Sermon Preached at St. James' Church, New London on
April 19, 2020
Alleluia, The Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" John 20: 28
People often ask me, "How come, Koshy, you got an American last name?" I tell them that in the part of India where I am from, the name Mathew is as common a name as Smith is in the US, and that Mathew is not an American name but a Biblical name, and that Christianity came to India way before it ever came to the Americas. Many of us may not be aware that just around the same time Paul and Peter brought Christianity to Rome and to the west, Thomas, the main character of our gospel lesson today, went to the southern part of India by sea and established the Christian Church. It is called the Mar Thoma Church. This church still follows the liturgy of St. James, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ and the bishop of Jerusalem, used in AD 52, and up until recently, the whole liturgy was conducted in Aramaic, the spoken language of Jesus. It used to be custom of Thomas Christians to name their children in Biblical names, and during the time England colonized India, Christians translated their names into English. By the way, Koshy is also a Christian name, it means Jeshua or Jesus. Well, now, today, you have a preacher named Jeshua Ben Mathai. Now that we have settled the issue of the name let us reflect on the gospel at hand.
How many of you were not in church last Sunday, the Easter Sunday? I mean on the Zoom church. Well, if you were not, don't feel embarrassed, guess who else was not in church, Thomas. So, you are in good company. But poor Thomas gets a bum rap here. It is unfair that he is called the 'doubting one.' All except Thomas were there in the house when Jesus made the first post-resurrection appearance. We don't know why Thomas was not there or where he was. Perhaps, Thomas wanted to be alone to mourn his loss. A week after, when he joined the rest, they told him about their experience of seeing the resurrected Jesus. But Thomas demanded to see Jesus on his own before he would believe any of what others say. He just plainly said, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." All he wanted was to have the same experience the others had received. He was just like them. The other disciples also didn't believe it until they saw the risen Lord with the wounds and scars and all. For that matter, Thomas was like not just them, but he was also like us. Don't we all wish to see resurrected Jesus in person like those disciples, a first-hand experience? However, Thomas was the only one who expressed his desire in words. And for that, we call him somewhat self-righteously and judgmentally, Doubting Thomas.
Friends, Thomas identifies with us. Btw., do we know what his name, Thomas, means? It means The Twin; in Greek, it is Didymus. However, the gospel is silent on who was his twin. Let us fill in the blank. Each one of us could easily claim to be Thomas' twin brother or sister. It is a huge revelation for us. Honestly, aren't we also like Thomas? Aren't we like Thomas, a bit skeptical? I believe, like him, we too are seekers. We even personally hope to have a peek of Jesus to really believe. We demand, like our twin brother Thomas, to see the wounds of the sufferings that Jesus endured.
In demanding to trace his finger over the wounds of his Lord, Thomas was being neither petulant nor audacious; he was just being honest. He was being honest about his actual state of mind at a time of turmoil. Yes, perhaps, unlike the other disciples, he may be showing his real vulnerability. That is his nature. Remember, earlier in John's gospel, when Jesus assumed that the disciples knew the way to the place where Jesus was going, it was Thomas who said, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Thomas was a matter-of-fact guy. He is a science person, very data-driven, so to speak.
Perhaps, it appeared to Thomas that his fellow disciples were acting like giants of faith, displaying a cocksure certainty in the risen Lord, and probably feeling a little smug about themselves. In the meantime, Thomas, our twin brother, representing all of us and fully baring his soul, perhaps, praying this prayer, "I believe, help my unbelief." This is a prayer for more faith. We all have faith, but at a time when "words of fear, retribution, and anger dominate the news and fill our ears, words of hope, forgiveness, and love seem an idle tale at worst and unbelievable at best." (Br. James Koester) We're amid a global pandemic which has already drastically changed the way we live, move, and have our being. It changed even the way we worship. With so many lives lost around the world and in our country, with so many people are out of work. Our economy is in ruin, with the threat of a return of the pandemic in the coming months. With the fear that we may never go back to the way we live before, Thomas gives us permission to have doubt, and yet believe in the resurrection, and its message of hope, forgiveness, and love.
About faith and doubt, Thomas, our twin, is giving voice to the inadequacies of our faith. When things go wrong, and when we are amid death and decay, we struggle to express our faith authentically. For John, the empty tomb was enough to believe, for Mary Magdalene, hearing her name being called was enough to believe; for other disciples, it was the bodily appearance, but for Thomas, it was more tactile. For those of us who struggle with faith and doubt, Thomas gives us permission to trace the wounds of our Lord Jesus before making the big confession, "My Lord, my God."
This pandemic has fully exposed the preexisting wounds and conditions of our society: racism, white supremacy, sexism, xenophobia, inequality, lack of access to health care, education, and housing, to name just a few. It has brought us ever closer to the wounds. Every time we watch the news from our places of isolation, the sights of these wounds are penetrating our souls. Easter this year is a tactile experience for us as it was for Thomas.
The resurrected body of Jesus carries open wounds for a reason. The risen body of Jesus with the scars, bruises, and wounds is an invitation to you and me is to touch, trace, engage, to be present, and to walk in solidarity with suffering humanity. We are feeling the wounds when we work with people, whether it is in our Lord's pantry in New London, or with our brothers and sisters in Goma in the Republic of Congo, or in El Salvador, Central America, or in India where Thomas went. And as we do, life emerges, and we cry out, with Thomas, "My Lord and My God."
