God's Via Positiva #10 | Say Amen to Doubt

0:01 Well, friends, just one week ago, we were here proclaiming, hallelujah, Christ is risen indeed. And what a glorious Sunday it was. Blooming branches and smiles of friends we hadn't seen in a while. New visitors to this wonderful place. Just one week ago, we were here. and so we visit now a week later with the disciple who is also living in the aftermath of the first Easter. A week later we are listening in to what doubts have crept in for the disciples in their hearts and their minds. These witnesses as they are to our gospel. So let us turn to the gospel of John chapter 20 beginning with verse 24 to hear what the word of God has for us this morning. but Thomas, who was called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

1:10 So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord, but he said to them, unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and I put my finger in the mark of the nails, and my hand in his side, I will not believe. A week later Jesus's disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said peace be with you. Then Jesus said to Thomas put your finger here and see my hands. reach out your hand and put it in my side do not doubt but believe thomas answered him my lord and my god jesus said to thomas have you believed because you have seen me blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book but these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah the son of God and that through believing you may have life in Jesus's name this is the word of God for the people of God thanks be to God Lately, my friends, I've been trying to get around this giant city without a map.

2:51 No map, no Google Maps either. I've lived here less than two years, so this is a daunting task, but there are some transit lines and some pockets of neighborhoods that I know well enough that I can go with no map for a little while. I've been trying to challenge myself to break out of that bubble of looking down at my iPhone to tell me where to go. Do you know this? Do you know this feeling? Watching the little blue dot that you are on the satellite view of these intersections. When instead, we could be using our brains to navigate what is one of the most logical street grids in the world. It's in numerical order. And I'm doing this because scientists tell us this is good for you. This navigating, this getting yourself from point A to point B without the autopilot of the voice guidance of your GPS. Without that absolute lack of doubt of where you are on the path to your destination.

3:54 and recent studies have shown us that when we rely on the certainty of our GPS to know the way for us instead of looking up and looking around at where we're going we actually remember less of the journey it's a paradox because when we get there too fast when we get there too efficiently when we don't make mistakes or wrong turns, when we don't have to retrace our steps, we don't learn about where we are going because we don't have to pay full attention on the way there. Our dependency on this certainty that GPS offers us, telling us exactly where to go, creates a threat for our brains and for our long-term health. A little too much certainty now prevents us from learning the path for future reference.

4:55 And this is actually contributing to cognitive decline in adults. One article I read reported that this threat to our brains caused by this phenomenon is that we always know exactly where we are. And we don't have to wonder how to get to a place. When we don't have that need to pay full attention on the way there, we forget just how we got there.

5:28 If you're wondering, Reverend Natalie, are you implying that doubt or uncertainty or a faith that remembers the good and the bad and the ugly of just how we got here, that that might be good for our spirits? Yes. yes, this is the sort of faith, the kind that might keep us close to the risen Christ, who appears to Thomas still bearing the wounds of the cross, a reminder of how we got here to this first Sunday after the resurrection, through a faith that's honest about the death required to bring forth new life. but don't just take my word for it let's let's see what the gospel writers have to say about it today john's gospel stands out from matthew mark and luke and its content and its focus for the writers of john the incarnation of god on earth holds particular importance in the body of Christ. Throughout John's gospel, we hear Jesus speak about what will come to pass through his ministry and death and resurrection, what the future will hold. And the disciples, as you might imagine, as Jesus is describing this future to them, they struggle to understand, to comprehend what's coming. They're often confused, trying to see what will be possible because of God's incarnation with us and they meet the limits of their understanding and their language as they struggle to reconcile what is happening now with what will come to pass because of Jesus.

7:22 the disciples too knew a world that fashioned idols of violence and greed where the refugee and the prisoner and the poor were without rights listening as Christ told them story after story of what could be possible with God's justice and mercy and love in the world the disciples too were struggling to shout along with Mary who preached to them on the first Easter I have seen the Lord this is what the voices of our alleluia's echo that proclamation I have seen the Lord he is risen indeed in our singing and our choir and our call to worship on Easter Sunday but maybe for some of us this year it felt harder to find that genuine rising up alleluia from our spirits harder to celebrate without the tinge of doubt for what comes next harder to celebrate for what we fear for our neighbor or ourselves in these days soft них maybe better than i mean both both

9:02 ut lived. For God knows it's hard for us humans to be shouting alleluia all the time. It's more true of our lives that we doubt. Helpful sometimes to know we are not alone if we find it hard to trust the good news on Easter morning. Thomas too has spent this last week stuck in doubt perhaps feeling left behind afraid perhaps doubting himself or who he was to Jesus not just who Jesus was in the world for so many other disciples were visited by the risen Christ but not Thomas trapped as he is in a locked room of his own out. Maybe you've been to that room before yourself, wondering what comes next, asking, where are you, God? Where am I supposed to go from here?

