Do not be Unbelieving, but Believing.
A précis of a sermon preached by the Rev Dr Barry Brown at Saint Margaret’s Uniting Church, Mooroolbark on Sunday 7 April 2024 – Easter 2.
Proclamation (John 20:19 – 31).
I can remember laughing, decades ago, when a friend told me she had seen the film The Sound of Music 26 times. I also remember smiling to myself many times when our then teenage daughter mouthed most of the lines as she watch, for the umpteenth time, Ann of Green Gables. I now have to confess to a similar addiction. Heather and I regularly watch over and again two BBC television series – As Time Goes By, and Lark Rise to Candleford. We have lost count of the times we have watched each of these series.
I share with you a scene from Lark Rise to Candleford. Thomas Brown (no relation), in the early 1890s is a postman. He is deeply religious (even annoyingly pious) and is sometimes a lay reader in his local Church of England. In one episode his faith is challenged as he comes into conflict with a relieving curate who has different understanding than Thomas of faith and doubt. As well, Thomas had a frightening encounter with a snake while on his rounds and this created considerable doubt in his heart, challenging his deeply held faith in God. The scene is Thomas entering a dress shop where his wife Margaret and the two dressmaker were chatting. Thomas, walking into the shop looking very downcast, leaves a package on the counter and moves toward the door without a word, and as if he had not seen the three women standing nearby.
An anguished conversation begins:
Ruby: “Thomas, we happened to hear you had an altercation with our curate – in the street”.
Pearl: “Thomas, what is the matter?”
Thomas (slowly and in anguish): “What if… if there is no Holy Spirit… the Bible… Church… hundreds of years of worship…? Every prayer that I have ever uttered… Suppose it’s… all an illusion! … a folly?”
Margaret (his wife, in distress): “Heavens! Thomas, what a thing to say”!
Thomas: “What if my whole life has been… Wrong”?
Ruby: “What has brought this on”?
Margaret: “It is the snake, it must be. The thing has cursed him”!
Thomas: “If we pause to consider… an all-knowing, all-seeing, all conquering being… who has time to be ever-present in my little life! He follows me from door to door with every letter I deliver; looking down on every piffling step of my backwards life… He’s there when I dress, when I undress, when I … um?… It’s truly… bizarre”!
Ruby: It’s possible we might all, at some time, face doubt… in ourselves, in our faith…”
Thomas: [abruptly interrupting and throwing his hands high in the air, cries out loudly]: “If there is an Almighty… let him strike me down now”!!!
[A stunned silence as the three women look first at Thomas, then as to above].
Thomas: “Ha…”!!!
[Thomas walks out; the three women gaze at his back in despair as he silently departs].
It may be coincidental that the main character in this scene is named Thomas. However, having watched the video series repeatedly, I consider the name may have been chosen for the postman because he was a man of deep commitment, but also with an unfortunate inclination to literalism and the need for certainty. So too, it seems to be with Thomas the disciple of Jesus who is featured in today’s Gospel reading. However, Thomas is not the main character in our Biblical passage; the crucified-Risen Jesus is the central character.
There many things in this story that are important. I will touch on some of these; and I will follow the order provided in the readings itself.
THE APPEARANCE TO THE DISCIPLES (vs 19 – 23):
In our reading there are two Sundays when Jesus comes to his disciples. On the first the doors are ‘locked’; on the second they are ‘closed’. The number of disciples may not be limited to the Twelve; but it is likely that the Twelve were all present (except Thomas on the first Sunday). The only time The Twelve is mentioned in this chapter is to note that Thomas was one of this inner group of Jesus’ disciples.
On the first Sunday “the doors were locked for fear of the Jews”. It is important to pause a moment to consider what this means – then and now. In John’s Gospel, and this passage in particular, reference to the ‘Jews’ has a particular meaning that relates to the somewhat bitter experience of John’s Christian community with hard-line Jewish leaders who were committed to discredit and destroy the Christian communities. Biblical scholars agree that we must avoid this particular hostility being the basis on antisemitism more generally, both in the religious context (with Judaism) and in the ethno-cultural sense (the Jewish race).
Likewise in our own time. The massive and heinous retaliatory actions of the leadership of a hard-right Government of the modern State of Israel, following the abhorrent actions of Hamas on 7 October 2023, should not be the basis for antisemitism that attacks all Jews and Judaism. It is deeply saddening that there has been significant polarization in many countries, and a turning against Israelis as a people. We must guard against overlaying our justified anger, about the Israeli leadership, on to Judaism and Jews in more general way – including here in Australia.
