April 12, 2015

Susan Adams

Low Sunday     Acts 2:14a, 22-32     1 John 1:1-2:2     John 20:19-31

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Did you enjoy all the Easter celebrations – the music, the rituals and the liturgies?

Beautiful, awesome, very moving...

Did any of it raise any questions for you?

Any 'why are we doing this', or 'what does this mean', or 'do I believe that?'

Well, today is Low Sunday, a great day to be in church because we get to say "whew, what was all that about?" we can be honest...

It's a bit like the morning after the night before ... when we are all a bit bemused and tired, and wondering if it was worth the effort, or if we had got caught up in the enthusiasms of others.

The gospel reading set for this Sunday tells the same story each year ... that could be because everyone is too tired after the Easter hype to think of anything new ... but that's not it. The reading we hear is from John's Gospel, the gospel that is read at significant liturgical events during the year.

• It is the gospel that intervenes in the ongoing flow of the narrative the other three gospels tell week by week in their respective years.

• It is the, primarily, theological gospel and as such less concerned with history-telling than with theological meaning.

• The writer was not an eye-witness to the events, but writing 50 or more years after the crucifixion.

The reading from John's Gospel about Thomas, that we have heard this morning, is not a reading about an historical event: it is not history it is theology. It is asking "what was all that about?", it is trying to make sense of experience (that is what theology does) – it is part of the 'after-party-debrief'. It opens the way for the question "What have we got ourselves caught up in?"

The disciples try to tell Thomas what they had experienced last time they met together, when he was not present, and he – in parallel to the other disciples own response to Mary's story of meeting Jesus in the garden – says as it were, "yeah right!" or " I doubt it." Then we hear the "don't tell me show me" cliché arising from his doubt about the veracity of his friends fantastical story. He seems to be a 'seeing is believing' sort of person.

• What we have in this story-telling by John, is on the one hand, a contextual insight: a clear indication that secrecy and deception are prevalent in the Mediterranean culture of that time. This was a way of protecting oneself and family and of getting ahead of the pack as it were – we still say "information is power" and in some places you don't share everything you know or your sources! Thomas was challenging what he thought was an attempt to deceive. Secret knowledge was big, it could give you an edge!

• And on the other hand, the story portrays the all too human predilection to scepticism, to doubt when we are faced with strange and unlikely stories. This is what we hear today – Thomas's doubt about the interpretation his friends were putting on their experience and his suspicion they were covering something up, not telling the whole story plainly – he wants proof.

Doubt gets such bad press in Christian circles. It is something most of don't want to own up to. We mostly feel we should be persuaded, certain, convinced about the 'truth' of it all – 'believe' the fantasmogorical, metaphysical, supra-natural – 'dead-man-walking' and all.

I want to remind us that it is doubt, not certainty that is the key to it all!

Doubt is the key to faith, and it is faith, not belief, or certainty, that will help us to be resilient followers of Christ into new life in our time.

This is the theological conundrum the writer of John's gospel is exploring!

The most robust faith comes out of a struggle with doubt – witness some our most revered spiritual writers and thinkers ... (Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Simone Weil, Thomas Merton, Fredrick Buechner, JK Baxter ...) None were 100% certain about it all, this Christian faith stuff, they had a corner for the 'yeah, right!'

Further, it is important to acknowledge that without the questions that doubt gives rise to: the "Why?" "What?", "Who says" – without the capacity to doubt, there could have been no progress in our knowledge and understanding of our world and all we know about today. We would have had only a docile, unquestioning acceptance of the status quo – including unquestioning acceptance of what our old, established theologian/scientists who explained the world and all there is, in light of what they knew and understood in their time.

Galileo, one of the famous scientist/theologians, said "Doubt is the father of discovery." It is the courage to say "I doubt", that has led to great discoveries, including Galileo's own sun / earth role reversal.

It seems to me, that when we have the courage to voice our doubts, without buying into the churches guilt, then we are nudging toward the robust faith that encourages us to question; that enables us to doubt while continuing in faith!

There is liberty, freedom, life, for us in this as we engage our imaginations in exploring our world and our faith. The theologian and gospel-writer 'John' is (as the last verse of the first ending of the Gospel makes clear), concerned that though we have not seen with our own eyes the wounds of death in the body of Jesus, we have heard about them. We have heard too, of the different life, the vibrant edgy life, that Jesus offered to those who followed in the way he was teaching about and shaping amongst those who gathered around him. 'John' is inviting all who hear to have faith in the death and new life stories we hear handed down. He invites us to consider the experiences of others alongside our own, and to engage our imagination as to the possibilities of living in a world renewed and revitalised.

Jesus was embracing a risky lifestyle, aimed at social change through challenge to the status quo – to those of the state and the temple who held in place discrimination, corruption and all other practices and judgements that limited the fullness of life for the people of the general population.

If we are to continue lives of faith in the manner of Jesus, lives that demonstrate acceptance, kindness, compassion and concern for others; lives willing to take a risk, then we must find the courage to point out and to name the places where change is required. It's not too difficult to name low wages, lack of affordable housing, senior citizen vulnerability, places of discrimination, the narrowing of educational options, the reduction of news and social analysis, all of which lead to a more vulnerable and risk adverse community; to a more malleable, biddable population, that play into the hands of those who hold power – in church and state.

Jesus was convinced there was a way of life that was more hopeful, kinder, respectful of those who were different and caring of those who were struggling, a way of life that Jesus was calling people of his day to live. It is this life the writer of John's Gospel was convinced was available to everyone whether or not they had seen or touched the death wounds of Jesus. This is the new life, the resurrection life, that we are invited to embrace – even if from time to time we doubt the stories we hear, doubt the vision, despair of a world restored to harmony, and doubt our capacity to participate. Wherever we are on the spectrum of faith, we are – with all our doubt and despair – invited to live in faith that life will overcome death, and that we can be part of it.

So we might pray with many who have gone before us: "God, through my doubt, strengthen my faith."