Easter 2C
Text: John 20:19-31
sermon by Rev. Robert Klonowski
Faith Lutheran Church, Homewood, IL
April 24, 2022
The Ants in the Pants of Faith
When I was a kid I worshipped with my family at St. Joseph Catholic Church on 48th Street. Being a kid, my attention wandered during the worship service and especially during the sermon, and I spent a lot of time studying the beautiful, intricate stained glass windows. The windows depicted the twelve apostles, among whom, you may know, there are not one but two St. Jameses, so one window was entitled St. James the Greater, and the other was St. James the Lesser. That’s what it said, in the bottom half of the window, in shining, bejeweled glass! The Lesser!, I always thought in my 12-year-old mind; what must it be like to go through all the centuries of Christian history labeled forever as, the Lesser!?
Could be worse. Today is the Second Sunday of the Easter season, and on the Second Sunday of Easter the church all over the world always reads the story of the apostle Thomas, and all over the world, for all the centuries of Christian history, this guy has been labeled forever as, Doubting Thomas! Doubting Thomas was a meme, before we ever had a word for that.
This morning I rise before you to preach and my intention is to change all those centuries of Christian history. I rise today to speak in favor of the apostle Thomas. This morning I rise to preach to you on the subject of doubt, and I rise, to speak in favor.
Yeah, you heard me: on this day of the reading of the gospel of Doubting Thomas, I want to put Thomas to you not as the pathetic and faithless character you think of, but rather as a hero to us, and an exemplar of good, authentic Christian faith.
I want to change the way you think about doubt. Let me be as provocative as I can: If you come sure of your faith this morning, then by the time we wind up our worship I want you to be not so sure, because I think this story says that the only way to meet the real God is the not-so-sure way.
The Christian writer Anne Lamott puts it this way: the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith, is certainty. I know, I know!; she brings me up short with that, too! It flies in the face of so much that I assume about faith. Isn’t strong faith, sure faith, exactly what I often find myself praying for? Isn’t strong faith, sure faith, what we admire in others? One of my favorite prayers in our funeral liturgy is the one that claims resurrection as our “sure and certain hope.”
Careful there; careful. If the faith we seek is indeed faith in God, then there must always be elements of mystery, uncertainty, and humility in it, just because God is so far beyond us. Therefore when faith becomes absolutely certain, it is no longer faith, for faith is always the acknowledgment of utter dependence, not on what we know for sure, but on God. So absolute certainty is the opposite of faith, because when our faith is based on what we’ve got all figured out, God starts to look awfully domesticated and easy and simple to believe in. Whatever it is you’re believing in at that point, it ain’t the real God. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but God is not all that domesticated and not all that easily figured out by you.
So what if we were not to shun doubt as something to be avoided in the life of faith, but instead to embrace doubt as something essential to faith’s true character, and therefore as something beautiful and holy? Yeah, I said beautiful. Think about it: the one who comes to you wondering and open and questioning in their faith is a much more attractive character, am I right?, than the serious Christian folks who’ve got it all figured out, and want to convince you of how right they are and how you should think just like them. You are beautiful, in your doubt, you know why? Because there is always something beautiful about true humility. I’m reminded of the father in the gospel of Mark who brings his young son to Jesus for healing. “All things can be done for the one who believes,” Jesus tells him. To which the father cries out “I believe; help my unbelief!” That’s a modest and authentic cry, right there; torn from the heart, and very beautiful. I believe; help my unbelief.
So I want to reject the meme of poor Doubting Thomas, the guy who’s gone down in history as the very paragon of inadequate faith. I mean, what if this very thing that we slam him for, this very inadequacy, this humility before God, is actually a requirement for good faith? Inadequate, humble, doubting and all, is the only way you come to God. That’s the only way that any of us comes up this church aisle before God to receive Holy Communion, right? You come up inadequate. You come up, short. Doubting, maybe. Your faith is not all there; your faith ain’t all that. Just as I am, without one plea; that’s the way I come, I come.
Many of you have shared with me that your faith is not strong enough, that you have your doubts. Maybe it’s time, like the father in the gospel, like Thomas our twin brother in the gospel lesson this morning, to claim your doubt. The Christian writer Frederick Buechner calls doubt the “ants in the pants of faith.” Doubt keeps you moving, and keeps you mindful of some things that need your attention, if you would be a person of faith, and a follower of Jesus.
“For this I came into the world,” Jesus says in the gospel, “so that those who do not see may be given sight, and so that those who think they see may be struck blind.” He has come into the world, that those with unshakable faith may be rattled right down to their core, and that those who are wracked with doubt – that would be, people just like you – may be given the eyes of faith.