thomas the faithful.

i preached this sermon today at the troy wesley foundation's CHURCH -- it's based on this week's lectionary text. john 20:19-31.

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Thomas the Faithful

In the gospel text today, we find a story that has had much commentary over the years. In my past, I always heard that Thomas was the "doubter," and had a sensitive heart towards his dilemma. The truth is - we are all Thomas, and you have all heard that. Being Thomas is unavoidable. We each desire to touch God and know God so intimately that we can see and touch those wounds that Christ not only died of, but lived through. Still, the fact remains, we are not necessarily meant to.

There is a poem by Geoffrey Hill, the Anglican poet, that reads:

By blood we live, the hot, the cold,
To ravage and redeem the world:
There is no bloodless myth will hold.

And by Christ's blood are men made free
Though in close shrouds their bodies lie
Under the rough pelt of the sea;

Though earth has rolled beneath her weight
The bones that cannot bear the light.

There is the distinct idea within this gospel text that, to these disciples, there has to be some flesh and blood behind Jesus for them to have faith in his resurrection. While many want to make Thomas the doubter, we have to realize that the other disciples proclaimed joyfully about their interaction with Jesus because..... Well, they had looked at him. All Thomas asked for was the same opportunity. With that said, something about the disciples made them want to see Jesus in the flesh - there is no bloodless myth will hold. By blood, they lived, and were made free.

But, what about 2009? What do we do with this? When Thomas asked to touch Jesus's wounds, something really beautiful happened - God answered his prayer, whether the prayer had some audacity in it or not. As people living the life of Thomas, desiring to see and touch God, yet having to live on faith in what we do not see, God is still faithful to answer our prayers - God does so through the Church. In our baptism we are adopted into the transcendent body of the Church that ushers us into eternal life while we are still in mortile flesh. God offers us each other, calling us to touch the wounds and the flesh of our neighbors and be healers to those we love who need us, or even those we don't love that need us. God answers that prayer through the very tangible sacrament of the Eucharist, in which we touch the flesh of God in the bread and the blood of God in the wine. God answers our prayers through nourishing us with Word and Sacrament and relentlessly reminding us that while we may not be able to realize we stare into the face of God, we do - we just can't recognize our own, the same beautiful broken sinful people we are exactly like, as being mirrors of an infinite God. Still, the fact remains, we are made in God's image, adopted into God's family, changed in the waters of baptism into Christ's own, and part of a heavenly kingdom still trapped on earth. We are a part of this myth, this myth of flesh and blood that envelops us daily -- for there is no bloodless myth will hold.

To close, I want to leave you with some lyrics by Alli Rogers from her song, "Iowa." She's from Iowa, and this is about her leaving home. While I understand that as being the surface text, I also see a subtext - a text of yearning, of not understanding how to part with something that is loved, a text of questions, of being torn, of being broken, but -- above it all -- a text of living on faith and hope in an infinite God. I think we could all learn something in realizing that in living post-Ressurection, we are a field after harvest, trying to sow under a new sky. The process of having a soul that's weathered, yet green. Enjoy.

The song reads:

People change, families grow
There are hands I am holding that I didn’t know
back when home was a place
and I thought that growing up was a phase

There are wrinkles on my hands that weren’t there
when I started making plans
and plans change

Iowa, I don’t know how to leave you
don’t know how to tell you goodbye
Iowa, I am a field after harvest
sowing under a new sky, Iowa

My soul is weathered but green
When a storm passes over the roots are unseen
until all is laid bare
and the hope that I needed was already there

Iowa, I don’t know how to leave you
don’t know how to tell you goodbye
Iowa, I am a field after harvest
sowing under a new sky, Iowa

And there are wrinkles on my hands that weren’t there
when I started making plans
and plans change, but you haven’t changed

Iowa, I don’t know how to leave you
don’t know how to tell you goodbye
Iowa, I am a field after harvest
sowing under a new sky, Iowa