Who Ya Gonna Believe?

John 20:19-31

March 30, 2008, Second Sunday of Easter

A number of years ago I told you the story of nine-year- old Joey who was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday School that day. “Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind the enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge, and all of the people walked across safely. He used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters and call in an air-strike. They sent in bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.” “Now, Joey, is that REALLY what your teacher taught you?” his mother asked. “Well, no, Mom, but if I told it the way the teacher did, you’d never believe it!” …Who ya gonna believe?

One of the truths of the Enlightenment is that it spawned the skeptic: the people who did not accept things as they were written or said. But the truth is that skepticism, or doubting, is as old as humanity itself. And today in our scripture reading we hear about one of the greatest skeptics in history. Thanks to the Bible, and to history, Thomas is remembered as one of the greatest skeptics of all time. We refer to him often as “Doubting Thomas.” At that time he was referred to as “Didymus Thomas” which means Thomas the twin, not Thomas the doubter.

But Thomas is a human voice in the great story of Jesus. We hear Thomas in the account of Lazarus. When Jesus says he is going to the dead Lazarus the disciples try to talk Jesus out of going back to Jerusalem, but Thomas speaks ups and says with a sense of resignation, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Later in John we hear Jesus telling the disciples,

"Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going" (John 14:1-4).

At this point Thomas seems to interrupt Jesus’ soliloquy by saying, “We don’t know where you are going. So how can we know the way?” This interruption then causes Jesus to be more precise about what he is saying; that he is “the way, the truth and the life.”

Who ya gonna believe?

Are you going to believe egotistical, blustery, know-it-all Peter? Are you going to believe the brazen, corporate-ladder-climbing twins of James and John? Are you going to believe the kid with the fish, Andrew, who doesn’t really have any idea about what good they can do? Are you going to believe “unless I see the prints of the nail and pierced side” Thomas? Who ya gonna believe?

My money is on Thomas. Thomas’ caution makes him, in my eyes, the more credible witness. As the Rev. Susan Guthrie writes in an article in The Christian Century magazine on this passage,

Furthermore, after the invitation to touch the wounds of Jesus, he (Thomas) penetrates even beyond the superficial excitement of the moment. It is Cousin Thomas who delivers the punch line that kicks off the next 2,000 years of professional Christology: "My Lord and my God!"

And because of his caution, Thomas unwittingly extracts a blessing for us today when Jesus says, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.” We are blessed when we stand up for justice in Jesus’ name, or when we pray for a sense of Jesus’ spirit in our own life, and when we help those who are stuck in poverty and who are hungry. Thomas’ caution reminds us that even in our skepticism, even in our doubts we can serve Christ, and be blessed by Christ. We don’t have to be so full of faith that we have all of the answers. We can admit our doubts and live with our humanity and still be faithful.

A minister was walking down the street and saw a circle of boys who were laughing, then quiet, and then laughing. He was curious, so he walked toward them and observed a puppy in the middle of the circle. Thinking they might be teasing the puppy, he asked the boys what they were doing. One boy answered that the puppy was a stray they all wanted. They were having a contest, and whoever told the biggest lie would win the puppy to take home. The minister chided the boys saying, “I am surprised at you boys. I’m a minister, when I was your age I never told a lie.” The boys grew very quiet, looked at one another, and the spokes boy told the minister, “Ok, Rev. you win the puppy.”

The boys were very healthy skeptics, and their skepticism would have reminded the pastor that he was human and to be comfortable with it. We have to remember that the people who heard the Gospel of John the first time were Greeks who would not have known any eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. The Greeks were professional skeptics, and story of Thomas reminds them that they have a place in the Church as well. They are blessed as well as those who saw Jesus.

Thomas reminds us that we don’t have to have all the answers; we don’t have to believe every jot-and-tittle of the story.

Bishop Yvette Flunder of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ in San Francisco provides a segment in the opening chapter of the “Living The Questions” video that was studied during Lent. Rev. Flunder grew up Pentecostal, and as such believed that the Bible had an answer for every question and that every question about he Bible had an answer, one answer, and if you did not know that answer or agree with it then you were going straight to hell. She believed that her answer was the right one, and anyone who did not agree with her answer was suspect. She said that if you did not know that one answer, then you could call up the Bible Answer Man and he would give you that one answer. But, she says as she has evolved she has discovered that there is less and less that she is sure about. She finds herself more and more saying, “I don’t know.” But, she says, I’m more comfortable with what I believe, I’m more at peace than I’ve ever been.

In his book The Song of the Bird Anthony DeMello shares the following story:

A Christian scholar who held the Bible to be literally true was once accosted by a scientist who said, “According to the Bible the earth was created some five thousand years ago. But we have discovered bones that point to life on earth a million years ago.”

Pat came the answer from the Christian scholar: “When God created earth five thousand years ago, he deliberately put those bones in to test our faith and see if we would believe his Word rather than scientific evidence.”

De Mello adds, “Further evidence of rigid belief leading to reality distortion.”

Who ya gonna believe?

Doubts, skepticism, if we let them, can lead us to deeper faith and awareness. They may not lead us to answers, but they can lead us to faith in a God who lets us live with the ambiguities of life. Thomas is the apostle of the Enlightenment. Thomas gives us the power on the one hand to say, “If I told you what the Bible says, if I told you what the disciples said, you would never believe it,” but on the other hand to say, “My Lord and my God!” We still pray to see, to understand, but that process in itself is an act of faith, because it leads you to be in relationship with God. Thomas said, “I don’t believe you,” but his faith led him to stay with it and in the end declare, “My Lord and my God!” That is true faith. That is a human faith. . . . Who ya gonna believe?

Amen

© 2008 Rev. Dr. Thomas T. Peters