This sermon was presented at three services at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in St. Paul. It is the first sermon I presented there, so it has information about me and my family as way of introduction.
One of these days we will get the videos of these last few sermons online. Until then, here's the manuscript from today.
The text for this day is John 20:19-31, frequently referred to as the "Doubting Thomas" story.
Thomas got a bum
rap.
Thomas got a bum
rap because he expressed his fully human nature in a supernatural situation.
Thomas is you.
Thomas is me.
I am Thomas.
Think about that a
moment.
In a single verse,
our humanity is exposed. “Unless I
see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds left by the nails,
and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe.” In a single verse, our faith is put to the
test.
I am going to be bold and say, we
are all skeptics. We have all
questioned. At some moment in time we
have all doubted the validity of something, been surprised by the revelation of
a truth, or wondered what we may have missed.
In a single verse, our humanity is ripped open, our confession is uttered,
and our true relationship with God begins.
We can believe in God for lots of
reasons. We can invite God into our
lives and our hearts by asking. But like
any relationship, true knowledge of another can only begin when we tackle the
tough stuff. When we encounter the
unexplainable, it’s when we dig deeper into the “why” and the “how” and the
“what,” that we can really begin to understand the “who.”
Jesus loved them all. They were his friends, his companions, his
disciples and he counted on them to spread the Good News, knowing that their
humanity would make them stumble, that their doubt and fear would paralyze them
and that to free them from all these things he would need to reveal himself in
a new way.
When Thomas missed the great reveal
he must have felt rejected. He was human
and his skepticism was showing. In a
world where life is not fair, this was really
not fair. Can you imagine how he felt?
But, I think, Jesus also returned
to give the blessing to future generations:
“Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.”
And yet, if you are like me and you grew up in the church, or if you didn't and are coming to understand the stories found in scripture and the stories others have shared where God has intervened, impacted and immersed Godself into daily life, we can become more able to understand God in our midst. We are more able to believe.
I don’t think this is always easy,
however.
I was reminded of this when I was
taking my exams back in January. Many of
you were praying for me and supporting me that week when I spent three days at
the Episcopal Church in Minnesota offices taking six grueling exams that are
required for my upcoming ordination to the priesthood on June 20.
Our exam on the first afternoon was
on Christian Theology. It, like all the
exams, was a three and a half hour exercise in writing an essay, but this one
began with a prompt:
Several young parishioners return home
after their first year in college and announce that their academic work has
convinced them that belief in God is not reasonable. They ask how you justify
your continued belief in God.
The first thought when I read this was, THIS IS MY LIFE!
Jeff has a little different story.
His maternal great, great grandfather, Theophulis John Charles Holmes was an Episcopal priest
right here in St. Paul, riding his bike between Ascension, St. Mark’s in
Highland and the mission church, Trinity in St. Paul Park, from 1891 until his
death in 1904.
We both went to church on a
regular basis. We learned the stories,
participated in worship as children, as acolytes, choir members, we each went
through TEC and were Sunday School teachers before we met at Winona State
University in 19xx. While at Winona
State, we sang in the choir and were mentors to the youth group at St.
Paul’s. We joined Lutheran Campus
Ministry and were active in the college aged Episcopal retreat program called
Search.
We were married at my home
parish, Trinity Episcopal Church in Excelsior on May 9, 19xx; that September we
became involved at Church of the Epiphany in Plymouth. Our son, Ray, was born
in 19xx and our daughter, Erin, was born in 19xx. They were both baptized on the Pentecost
Sunday after their birth. As youngsters,
they would sit with us in the choir loft and recess with the choir on Sunday
mornings, sometimes carrying upside-down hymnals. They attended Sunday School, Youth Group,
sang in choirs, rang bells, went to Teens Encounter Christ and were confirmed.
You could say we have never
left the church
.
So now, our children are of the
age where it is easy to question the meaning of faith, of church and God and
they are wondering why we forced them to be a part of a church community all
their lives. They ask good
questions. Questions about infant
baptism and confirmation, about promises made in the church perhaps a bit too
soon, in their opinion.
However, our daughter has also said that having her Christian foundation
helps her know what she can cling to and what she needs to change for her own
faith practice. She can make educated
decisions because she has a Christian foundation.
As parents, particularly a parent who is clergy, I want to defend what
we have done to give our children a taste of a relationship with Christ, but at
the same time, I understand that I cannot force them to decide to have that
relationship. Erin’s time of discerning
her relationship with the Holy is hers.
Like Thomas, she is at a place where she needs to feel the scars to see
the proof. I can only trust that one
day, she will open the door, ready to say to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”
It is natural to
have these doubts. It is not just
kids. It’s people of all ages who
struggle with faith, with relationship with God, because the world is filled
with police shootings, with college campuses riddled with gunfire, with
tornados that destroy communities, and we are distracted with by aging parents,
sick kids and transitions. But when we
have a foundation, we have something to fall back on at exactly these times.
Thomas got a bum
rap. And we are all Thomas. And that’s okay, because Jesus is ready to
bear the confession of our doubts and fears because above all, Jesus loves us.
Amen.