April 16, 2004

The faith of Thomas

Easter 2C Jn 20.19-31

Most of us probably remember Thomas more for his doubt than for his faith. We forget his courage and his enterprise. All of which gives him a lot more grief than he deserves.

While the rest of the disciples were cowering up in the loft for fear of the Romans and probably full of resentment that they’d bet their lives and possible fortunes on a loser, Thomas was out pounding the pavement, risking arrest, renewing old contacts, checking the want-ads, and looking for work.

He didn’t believe the talk about Jesus. He wanted better evidence than the cringing behavior of his old pals. But when he got it, he signed on for good or ill, accepted his commission as an apostle, wrote a gospel, and, some say, started a new church over in India.

Obviously, Jesus believed his commitment, and actually, Thomas could hardly have done otherwise. Whatever, John’s gospel stresses that Jesus specially blessed those who had not seen and yet believed, ultimately, those for whom John wrote in the first place, that we, you and I, “believing, may have life in his name” (Jn 20.31b).

We don’t have the hard evidence Thomas got. John knew that, but maybe he knew something else, as well. Faith is not only always surrounded by doubt and without evidence, but that it also creates both.

Faith is risk, and risk, by definition, contains doubt. But faith that comes only after evidence is no faith at all. It is merely trust one way or another. Faith, that is, the daring commitment that walks life’s planks and then leaps is all the evidence we get.

Faith creates evidence. Yours for me. Mine for you. Our faith as a community is what makes church church. The groveling disciples in the upper room would probably never have convinced Thomas until he personally experienced the vision of the risen Lord. Were fear our only motivation we’d never convince those who pass by.

For not until we show the world by the way we love one another can our witness ever become the winsome and compelling evangel of the Lord. That’s church — where the Lord is risen, where He is risen indeed. In your deeds and mine.

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