April 16, 2023

Acts 2:14a, 22-32; John 20:19-31

But [Thomas] said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Thomas is the apostle known for his disbelief, “Doubting Thomas” being a common reference for him. How did he earn such a backhanded title? He needed to see things for himself, rather than taking them on faith. And so, in this passage, Jesus appears. He invites Thomas to examine the wounds from the crucifixion. And after that, Thomas proclaims his belief.

Jesus then says to Thomas, in essence, wouldn’t it have been better if you had believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. In other words, take things on faith.

Thomas is an interesting character. In a more traditional church setting, he is an example of what not to do. Believe in your heart, not with your eyes. And in a religious tradition that relies upon lessons and stories that are thousands of years old, seeing truly cannot be believing. In a more liberal, more metaphoric setting, Thomas might be lifted up as an example of faithful doubting. Yes, some of us will doubt before we believe, and that is okay. Big sigh of relief.

But I wonder about this story. I wonder what is really going on with Thomas in this moment. We know very little about Thomas. He is listed a few times in the Bible, but Thomas has just a few spoken lines, all in the Gospel of John, the last Gospel written.

In his first line, Thomas is troubled by Jesus saying that he is going somewhere. Thomas responds, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” In some of the Gospel stories, the disciples seem like oblivious blockheads. By the way, the word “blockhead” has been used in some less common Bible translations. But in this instance, the disciples are not connecting the dots, more than they are simply being dense to Jesus’ lessons.

And then later, Thomas offers his notable line about not believing without seeing. His two moments to shine are therefore about his being unable to follow the meaning of what either Jesus is saying or what Jesus has done. In defense of Thomas, Jesus expected a lot from the disciples. So, it is perhaps understandable that some of them might express their doubts along the way. Doubt does not disqualify you from being a follower, but as Jesus remarks in this moment, it would have been better if you believed without needing to be an eyewitness.

But this is presented as a matter of Thomas not picking up the pattern of events. Jesus had done many surprising, even miraculous things. The Gospel of John, for example, includes a few chapters before today’s reading the story of Lazarus being brought back from the dead. There is even a line in John about Lazarus being put to death, well put to death once again. Why? Because of his miraculous return has been stirring up trouble in the city. And the Temple authorities did not like that.

You might think that dangerous plan would have been a big deal for the disciples. In other words, at least according to John’s version of events, Thomas must have known this. Thomas must have known about the trouble they were facing and that it had to do with Jesus bringing someone back from the dead. So, with that account fresh in the disciples’ minds, why would Thomas doubt that Jesus could do the same thing once again? That Jesus could rise from the dead, just like Lazarus. I can understand many questions about both the return of Lazarus and Jesus. But why would Thomas as a bystander to these events have such doubts? Thomas should have known.

There are probably a couple of reasons for this. John was writing many years after Jesus’ crucifixion. The story about Thomas and his doubts helps to support the idea that it is good to believe in this miraculous occurrence even many years later. Another reason, just as important for the new religion, is that even someone who does not believe right away might still be welcomed among Jesus’ followers. Both reasons support the growing movement. One is better than the other, but either one works out in the end.

And yet, I imagine there might be another reason for this story about Thomas’ doubts, a reason that is not simply about his indecision. As presented by John, Thomas did not believe at first because he needed it to be about him, about Thomas. How might this self-centered thought process go? Well, if Jesus was going to come back, he would certainly have made himself known to me, to Thomas the disciple, one of the original members of this very small core group.

Perhaps this was for Thomas a moment of doubt, but also more than a small element of pride. Pride that he deserved to see Jesus’ return, that he deserved to be there when something so special happened.

Thomas is an early disciple, but we know little about his behavior other than those two moments of doubt. It is not clear, for example, that Thomas was at the crucifixion itself. We hear about Peter and a few others, mostly the women, but not Thomas. Perhaps he was not there when Jesus was crucified. And if not there to see it, he had to be told about it. And he had to have believed others’ account that Jesus was dead. Thomas did not need to be there to witness the seeming defeat of Jesus and his movement, but somehow he needed to be there to assess the evidence of the resurrection.

