THOMAS’ QUESTIONS
Jesus had a disciple called Thomas. And Thomas had a nickname.
He was called the Twin.
Who actually was his Twin? We don’t know.
But Thomas the Twin is not really the nickname we use for him now.
Although it’s never claimed anyone actually called him this in the Bible, we know
him as “Doubting” Thomas.
So straight into the English language goes Thomas.
This is his legacy to the world.
He becomes an “expression”.
Poor Thomas I say – because its not very well deserved.
And, it has had some very unfortunate consequences for all of us.
We might ask ourselves in the first place, just how ‘doubting’ was he?
Was he not just like everyone else?
For some reason he gets singled out as a person of “weak” faith just because he
wasn’t with the friends of Jesus when Jesus appeared after the resurrection.
Are we to assume that the other friends of Jesus would have been happy to
accept this story without actually seeing Jesus?
Didn’t every one of the disciples doubt the truth of Easter before they
encountered Jesus for themselves?
Listen to what happened when the women told the eleven male disciples that
they had found the tomb empty and that Jesus had been raised.
“…they told these things to the apostles. But the apostles thought that what the
women said was nonsense, and they did not believe them.”
(Luke 24:10b-11)
And when Thomas states he wants to see Jesus’ hands and feet, the Bible tells us
that Jesus had showed his wounds to the others already. (John 20:20)
It often comes across as a pretty poor response on Thomas’s part. Imagine asking
to see the marks of crucifixion on Jesus’ body?
And yet John’s gospel tells us that Jesus himself had let the other disciples see his
wounds when he had previously met them.
In actual fact, far from being a person of weak faith, Thomas ends up being the
one to grasp more than all the others, the meaning of the resurrected Jesus.
He calls Jesus both “Lord” and “God”.
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After Jesus and Thomas meet, Thomas looks at Jesus and says to him, “My Lord
and my God!” (John 20:28)
Now that’s the kind of words we may be used to hearing in the Bible and in the
church but it was Thomas who uttered them first.
He was first to see the full significance of Jesus and the enormity of what had
happened at Easter.
So I think that this ‘doubting’ tag, this ‘weak faith’ tag we give to Thomas is very
misleading and ill-deserved.
But I also said that the idea of “doubting Thomas” carried with it unfortunate
consequences for us.
Some nicknames are complimentary. Some neutral. And some obviously, are
negative or critical.
To be called “doubting” is to be critical. There’s luggage with this word.
This is a defect - a weakness.
Not only has Thomas been labelled with this tag, there has been in much of
Christian thought the assumption, the belief, that doubting is bad – it’s a sign of
weakness.
It’s a sign of a weak faith.
It’s the sign of a person without commitment.
Not only do I not agree with that, I think the opposite is often true.
Questions are our friends.
Only questions will bring us through to a more solid faith.
Only by asking questions do we open ourselves up to a Word from God.
To go from one level of faith to another (deeper) level usually involves asking
questions about belief and then changing or widening those beliefs.
You see this within the pages of the Bible itself, where people’s ideas about God and
how to live developed over the years.
You see it with Jesus, when he would question and change some of the old teaching
that people had believed to bring folks closer to a true picture of the nature of God.
And after Bible times, our faith would continue to change and develop as we would
come to new understandings of what it means to follow Jesus
and what it means to be truly human,
what it means to be compassionate,
what it means to be welcoming and inclusive.
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And so, for example, opinion changed on the place of foreigners
or women or children,
or people of colour, or people with a disability,
or the existence of slavery and inequality.
All this happened not just because humanity was evolving and developing but also
because God is still speaking.
God still speaks.
God still guides.
God still has new things to say.
But to come to a new faith position always involves asking questions of the old one,
and wondering if it’s the best way.
Honest doubts are needed to make way for the new thing God is saying.
From Thomas’ doubts came the greatest statement of faith.
Doubts often lead on to a stronger faith.
And if God was not willing to tolerate people’s doubts and questions then the Bible
would be emptied of most of its major characters.
Moses, Jeremiah, Elijah, David, Job, Gideon, Jonah, Peter, Thomas, Paul – and many
others – all had this in common.
They expressed their doubts and questions openly to God (and to others) and
worked through them.
And as they did that, the period of disturbance in their lives was replaced in time
by a deeper and more settled faith.
For these people, doubt gave way to a stronger faith. But the doubting was a very
necessary part of their journey.
Faith and doubt go hand in hand.
There’s another reading we often hear at this time of year from the gospel of
Matthew at the very end.
It’s the part called the Great Commission.
This is Jesus’ last words to his friends - and his call to them to go into the world to
preach the good news, and let everyone know the gospel.
It’s literally the very last paragraph.
But listen to how the paragraph begins…
“The eleven disciples went to the hill in Galilee where Jesus had told him to go.
When they saw him they worshipped him, even though some of them doubted.”
(Matthew 28:16-17)
Did you hear that last wee bit?
“even though some of them doubted!!!!”
Here are the closest, most intimate friends of Jesus. They have witnessed his
death and now they have seen him alive with their own eyes.
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And even then, there remained for some of them, lingering doubts. They
worshipped him on the one hand, but they had doubts as well.
So what does Jesus actually do in this situation?
Picture him here on the hill with his friends for the last time. Some of them are
filled with faith and some have lingering doubts.
So what does he do?
“Okay, hands up those who have doubts about me. Right! I’m sorry but you will
need to go. You can’t be in my group any more. You just go now and come back
when you stop doubting. Because having doubts is unacceptable.”
Jesus response is quite the opposite. Jesus calls them all.
Jesus says, in effect,
“I am calling you all to follow me. I’m giving you all a job to do together. Everyone
is welcome. So come and follow me. Come with your faith and your doubts and your
questions and your fears and your excitement and your reservations and join
together in continuing the work I have begun.”
The challenge is not to stay away from Jesus until we haven’t a single question
left or a worry or a doubt in our head.
The challenge is to respond anyway,
knowing that we are called and loved and wanted
despite all our misunderstandings and misgivings.
God doesn’t call us because we are the kind of people that never ask questions or
suffer from doubts.
God doesn’t call us because we all believe the ‘right’ stuff.
God calls us because God loves us, and God wants us to know that love.
God calls us to follow Jesus because God knows that is the best thing we can ever
do with our lives.
We might not be free of all doubt. But we have the choice and the chance to say
yes to God’s call.
And if we do that, (as Jesus makes clear), we will be very welcome.
John 20:9-31
April 27 2014