John 20:19-31
Jonathan Tanner
Kay Spiritual Life Center
April 15, 2007
I don't know how many of you heard about this, but just over a year ago there was a kid in a New York high school by the name of Jason McElwain. Jason was on the school basketball team; he was the manager, and he is autistic. Because of his autism he was never allowed to play in regular games. He was deemed by others not capable of doing anything productive in the games for his team, even the ones that they won by a large margin. Then on the last day of the season the coach finally gave him a chance to play, and with just over four minutes left on the clock he entered the end of a blowout game. On Jason's first shot it looked like everyone was right who believed that he shouldn't be playing. A 3 point shot from the right side hit nothing but air; it was not even close. His next shot wasn't much better, but right after that he hit a perfect 3-point shot from the right corner, and he wasn't done yet. Six 3-pointers and seven made shots later, Jason was the high scorer for the game and his teammates and the crowd were going crazy. When Jason hit his sixth and final 3 pointer right before the buzzer sounded, all the fans and the team mobbed him near center court and lifted him up in the air as a hero. I think the correspondent for CBS captured it perfectly as he said "Jason had felt special before, but not this special."
In the gospel lesson today, the apostle Thomas doubted. For those of us who have grown up in the church, we have probably heard this story numerous times. The story of how all of Jesus' old disciples (minus Judas) were gathered in a room and Jesus appeared to them all showing them that he was real, all except Thomas. And when Thomas heard the disciples say that Jesus was alive, he responded by saying that he would not believe this until "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." Only when Jesus reappeared to them all with Thomas there and Jesus told Thomas that he could put his hands in Jesus' marks did he believe. Thomas had a moment of doubt, but this was no small matter to be doubting. He was not doubting whether his homework was due tomorrow or doubting whether the dining hall was going to serve edible food the next day. He doubted the resurrection of the living Christ and made a place for himself in history with a saying that is still used today. People who have no idea who the apostle Thomas was know the saying "doubting Thomas," and even Christians know little more about him. I mean, how many regular church attendees know anything about Thomas or what he said or did apart from this story? I would bet not many. One reason is because there isn't much to know. Only two other times in the entire New Testament is Thomas mentioned as doing or saying anything separate from the big group, and those are both in the gospel of John, the same book of the Bible with this story of doubting. In John 11:16 Thomas suggests to the disciples that they should all go to Bethany with Jesus to where Lazarus has died so that they may all die with him (this is right before Jesus brings Lazarus back from the dead). Then in John 14:5 Thomas responds to one of Jesus' many sayings during his long discourse in the chapters of John right before he leaves to go to the Garden of Gethsemane and then to be taken away to eventually be crucified. Thomas says: "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"
And that's it. That's all we have about Thomas in the Bible. The only other times he is even mentioned is in each of the other three gospels where he is just listed as being in the group of twelve, once more in John where he goes fishing with some others, and once in Acts where he is said to go back to a room that all the disciples were staying in. So there's not much here, just a doubter. From this he seems like someone who decided that they would take the most of their opportunity to be infamous till the end of time and run with it.
Now just because we do not have records in Scripture of Thomas after this event probably does not mean that he did nothing, sitting in a corner pouting for the rest of his life. Moving forward almost 1500 years, Portuguese sailing along the coast of South India encounter a strange site: Christians. Christians who were in a land that was not known to have a church (and the Portuguese at that time were great explorers so they would know if there was a church there planted by any of the "recognized churches" of the time). Apparently the church had been there almost as long as the gospel itself, with the initial planting of the church attributed to none other than the apostle Thomas. Now not all of the individual accounts that we have today of Thomas and his journeys after the doubting event have a high degree of reliability in themselves, but together there are a lot of accounts that have Thomas heading off to India and other parts of Asia to start communities of faith and spread this incredible message, the message of the One that Thomas doubted.
Who here has doubted before? Actually a better question is who here has never doubted. I doubt that anyone falls into that category. Doubt can sometimes be a good thing. If we see a new 60 inch HDTV on ebay for just $200, especially if the seller were to insist that you mail cash beforehand, then we probably have some doubt. Or if we get another e-mail telling us that someone we've never met in Africa died and we are to be the recipient of their entire multi-million dollar inheritance then we probably doubt that one too. At least I would hope so. These are not just normal reactions, they are smart ones. Doubt is good in these areas; we need it or we'd believe anything and easily be taken advantage of. And most people have doubt from time to time about certain things about God. Just the fact that we cannot see God and that we have questions about such things as why suffering occurs in a world where God is loving causes many to doubt - and God does not want us to get discouraged just because we are not sure. But doubt does not always occur in these forms. Sometimes we doubt something bigger or more important. Sometimes, just as Thomas did, we doubt God himself.
God has been doubted for generations. Going back even to the first humans in the Bible, people have doubted God for one reason or another. Adam and Eve each doubted that God has their best intentions in mind when they were instructed to not eat of the fruit in the middle of the garden, because if they hadn't doubted then they would have had no reason to disobey. Then throughout the rest of the Bible there are people who doubt God, and no matter what the case, all those stories are included in the Bible to show the future readers how to not doubt God themselves. But I think that they are not just there to show us how not to doubt in the future, but to show us that people do doubt, even some of the most famous people in the Bible such as Moses, but God can show us how to turn from our doubts into leaders for Christ in our future.
