Lutheran – Presbydestrian

“Doubting ______________________________”
[Insert Your Name Here]
New Testament Lesson: John 20:19-31
April 27, 2014, First Presbyterian Church of Jesup

Biblical Storyteller, Casey FitzGerald presents John 20:19-31:

Come one come all: the amazing Jesus who walks through doors, lives again (without being a zombie), and walks on water!

How do we wrap our minds around all the things that we’re told Jesus is capable of? How do we believe in all that Jesus was and continues to be without piecemeal-ing out what is easy to accept from what seems impossible?

In our scripture today we’re told that the disciples hid behind locked doors and Jesus showed up, unbound by strict physics or locked doors. Scripture tells us that the disciples were hiding in fear of the Jews, a strange thought because they themselves were Jewish, as was their Lord, Jesus. Some have even suggested that they were hiding behind that door out of fear of Jesus himself. That they were afraid of how Jesus would confront them after their Maundy Thursday and Good Friday desertions.

Jesus comes into their fear, into their mourning, and says “peace be with you.” As became a pattern throughout his ministry, Jesus was acting in an entirely unexpected way. They were anticipating confrontation, vengeance, at the very least deep sadness. But instead Jesus comes in peace. Peace is an interesting way to respond to people whose inaction caused violence against you. The disciples we certainly shocked by Jesus’ presence and perhaps even more so by his attitude. They were overcome with joy at having him among them again and spread this news to those who did not experience Jesus face to face.

Thomas was not with them. Doubting Thomas, as he’s posthumously nicknamed, heard about Jesus’ post resurrection second hand, from the rest of the disciples. And Thomas responds saying, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

And then a week later the disciples are once again gathered and Jesus appears providing his nail pierced side for Thomas’ examination.

Thomas cries out, “My Lord and my God!” and Jesus responds, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Because of this interaction, Thomas is chided throughout history for his need to see Jesus’ side.

I’d tend to side more along the lines with author Anne Lamott who wrote, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, its certainty.”[1]

It is a strange and jarring thought, that certainty could be counter to faith. However, faith isn’t faith without the conscious decision to be leaping out into what seems impossible and yet true.

I think Thomas should be commended for his honesty. Who of us is without any doubts? How many times have we all checked out when reciting creeds or prayers? Have you earnestly examined all it is that we say together? Do we believe what we profess?

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor from Denver that I feel blessed to have met a few times. She speaks in ways I find helpful about how it is we can all be filled with such doubt and yet still manage to come to church each week and recite the Apostles Creed without having our fingers crossed behind our backs. She says that the importance of worshipping in community is that when we’re unable to believe every bit of what we profess it’s okay, because we’re not trying to believe it on our own. While I might be struggling theologically with one thing and you might be struggling with another, we stand by each other, each reciting and believing on behalf of not only ourselves but also each other. When we find ourselves at the limits of our belief, the community believes for us.

One of the things that really stuck out for me from the text reading it this time around was the difference between what Thomas is looking for and what the disciples are shown. The disciples are happy to know that Jesus is alive. They are relieved that he is back among them and that he comes professing peace rather than judgment. For Thomas, this is not quite what he was looking for.

Though the disciples are happy he’s alive, Thomas also needs to know that he was dead. He’s not just looking for evidence of Jesus living; he’s looking for evidence of resurrection. Like many literalists we may known in our own lives, Thomas has an intensity to experience resurrection not only with his eyes, but with his touch. Educational theorists will affirm that different people learn in different ways. According to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, Thomas would be categorized as a bodily kinesthetic, visual learner.

By putting his hand in Jesus’ side, the resurrection story becomes more than a story to Thomas, it becomes a reality. Jesus says to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Yes, we are blessed by faith without tangible evidence, but our faith gains a greater depth when we do experience Christ in our midst. We may not ever get the chance to touch Jesus in the flesh, but we all have our own experiences of God in this world: in the intensity of a newborn’s eyes blinking newly into the world, in the great expanses of oceans teeming with life seen and unseen, in the love of one another. We’re all given experiences of God’s presence among us, and our faith is strengthened for them.

