I Don't Believe It!
This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 3rd July, when we celebrated the feast day of St Thomas. The Gospel that morning was John 20:24-29.
One of the things that makes humans so special is our ability to spot patterns. It’s one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of creation, and has allowed us to become creative beings ourselves. It’s a blessing, because it opens up the worlds of mathematics and science, and also of art and poetry. But, it’s also a curse, because we are prone to seeing patterns that are not actually there, and whilst sometimes, these can be benign – the face of Jesus in a slice of toast, for example – at other times, our incorrect joining of the dots can lead us to jump to very false conclusions.
I don’t know if I’m jumping to false conclusions or not, but the pattern I’ve been seeing in the news this week is one of the stories of women.
From the overturning of the Roe vs Wade abortion laws in the US last Friday, to the very different deaths this week of Dame Deborah James and Zara Aleena, and of course, the eventual sentencing of both Ghislaine Maxwell and R Kelly, brought to justice by the testimony of Jerhonda Johnson Pace, Annie Farmer, Virginia Giuffre and many other brave women who have understandably chosen to remain anonymous. This week for me has been about the lime-lighting of women whose stories need to be heard; whose truths need to be believed.
It also feels odd, in this week that has highlighted the need to listen to – and believe – women, to be celebrating St Thomas today – the archetypal doubter.
But, to be fair to St Thomas, his disbelief of his friends was gender-blind; male and female, he disbelieved them. I’ve mentioned in sermons before that I think Thomas gets a raw deal. He is known as Doubting Thomas thanks to our Gospel reading today, but, if we only read back a few verses prior to our reading, we can see that we are being someone unfair on the poor chap!
Only five verses earlier, the rest of the disciples have locked themselves away in fear and unbelief. And then, Jesus appears amongst them. He says “Peace be with you”, and shows them his hands and his side. And then we arrive at this morning’s Gospel, and Thomas finally rocks up. The disciples tell him what they have experienced, but Thomas is unconvinced; he wants to experience it for himself before he commits. And so, he does – he gets what he wants. He doesn’t get any more than the rest of the disciples; Jesus turns up the next time Thomas is with them, and, just like before, says “Peace be with you”, and shows his hands and his side, and then Thomas believes wholeheartedly. In fact, unlike the rest of the disciples, this causes Thomas not just to exclaim that Jesus is Lord, but also to understand the truth that Jesus is God as well. Thomas truly believes.
So, if we’re talking about not believing women, then I’m afraid it’s not Thomas we need to look at; it’s those other disciples who were locked in the house when Thomas wasn’t there. The rest of the men.
You see, only one verse before all of this – before the verse that says “the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear” – Mary Magdalene has come running to the disciples, straight from the garden with the empty tomb, and told them that she has seen Jesus, with her own eyes. And the result of her testimony was that the disciples locked themselves in their house out of fear. That does not sound like a group of men who believed what a woman had told them to me.
But it’s understandable, isn’t it? We all want the safety of evidence and a corroborating story before we commit our belief. I’d feel much worse about this chapter of events had Peter, or the other disciple who visited the tomb with Mary convinced the rest of the disciples of the truth of the resurrection after they had all disbelieved her first. This is not – thankfully – a tale of the disciples (or Thomas) believing men over women. It is instead a story about the desire within all of us to experience Jesus for ourselves; to not just take the word of someone else as truth, but to see and touch for ourselves. We are all ‘doubters’ to the same extent as Thomas… and I’m not entirely sure that this is a bad thing.
I’d argue that it is right to question why someone is telling you something. In fact, in our society, it’s necessary. Can you imagine if you took everything you heard at face-value? If you believed every piece of junk mail you got telling you that you’d won a holiday, or every Facebook page saying you will win a prize purely by sharing, liking and commenting? If you believed every scam-artist and every sob-story? Not only would you end up being conned, you would end up worn out, completely drained of everything you could give; money, time and love. That doubt – that mistrust – protects us. It keeps us safe.
And so, like all of us, Thomas wants to see and experience Christ for himself. He needs to do so to ensure he's not being conned; “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hands in his side, I will not believe.”
Isn’t that the cry of our society too? They know what we have to tell them about Christ. Most people have heard it all before, but until they can grasp him and see him and experience him for themselves, they will not believe. I don’t blame them. I want that too.
Thomas got what he needed. He saw Christ, his body with the nail marks and the hole in his side, broken for him. He put his hand in his side. Maybe when he drew it out, there was a trace of blood, shed for him, left on his hand. Thomas saw and believed. He experienced Christ.
We’re invited to experience Christ too, alongside Thomas, this morning. To partake in the bread and the wine; holding that body and drinking that blood. For some of us, with God’s grace, that will be all we need to hold onto our faith, to see and believe with St Thomas. I pray that you’ll find that this morning if you choose to come and receive those gifts.
For others of us, and for others outside of this church, more may be needed. The American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Christians can be very good at talking about our faith, about the God of love. We’re not often so good at helping others experience that love.
And – coming back to my original thought – there is one certain way we can show that we love others. We can listen to them; listening to voices that are not heard. We can choose to believe them, believing those whom it is dangerous, or inconvenient to believe, no matter the cost to our own safety or comfort. If we can do that, without the need for other more powerful authorities to corroborate their truths, or protect our own - if we can believe these marginalised voices, without having to have experienced their truths ourselves, then, as Jesus says to Thomas, we will truly be blessed.
Amen.
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