On both Sunday’s Jesus greets his disciples with the words ‘Peace be with you’ – Shalom! There is no doubt this was and is a convention greeting. But, here it takes on a deeper meaning that relates to Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit, and the restoration of the disciples relationship with Jesus following the anguish, loss of confidence and hope, surrounding his death; and the disciples’ inability to have believed all that he had told them about his death and resurrection. The Peace Jesus offers is about restoration following a time of doubt and dashed hope. In recent years we have been introduced to a word from an indigenous Australian language – ‘Makarrata’; a word meaning a coming together after a struggle to face facts and wrongs, and to live again in peace. In our reading the word Peace has a similar meaning. And when, in worship, we are asked to ‘pass the peace’ with one another, this is no mere religious way of greeting one another with a friendly smile. It is a way of acknowledging one another as each being gifted and graced by the Peace of Jesus, and a willingness to make peace with all whom we may be ‘out of sorts’.
JESUS AND THOMAS (vs 24 – 29):
Although Jesus is the centre of this second visitation, Thomas is also featured. Thomas is no more a sceptic than the other disciples had been; but he did exhibit the temperament that is inclined to crave certainty. And Jesus accommodated this need! Yet it does not appear that Thomas actually took up the invitation to touch Jesus’ wounds – the living reality of risen presence of Jesus was sufficient for him.
Many translations of the Bible use the word doubt in this chapter. However, several reliable scholars point out that this is misleading. It is more accurate to refer to Thomas being summoned by Jesus to ‘not be unbelieving, but believing’. This is the literal and more accurate wording of the Greek text. The story is not so much about doubt as it is about being able to move from a position of Unbelief to one of Belief. Despite the fact that Thomas is often dubbed the ‘doubter’ Jesus does not chastise or condemn him; he accommodates his need for help to truly move to a position of Belief. Doubt is not a sin. It is being human. It sometimes needs to be confronted, and it can be an important step in the direction of being open to mature and authentic Believing.
Franklyn Parrent drew my attention to an ABC TV program of related interest – You can’t Ask That! I watched a 2018 program that included a number of religious leaders (all clergy, I recall) being asked probing questions about faith and doubt. I quote some sample responses from one of the participants, Father Tony Doherty, a senior Catholic priest from Sydney:
“The opposite of faith is not doubt; it’s certainty.”
“If you feel certain about a thing, you are not into the belief game at all”.
“I don’t know that God exists. I believe it! Big difference! There is a big difference between belief and knowing”. Belief included choice.
“Do I have doubts? Do I have times in which I have all sorts of questions! Of course. That’s what we call being human.”
After Jesus firm but gracious words to Thomas, Thomas exclaims: My Lord and my God. There can be little question that these words from a once hesitant believer voice the climactic affirmation concerning who Jesus is.
Some years ago, when I was ministering in the Western District of Victoria, I led a study of John’s Gospel for the regional ministers. In my preparation I read through John’s Gospel as a whole. One of the things that stood out for me for the first times was a progression that occurs as the Gospel unfolds – especially in relation to who Jesus is understood to be. It moved from ‘a man’ to ‘a man of God’ to ‘Son of Man’ (mainly by Jesus of himself) to ‘Son of God’. And then, in the original last chapter and last scene, it is Thomas, the one slow to believe, who voices the climactic affirmation – ‘My Lord and my God’.
Today’s sacred story from the Gospel of John is not about doubt; it’s about moving from a position of Unbelief to Belief. It is not about doubt and judgement; but about hope and promise.
THE PORPOSE OF THIS BOOK (vs 30 -31)
John then moves his attention to those yet to hear the good news, and to us! “But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name”. The invitation, the summons, is to Belief; and the outcome of this Belief is Life in his name.
CLOSE
For nearly a decade now I have been writing, in stops and starts, a reflection on my life and beliefs (including my many unanswered questions about life and faith). I am doing this for my own sake and it will never be published – at least not as a whole. My working title is, Still Wondering. There are two dimension to ‘wondering’ – (a) as in Awe and Wonder; and (b) as in still considering, questioning. My regular notes reflect my deep interest and wonder with modern scientific advancements: Medical break-throughs; DNA, with its many uses and advantages; the wonders of the expansive Universe; Nature, evolution, and above all, Life and its origin. I am repeatedly reminded that understanding and belief come, not through knowledge and certainty, but from embracing the big questions. And in this I find joy in the life I embrace through believing in the risen Jesus, the source of Life.
In the Book of Deuteronomy there is a summons from God to God’s people to Choose life. This is an acknowledgement that while life is God’s gift, we all have a choice in how we choose to receive and live by that which is gifted. In today’s sacred story we are given two key challenges: (a) to Believe, which is not just a matter of ‘blind faith,’ it is a positive determination, a choice; and (b) to take hold of Life, the life that centres in the joy and hope found in the Risen Christ.