Maybe this is reading too much into Thomas’ behavior from a few lines of scripture. That is always possible. But it seems clear from what we know that Thomas was asking to have things spelled out for him. That he wanted to be up close in the events as they happened, to have front row seats for anything special. What should we call that? How about pride?

Pride is said to be the most dangerous of all possible sins because it is the hardest one to defend against. Pride can take down anyone, no matter how good or how pious. It can slip in through the tiniest gaps in our moral armor, unlike the other traditional forms of sin.

How do you defend against anger? Do not act rashly. How do you defend against sloth? Keep on keeping on. How do you defend against envy and greed, lust and gluttony? Hold your various impulses in check. There are clear behavioral responses we can make when we get a sense that we are headed down one of these avenues of excessive emotion or desire.

But pride is different. Pride can take many forms, many more subtle incarnations. You can be arrogant about how wonderful you are, God’s gift to the world. You can think yours is the only voice needing to be heard, the truest expert, the final source of opinion.

You can also take pride in achievements or personal traits that are admirable. You can be very charitable, but then expect your name to be etched on the wall for everyone to see. You can be very compassionate and expect to be thanked profusely for it. You can act with great restraint, fasting or living modestly, but do so in the hope of someone noticing it, pointing it out for everyone.

Such pride can arise in religious communities. For example, Jesus points out the problem with people praying in public. People taking up prominent positions in the congregation so that everyone might see how visibly pious they are. We see a bit of that these days with the open religiosity of public figures. And yet Jesus instructs the disciples to pray in their rooms, out of sight, away from the view of others. If your prayerfulness and charity are contingent upon being seen and being congratulated, then you have received your reward on earth. And according to Jesus, you would gain no favor in heaven for your actions.

How will you know if something is more about pride than charity or compassion? You will recognize the difference because pride requires attention. Pride wants to be noticed, to be pointed out, to gain notoriety. I imagine pride could be an inner feeling, but when it get loose in public, that is the real concern.

I realize I am diverging greatly from the primary imagery of Thomas the apostle. He was a doubter, not a man noted for his pride. And by no means do I wish to suggest that there is anything wrong with having doubts. Absolutely not. And, if I may add, I am not sure if Thomas is the one who is really being prideful in this account from the Bible. More on that later.

Just like someone who is absolutely certain in their beliefs about God, someone who is absolutely certain in their disbelief can be straying into the vicinity of pride. Both the strident believer and the vocal atheist have made strict and possibly rigid decisions about matters that might be open to question. Neither the staunch skeptic nor the rock-ribbed believer leaves any room for doubt.

In metaphysical matters such as religion, one might argue that the only philosophically defensible position is doubt, a low simmering agnosticism. Note that an agnostic is not an atheist, one who is certain there is no God, heaven, or what have you. If you break down the word, an agnostic is one without knowledge. This might be a slight misnomer, because an agnostic may be quite knowledgeable on religious matters but have no certainty when it comes to conclusions about ultimate reality or the great mysteries outside human understanding.

As I have grown older, I find myself less interested in certainty. Not because I do not have worries and anxieties that need to be tamped down from time to time. Not because it is easier or simpler to approach the world this way. It takes far more work.

But over the years, I have seen my so-called cherished conclusions become less watertight. And even hard-won answers lead to other questions. In my experience so far, curiosity is far more interesting and useful than certainty. And curiosity is inconsistent with certainty. Because if I already know everything, if I am fully set in my beliefs without room for doubt, then I might also have no room left for curiosity, for wonder, for inquiry.

That does not mean we should not have any beliefs at all. That does not mean our experiences mean nothing. But we don’t know everything. We have not experienced everything.

It is like you are pouring a drink and someone says, just say “When.” I am done, I am full to the brim. But knowledge is not like a glass of water. Experience is not something we sit down to eat and then get to push away from the table because we think we are full. We will be hungry again soon enough.

I am highlighting all of this because knowledge and experience are important and yet we can become closed off from new knowledge or experiences. We stop learning and growing and instead we seek out confirmation of what we already know and what we have already done. We seek out information that does not challenge what we have already decided but instead shores up that decision.

Look at a typical newspaper. They are often chosen based upon certain biases. Do you typically read the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald? Do you read the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal? These are information delivery devices that come in strongly different varieties.

