“The Benefit of a Doubt”

John 20:19-31

April 3, 2005

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Andrew Fleming, Senior Pastor

I don’t know if there are many feelings more frustrating than being left out of something and then hearing about it later. I have come to dislike the statement:: “You should have been there! It was great!”

When I was in high school, the youth group at my home church went on a retreat every year to Panama City, Florida. It was six days and five nights of fun in the sun and shopping at the stores along Highway 98a. But it was more than that. It was also a powerful spiritual retreat. There were lessons each night, a bond that developed between retreat goers, and communion on the beach the last night. Every year I missed it. The retreat was usually in June, in the middle of baseball season. I was sure that my baseball team could not do without me, that I could not miss a single game, and so I never went. Instead I met the bus full of my youth group friends when they returned from their week away. I could tell that they were different as they climbed down the steps of the chartered bus. They were singing, even though they had been on the bus for nearly twelve hours. As their parents grabbed their luggage, they grabbed and hugged one another. These youth, who didn’t even like each other when they left, now were best friends. That, of course, did not bother me. What bothered me was that I was not a part it. It bothered me that for several weeks, I was an outsider. I was not a part of what they talked about. I was not a part of their smiles and their jokes. It bothered me when they said, “Oh, John, I guess that you had to be there. I was not a part of their memories and that upset me. So my senior year of high school, baseball games or not, a run for first place or not, I went on the retreat. I wasn’t about to miss out on what everyone had called the experience of a lifetime.

Being on the outside of things happens in places other than retreats. Sometimes it happens at ball games. A friend of mine told me about a Razorback game that she attended at War Memorial. She is a football fan, but says that the game was as dull as dirt. There wasn’t a hint of excitement in the air as the team the hogs played that day had the best of us. Our players had all but given up. She told me that the Hogs were down by a couple of touchdowns with two minutes to play. For some reason she listened to her husband when he said, “Come on, let’s get a jump on the traffic.” So they packed up their stuff and their two kids and headed towards the exit. By the time they were in the parking lot they could hear the sound of the Little Rock fans shouting at the top of their lungs. She wondered what was happening. With her children fastened into their car seats, she reached and turned on the radio. She heard the radio commentator say these words, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it! In all my years of calling Razorback games, that was the greatest comeback ever. I can’t believe the Hogs won. Friends, you had to see this to believe it!” Oh brother! She made a promise never to leave a football game early again. It was a week before she accepted her husband’s apology.

Being an outsider looking in. Not being there when something powerful happened. That was the experience of Thomas in our gospel lesson for this morning. The gospel of John tells us that following Jesus’ death, the disciples were huddled behind locked doors, no longer meeting, rigid with fear, and afraid that the ones who had crucified Jesus would soon come for them. John tells us that Thomas was not there. I have always wondered why he wasn’t there. I have always wondered where he was on that monumental day when Jesus appeared to his disciples. I have some guesses. Maybe Thomas had had enough of the fear that was stirring inside the locked doors of the house. Perhaps he had stepped outside to catch a breath of fresh air or to get a new perspective on things. A commentator that I read this week wondered if he had gone out to get the biblical equivalent of pizza, took a chance on meeting the authorities on the street just so the huddled disciples could have something to eat.

Anyway, I feel a little sympathy for Thomas. He was the unfortunate one who missed the experience of a lifetime. He wasn’t there when Jesus appeared, even though the doors were locked. He wasn’t there when Jesus offered them peace. Thomas wasn’t there when he breathed on them and gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus commissioned those who were left to be instruments of forgiveness and to change the world. It is not hard to imagine the scene. It had to be one that was full of excitement. I can imagine Thomas walking in, with the carry out in his arms, and seeing the very different look on his fellow disciples’ faces. I can imagine one of them, maybe Peter, saying something like this, “Thomas, you should have been here! Jesus was just here. He hasn’t been gone more than five minutes. You missed it! It was great! We saw him!” I guess that I think that Thomas’ reaction is surprising. I know that he had to be disappointed, perhaps devastated at hearing that he had missed Jesus. But instead of saying, “Oh no, I could kick myself.” Instead of having an ounce of curiosity about what happened while he was gone, he essentially said to the others, “I don’t believe you.” You might think that Thomas would ask for more information, that he might say something like, “That seems so unbelievable to me, but tell me about it. I want the details. Are you sure that it was Jesus?” Thomas does not want more information. He does not believe that the disciples saw what they saw. He does not believe that it happened. Apparently, for Thomas to believe that Jesus had indeed risen, he had to see it for himself. Ten other eyewitnesses were not enough. My guess is that a hundred would be insufficient. Someone else describing the nail marks in Jesus’ hands and in his side was not good enough. So Thomas offered the deal. “Unless I see the mark of the nails his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Jesus knew the deal, of course, so when he made a second appearance, it was for Thomas’ benefit. The words of Jesus, one preacher put it, “Shout at us across the centuries, ‘Blessed are you who believe even though you have not seen.’”

