Doubting Thomas 1.1

Below is my sermon this morning at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida, Easter 2C, 20160403. Text: John 20:19-31. The Bible text is appended after the end of the sermon. The Rev. Tom Weller+ 




Living by the sea, which I do, born and grew up here by the sea, spent Navy years at sea, on the sea, beside the sea, I’ve often wondered how life would have been for me otherwise: I cannot imagine life as an inland person, or a plains person, or a mountain person, or a farmland person. If I were living my life over, or that fantasy “What will I be in my next life,” I always thought I’d be an astronomer. Or a meteorologist, a weatherman of some kind, expert in hurricanes or tornadoes because violent weather fascinates me.

Seagoing vessels go right by my seventh floor porch overlooking St. Andrew’s Bay and out beyond into the Gulf of Mexico, ships, and tugs pushing barges. In my next life I’ll be a tugboat captain, even a naval officer again for a while because I loved ships and being at sea, but I will not be preaching the gospel in my next life, been there done that, still serving my time, and surely God will not call me again.

Besides, my name is Thomas like Doubting Thomas in this morning’s gospel, and even though I do honestly work at being one of the “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” doubt is part of my nature, of who I am, and what I am as I abide here in the image of God.

I’d havemade a good Missourian. Their Congressman W. D. Vandiver in an 1899 speech said: "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats. Frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri: you have got to show me.” 

If Missouri could move to the Gulf Coast, that’s the state for me, for me and Doubting Thomas the apostle. As an amateur astronomer over my years, I’ve seen too far out into the universe, the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns and stars, planets in their courses, from this speck that to God who speaks Hebrew is ha-a-res and to us, Earth — a speck —

and I have a hard time understanding the fact that Kyrie Pantokrator the Creator God could possibly care for me, love me, even me, “speck on a speck,” as British evangelist Canon Bryan Green used to preach, God rest his soul.

Sola Fide, faith alone, or Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone, but I cannot do blind faith, I have to discover and see, I have to keep exploring and searching, seeking God watching me seeking Jesus. I believe the gospels are true, that the four evangelists who wrote our canonical Mark, Matthew, Luke and John did not write fiction or to fool me, that would have been ridiculous, make no sense at all, Jesus Christ is not Huckleberry Finn, and the gospels are not meant as entertainment but as the culmination of Heilsgeschichte, our Salvation History with God. And anyway who or what am I to them that they would feel called to amuse me with these outrageous, unlikely stories? They knew and believed what they wrote down, and leaning on you, the church, the Christian community, to support my faith, you and the Bible are all I’ve got. This story about a risen Savior —-  as Doubting Thomas says, “show me.”

I’m a baptized Christian. I know that, because I’ve seen the 1938 record of my baptism by my Uncle Charlie, the Rev. Charles Knight Weller, in the Parish Register at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. My grandfather’s brother, Uncle Charlie baptized me and my sister Gina the same day. I’m baptized, and baptism is indelible, there’s no way out for me but to keep exploring — the Bible, and to keep seeking God who has already found me through water and the blood. I could easily give in to the so-called "leap of faith" and say as I did forty years ago when my rector called me in to his office and asked me, “Tom Weller, how long are you going to ignore God’s call on your life?” and I threw up my hands and said, “Oh what the hell, I give up,” and here I am the priest I sixty years ago decided not to be. I had other designs on life, but God rules and over-rules. Yet, I am NOT giving in and giving up SolaFide as one who believes and yet has not seen. I must see for myself.

I am not Hagios Tomas, Holy Thomas, the sanctified spiritual person you may think you see standing here in your pulpit dressed in the guise of a holy man, and for the life of me I cannot see what God sees in me that God would have me up here this morning following after Doubting Thomas as his namesake. Doubt is the essence of my faith as a Christian. I will not vouch for myself as “good company,” but If you yourself ever doubt, then I know that I am in good company.

I have never found in my life, that God doubts me, quite the opposite, but show me the marks of the nails in his hands, and the wound from the spear that pierced his side. Unless and until I see his hands, and touch his side, I’ll just have to keep saying the Nicene Creed over and over and over again until it takes in my heart and in my mind — and go by what the First Doubting Thomas exclaimed that Sunday, the Sunday after Easter Day: “My Lord, and my God.”

John 20:19-31 Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT) 

19 Then— being evening on that first day of the week, and the doors having been locked where the disciples were because of the fear of the Jews— Jesus came and stood in their midst. And He says to them, “Peace to you”. 20 And having said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples rejoiced, having seen the Lord. 21 Then Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you. Just as the Father has sent Me forth, I also am sending you”. 22 And having said this, He breathed-on them. And He says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they have been forgiven for them. If you retain the sins of any, they have been retained”.

24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, the one being called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But the one said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will by no means believe”. 26 And after eight days, His disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. Jesus comes— the doors having been locked. And He stood in their midst and said, “Peace to you”. 27 Then He says to Thomas, “Bring your finger here and see My hands. And bring your hand and put it into My side. And do not be unbelieving, but believing”. 28 Thomas responded and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus says to him, “You have believed because you have seen Me. Blessed are the ones not having seen and having believed”.

30 Then indeed Jesus also did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which have not been written in this book. 31 But these things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so that believing, you may have life in His name