Reclaiming Thomas

Readings: John 20:19-22, 24-29, The Doctrine of Faith 1-3, 13 (see below)
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Photo by Ann H


Today we hear about two post-resurrection appearances, the second of which revolves around the reaction of one of the disciples, Thomas. The name Thomas is Aramaic for twin, although we don’t ever get to hear anything about who his other half might be. He appears in the gospel of John two times before this episode, and once after. He is an engaged follower of Jesus.

Now, we’ve all heard him referred to as “Doubting Thomas.”  In this, I think he gets a bit of a bad rap. He certainly wasn’t the only one being unsure. Just previously in this gospel, when Mary Magdalene found the stone rolled away from the tomb and told Simon Peter about it, he immediately ran over to see it with his own eyes.  He wasn’t content to just believe what Mary said, he needed to see the evidence himself.  Shortly afterward, Mary herself sees Jesus and tells the disciples what he said to her.  Yet, the tone of their subsequent gathering is initially fearful and tense; did they not believe her?  As we continue in our reading, we learn that in his first appearance to the disciples, Jesus showed *them* his hands and his side long before he showed Thomas. We can imagine the disciples first being overwhelmed, surprised, puzzled, and then reaching forth to touch their beloved teacher.  Then, as they are convinced that he is real and not a ghost, they are overjoyed.

Thomas’ process is essentially the same as all of these, and falls into a pattern of stories in this gospel where a skeptical person is given what they need in order to believe. The fact is, even though some translations do use the word “doubt” here in this episode, the Greek word for doubt, as in “wavering in faith”, is not used here at all. The text says more literally, “do not be unbelieving but believing.” Jesus is not reprimanding Thomas, or shaming him.  He is helping him. And he is not only helping him take the journey from unbelief to belief in terms of whether the resurrection actually happened, more importantly, he is helping Thomas recognize the meaning of the resurrection, helping him recognize what universal truths are revealed in the event of Jesus rising from the dead.

Jesus knew that believing cannot be a simple piety test, and that shame can never bring us to faith. He wasn’t saying “Look how real I am, you really should have believed.”  He was saying….See me, feel me, understand at a deep level what my resurrection means.” This is an important distinction, because v 29 is often seen as an implicit criticism of Thomas.  In this verse, Jesus says “Because you have seen me you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” It sounds like Jesus is comparing Thomas to others who believe without seeing, and that Thomas is coming out wanting.  However, in historical context, this verse can alternatively be read as encouragement for the next generation.  John’s gospel was the last of the gospels to be written, some 60 years after Jesus was crucified. By this time, the first generation of apostles were passing away. The witness of those who had actually known Jesus had always held a very special place in these developing Christian communities, as one might imagine. And they were all, at first, expecting that Jesus would return very soon. But as the years went by, these communities were needing to understand what the transmission of faith looked like in a world in which no one alive actually had known or seen Jesus. And so we have teachings like this one lifted up, a teaching that blesses those who did not get to see Jesus in person but who still believe in him, a teaching saying that *their* witness, through the gospel, can be just as real and as important as Thomas’ who got to put his hand in Jesus’ side.  These second generation believers, and the ones that come after, could be equally blessed. And we can see that the statement fits within the general form of the common beatitude, as in “blessed are those who mourn”, with the undesirable state of not having seen Jesus in person being, against expectation, blessed.

But, there is still much more to be mined in this episode.  Because, Thomas did not only acquiesce to the veracity of the resurrection, he demonstrated understanding as to what it meant.  He didn’t say, wow that was really amazing, how did you pull that off?  He says “My Lord and my God!” With this declaration, he recognized that Jesus’ resurrection was an indication of the presence of God in this world.  He recognized that Jesus’s resurrection was an indication of the pervasiveness and expansiveness of God’s love.  And he recognized that Jesus’ resurrection effected an essential connection between God and humanity.  These are important universal truths, truths that tell us something indispensable about the character of God.  Thomas was recognizing not just something that happened, but something that was true in a larger sense, and this led him to a declaration of his faith.

Likewise, Swedenborg describes faith as an inner recognition of truth. Rather than being what he calls “blind faith” as in believing in something we don’t understand because we are told that we should, real faith is born over and over again, in that moment when the light switch turns on and we recognize something as being reflective of reality, of being real, of being true. It can be a basic principle about the world, or ourselves, or human beings, or God; it can inspire us or convict us or both, but it is something that shines the light of clarity on “what is.”  And with this sense of clarity comes a trust in “what is,” a trust that we can live by. An example that comes to mind for me is the truth that it is important for us to talk about the things we are afraid of, or ashamed of. A good friend of mine once organized a conference called Finding Hope, which facilitated discussion on issues like depression, suicide, mental illness, domestic violence and addiction. The conference tagline was: “Finding hope in the face of things we don’t talk about.”  After losing several acquaintances to suicide, addiction and mental illness, my friend realized that struggling with such challenges alone simply compounds them.  She recognized the fundamental truth that we *need* each other, and that we cannot be present for each other if we don’t talk to each other, especially about the things that are hardest to talk about.  In that moment, a sense of faith in the importance and effectiveness of connectivity and vulnerability between people was born for her.  She experienced a powerful inner recognition of truth, a universal truth.