What are some ways that we doubt God today? One is doubting God's promises. God promises to take care of us, to love us, to be faithful to us, and there are many more. Many times in Jesus' ministry he reiterates how much God will take of us and how useless worrying really is, but many times in our own lives we doubt that God really cares. We also tend to doubt that God has uses for us. Many times in the New Testament letters there are references to spiritual gifts, with one of the more famous passages in these letters being 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul talks about the idea of the church being one body with many parts. These passages on gifts are meant to show that although not all of us are going to have the same gifts that all the others have, we still can each be highly effective in the gifts that we do have. Spiritual gifts assessment tests can be taken to find out an individual's gifts, but many times those resources are not available or we cannot take them for whatever reason, but I think that we can also tell our spiritual gifts by just jumping in and trying them out. If we wait forever to do anything until we know for sure what gifts we have, then we will have to look back late in life and see how many years we wasted when we could have just tried. Let us try to work as administrators or teachers or faith sharers or whatever gifts we want to see if God has blessed us with. And let us not forget that the reason that we are able to use these spiritual gifts effectively is the presence of the Holy Spirit inside us. Jesus promised that God would send the Holy Spirit to Christ's believers after he died, so when we doubt the promised blessing of the Holy Spirit then we doubt God.
Sometimes the most visible way we doubt God is through actions. There is a parable Jesus told of two sons in Matthew 21. To summarize, the father of these two sons told them both to go work in his vineyard. The first son said that he would not, but later he changed his mind and went, while the second son said that he would go, but in the end he did not. The difference between the two is that one said the right thing and one did the right thing, but at the heart of all this is the belief. The first son decided that he really believed the right thing to do was to go work in the vineyard like his father had asked, while the other son just gave lip service to the right action and never believed in it. Another parable that follows this is in Matthew 25 where Jesus is telling a story about himself judging the nations at the end of the world. In verses 34-36 he talks to the ones he finds favor with saying: "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." When someone asks him when they saw him in this way he responds by saying: "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." These people believed that they were supposed to do these things as followers of Jesus and they were rewarded for it. Right after this, Jesus tells the people in the other group that they will be punished because of their inaction. Christians of today are told in advance through this parable and others about how Jesus feels about the action or inaction toward helping the less fortunate. Even if we say that we want to help them or it is a priority to help them, we are doubting that Jesus spoke the truth here if we do not believe we should care for the less fortunate as if they are Jesus himself, and then turn that faith into action.
There are many other ways of doubting God and I won't get into them all here, but the important thing to know is that everybody doubts or has doubted, and we are all capable of overcoming it. The hard thing to know is what does "overcoming it" entail? Does it mean that we will never have any doubts related to God? We will always know God is there, always know that God's promises are occurring, always feel God's presence, always take the right action to show that we really believe and don't doubt, and always rely on the Holy Spirit at all times? Well, I guess ideally yes. We should be just like that. We should be perfect. But no one I've met so far falls into that category. Everyone has doubts at times about what is God speaking to them and what is not God, or wavered on whether they are sure of one promise or another at the moment, or wondered if God has abandoned them. As humans, we will likely never escape these doubts. But overcoming isn't about dwelling on doubts we've had or doubts we think we might have in the future. It is about overcoming our perception of ourselves as not worthy or not usable, or needing to do something on our own to prove ourselves worthy to or do enough to earn our way to God. We are only useable to God when we make ourselves available to God. Our acronym in undergrad that our campus ministry used was that God wanted FAT people. (F. A. T.) Faithful, Available, Teachable. God doesn't require people who know all the answers or have perfect faith, just ones that are willing to use their lives in ways that God would lead them.
The apostle Thomas was given a great gift: the ability to see the resurrected Christ and see that he had risen. Unfortunately, we probably won't get that same opportunity, at least in the same way. We get to see the risen Christ through changed lives, changed attitudes, answered prayers, our own relationship with God, and many other ways, but if we are looking for Jesus to physically appear to us or give us a definite, non-mistakable sign to us individually then we will probably be disappointed. Therefore we will have to rely on faith to guide us in the areas that we cannot know for sure. Hebrews 11:1 says: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. We will not be able to see proof like Thomas saw, but our faith can still give us assurance of what God has revealed to us as Christians.
And because of this we can still lead lives productive and pleasing to God. We probably won't found the church in India, because it is already founded (despite being a big minority today). But we can still help the needy, we can still share our faith stories with others, we can still fight for justice for or alongside those who can't fight for themselves. We can also be in a meaningful relationship with God where we get up every day saying "Lord, I love you and I know you love me. I know you have the best in store for me today. As I go about my day what can I do today for you and your kingdom?"
Jason McElwain was a nobody. At least that's what other people thought. He was an extra on his school's basketball team. He wasn't a superstar, he wasn't even contributing in games. But Jason didn't doubt himself. He spent countless hours in the gym shooting shots that he knew he would likely never get to shoot during a game. But when he got his chance, he made the most of it and showed the whole world what he could do. While someone like Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, or Gilbert Arenas is the much more famous, much better, and much more publicized player, it was an autistic kid from a New York state high school that touched the lives of millions of people and made an impact on the sport in a way that those three NBA players never will.
We do not have to be Mother Teresa or Billy Graham or the Apostle Paul to make a difference and be pleasing to the Lord. We don't have to have the right background or right qualities, or have never pushed aside the Lord before. In fact, that is the norm for those who were called to be God's leaders in the Old Testament: most of them first told the Lord that they were the wrong person for the job. But at some point we have to turn that corner, so let it be now, let it be today, let it be here that we say "I am ready Lord to do whatever you want me to do" and let us mean it. The Lord God and our Lord and friend Jesus Christ love us and want to use us. Let the victory given us through Christ's resurrection on Easter show us this, and let the later actions of the apostle Thomas remind us that we are always capable of being useful to God.
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Copyright © 2007. Jonathan Tanner.
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