The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Easter 2, Year C
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
On this second Sunday of Easter, Day 8 of the Easter season, we always read this story of the disciples’ encounter with the Risen Christ and poor Thomas. Every year. Every single year.
For the longest time, the preaching focus has been on how we, who have not seen the Risen Christ, may come to belief. Thomas the “Doubter” was a stand-in for us. We need to have faith, we need to trust in the resurrection. Makes sense. Sometimes we need that nudge. We want to intellectualize what is ultimately a work of the soul. We want 100% certainty what cannot be definitively and perfectly proved.
Then there came a shift. Wisely we perceived that the over-emphasis on “Doubting Thomas” then downplayed the important role of asking questions. Especially for us Episcopalians, we like questions. We’re brought together to a common table even if we are not 100% of the same mind. Thomas asks questions that any of us would ask. He is our stand-in – he is a faithful disciple who uses his brain and his senses to pursue the truth in Jesus Christ.
And in other years, there was another thing that we noticed: that Thomas wasn’t present when Jesus made his presence known the first time to the disciples. Thomas was away from home, out of the office. We don’t know why – was he doing the shopping, was he visiting home? But he just wasn’t there. How lonely that would feel, to come back and be told that Jesus had returned when you were not there. It would feel isolating. No wonder Thomas would doubt – why would Jesus leave him out like this? Must have been some other explanation. But Jesus returns, and brings Thomas back into the fold. We, too, might feel left out, but Jesus will bring us back in and re-build the beloved community gathered in his name.
And we keep coming back to this text. What more can we wring out of this text?
First, that’s not quite the right way to think about it. The texts of the Bible are not damp sponges soaked in spiritual knowledge that we just have to wring out to get what we need from them. Or perhaps a different metaphor: the Bible is not an orange that we’re going to squeeze the juice out of and then discard. We see what happens when people think that they’ve squeezed all the knowledge out of the Bible.
Each time we read the books of the Bible it’s a living encounter. None of us are the exact same person we were a year ago – so we’re different people reading the same text. The world around us is a different place – so we have a different context as we read the same text. Each of us is bringing new knowledge, new concerns, new worries and thoughts to the same text. We read it with new eyes and a new heart and a new spirit … so we keep reading the Bible.
Let’s think of our context: there has been such chaos and upheaval politically so far this year. There is fear about people losing their jobs for no reason other than somebody decided that all the important functions of the federal government needed to be slashed and burned with all the confidence of a 1980’s movie corporate villain.
There is widespread fear about our constitutional order, about the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers, about wide-sweeping actions targeting immigrants and dissenters and people exercising their human and civil rights.
Fear is all around. And, so too, were these early disciples afraid. They had locked themselves away out of fear of the authorities. They locked the door. They huddled. They stared at the door out of fear of hearing footsteps and a knock.
Fear is a powerful emotion. It is not just in the heart. Fear runs through our bodies and brains. Fear can pull our brain and body into fight-or-flight-or-freeze. Fear brings more parts of our nervous system online. Fear isn’t an abstract concept; fear shows up in our flesh.
So where are you these days? Are you afraid about things going on in the world? Are you afraid for your work, or your family? Where do you feel this fear in your body? What do you do – do you read the news all the time, hoping for safety in awareness? Do you find yourself stuck in your brain, thinking all sorts of “What ifs”? Do you feel powerless, angry?
When we feel fear, we want connection – hence why the disciples were huddled together. We want safety in numbers. So what a blessing, then, as a church community when we can share our blessings and also our fears. When we are fearful, or overwhelmed, we gather with others. We’re a social species. Safety in numbers, we’re not by ourselves. Our mirror neurons in our brain turn the dial up or down on our nervous system based on what we see in others. So if someone in the group can be that non-anxious, non-fearful presence of peace, maybe the fear dial will turn down from panic.
But as we see in our Gospel story, the disciples get the peace of Christ in that first week, that day when Thomas was not in the house. The following week, where are they? They’re still in the house.
The Bible translation today is a little misleading – it sounds like one week the doors were locked and the next they were just shut; nope, it’s the same word in Greek, κεκλεισμένων. The doors were locked the first week, and the doors were locked the second. The disciples were still afraid, even those disciples who had received the gift of Jesus’s peace and the gift of the Spirit.
Fear is powerful. Fear is a tight knot that takes time to be untied and undone. It takes patience and gentleness, it takes deep spirit and courage. It’s not a switch that can just be flipped off. For us as Christians, it’s not a matter of “believe harder” or “have stronger faith” – it’s ongoing gathering in prayer, it’s continual prayer, it’s sharing in the sacraments and sharing the peace of the Holy Spirit.
We’re in a time of great fear and uncertainty. We might feel that fear deep inside our hearts and minds and bodies. We know that there are many out in the world who are also afraid, and alone. We gather to share our fear, to share the gift of God’s peace in the midst of fear. It takes doing it again and again. We let God untie the knot of fear that keeps us bound so that we may be heralds of the resurrection and agents of God’s love.
See how the Holy Spirit helped us today in reading a Gospel passage that gets read every year on this second Sunday of Easter. The story is familiar, and God still speaks to us through this story. God speaks to our fear and worry, God speaks to our need for community, God pours out the gift of the Spirit upon us who gather in the name of the risen Christ in strange and uncertain times. We are gathered together to love one another, to support one another, and to love God who supports us all our days. Amen.