But the process doesn’t end there. Swedenborg reminds us that this inner recognition of truth is itself motivated and guided by something else: our desire to do good.  Goodness loves truth and searches for it because love expressed in goodness always desires a way to become real, a way to be shared. Our loving desire to do good is constantly searching for a form, searching for ideas, and constructs and truths that give it a shape to be born in the world.  Imagine for example how our love for someone leads us to search for the perfect birthday present in order to adequately express our love to them. This is a simple image of how goodness searches for truth so it can become real. Our faith depends upon our love as its genesis. Our inner recognition of truth, our openness to that flash of illuminating light, comes from how much we care about being a force for good. And from that state of love and openness, the experience of faith is the switchboard lighting up within us because love has now found a way to be in the world.  In the case of my friend, *her* inner recognition of truth was birthed by a desire to prevent the loss of life and to spark hope in the hearts of those who are struggling.  She was open to the inner recognition of that truth because she loved and valued human life.

We read earlier from Swedenborg: Since what is good loves what is true, [a] desire [to do something good] leads to a desire for truth and therefore to the recognition of what is true, which is faith. By these steps, in proper sequence, a desire to do something good takes form and turns into caring.

And there we see the final step. For my friend: A love for human life, leading to a recognition of a fundamental truth about connectiveness, leading finally to a caring form: the Finding Hope conference.  Now, we don’t all have to be event managers - that’s my friend’s wheelhouse but it is not everyone’s. And that’s okay. The same inner recognition might lead one person to train in counseling, another to simply reach out another human being, and a third to change the way they think about their own challenges.  The point is *not* the scale of the form taken, but the fact that it is a virtuous cycle…love leading to faith leading to action.  And sometimes along the way, we also get to experience joy, just as the disciples and Thomas did, because of the prospect of love being manifested.

As we contemplate Thomas, we see that this process is both personal and universal. Faith is the inner recognition of universal, timeless, spiritual truths, but WE, each of us, have to be the one doing the recognizing. These truths must come alive for us personally and not just because we have heard about them from someone else. We all move from various levels of unbelief to belief by figuratively touching the body of Jesus ourselves, by recognizing the realness of certain truths in our lives. But we must resist the temptation using belief as a way to feel superior over others, or as a way to judge the love and intentions of others. Unbelief on any theological topic is a neutral state.  There is nothing wrong with being unsure, nothing wrong with waiting for the flash of light.  We are all waiting and hoping to some extent.  Even I, your pastor, struggle with some of the ideas expressed in our chosen tradition. The struggle to understand is not a failing, it *is* the love of truth, it is love searching for a form, and there will always be many forms. It is, in its own way, a holy struggle, and God is in it with us, a non-anxious presence saying as Jesus did “Peace be with you.”  God does not condemn honest unbelief and neither should we.  We should never ever use belief in a set of theological principles as a way to judge someone’s commitment to God or faith or justice, for we can never know what truths are going to come alive for each person in their own context.

The moment between Thomas and Jesus was intimate, just one person and their God. Jesus was not ashamed of his wounds or his embodiment, showing up in a locked room to provide the personal clarity that Thomas needed, in the most concrete of ways. Likewise, Thomas’s declaration was personal: “My Lord and My God.”  Thomas needed to say “unless I see the nail…” because each of our faith journeys are personal.  Faith is not about saying we believe the right things, but about the transformation of how we understand our relationship with God and our place in the world.  And journeys such as these are not always straight forward, there is plenty of winding and waiting and searching.  But one thing I do know, is that we will all need to put our hand deep in the wound of God to understand anything about being truly human.

Amen.

Readings:

John 20:19-22, 24-29

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Judean leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus ), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The Doctrine of Faith #1, 2, 3, 13.

1. Faith Is an Inner Recognition of Truth 

Nowadays, people understand “faith” to mean nothing more than thinking that something is true because the church teaches it and because it is not obvious to the intellect. In fact, the common saying is, “Believe, and don’t doubt.” If someone replies, “I don’t understand it,” people say, “That’s why you have to believe it.” The result is that today’s faith is faith in the unknown and can be called “blind faith”…

2. Real faith is simply recognizing that something is so because it is true. This means that people who are devoted to real faith both think and say, “This is true, and that’s why I believe it.” That is, faith is dependent on truth, and what is true is the object of faith…

3. All the same, the widely shared opinion is that no one can understand things that are spiritual or theological because they are supernatural. However, spiritual truths can be grasped just as earthly ones are—perhaps not as clearly, but still, when we hear them we do get a sense as to whether they are true or not. This is especially so in the case of people who have a longing for truth.

13. Having just said what faith is, I need now to say what caring is. Caring originates in a desire to do something good. Since what is good loves what is true, this desire leads to a desire for truth and therefore to the recognition of what is true, which is faith. By these steps, in proper sequence, a desire to do something good takes form and turns into caring. This is how caring develops from its origin, which is a desire to do something good, through faith, which is a recognition of what is true, to its goal, which is caring. The goal is the doing of something.
We can see from this how love, which is a desire to do something good, brings forth faith, which is the same as recognizing what is true, and by this means brings forth caring, which is the same as love acting through faith.