From Easter to Doubting Thomas to Today:
A Journey of Faith, Together
In the midst of the Easter Vigil last week, the congregation I was a part of sang a hymn, “Thine is the Glory,” filled with joy and praise about God’s victory over death and its wonderful implications for all of us. One of the verses of that hymn, actually the last verse, began with the words: “No more we doubt thee, glorious Prince of life…” And, knowing the lessons for this Sunday, I thought, it won’t take long for us to change our mind about that acclamation!
So here we are, on “Low Sunday” (I’m never sure whether this is a comment on the attendance or the tiredness of all of us after all the efforts of Holy Week and Easter), with its standard text: Doubting Thomas. In many ways, as we have heard over and over again (those of us who show up on “Low Sunday”), doubt and questioning are a logical part of the post-Easter experience. What really happened? And why should we trust you, who have experienced the risen Christ, when we see no evidence ourselves? And all of this leads to even deeper questions like: “What difference does it really make for our lives?” So we move quickly from questions of fact to questions of meaning, to questions that deal with purpose and direction…
Today, in our world, we know and experience “doubt” all too often, creating powerful parallels between the biblical experience of Thomas and our own lives. Think, for example of our financial challenges and problems in this country. When news folks report profits and success in the financial sector, sometimes attributed to wise practices and a careful, cautious analysis of the market, there is immediate doubt cast on the companies involved. They must have been lucky, or worse, just manipulated the market to avoid the ruin so many others experience. Or when we hear that bailout monies have been given to huge companies because their demise is a cost our country and world cannot afford, we raise questions of doubt about the fairness of such actions and about whether, in the long run, such bailouts will actually achieve their goals.
Trust and credibility seem in short supply these days, with doubt and a lack of faith in many of our central financial and commercial and governmental institutions the primary responses… So…, if we had a great month at the stock market, would we believe that all would be OK again, that the system had turned around, that we had learned our lessons, that we had a new direction and new purpose? What would it take for this to happen? All of this has its biblical parallels, reminding us, perhaps, of the passage from Luke describing the chasm between faithful and unfaithful, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will be they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (16:31).
Interestingly, all of this isn’t really about non-belief, but rather about what we do believe in. So, if we can’t believe that the market will turn around, that we can protect ourselves from greed and avarice, if Thomas doesn’t believe in the risen Christ, then that means we and Thomas believe in something else, that things can’t change that much, that human and institutional transformation and reformation is simply not possible. And to go there is difficult, for over the years there is too much evidence to the contrary, whether in the history of our “market” or in the history of the church, or in so many other times and places. Despite greed, despite mismanagement, despite incompetence and ill will—despite all that and more, there are so many abundant examples of institutions turned around, of market transformation, of lives lived well and effectually for Christ, of effective mission and witness, of experience of the risen Christ in all times and all places…
So we return to where we began, with doubting Thomas and a hymn of praise, an Easter acclamation of triumph over death—both of which are much in our experience and our lives this day, and, truth be told, most days! Some remain skeptical—they haven’t seen or experienced this joy and optimism for a long time, indeed they have experienced the opposite. But they are gathered together with others who have seen, who have experienced, who have drawn other conclusions—that our problems and challenges and opportunities are not about the market or about the human condition or …, but rather this is finally all about where we, together, place our priorities and allegiance.
Does this strange mix of Easter and Low Sunday people, singing that hymn robustly together, take away all doubt and questioning? Not for a minute. And, indeed, the wonder and the glory of it all is that the doubters, like Thomas, will sometimes come to be the cheerleaders, the folks who are being led will become the leaders, while some of us who are so sure now will enter our own times of doubt and challenge…
So it isn’t finally about Easter alone or Low Sunday, but both. We are, like our country and our world, a community filled with hope and optimism and some great experiences of transformation, and a community filled with doubt and questioning and debating and even, sometimes, a bit of cynicism. But we are a community that, together, witness to the fact that in our optimism and our doubt, in our challenges and our successes, in all of that is a witness to dependence and interrelatedness upon each other and especially upon the One who has brought us together and will, with some hard work on our parts and a lot of grace, keep us together. So that, finally, we can sing, and pray, the whole last verse of that Easter hymn:
“No more we doubt thee, glorious Prince of life,
Life is naught without thee, aid us in our strife;
Make us more than conquerors, through thy deathless love;
Bring us
safe through
Thine is the glory, risen, conquering Son;
Endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won!”
Amen.
Donn Morgan, St. Philip’s
in the Hills,