BELIEVING IS SEEING
April 15, 2007
sermon given at St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Medina, Washington
As a teenager, I was fascinated with the movie The Boy Who Could Fly. It’s about an autistic boy named Eric who can literally fly, not because of any particular physical ability, but simply because he believes he can. In retrospect, the movie was pretty cheesy. But at the time, it got me thinking about doubt and faith and what it takes to believe in something. Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, if simply believing something hard enough could make it possible?
Even at the time, I knew there was a flaw in my logic. I couldn’t quite place it, but I think it had something to do with the fact that, no, I will never be able to fly, except in airplanes, or in my dreams. Some things just aren’t possible.
Since then, my encounters with the world of doubt and faith have been numerous. In the summer before my senior year in high school, I attended a two-week Teen Leadership conference aimed at equipping us to promote positive, supportive relationships among our peers. Our small discussion groups got very personal and emotional, and in my group, I shared some of my doubts about the faith my parents were trying to pass on to me. At the end of the conference, a girl in my group named Sheri left me a note: “Because of your honesty in expressing your doubts, you have renewed my faith. I’m going to go back to church. Thank you.”
After college, I read several books by the Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong. He is one of the more controversial figures in our church, having produced such compelling titles as Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, The Sins of Scripture, Jesus for the Non-Religious, and Why Christianity Must Change or Die. Spong is often portrayed as not believing in the Resurrection, and therefore as standing outside of Christianity. But his beliefs are actually more nuanced than that. And while his adversarial approach turns me off, I have learned a lot about doubt from Bishop Spong, and about how faith can lie just under the surface of those doubts.
Do you want to believe? It’s your decision. Do you want to see? You may have to believe first. You may have to step into the darkness of your fear of being wrong. You may have to—gasp!—become a theologian.
Of course, if you have ever wondered about life, the universe and everything, you are a theologian. But it’s more comfortable, isn’t it?, to ordain certain people and send them out ahead of us, to go to the border of the holy and bring back news of what they find there. One theologian by the name of James K.A. Smith says, “The most authentic theologizing—both writing and teaching—happens on a fulcrum that teeters between nothingness and the riches of creation, at the near edge of nihilism where, there alone, can we be in a place to see that all is grace. And so I think the theologian inhabits a space with Thomas.”
Thomas is the patron saint of this community, and we’ve just heard the most famous story about him. Thomas experienced the divine first-hand. But unlike many of our modern-day theologians, Thomas didn’t willingly step out to the border of the holy; the Risen Christ dragged him there. Just nine days after having been really, truly killed, Jesus the Christ invaded Thomas’s safe little world where seeing is believing, and invited him to see everything in a new way.
Now let’s put on the eyes of Thomas the Skeptic for a moment. Somehow, Jesus appeared among his friends, even though the doors were locked. We may be tempted to imagine a ghost moving through the wall. But then Jesus invited Thomas to physically touch him. How can a physical being just appear in a locked room? This pattern holds true for the other Resurrection appearances in the Gospels: the Risen Christ has a physical nature that is not subject to the same restrictions our bodies have. Yes, he has a body—but it’s a new kind of body, a body that we couldn’t imagine before. Apparently, death changes a guy.
So resurrection is not mere resuscitation—if it were, the Christian story would be little more than a zombie flick. And this is where I think a dose of doubt is perfectly OK. Having the benefits of a physical body without any of its limitations sounds like something out of a dream. What’ll you bet the Risen Christ could fly, too? Well, that’s it, you might say. Maybe the Gospel writers made all this stuff up.
And what if they did? The more important question is, why on earth would they? If it were all part of an intricate plot to create a new religion—or at least to save face after the humiliating execution of their leader—wouldn’t they at least make an effort to get their stories straight?
Each Gospel tells a completely different version of the Resurrection. In other versions, the Risen Christ wasn’t even recognizable as Jesus of Nazareth—at least, not at first—not until he spoke directly to them or broke bread or did something else very Jesus-like. Both Mark and John tell Resurrection stories that were probably tacked on years after the Gospel was originally written—as if someone said, “Wait! That doesn’t explain it well enough. Let’s add another story.”
When you get home today, pull out your Bible and read the last few chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. No jury could ever believe these witnesses. They must have spent a lot of energy agonizing over how to explain to anyone the incredible things they’d witnessed, let alone agree with each other about the descriptions.
My wife Christy and I once had an experience that may have been a little like that. During the year that we were engaged, we were having reasonable doubts and fears about taking the plunge into marriage. Then, one night, we were sitting in my room, and suddenly we perceived a presence all around us, physically enveloping us. There was a visual element, too—for me, it was kind of like the flashing lights of a migraine headache slowly expanding. I said, “Do you feel that?” Christy said, “Yes.” Then we remained silent. It only lasted for a couple minutes, but when it was over, we found it had left us both the same message: “Fear not. Get married, and await further instructions.” Realizing this together was like finding we’d both awakened from exactly the same dream.
For a couple years, we didn’t tell anyone this story. We were worried that we would spoil it by not telling it right. I think I have told it more often than she has, feeling that it’s better to tell it wrong than not to tell it at all. Over time, the way I tell it has changed and developed, but I don’t think I embellish it. And I’m sure Christy would tell it differently. But the experience is far more important than the telling.
So in this and other journeys to the border of the holy, it has become clear to me that it doesn’t matter how literally we take these Resurrection appearances. The stories are here to explain the unexplainable. We heard it ourselves in this morning’s story: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
During Easter season, we explore more deeply what it means to have “life in his name.” That life is something that happens after death—not just after the physical death of our bodies, but after the death of anything: a relationship, a hope, a fear, a career, a marriage … everything dies eventually, in one way or another. Change is constant. The good news is that the Resurrection is God’s blueprint for the universe! The good news is that there is always more good news.
But we might miss it if we’re not paying attention. Indeed, we might miss it if we refuse to believe it’s there. Although we may at some point feel that all hope is lost, to really believe that is to shut God out. On that day one week after Easter Sunday, Thomas was ready to shut God out. Despite the disciples’ shocking proclamation and deep joy, Thomas refused to believe.
But God wouldn’t let him off the hook. When we won’t come to God, sooner or later, God will come to us. Christ appeared among the disciples again and said to Thomas, “Peace be with you.” That peace comes from believing in a new hope, a bigger hope, than any we could have imagined before.
The good news of Easter is so big that it cannot be contained in a single day. That’s why we take fifty days to celebrate it! This Easter season, don’t use the excuse that “some things just aren’t possible.” Choose to believe that there is more than what you can see. In that believing, you may find your eyesight sharpened so you can see the unbelievable. Amen!