And, more so than not these days, the information is not journalism but opinion. It is not raw data to be processed by our wits and reason. It is at best analysis of carefully selected facts leading the reader to forgone conclusions. And to be a strict consumer of one sort of news versus another is to be like that prideful version of Thomas. Thomas who would not be convinced of something without seeing it for himself, without placing his hands upon the body of the resurrected Jesus.

To be fair to Thomas, curiosity is not a Biblical virtue. And, furthermore, I do not think this was the full story about Thomas. If I were a betting man, I would predict that John was using Thomas to deliver a specific message. Doubt is bad. Failing to take your religious brothers and sisters’ word for these crazy events is bad.

Honestly, I think ascribing pride to Thomas here is a disservice to him because the prideful one is likely not the one in the story but the one who is telling the story. John is my lead candidate. John is the one imposing his interpretation, a century’s worth of arguments over the meaning of Jesus’ life and crucifixion. John is the one criticizing and vilifying the Jewish people who chose not to follow the example of Jesus. So, my apologies to Thomas for using him to make a sermonic point, ironically the same mistreatment he receives from John.

How can I make this assessment of John two thousand or so years after the fact? If we look at the earlier account of Jesus set done in the Gospel of Mark, it would be a different story. Mark is the oldest version of Jesus’ life and ministry, set down sometime between the years 64 and 74 AD. In Mark, the Jews of Jerusalem did not plot to kill Jesus. It was the chief priest and the scribes.

Notice also how the Gospel of Mark ends. The last line in the oldest known version of the text reads: So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. In the verse, “they” refers to the women who discovered the empty tomb.

There is no conclusion to this story. There is no simple and easy resolution. Was Mark unaware of what had happened? Or was there uncertainty about what truly happened? Which would be telling because Mark was the most likely of the evangelists to have either witnessed events in the New Testament or who might have known people who had.

Eventually, the other gospels are written down and they give accounts of events beyond where the Gospel of Mark ends. Even the Gospel of Mark would in time be altered to include the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead and spoke to the disciples. If you pop open a Bible, the Gospel of Mark will likely include one or two extended versions about the resurrection. There are Bibles in the pews if you would like to check and that version has two additional endings to the Gospel of Mark. Fortunately, some Bibles include heavy footnotes to explain this complexity. Some, not all. The King James Version generally offers no explanation.

Why would someone change the ending? Because like John’s criticism of Thomas, doubt is the enemy of belief. Mark leaves us wondering, leaves us with questions instead of answers. Again, curiosity is not a Biblical virtue. Over time, liberal leaning readers of the Bible have grown more comfortable with questions and with doubts. And yet that openness is often challenged by others who require the Bible to be embraced without questions.

In the original version of Mark, the story of the resurrection is offered up as an amazing event, like a puzzle waiting to be solved. Compare that with the Gospel of John in which the events of the resurrection are provided as certainties to be accepted, as is.

Pride makes us confident in our conclusions—in the righteousness of our actions and the rightness of our opinions. And any effort to dislodge that confidence is a threat. Because if I am wrong about this, won’t everything else fall apart? Won’t a system of belief constructed on a shaky foundation collapse? In one of his letters, Paul flatly states, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” If you take that one sentence to heart, you must take all the other sentences along with it.

I am not here this morning to dissuade you from having faith in the resurrection of Jesus or the promise of new life to come. Not at all. But like my namesake, Mark the Evangelist, I do not want you to leave here this morning with brittle certainty but instead to be curious about God, the Bible and everything. To wonder about this world and the next. To take seriously any doubts that arise in your hearts and minds and to struggle with the mysteries that remain unanswered. Curiosity is not a betrayal of God or a sign that any one of us lacks faith. It is to stand before the empty tomb amazed.

Faith is not about being comfortable. Faith is not about being sure. Faith lifts our eyes to the starry sky we cannot reach and leads us out toward the horizon that outpaces our every effort to catch it.

For faith is not a place we end up, not a destination on a map that we can reach in this life. Faith is the next step taken, the next question asked, the next mystery we spy in the distance.

Faith is not about knowing anything for certain. Faith is about being amazed with the world around us and pondering over and wondering about all we do not yet know. Amen.