It’s important to notice that though Thomas is seen as unbelieving this doesn’t make Jesus mad or frustrated. Rather, Jesus comes to him, provides his exposed side for Thomas’ inspection. Jesus isn’t trying to keep at a distance to test Thomas, but rather makes himself known completely, providing evidence of his death and resurrection. Might Jesus also be seeking to do this for us?

What evidence are you looking for in this world? Or haven’t you bothered to look? What evidence of resurrection have you experienced? How can you share your experiences with God for others to touch and hold near?

In your doubting, may you draw Jesus near, expecting God’s presence and power in this world and beyond. Amen.

Video Shown After Sermon:

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11519-the-opposite-of-faith-is-not-doubt-it-s-certainty

“Belonging to Christ”
Galatians 3:23-29
June 23, 2013, First Presbyterian Church of Jesup

Today is recognized in the Presbyterian Church as Disability Inclusion Sunday. While I hope every single Sunday is a day of inclusion for all people, I do think this scheduling gives us the opportunity to highlight the importance of people of all very abilities as members of the household of God, with gifts that contribute to the building up of the entire church.

While I was at the Festival of Homiletics (Preaching) a few weeks ago I heard a very compelling sermon by Nadia Bolz-Weber examining issues of disability. She’s a Lutheran pastor who leads a congregation called “A House For All Sinners and Saints,” a very non traditional sort of church that uses very traditional liturgy in Denver, CO. In her sermon in Nashville she framed disability and ability in a way I had never quite thought of before.

Her message was from Mark 7: “Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.”

Nadia then spoke of famous Evangelical Christian, Joni Eareckson, who Nadia describes as a hero of hers. As a teenager Joni became a quadriplegic from a diving accident and wrote a memoir about her story and relationship with God. Having lost the use of her arms she eventually learned to paint by holding a brush in her teeth. Nadia was watching 24 consecutive hours of Christian television for a project she was doing and saw Joni on the 700 Club. Here’s what Nadia said about this interview:

“A whole lot of well meaning and enthusiastic “prayer warriors” often offer to pray for Joni to be healed of her quadriplegia… but [on the 700 Club] from her wheelchair Joni Eareckson says to them, ‘I would love some prayer, but could you instead please pray for healing from the times when I cherish inflated ideas of my own importance … the times when I fudge the truth … the times when I manipulate my husband to get things my own way…sin…’mam, if you want to pray for me pray that I receive the power of resurrection to put to death the things in my life that displease God.’”[1]

To Nadia, and to me, this provides a powerful witness as to what it means to be healed and what it means to be transformed by Christ. A lot of the times when we think about disability and ability we think about physical differences and medical issues. In Mark 7, Jesus takes the man away from those who are pleading for his healing, and offers healing. The problem with this, is no one asks the man what he wants, and while all of these people are pleading for this man’s healing, none of them are focusing on their own need to be transformed.

As I was preparing for this Disability Inclusion Sunday I came across a video that speaks to this message much better than I can, about what ability and disability truly look like.

[We viewed “One Question”]

Our scripture today tells us that in Christ we are all children of God, heirs to the promise of God. If we were surprised by the answers to the question on the video that might be an indication of our own desire for a specific sort of change in others. Often the changes that are most needed are not the ones we perceive from the outside, but the ones that come up in relationship, in ability to have empathy, in ability to love as Christ would have us love. What would you change about yourself? Perhaps it is a physical affliction, but more than likely it is something that creates distance between yourself and others or yourself and God. May we push aside our desires to change or transform one another’s physicality and rely instead on Christ’s ability to transform our hearts. May we see the intrinsic value that every single person holds by being our siblings in the household of God. Amen.

[1] Nadia Bolz- Weber, Sermon on Healing: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/05/sermon-on-healing-for-clergy-that-i-preached-at-the-festival-of-homiletics/#sthash.o6BrxON8.dpuf