The Gospel today features a familiar character, Thomas the twin. He’s better known by another name: Doubting Thomas. Before we delve too deeply into Thomas’ story, a word about doubt.
I want to stand with Thomas this morning and say, “doubt is also important.” Madeleine L’Engle, the Episcopalian and author, the one who wrote “A Wrinkle in Time,” was once asked by a little girl if she believed in Jesus without any doubts at all. L’Engle replied, “I believe, with LOTS of doubts.”
I believe with lots of doubts. Without doubt, you don’t have faith. Without doubt, you have certainty. And certainty and faith are different.
This morning, I want to say, I don’t think Thomas is looking for certainty. His longing is more intimate. Thomas wants to experience the risen Christ. It’s not an intellectual exercise. He wants more than someone else’s story. Thomas is looking for connection. He’s looking for the person he lost and longs for. This is love and grief. It’s more complicated than doubt. This is a story about the God who chose to be vulnerable, to us, and with us. This is a story of Jesus holding the hand of one of the people he loved.
In this way, I think Thomas is a mystic. He wants more than a story. He’s looking for direct contact with Jesus. With the divine. If this story is all about doubt and belief, we miss the love and the spirit at the heart of Thomas. We miss the intimacy of the story, the possibility of touching those hands.
Buddhism v. Christianity
Brian McLaren, an Evangelical pastor and writer once had the task of interviewing Peter Senge (Sen-Gee), the MIT professor who is a big leader in “systems theory” at a big conference for pastors.
Senge reported that he’d recently been surprised to learn about the top selling books in the US. The number once section was business and how-two books. But the number two best selling section for the store surprised him. Do you have any guess what it was? Senge said that the second highest selling section for the bookstore chain, across America, was books on Buddhism.
So Senge asked Brian and the pastors: “why do you think that is?” Brian said he looked a little dumbfounded. This is all of Christianity’s big issues on display, right? The church is shrinking. People are more interested in Eastern religions than Christianity. Brian didn’t have an answer. He turned the question back on the questioner, “Peter, what do you think?”
The academic paused for a moment. Then he said, “I wonder if Buddhism is so attractive because, at least here in the West, Buddhism presents itself as a way of life, while Christianity portrays itself as a system of belief.”
So, is he right? I won’t ask how many of you have books about Buddhism on your shelf. (I have several). I wonder if part of the task for Christianity today, part of our struggle as a denomination, part of our question about the relevance of the faith for today is about exactly what Senge is getting at. Have we turned Christianity into an intellectual set of propositions, a set of boxes we need to check? How do we live Christianity as a way of life?
What if we treated Christianity as a way of life?
Thomas did. Thomas bet on Jesus. He gave up his life and his livelihood. We don’t hear the story of Thomas’ call in the Gospels, but whether he was a fisherman like Peter, James and John, or a tax collector like Matthew, we can presume Thomas gave up his life to follow Jesus. When Thomas appears, important questions are asked.
Remember, it is to Thomas that Jesus gives one of the most famous answers in Scripture. Thomas isn’t a doubter, if anything Thomas is a little ahead of the other disciples. He follows what Jesus is saying, and like a lot of accelerated students, Thomas can get a bit anxious. When Jesus starts talking about leaving, Thomas asks Jesus where he’s going. How do we find you? Jesus responds that he’ll go prepare a place for them, Jesus assures Thomas that in God’s house there is room to spare. And still Thomas says in response, “we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus says to Thomas that famous line, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Notice what Jesus said first. “I am the way.” Thomas was concerned about this way. He wants to know the exact directions. But Jesus didn’t give him a formula. He didn’t tell Thomas to memorize the Nicene Creed. He didn’t say, “pray this prayer so you can get to heaven.” Jesus says, you know me. Follow me. Follow my way.
To seek a way of life, a way infused by the Spirit of God, a way inspired by the teacher Jesus, it’s an intimate task, a mystical endeavor. Seeking a way of life is a different journey than intellectual belief. Seeking a way of life asks us to hold hands and walk.
Pope Francis
This last week, Easter week, the world paused to honor the life of Pope Francis. As an Episcopalian, I have to say only have so much use for popes. All this fascination with the coming conclave makes me yearn for a more democratic process. Anglicans are fond of saying, “the bishop of Rome is fine for Romans. But he’s not my bishop.”
That is until you encounter a pope like Francis. The pope sits on top of a mountain of dogma, a whole industry of beliefs. But Francis lived Christianity as a way of life. He showed us an intimate way. Dare I say, this last pope was a bit of a mystic. Francis made Jesus’ way real, by calling Christians in Gaza every night, by embracing people with disabilities and disfigurements, by showing up in prisons and homeless outreach centers to wash feet and to serve. There were times I wished he would use his power to shape doctrine, to end his church’s formal stances which remain misogynistic and homophobic. There were ways he fell short with belief, but when it came to people, he showed up as a pastor. He embraced, and cared, and loved.
Pope Francis was a voice, yes, but he also ways a way-shower. He showed us this way of Jesus time and again. I wish more Catholics, more Christians, were like Francis. So I will miss this bishop of Rome. Francis showed us what it is like to lead from a place of mystical connection, to the divine who always leads us into relationship with those who are hurting, who are vulnerable, who are poor.
Some have said, this intimacy, this mysticism, it is not a brand of Christianity that will fill your church pews. Some say The Episcopal Church is small because we don’t offer enough certainty. Most Episcopal preachers won’t tell you exactly who is going to heaven, and who’s not. We don’t say that God certainly created the world in six days. There’s a lot of grey area in a faith like ours. They joke that we’d be bigger if we could nail down some of these answers.
That joke probably has a hint of truth to it. On a basic level, it’s nice to have really firm convictions. But I wonder if firm convictions challenge us in ways that help us grow.
The Church and the Mystical Way
What if the church wasn’t a place where you went for loud answers, but where you went to learn to be quiet and meditate in God’s presence? What if Church wasn’t the place that sent you out to tell all of the heathens in the world the truth about God? Could we in the Church become a community that teaches patience, that helps raise little ones like the two we are going to baptize today, that helps us all learn to listen to those the world has tried to silence, how to serve the way Jesus did? What if what we offered was a mystical way to engage this hurting world?
What if the Church was a place where you could gather to feed your hungry neighbors? Could church be a place where you could hold your deep questions with others who are also struggling with big quandaries? How can church be a place where we could learn to sing and play music together, and make a joyful noise? Can church make room for those who were struggling to live with addiction? What if we gave up on having the right answers, and instead focused on supporting one another as step by step we learned to live a little more like Jesus? Can church be a place where we come to hold hands, with one another, and the divine?
What would it mean to have the kind of faith that asks you to take risks? Can we, like Thomas, make a bet on Jesus’ way? Do we long for intimacy and encounter, and not just a story? Do we have the guts for that kind of faith?
I’ve got to tell you, as nice as it would be to have a church that was full to the brim with people every week, I’m more interested in learning to walk together this way of Jesus. So come all you doubters. Come all you true believers. Come. Like Thomas, let’s learn to practice this intimate and mystical way of Jesus, this way that leads to life.
Mike Angell 