10:12 Ah, but we are not alone in this wondering. in our scripture, we see the disciples, the gospel writers, grappling with rumors about the resurrection and trying to answer these questions. Where do we go from here? What does the resurrection mean? When Jesus arrives, no matter the locked door, no matter how big our questions are, no matter the lost feeling in the disciples' hearts, we get a glimpse of the answer. That Jesus comes to us to look with us inside the locked doors where our doubts linger, our doubts about who God is or how God created us to be, our doubts about what decisions are being made about us or in our lives, Jesus is there.

11:14 Wounds and all. I wonder if this could be the good news in our story today. that alongside the disciples wondering how to live in the aftermath of violence, how to live after the death of a friend, how to live after the death of who they thought they were, how to live after the death of a vision of what the world could be, our hope for what God's justice might look like for all people as we listen to the healing teachings of Jesus's life and ministry. we too can be alongside the disciples wondering where do we go from here? Wondering how do we live as Jesus lived and loved without his presence among us?

12:13 And this is such a faithful question as you consider how many stories we learn of Jesus healing through presence, through touch, through proximity, through coming alongside those who are in need. And yet we too must live without being able to touch Jesus' wounds.

12:33 Wondering how the love of Jesus will come again in our lives. Wondering just what will the resurrection look like for us. Thomas knew what to look for. Thomas wanted to see Christ's wounds. Thomas knew that the proof of the risen Lord was that God was there on the cross of our making and carries the wounds to show for it.

13:04 Thomas reminds us that Easter and the story of the resurrection do not serve for us as a get-out-of-jail-free card. as the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has said. No, we cannot pass go and skip our suffering, our doubt, skip over the violence and death that got us here. We only get to walk the season of Easter singing Alleluia after our eyes are opened to the reality of Good Friday. Jesus shows up behind the locked door, bearing his wounds, which have not been erased by the resurrection. Indeed, they are the very proof of it. so what evidence can we seek to soothe our doubt what signposts do we need to look for on the path commissioned as we are to love as Jesus loved to share the gospel story with each other for we like Thomas were not with the Marys when Jesus came and the other disciples told him we have seen the Lord. But sometimes it's not enough just to hear the testimony of your friends.

14:31 Sometimes it's not enough to show up with words. Sometimes we need the presence of God's love through our actions, through our knocking on the doors that are shut tight against us. Sometimes we need to be reminded of Christ's wounds to see and know God's solidarity with all our suffering. Not so we can live an ease or comfort doubt-free faith, but to lend us the courage to leave that comfort, to see the vulnerable wounded around us and to move forward anyway beyond the fear we will be the wounded one next. If you look on the cover of your bulletin today, you can see the disciples in this locked room with Jesus.

15:34 You can see the hard living in the wear on their clothes, in the sharp angles of their faces. But you can also see Christ holding up a sign of God's peace illuminated in this dim room. for Jesus comes to the disciples not just to continue to give evidence to the resurrection but to comfort those he loved in their hurting to breathe life on their doubt to pastor to them for God does not expect us to be anything but the humans we are we doubt we do not yet believe and yet we ask God's help to be with us.

16:24 Resurrection comes to find us even when we've locked the door, even when Easter Sunday's over, even when we tremble, daring to ask God to show us the proof, when we have a whole lot of evidence to the contrary, in fact. friends we might have days where we desperately need proof proof that the path we're on will lead to a better day for all god's people proof that the risks we take for ourselves or our communities will pay off proof that the lives our children lead will be sure and certain and lived better than our own. But when we don't have proof, we have this story. We have so many stories of the love of Christ appearing when we least expect it, when we need it most, through silence, through woundedness, through the tears of Mary at the tomb, to the disciples who behold the empty linens in the empty tomb on the road to Emmaus when Christ is known to the disciples in the breaking of the bread.

17:42 and we have we have the ending of this story i don't know if this struck you as as strange in hearing it this morning but the ending of this story tells us there were so many other stories of christ appearing to the disciples as proof of the resurrection that they couldn't even stop to write them all down . This sounds to me, dear ones, like an invitation for us to be the story too. we can show up to be the presence of Christ to each other. We can show up in the locked rooms in the hearts of our friends, saying, see, life has wounded me too, showing signs of Christ's peace to each other, saying, I don't know where we're going on this path, but I know exactly where we are.

18:44 we could look at the world through this lens all the time, that life is always showing up with proof in our midst. After so long a winter and cold a spring, aren't there fluorescent green new leaves on the trees outside? They're almost too bright to look at at first. Aren't there bright pink trees so laden with blossoms that it's raining pink as you walk underneath them? Don't they say we are alive after so much death? We are a sign of God's peace in the world.

19:25 When we look up from the cycle of news, we look up from our little blue blinking dot on the map, we can see the rocky paths of our hearts. We might not know the way from here. We might not know where we'll end up, but for now, this Easter season, we know exactly where we are.

19:49 Let us invite Christ to be right there with us. Let us be signs of Christ's peace to each other in the places where there is the most to fear.