April 27, 2014

Linda Murphy

Second Sunday of Easter, Low Sunday

Gracious God, open our hearts and our minds. Give us the wisdom to believe what we have seen and what we cannot see. Help us to follow you with open-eyed faith. Lent, Holy Week and Easter Day have come and gone. The beauties of the labyrinth, the music, the glorious music of last week are now a wonderful sustaining memory. Our numerous services readings and hymns which make Easter worship such a festive celebration are complete. To Dmitry and our singers we are so appreciative of your beautiful music and you all deserve a rest today.  Michael, thank you for being with us this morning. Even our weather has changed in a week, summer is over, the days are shorter and the temperature is dropping. The autumnal colours have arrived; our garden has red and yellow hues getting darker each day.

Our Easter holiday is now over and most of us have returned to work. For those of us so involved with the special services of Holy Week and Easter it’s time to settle back into our more usual routine. We now walk through the fifty days of Eastertide. This is a time of reflection; confrontation with the everyday; a time of transformation. Today we meet the disciples, still in Jerusalem, frightened, mourning their teacher and friend has been crucified, which was an undignified death, given only to those who challenge the ruling imperial hierarchy of Rome. It seems strange that the disciples haven’t left Jerusalem and returned to the relative safety of Galilee. It seems they just don’t know what to do. Their beloved friend and teacher is no longer with them; they have no leader to guide them; they are full of fear and uncertainty. This fear and uncertainty we can relate to. It is the fear that comes with change and with change comes uncertainty. Change in leadership, change in the way we operate in our daily lives all leads to fear from some of the unknown and hope for others of a new beginning.

In John’s Gospel, Thomas is mentioned only three times, he is not a major disciple. In chapter 14 however when Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you…You know the way to the place where I am going” it is Thomas the pragmatist who replies truthfully, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know then the way”(14:5). And earlier in chapter 11, when Jesus speaks of going back to Judea, Thomas knows that for Jesus to return to Jerusalem is to go to his death. Thomas was not a fool. He counted the costs before making a decision. Nevertheless, it is he who bravely urges the others to follow Jesus: “let us go also, that we may die with him.”(11:16)

In this light Thomas’ reaction to the news of the risen Christ should not be surprising. For Thomas’ reality had come just days earlier in the form of a cross, when his teacher and friend had been crucified; when he had fled and deserted Jesus.

Thomas doubted and has been labelled “Doubting Thomas” for thousands of years. However, after the resurrection, all the disciples doubted. They doubted the women’s story that the tomb was empty, calling it idle talk. It took seeing Jesus for them to be convinced that the women had to see either Jesus or an angel. Thomas doubted but once he saw, he believed. Not only did Thomas confess the living Christ, he backed it up with the rest of his life. The early church no longer viewed him as ‘Doubting Thomas’ but ‘Missionary Thomas’, with historical stories or legend telling us that he preached as far as India.

What would life be like without doubt?

The opposite of doubt is certainty. Give someone certainty and there can be no room for faith, for faith is hope in what is not seen. We can live faith for it is open, endless and eternal. Give someone certainty and we risk sowing the seeds of arrogance and bigotry. The theologian Paul Tillich says, “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith. Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by and has turned to the infinite.”

The first person to confess the divinity of Christ was Doubting Thomas. He refused to believe the disciples when they told him that they had seen Jesus. It’s the questioners and doubters, the ones who are puzzled and unsure, who keep the faith of the Church alive, and open the way for encounters with the risen Christ. Gregory the Great said of Thomas, “His scepticism was more advantageous to us than the faith of the disciples who believed.”

On Friday we as a nation along with Australia commemorated ANZAC Day. This is a day to remember our young men who went to “fight for King and Country” on the other side of the world. When they were fighting that terrible battle at Gallipoli there were many who must have been doubters, as was Thomas.  Why and for whom were they fighting? This battle was not a great battle of the Great War but it lasted nine months and 2721 New Zealanders, roughly one fifth of those who fought on Gallipoli, lost their lives 99 years ago. We remember this day as a symbol of our national identity when we were recognised as New Zealanders.

This Thursday our 19th vicar Helen Jacobi will be inducted into this parish. Our first female vicar!  Alleluia!

The circumstances surrounding Helen’s appointment has been met with doubt and fear of the change and the possible implications for us as a progressive community of faith. It was the same fear of change and the unknown that gripped the disciples. Fear of change and doubt are very normal human emotions. Without these reactions we would not confront those things in our society and community that need to be changed. We would accept the status quo, which is not something that St Matthew in the City is known for.

Easter is a time of transformation, a time to confront our doubt, being open to encountering our faith and accepting what we cannot see. As Jesus said in the upstairs room “… Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”(John 20:29). It is about taking a new path or reacquainting ourselves with a forgotten path as we journey towards finding the grace of God.

This story is not about Thomas’ doubt; rather it is about an encounter with the grace of God which has been embodied, enfleshed, in Jesus Christ. When he is confronted by God’s grace, Thomas is confronted by a whole new reality. This is what Easter means - that we are forever transformed people. Easter isn’t just a celebration it’s a way of life.