April 19, 2020

Easter 2A (COVID-19 QUARANTINE, WEEK 6)
John 20:19-31
This is Camp Sunday, so I’m wearing an official camp t-shirt, but for a few of the
years I worked at Sequanota as well as every summer at Nawakwa, we also made a
second, unofficial camp shirt. At Nawakwa we used them as our soft-ball uniforms; at
Sequanota they were just for fun. The front would usually have some sort of clever
illustration, and then on the back we’d put our name, but usually a nickname or an
abbreviation of something for which we were known to the rest of the staff. And as the
person who was often responsible for ordering these shirts, I can tell you that people
spent an agonizing amount of energy picking what they wanted the back of their shirt to
say. And that makes sense, because unfortunately when other people give us nicknames,
they do not always focus on our most flattering traits, our most graceful actions, or our
smartest ideas, and those reputations can be hard to shake. Wouldn’t we all rather have
some grace in how others name us and know us? I’m pretty sure Thomas would not have
wanted “DOUBTING” printed on the back of his disciple shirt.

Beyond a list of their names, most of the disciples don’t earn a further specific
mention in the gospels, but Thomas comes up a few times, and those other stories
demonstrate his deep faith and serious engagement with Jesus’ teaching. Yet Thomas is
mainly remembered for doubting the other disciples when they tell him they have seen
the resurrected Jesus. But it’s strange that Thomas gets singled out for his doubt when we
remember that Mary told the disciples the tomb was empty, but Peter and the other
disciple didn’t believe her and had to go see for themselves. Then, Mary tells them she
has seen the resurrected Jesus, yet they don’t seem to do anything with that report since
they stay locked in the house out of fear. And even when Jesus himself visits the other
ten disciples, showing them his hands and side, and saying “As the Father sent me, so I
send you”…they don’t go where they’re sent. Jesus’ appearance seems not to faze them
at all; a week later they’re still sitting in that same locked room. So is it any wonder that
Thomas doesn’t believe they have seen Jesus alive when they keep acting exactly the
same way they did when Jesus was dead? Shouldn’t resurrection have changed their
lives?

When Jesus returns and offers to Thomas the very same evidence that he showed
the others, Thomas is profoundly transformed—beyond what the other disciples seem to
be: My Lord and My God, he says—which is the strongest statement in John’s whole
gospel of who Jesus is—not just the Son, the Light, the Word, the Messiah—but Thomas’
Lord, the living evidence that God is at work in Thomas’ life. In that sense, we could see
why Thomas wouldn’t have cared that Jesus visited the other disciples while he was at
the grocery store or in the restroom or getting take-out or wherever he was that first night
—why would it matter to Thomas that Jesus came to them if Jesus didn’t come to him,
too? Because believing is not merely a mental exercise; believing is John’s way of
saying that we live transformed lives because of being in relationship with Jesus. So, of
course Thomas needs to know the risen Jesus to continue being in relationship with him.
These past few weeks have given me a new appreciation for Thomas’ need to meet
Jesus in person. I think about the varying degrees to which we continue in relationship
with one another right now. I have sent and received written messages, and that’s been
good. When I’ve talked on the phone, that’s been better. When I’ve used FaceTime or
Zoom to talk and see other people that’s been better still. Friday two friends phoned
from the sidewalk, and I came out on the porch so we could talk at a little distance, which
was weird but great. So we wait, sometimes impatiently, until our relationships can be
lived out more deeply again, until we can eat at the same table as extended family again,
until we can receive the tangible presence of Jesus in bread and wine again, until we can
sit around a campfire at Sequanota again. I hope that this isolation teaches us many
things, but at the very least, today it teaches me that Thomas isn’t the only one asking for
Jesus’ resurrection to become real in his life, to live more deeply into relationship with
Jesus again.

Yet the focus of God’s good news is never what the disciples—and by extension,
we—think or say or pray or do. The good news is always what God has done, and will
do, and is doing right now—in and through and with and for us. If we think of our faith
lives as that Slinky*—bending, flexing, changing, moving with ups and downs, at times
looking like we have it all together and at other times being so stretched we might feel
like we’re coming apart—the gift of faith is that Jesus comes to us wherever we are in all
of that movement, transforming our lives and drawing us into relationship with him. On
any given day, whether it’s a good day or not, God knows us and names us as beloved
children, even when the world or we ourselves would write our failures on the back of
our jerseys. So no matter how our believing is going, however we see ourselves in our
relationship with Jesus, near or far, God comes to us, again and again, until we can echo
Thomas and say, My Lord and My God—the God of the Universe, active in me and my
world, entering into relationship with me so that I may have new life in his name.
Thanks be to God.

*Pastor Nathan’s children’s sermon, which was recorded separately for Facebook, used a
Slinky and a ruler as illustrations of faith being static vs. faith being dynamic in response
to changes in our world and life experience.