Thomas isn’t the paragon of doubt. He shows us how belief goes way beyond our narrow, post-enlightenment framing.
Seeing beyond our shallow belief
Easter 2C | John 20:19-31
This is a beloved Sunday in the church. It is the second Sunday of the Easter season, so we get to sing and rejoice while hearing stories of faith amidst doubt. For many Christians, this is the stuff they look forward to most!
It is also a time in which our ancestors, and people in our own day, use these readings in service of Christian supremacy. Many believe the texts themselves are anti-semitic. But more than that, they are often used precisely for that purpose. Often unknowingly and unintentionally.
Each of the readings assigned for the day, especially from Acts and John, have been used to encourage violence and abuse: the very stuff Jesus commands us not to do.
So when we hear of the disciples locking themselves away in fear, we dare not imagine a horror movie and the Jewish people as monsters. For the disciples themselves are Jewish. And the people they feared are not “The Jews”.
Their fear is the monster in the story.
There are, of course, certain modifications we make in the telling. I usually replace “Judeans” or “Jewish Leaders” whenever the writer of John uses “the Jews” because that is who he is actually talking about.
All of these ways we have used Scripture to stereotype and caricature Jewish people have led to actual abuse and lived pain exercised by people defending Jesus by using Scripture with malice. And this is a problem we have been dealing with for 1700 years.
Like the disciple brandishing a sword to cut the slave’s ear off during the Passion. Jesus condemns this. And heals the slave.
Anti-Semitism, in all of its forms, particularly supersessionism and replacement theology, puts us on a side against Jesus.
Our fear makes us into monsters.
And we haven’t even gotten to poor Thomas. We have not only made caricatures of Jewish people, we have made a caricature of Thomas. Thomas has long been the caricature of doubt. His name has even become synonymous with it: we’re told not to be a Doubting Thomas. This, of course, is an insult to Thomas, and to doubting.
The doubt that Thomas expresses so little resembles how we use the word doubt. Doubt to us, means skepticism. Like not believing. Which is sort of of what we’re talking about. But the real problem is how we think of believing.
Belief in the 20th Century was obsessed with two concepts. Factuality and Codified Order. This is, of course, the ultimate result of the Enlightenment: the end of the slippery slope of modern thought.
Did the event occur in a particular time and place? This becomes the most essential and all-consuming question. We make everything else hang from that. Then, can we assent to the collection of truth statements that certify it happened, notarized and embossed with a seal. This I believe! And now we can all be certain!
So doubt exists for us as a balance to reject the official certification of belief. Did it really happen? becomes the rallying cry of rationality…and an extremely narrow interpretation of what truth is.
Narrow so that either way we can be certain. Proved. Like something we can touch and feel. Like belief itself comes after certainty. We’ve turned belief into betting on a race with one candidate running unopposed.
Because we’re afraid to be wrong.
But all of this…is wrong.
Which is why we need Thomas and Jesus more than ever.
Belief isn’t about certainty, facts, or whether or not events happened. Nor is it about assenting to a set of criteria. Criteria we make up to prove just how certain we are while attempting to prove the thing really did happen.
All of this is fear grounded in the modern world, born of the Enlightenment. This isn’t the faith Jesus shares with Thomas.
In that, we get something way more beautiful.
Jesus short circuits their fear.
Remember that when Jesus appears to his disciples, who are afraid, he is appearing to people whom he had told over and over again to not be afraid.
And yet, his appearing through a door should be way more terrifying than the outside world. But he comes to them with peace.
And Thomas misses it. He misses out. Doesn’t get his peace. They tell him it was Jesus who showed up to deliver the peace. But Thomas isn’t having any of it. Nope. I need proof. Physical proof.
So a week passes. Again, they’re in the room, Thomas with them this time. And Jesus shows up with more peace. Says Thomas can touch him. He said he wanted proof, but did he really? That’s an open question. Because his response is to exclaim in humility “My Lord and my God!”
Fear, jealousy, anger, disappointment—it is banished by the peace of Christ.
The need for certainty, the desire for proof—it all goes poof! No more!
Seeing, touching—signs to prove that it is really Jesus—don’t lead to belief. They, in fact, have little to do with belief.
Because belief has little to do with what actually happens! Our brains are locked on an intellectual concept bound to the scientific method! A concept that came along 1600 years after this moment we’re talking about!
We have forgotten that belief isn’t just a list of concepts we agree with. Belief is so much bigger than that.
Belief isn’t merely the fact of existence! It is also our commitment to be in relationship.
I believe in God because God believes in me.
And as much as I have a hard time believing in myself, knowing that God believes in me? Well…it makes it that much easier to actually believe it.
Belief is beyond a statement of faith. And it is beyond our capacity to assume the way the world works. It is even beyond a leap of faith. As the writer of Hebrews names
“faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1
Neither proof nor actuality are the hallmarks of faith. Hope is!
And what is hope but the desire for good to rule our future? And so then what is faith but the willingness to see that future realized?
Witnessing Transformation
When Jesus shows up to that upper room to give the apostles a pep talk, we are witness to a true transformation. Not of Jesus or physical bodies. And not of measurable metaphysical realities. We’re talking about people being changed inside.
All that competing, all that fear, all that certainty, all that junk that disturbs their hearts and drives them away from love; from healthy relationships with God and one another; it is all waste flushed away.
Because Jesus brings them peace. Peace to them internally (as individuals) and collectively (as a people).
And this is why we read this story today. Not to embody the fear of the disciples, but to gain the peace of the apostles.
We have hope of living transformed lives through the blessing of hearing without seeing and touching. That we can be transformed through believing in the power of Christ by believing in each other. And being people worth believing in.
Belief isn’t a switch we can flip on and off. It is a balloon that expands the more we allow the breath of God to fill it. Filling it with hope and trust and love.
Friends, we are blessed in the hearing. We are blessed in being together—in the room and in our spirits.
This is what we find at the center of belief and doubt. Hope. That God can breathe life into these old bones. That God can bring peace to this anxious people. And that we can share the love of Christ with everyone.