aramaic word toma,
which means ‘twin’ or the Greek word for twin ‘Dydymus’. Toma or Thomas was his
surname, his dad or grandfather’s name. So it may have been that Thomas wasn’t
a twin at all, but that his dad or grandfather was. The ancient historian
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea tells us that Thomas’s real name was Judah. But he
was called Thomas to distinguish him from two other Judah’s, Judah, brother of
St. James and Judas Iscariot. But whatever he was called before, once he became
a disciple, he was known as Thomas forever afterward. Thomas’s very name was changed by following Christ.
We
know Thomas through the Gospel of John and we know Thomas from the writings of
the early Christian writers. This is what we know. John records three important
instances in Thomas’s life, three little snap shots of the kind of man Thomas
was at John 11, John 14 and John 20. In John 11 Lazarus has just died but Jesus
and the disciples are away. Jesus decides it is time to go back into Judea. The
disciples urge him not to go as the Jesus had narrowly escaped being
stoned. But Thomas speaks up
saying “Let’s us also go, that we may die with him.” Such a tiny incident but it tells us so much about Thomas. He
loved deeply and completely. He loved Jesus to the point of being willing to
share death. He had courage to
speak in opposition to dear friends around him. He had the courage and devotion
to be “all in” no matter what the cost.
I glimpsed this kind of love once close to home. Many
years ago I was on a western vacation with my sister, Nancy and brother-in –law
David, Sr. and their ten-year-old son, David Jr. We drove and camped and hiked
and climbed in the National Parks of the Grand Canyon, in Arizona and Brice and
Zion in Utah. In Zion National Park there is a trail that leads up a pinnacle
of stone and over a natural stone bridge to a rock formation called Angel’s
Landing. From the floor of the
Virgin River gorge the trail doesn’t look that fierce. You start out with a lot
of switchbacks, where you can walk four abreast. But as you approach the top
you are on a very narrow path. You go along holding to a chain secured to the
rock and you are in danger or pitching down 300 feet on both sides. This was more than we had anticipated
in a walk with a ten year old. As we went along this steep drop, little David
started humming a children’s hymn from Vacation Bible School. We were all
relieved because then we knew he was very sensibly frightened. David Sr. moved to be right before him,
his mom, my sister, Nancy, was right behind. We made the peak and it was
magnificent. But late that night David Sr. shared that if little David went
over edge. He was going to jump to join him and wrap him in is arm’s as they
fell. I knew and know to this day that David, Senior was speaking the utter
truth. This is the kind of love Thomas had. Another Thomas, St. Thomas Aquinas
said, “The things we love tell us who we are.” Thomas loved Jesus.
The
next insight into Thomas comes in John 14, at the last supper Jesus that he
will go away and promises to prepare a place for them and that they will join
him there. But Thomas speaks up
again, saying, “Lord, we don’t
know where you are going, so how can we know the way.” Thomas shows that he is not one to sit
in silent confusion. Without
Thomas’s question we may never have heard the words of Jesus, “I am the way,
the truth and the light”
The
final question of Thomas’s is in our text today, John 20, in the upper room.
The other disciples have met Jesus in his resurrected body. But Thomas was not there and naturally
expresses exactly what is on his mind.
Thomas tells them what he needs, to see and touch. Jesus meets Thomas
the next day, exactly at the point of his doubt. Thomas utters the words that have described Jesus for
millennia “My Lord and my God.” St. Augustine said that ‘Thomas doubted to
allay our doubts.’ Pope St. Gregory, the Great said ‘The doubt of Thomas is of
more benefit to us in our search for Faith, than the faith of the disciples who
believed.’ Thomas was the disciple
who is closest to my skeptical modern heart. Thomas didn’t settle for second
hand faith. He needed to have a personal experience of Christ. Thomas is saying
what we all need and want, a personal experience of God. Thomas had that experience. It changed
him, his name, his goals and his life.
I
want us to look at this fabulous painting called The Incredulity of Saint
Thomas, by Caravaggio. Caravaggio
was a master painter and this large canvas is filled with figures. But at the
heart is the image of Thomas touching Jesus wound in his side. Look closely at this picture. Do you see how the whole is drawing you
to Thomas’s face? It is a face
wrinkled. The brows are raised in incredulity and concentration. The figures in back are crowding in
close as though they too want to see and touch. But notice this small detail. As you look at the face of Thomas, his eyes are not focused
on the wound he is touching. His gaze skims past this wound in front of his face.
