Easter 2

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 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 put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his 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 he 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 him, “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, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Recently, while visiting with my parents, their phone rang. My dad went to answer it while my mom explained to us that they get telemarketing calls add day long. When my dad came back from the phone, he explained with a glimmer in his eye which one had just called. “They were offering something for senior citizens,” he said, “...ages 40-85!” Senior citizens? Age 40? How many of us today are senior citizens today based on this newest age label? If you’re not there yet, you’re now closer than you’ve ever been before! I’m hoping my dad just heard the telemarketer wrong; but it got my attention.

There is something important to us about labels. As much as we may protest, we kinda thrive on assigning them to others and living into them if we are really honest with ourselves and each other. And now we find ourselves in the midst of preparation for a general election, probably the most important one of recent history. Labels are being tossed around, sometimes even thrown at one candidate or another--by the candidates themselves as well as the media and we, the consumers of this election. Liberal, conservative. Experienced, inexperienced. Ready, not ready. Mature, young. Black, female, old. There are times when our labels for ourselves and each other seem to take over our identities and turn us into a list of characteristics or a lithmus test of core beliefs and/or practices.

Or maybe it’s what we do. I saw a short story on CNN recently about a woman who had been labeled a hero because she became a kidney donor for a customer she met at the Starbucks where she is a barista. “One morning,” she said, “the customer came in and looked like something was wrong. Since she came in every day, I felt like I had a good enough repore with her to ask what was wrong. She came out and said that she needed a kidney transplant, so I said I wanted to get tested.” She was a match; now she’s a hero.

Labels: they tell the world who we are. And it’s not really new to us. People have been doing this in every generation since the beginning of time. It happens throughout the biblical story--take poor old Thomas, the disciples who gets top billing in today’s story. He’s called both Thomas “the twin” and “doubting” Thomas. We know him by the reputation he has for throwing a wet blanket on the interesting things that happen with Jesus in John’s gospel. In John 11, when the discover that Lazarus is at death’s door and Jesus considers returning to Bethany (which is a neighboring community to Jerusalem), the disciples warn Jesus that they should not go back there because the last time he was in Jerusalem he was nearly stoned over some comments he made at the Temple, claiming that he and God are one. If they go to Bethany, surely the ones from Jerusalem who meant to kill him before will get another chance. And Thomas, with his flair for the dramatic, says, “Yeah, let’s all go, and we can all die together!”

Then in John 14, when Jesus is offering words of comfort to the disciples as a follow up to a difficult events of chapter 13 in which Jesus tells them that he’ll be betrayed by them, Jesus begins to paint a picture for them of the enormous house of God in which there is and will be room for them all. And what does Thomas say? “We’ll never find it on our own.”
We can begin to see why the label “doubter” has stuck.

But I think it is precisely that identity of doubt that we use to characterize Thomas that makes him such a powerful witness to the risen Lord. If you think about it, the doubt he shows at the second gathering of the church of the disciples after the resurrection is founded in real human emotion and experience. It you compare Jesus’ first appearance to them the week before with the one in which Thomas is present, he does not ask to experience anything that the other disciples have not already experienced. The first time, Jesus showed the disciples his hands and side. Why can’t Thomas ask about it? Maybe it’s not doubt but inquisitiveness and impetuousness that we find in Thomas. Maybe there is something about him that we find to be counter to the characteristics we deem appropriate for disciples: he asks too many questions, he has too many opinions, he doesn’t seem to really get what Jesus says, he’s a downer.

But without the story of Thomas, we might not be sitting here today.

I think the best label we can give to Thomas is “witness.” He is a witness--eyes, mind, heart, and soul--to the risen Christ. Without his story, and the stories of the others who saw him in that liminal time between the resurrection and the ascension, what faith would we have today? What reason would we have to believe anything? What hope would we ever have in the midst of the tragedies we live with from day to day? How would we believe that the impossible is somehow possible?

We need witnesses today. We need folks who will take on that label with pride and tell the world that all things which seem like they’ll never happen become reality, like the end of the war in Iraq, the end of the hell that has come to pass in Darfur, the imbalance of us throwing away food we can’t squeeze into our full stomachs while children and adults in other parts of the world beg for enough food to keep their stomachs pain-free for a few hours, and then tell other people about it. We need people whose lives have been changed by the power of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness offered to us in Christ to stand up and say it out loud so that the ones who think their lives will be horrible forever, who feel completely alone, who are convinced that they will never be worth forgiveness for the things they’ve done--those people can find some peace, rest, and joy in their lives. We need doubters, who can’t possibly understand how it could be true but who are, at the same time utterly convinced that it is, to share how their doubt has been turned into belief. We need witnesses so that the people who have not seen that kind of amazing thing in their own lives can come to believe that it can happen for them, too. That God is that good. That Jesus matters. That the Spirit is a constant companion. That what we do here every Sunday, every 7th day, behind these closed doors, is welcome the risen Christ who enters without our ever knowing how or where, but who speaks peace to us.

We need witnesses. The stories of Mary, the disciples, and Thomas let us know that it is true--he rose from the dead. He is risen, indeed. We are witnesses to what we have seen in our own lives, so that those who have not yet seen God’s presence and the difference it makes will come to believe. The church is called to continue the story of Christ’s resurrection in the lives of its members and friends. We are called to continue the life of the body of Christ in our own bodies, spirits, energies, and commitments.

If you’re not yet convinced, just hold on for a few more minutes and get your bulletins ready to sing and respond to Elliott Warner. He needs us to tell him the story of Thomas, that this stuff we say and pray and do together is real and that it matters. And today, we promise that we will do that with the way we live our lives, with being his teachers and supporters as he grows and learns and makes mistakes, and becomes the young, middle-aged, and senior citizen God has called him to be! (Maybe by the time he’s finishing college he’ll be applying for AARP!)

What would it take in your life for the people around you outside of this place to label you a “witness” to this faith? What kind of questions do you need to ask of Christ? How will you talk about your experience of God with others in a way that leads them to belief where they have not yet seen? And today, how will you back up the promises we make to Elliott, the promises made to his parents in their baptism to which they respond today by bringing their child for the same promises of witness?

Doubting. Quiet. Silly. Exuberant. Unusual. 4Faithful. Witness. May we be called all of these things and much, much worse, my friends, for the sake of our Lord and our God!

Amen.