Years later, here we are, people who have not seen Jesus and yet believe. Well, I say that. I say that we have not seen Jesus. Some of us claim to have seen Him. Every once and a while, I will run into someone who says that they have seen Jesus. I heard of a woman who had a vision of Jesus when she had a near death experience. She said that saw a beautiful light and the face of Jesus, but then returned to her bed and eventually went home from the hospital. A preacher friend of mine says that he knew a man who said that he heard the audible voice of God as he walked across a Wal-Mart parking lot. I have followed God all of my life. I went when I felt that I was supposed to be a pastor. I went to seminary in Dallas, to new appointments in Camden, and now two in Little Rock without hearing the audible voice of God, without seeing Him. Preachers tell their call stories and in some of them, though I admit that they are few and far between, they tell of a Damascus Road, blinding light experience or a burning bush tale. But by and large, preachers talk about the call experiences in less than dramatic terms. They tell of a Sunday School teacher or a youth leader who nudged them toward the ministry.

So how do we, these days, have faith in a God that we cannot see, but whose presence is all around us? Most of the people that I talk do about faith aren’t like Thomas they don’t demand signs, they don’t expect visions and appearances and voices. For most of us, that is just fine. I can remember teaching a Bible study a few years ago. The group was all young adults and we talked about faith many, many times. I can remember one young woman who said, “I just believe. I always have and I guess I always will. Not believing is not an option for me.” Many of us feel the same way. I have talked with others who have trouble believing, either because something has happened in their lives or because something has not happened in their lives. They want to believe, but they need to see Jesus.

What drives our faith these days? For many of us, it is a head thing. We take what we know about Jesus and we decide that we want the truth He offers, His teachings that guide us, and His Spirit that promises to be with us. So it is a choice, a conscious decision of one way over another. But still, it is hard to maintain that kind of faith unless our hearts, also, are in it. So it is not physical proof we need. We need our hearts to be in it. We need a feeling inside of us that God is near us, an inner confidence that Jesus is alive and well and cares intimately about us. We want the feeling. We need the feeling. But there is something that seems to be in the way. What is it? What keeps us on the outside, hearing about things instead of experiencing them?

Here is what I think it is. I think that we are too busy. I do not think that we spend much time, if any at all, focused on our spiritual lives. I think that we are distracted by so many things that focusing on our relationship with Jesus gets almost no time and energy at all.

The other afternoon I went to see one of our church members about something that was on my mind. She met me at the front door. I was looking across the street at her neighbor’s house. I knew her neighbor. I had been her neighbor’s pastor at First Methodist Church. It was the middle of the day and her car was parked in the driveway. I knew something was wrong. This former parishioner of mine always works from sunrise to sunset. So I asked, “Is she sick?” As it turns out she was. I knew that she had had cancer, but I was sure that it was in remission. Turns out that the cancer had returned and was now in several places. This former church member was now in the Intensive Care Unit of one of our hospitals. If I had not been to see one of our members, I would not known this.

There is a difference, the great writer, Philip Yancey, says, about our relationship with one another and with God. When we see someone that we haven’t seen in some time, it reminds us that we should do something. Imagine this scene. “Honey, guess who I saw today? I saw Doug and DeAnne at the grocery store. They’ve got three kids now. You know, we ought to have them over for dinner some time. One of their kids is Annie Grace’s age. I think that I’ll call them and set something up.” It is different with God because we do not see God. We will not run into God at the grocery store. The fact is that we will not see God anywhere unless we go looking for Him. And looking for Him, the pursuit itself, is so important. In just a little while, we will pull the cover off of the table, and we will remember that one of the places that we see him, one of the ways that we experience him is through bread and wine. My prayer is that you will seek Him out everyday. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to Rev. Jeanie Burton for an idea or two in this sermon).