His gaze is peering into space, into the middle distance not the wound. So was Caravaggio just not that good a
painter so that the focus of the whole canvas is just off because he couldn’t
get the angle right? No the
painting is trying to get us to participate in a profound truth. The struggle between doubt and belief
is not focused on touching Jesus side. Thomas’s struggle and our struggle is an
internal one. We are all Thomas and we are all battling for belief and trust in
our own hearts and souls. Belief in a God who comes to us in pain and doubt is
an internal battle. This is the work of our spirits and God’s spirit meeting us
where we are.
The
next things we know about Thomas is that of all the disciples he traveled the
furthest, confronted the world outside of the Roman Empire. He lived among
people of different races. He dealt with religions very different from the Jews
or the Greeks. While this history is shrouded in traditions and the ancient
writings of bishops and martyrs and travelers, there are many sources that
point to Thomas traveling east, outside the Roman Empire, to Persia and then to
India. Perhaps of all the disciples Thomas lived out Jesus command to go and
make disciples in all nations. And like so many of the disciples Thomas did
love Jesus enough to go and die as needs be. In fact even Thomas’s confess that Jesus is “My Lord and my
God” was a dangerous and seditious action. The Gospel of John was written during the reign of Domitian.
Domitian was the Roman Emperor who killed Christians who refused to pledge the
Domitian was ‘Lord and God’.
Thomas was killed in southwestern India, probably lanced by soldiers of
a king who was not pleased at the conversion of his queen and son. But to this day there are St Thomas
Christians in Edessa, now Turkey, and Malabar, now India. That is the short
answer for who Thomas was.
What
was so important about Thomas that we should make him one of the Saints that
populate our heads and form who we are? Thomas shows love despite doubt and a
wholehearted courage to follow God.
I love Thomas because he says the things I was once afraid to say and
then when he gets an answer he follows with devotion. I suppose there are two
types of people in the world, those who believe and those who doubt. Those effortless believers are like
Moonlings to me. I don’t get
them. I know there are people who
have always felt the existence and love of presence of God. I know this because I have met some
people like that and I know it is genuine. I figure it is some kind of special
spiritual gift that just falls down on those special ones. But I’m not one of them. I clearly fall
in the doubter’s camp. And I wonder if most of us aren’t like this. So I think
we are supposed to look pretty closely at the doubt business. Of the doubters there are two types;
those who doubt but grow to trust and those who doubt but deteriorate into
unbelief. That’s the place we need
to study. Why do some doubt but
come to trust and believe or maybe just trust without belief and others calcify
into hardened rejection of God? What happens in that confusing time of
uncertainty and doubt?
Thomas
helps us here too. Thomas had the
seeds for faith in him all the time. Like Dorothy in Oz who always had the ruby
slippers that would send her home, Thomas had all he needed to believe. He had love. He had community. He had
feet to move him into action.
Thomas loves without having to know all things. When Thomas was willing to be stoned in
Judea beside Jesus, he did so without a full blown understanding of who Jesus
was. He just knew that Jesus was
his hope and dear friend. The kind of love that would embrace anything to be
with the beloved is the kind of love that will in time bring along faith. Thomas was willing to lead with love,
not demand a theological blueprint.
Next Thomas had a community. He was willing to stay and be with believers
who followed Jesus even if they had experiences he didn’t or that he didn’t
yet. He was able to stay with his
community, with his disciple family even if he didn’t experience everything in
the exact way they did. That is called tolerance and flexibility and putting
love and relationship ahead of the tyranny of your own opinions. This is
exactly what the church can and should be, a place to rest with others who love
God, even if you don’t know how this Jesus business all works out. We need to
make this place for each other and we need to be in such a faith filled and
faithful community. Finally when Thomas was blessed with a revelation, he
didn’t rationalize it or discount it, but he acted on whatever faith he
received. Acting on Faith grows faith.
This is the spiritual truth. If you have a bit of faith, whatever small
glimmer, you need to take a step forward.
What happens when you do this is you are in a place to see and receive
the next revelation, the next gift of faith, and the next and the next. If you do not take a step, if you do
not step forward, you are stepping backward. Faith now acted on is faith that dies. You might not know it
at the time. Because the death of faith can be slow, you just feel like you are
biding your time. But faith not
nourished with active service and movement gets weaker and weaker. By not acting on the small gift of
faith you let that glimmer wink out. This is a step back and then back and then
back again. Until someday you realize you have no faith at all. Thomas took the
faith he received and walked with it, into perhaps Persia, then Edessa and then
the farthest reaches of India. We
need the faith that travels well. We get that type of faith by loving, building
community and serving with blessed action that grows more faith.
This
is the kind of faith that can go high and far. This is the kind of faith that
can cross over the narrow and frightening stone bridges of life. So that we too,
can see the view from the top. Amen.
