Scripture: John 20:19-29; 8:31-32.
Presented as a Monologue Delivered by the Disciple/Apostle Thomas
I am not Bob. That was Bob. My name is Thomas. In today’s gospel lesson, I was not with my fellow disciples on that evening when Jesus first visited with them. Mary Magdalene told them Jesus had met her in the garden. She was so happy and ran to tell us he is alive. But I did not wait around. You see, I had another meeting to go to.
They call me a twin, because they see me as two people. Sometimes I am a disciple, but I also meet regularly when I can with the Philosophers’ Club. Actually other disciples went off to meet with other groups also. Matthew attended the tax collectors’ update sessions. Judas went off to bookkeepers and bankers association meetings. Peter, Andrew, James and John met when they could with the fisherman’s association. Bartholomew went to renew his teacher’s certificate from time to time.
So I’m not the only disciple sometimes absent. But I get a bad rap because I missed the risen Jesus’ first meeting on that evening. Boy, were those disciples happy. Soon as I showed up they pounced on me. “Thomas, we have seen our Lord. We were scared for our lives, so we locked ourselves up to pray, and suddenly Jesus was standing in our midst, alive, blessing us with peace and love. We were so shocked, speechless, and overcome with joy to see him. And Jesus says nothing about our betrayal, how we ran away to safety, fearing for our lives, while only the women and John followed him to Calvary to watch him die. Of course we are ashamed of ourselves, but Jesus has only his peace and love for us.” This excitement poured out of them, from that first meeting.
But I had just come from my Philosopher’s Club meeting. The topic was critical thinking. In our Philosophers’ Club we practice Aristotle’s logic and scientific method. We learn how to question every truth claim, how to look for evidence and insist upon proof. We learn how to practice skepticism, exactly because so many different gods and goddesses, popular heroes and saints, draw allegiance and loyalty and worship, and people pay good money to sacrifice everywhere, even in Jerusalem; expecting favor and protection and good fortune in return for their sacrifice to all these many deities. Poor people practice so many superstitions and we teach them to question such truth claims, including so much fear or blind loyalty to the Roman soldiers and even worship of the Emperor.
And so fresh from my critical thinking seminar, my colleagues hit me with this claim: Jesus is alive and has met us face to face. So I blurt out my skepticism, needing and wanting to trust, to believe; but practicing my skepticism, not to defy our human need for truth, but affirming our human need for truth. And so, I insist I must see for myself our teacher, our master, and I must see his nail pierced hands and his wounded side so I can believe and trust, not on hearsay but for the right reason.
And so what a blessing, I am with my colleagues when Jesus came to visit us eight days later. We ware locked up again for we still feared for our lives. And here Jesus stands among us. “Peace be with you,” he says and I am present this meeting, to hear how peace is better than our fear. Can you imagine how I feel? Seeing Jesus my Lord alive. And yet still I am my twin self, trying to accept truth as my skeptical philosopher friends teach me to do with questions and need for evidence.
Jesus is so gentle and loving toward me. Jesus does not scold me or criticize me for how I have not believed my colleagues reports of their first meeting. Jesus welcomes
me as he always has. Jesus accepts me as I am, my twin selves, both disciple and my other self, the skeptic. Jesus offers himself to me.
“Put your finger here in my nail holes. Put your hand in my wound here on my side. Move forward from your skepticism and lack of trust and become trusting and faithful.” Seeing Jesus and hearing these words, he gives me all my twin skeptic self needs, and so I profess my faith and trust, “My Lord and my God.” I now believe and trust him who comes to me and gives himself to me for me to accept and to trust and to serve as his disciple forever and ever.
People make fun of me and caricature me as “Doubting Thomas.” And it is true, I wanted to see and believe for the right reason, not based on others’ reports. But notice, Jesus does not say doubt is my problem. Jesus invites me to trust and believe. I was and will always be Thomas who needs the truth of the risen Jesus appearing to me and welcoming me to become his believing and trusting disciple. And I shall always trust in him as “My Lord and my God.”
You who live in the twenty-first century need critical thinking and scientific method even more than we did in the first century. And the teachings of Aristotle and his disciples have thrived and live today as one of God’s greatest gifts coming down through history in the legacy known as Humanism, coming from the Greeks and the Romans and kept alive in western civilization in the learning of Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers.
Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” The right question, then and now. But his answer and others’ answers are not always the best answers. And so I am glad my twin self and disciple self continue in my witness today. Jesus offered me his evidence; nail holes in his hands, his wounded side pierced by the Roman soldier’s sword. Do you notice Jesus offers me evidence, but I do not reach out to touch him. He looks me in my eyes and I recognize him and know him and trust him, my Lord and my God.
This is the best and perfect meeting of my soul and my skeptical mind, both gifts of my creator who blesses me and asks me to love him with my whole self, with all my heart, soul, mind and body, and my neighbor as myself. Jesus welcomes my reason, my skeptical mind, my need for evidence and scientific proof, even though when Jesus sends me and my fellow disciples out to share his resurrection he does not send us as those who carry the evidence, as if our task is to prove the fact of his resurrection.
Jesus tells us we shall go forth as witnesses, his witnesses who share his great love for the whole world and especially for all suffering humanity, for all who wait in need, for all who are hungry and thirsty for his judgment and his love eager to save from sin and evil, eager to bless with the gift of knowledge of God and the joy of life eternal in God’s loving and saving presence.
I now know what Jesus was trying to teach us his disciples, when he says to us who are fledging believers, “If you continue in my word, if you will continue to study and practice my word, then, in this growing and developing relationship we enjoy together, in this our fellowship, you will discover yourselves sure enough becoming my disciples.” (John 8:31-32) And when Jesus uses this concept, “my word,” he does not mean the laws in the Bible. What he means is his teachings, his summary of the will and wisdom of God in the first and second great commandments, and his very own commandment that we love one another as he has loved us. And what Jesus really means is that he himself is the word, more than the teaching he shares. Jesus himself is the word whom to know and to follow is to know the truth, the truth we need because we are created in the very image and likeness of God.
And when we do this, when we continue to love and worship and serve Jesus himself, then we shall be becoming his disciples, and then we shall discover the truth and this truth we discover shall make us free, will liberate us from our slavery to sinful lifestyles. The first word Jesus speaks to his disciples is “Peace be with you.” This peace is liberation from whatever traps us into our pre-occupation with ourselves, making ourselves our own center of life. this truth turns us around and frees us up to know and love and follow Jesus who is the word by whom and through whom all this universe was made and is still being made.
Jesus breathes upon his disciples. “Receive the Holy Spirit. As the Father has sent me, so I send you to witness to this love that makes life more powerful than death. Share this love that forgives sins. Do not hoard this love for yourselves, but share it. Give it away just as freely and extravagantly as you receive this love. And in this your practice you will discover yourselves becoming the free ones who will know God our Father and enjoy this relationship forever.
Whoever you are and whatever skills, knowledge or set of gifts you practice, Jesus calls you. Just as Jesus, a carpenter, called those fishermen, Matthew a tax collector, Bartholomew a teacher, Judas Iscariot a money counter, and me, Thomas, a critical thinking philosopher, so God calls everyone to bring your set of gifts and skills, your level of knowledge, your professional, political, social, industrial, military or economic mindset and become his disciple and when you continue in his word, continue to love him and serve him you will discover yourself becoming free, because this our risen Lord Jesus Christ promises to make all things new.
As a time traveler, let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. The great physicist, Albert Einstein, a man of your twentieth century, studied the laws of nature and as a child studied the Bible. As quoted in Walter Issacson’s new biography, Albert Einstein says “I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.” “Do you accept the historical existence of Jesus?” someone asked him. “Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” This man, Albert Einstein brought his expertise, his set of gifts to the service of his Lord God and at the end of his life he gives us this conclusion about this mysterious creation he has studied: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
The story is told of a chaplain in your American Civil War, who one day met a wounded soldier on the battlefield. Not knowing how long this soldier might live, the chaplain asked the soldier, “Would you like to hear a few verses of scripture?” No, sir,” he answered, but I’m thirsty. Could I please have some water?”
After giving him a drink of water, the chaplain asked again if he would like to hear some scripture, to which the wounded soldier replied, “No, sir, not now; but could you put something under my head?” The chaplain did so, and repeated his question once more.
“No, thank you,” said the soldier. “But I’m cold. Could you cover me up?” The chaplain took off his greatcoat and placed it over the wounded man. By now, he was afraid to ask again about the reading of scripture, so he started to walk away. But the soldier call to him, “Look, chaplain, if there’s anything in that book of yours that makes a person do for another what you’ve done for me, then I want to hear it.”
I remember how Jesus says to me, “Thomas, you believe because you see me. Blessed are all those who do not see me and who believe.” Amen and amen.