St. Thomas and the truths we know in our bones

 

Rev. Molly F. James,  PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer

December 21, 2021

Psalm 126; Habakkuk 2:1-4; John 20:24-29

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Ah, St. Thomas. He feels like an old friend. I would guess the same true  is for many clergy across the Church. Somehow in its wisdom, the Lectionary Committee decided that it would be appropriate for this story of “Doubting Thomas” to be the Gospel for the Sunday after Easter, every year. So those of us who spent years as an assistant or an associate or serving a small parish where there are no other clergy have a personal library of sermons on this text. They pair nicely with our sermons on the prologue of the Gospel of John which is the Gospel for every year for the Sunday after Christmas. 

While I have certainly had my moments of feeling frustrated by the repetition in our lectionary, those moments where I want to say, “Thomas? Again? Really? How am I supposed to come up with something new to say about him?” But of course if I pause and breathe and sit with it, and I feel differently. I think about my time in Exeter in the UK when I got to sit in the Cathedral for evensong day after day. And you know what is true about that service, the Magnifcat is sung. Pretty much daily. We only get Thomas twice a year: 1 Easter and his feast day. We get the Magnificat everyday. Why? Because the Magnificat is always a good idea. It is, indeed, a text, a message we need to have be central to our lives, to the daily practice of our faith. It is a message that speaks powerfully into whatever kind of day we are having. 

And I believe that the same is true of Thomas. His story speaks powerfully to us again and again. I think it especially speaks to us in this present time. How often, in recent days especially, have we felt like Thomas? Which story, which news headline, which study, which infographic or chart are we supposed to believe? How do we trust information when it seems to be changing on a daily or hourly basis? Do we need to change our plans for the holidays? What is the best way forward for us in our particular circumstances?

The uncertainty and anxiety are swirling all around us. Again. And we are exhausted. We are disheartened and frustrated. If we wanted to find reasons to doubt, reasons to fear, reasons to give into that same sense of foreboding and disillusionment that tempted Thomas. It would be easy to join him, “See, everything is terrible. They have killed my Lord. And to make matters worse someone stole his body, The world is out to get us. Nothing we hoped for is going to come true. All our dreams have been dashed.” Thomas requires actual proof, an actual incarnational experience to believe that his fears are not true. To believe that the tomb is empty because resurrection is real. Because God’s love is stronger than everything, even death. 

And we cannot blame him. The fundamental truths of our lives are not ones that we know just because we hear them or read them. Think about how we talk about them. We talk about knowing them “in our bones.” The most important truths of our lives are not merely intellectual. They are not just information. They are experiential. They are incarnational. 

That’s why we can still feel disquieted after we read the news headlines or the latest CDC briefing or the latest study on any of the myriad challenges our society is currently facing. Even if it is good news, it is just information. We need to be reminded of the fundamental truths of our lives and our faith, and that doesn’t happen through information. It happens through experience. 

So my friends, in these days, when you find yourselves joining Thomas in fear and doubt, reconnect to the experience of faith. Light a candle. Pray with an icon. Walk in the splendor of creation. Call that friend whose voice is a balm to your weary spirit. Hug your loved ones more often. Listen to the music that restores your soul. Attune your senses to all the signs of light and hope in our world. In gathered community. In more hours of daylight. In smiles and small acts of kindness. In the gift of quiet moments. In laughter. In meals shared, even on Zoom. The affirmations of God’s love. Of hope and possibility are all around us. We just need to be listening with our hearts  as well as our ears. AMEN.

Recognizing the Truth

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
Chapel of our Lord, Episcopal Church Center
Feast of Gregory of Nazianzus, January 2, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

When you are in the ordination process, you are required to write your bishop a letter at least four times a year on what are known as the Ember Days. They were an opportunity to update my bishop on what was going on in my life- spiritually, academically, etc. While I had friends and classmates who only occasionally received replies from their bishops, my bishop was always very good at writing me back and sharing her wisdom with me. I remember in one particular exchange, I wrote her about discovering so many connections between what I was learning in my classes. She replied that is how we know the Holy Spirit is leading us to Truth.

I come back to that idea and phrase often. The idea that Truth is not understood in isolation. We understand Truth as it connects with what we already know, and we understand it best in community. I think this is really important. We cannot be sure of Truth just in our own heads. We need community - we need the questions and insights of others to fully understand what is true. I think this bears out in our own experiences. I think most of us are capable of rationalizing quite a lot of things. We can be good at convincing ourselves what we would like to believe or what we would like to be true. It is only when we share our internal process with someone whose wisdom we trust and respect that we realize that it might be possible that we are fooling ourselves or just that we are missing a key aspect or insight. Think of the ways that our minds are enlightened or new connections are made as we learn from family, dear friends, teachers, colleagues . . . sometimes even our own children!

We gain a fuller understanding of ourselves and of the world around us through relationship and conversation. While some of us are independent and driven, convinced we can learn “on our own” through a discipline of reading and research. Even then we are not really learning alone, we are learning from experts in whatever field we might be studying. It is through that engagement with others, whether they be long dead theologians or thinkers or dear companions with whom we have the privilege of in person conversations, we learn the Truth more fully because we learn from each other and together.

These days, when you can find information on the internet to agree with almost any idea or point of view, it can feel hard to know what the Truth is. Certainly it can not be said that something is true because we read it somewhere. We need to be more discerning and engaged than that. Here are some discernment criteria or questions that I find helpful. I hope they are helpful to you as well.

Does this new piece of information fit with what I know already? Does it add to, enhance, deepen my knowledge?

Does this information fit with my understanding of who God is? Does it fit with who Jesus is and what it means to walk in the Way of Love, as we have understood from our Scriptures?

Does this information build up God’s kingdom? Does it enable me and those around me to have the abundant life to which Jesus calls each and everyone of us?

The Truth that Jesus was talking about, the Truth that will set us free is not simply just new information that is based in reality. It is far richer and more nuanced than that. The Truth is that which enriches and deepens our lives and our understanding. Now, of course, you may be wondering what this all means for the reality of evil in the world. Certainly there are terrible things (violence, hatred, etc) that are all too real. People die. People are irrevocably harmed by these facts. Evil is real. There is no disputing that. But the reality of evil in the world is not the Truth. It does not set us free. It does not build up God’s kingdom or our own lives. In fact, I think one of the most helpful definitions of evil (thanks to St. Augustine) is that it is the privation (or complete absence) of good.

Evil is a force in the world that can do real damage, but it can never win out. That is the fundamental Truth we hear over and over again from our Scriptures, from our own learning and from our own experiences and relationships. The Truth is that God’s Love is more powerful than anything on earth, than anything we can do to each other. God’s love, God’s Truth always, always has the last word. And indeed, trusting in God will set us free. AMEN.