First Baptist Church of Asheville Podcast
Sermon: Blinders of Doubt
- Good morning. - Good morning. - I'm very grateful to Mac for offering an invitation while he's on vacation. (audience laughs) Do you know that happens to women all the time? (audience laughs) - Just saying. - But I'm grateful Will and I both are grateful to this congregation for taking us under watchcare because we have felt very welcome in this congregation. But you should be aware that tomorrow in Waco, Texas, it's going to be 107 degrees. (audience laughs) It's much better to be in North Carolina and the mountains in the summers. I also am grateful for, I don't know if y'all know it, but the Women in Ministry film was filmed, part of it here, right in this sanctuary. And so the Women in Ministry are grateful to you for also sharing your beautiful space and to help make that film possible. Let us pray. Risen Christ, give us eyes to see and ears to hear your word, that our understanding may increase and our hearts expand to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with you by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I was told when I was a child that I was very good and obedient. Except for the time when my caregiver, Kathleen, said to my cousin and me, do not go down to the field behind your grandmother's house. There's a big root down there beside the railroad track and you need to stay away from it because the boogie man lives under it. (audience laughs) Just a little terrifying. Now she told us this, of course, to keep us away from the railroad tracks. But feeling the need to begin using the scientific method, (audience laughs) my cousin and I proceeded to the root, dug it up and brought it back to her and said, "See, the boogie man doesn't live under that root." (audience laughs) But real doubt can creep into our lives at a very early stage. When no one responds to our cries as infants, doubt sprouts. Harsh words hurled by parents and siblings offer nourishment for doubt. Raised eyebrows by teachers, taunting by schoolmates, figures to make the team pass a test, make or keep a friend and doubt is in full bloom. Uncertainty creeps in and challenges our notions of reality and cause us to hesitate, to disbelieve, to not trust. Now growing up in a rather safe, secure environment at First Baptist Church of Lexington, North Carolina, I trusted what I learned in primary department, in Sunbeams, in GAs, in YWA's, in the Youth Choir, surrounded by people who loved me, but then I went off to college and doubt took on a whole new dimension. First, my introductory religion classes opened up a whole new world of biblical perspectives. My philosophy classes took me to Plato's cave and showed me that what I thought might be true could possibly only be an illusion and not reality at all. And then I went to seminary, where the professors stressed that the only way to really understand a biblical text was to read it in its original languages and to do your own translation. I learned, however, that translation is not a simple substitute of one word for another, but an exercise in interpreting the words, exegesis, the historical context, and arriving at a possible new understanding of the text meaning. I also learned, which was shocking to me, that we have no original manuscripts, only copies of copies of copies. And so for many of these texts, the copyist's meaning, the copyist's understanding, the copyist's understanding of a meaning or the context in which they were affected the writing down of the text. This reality was exciting news and frightening news. And I doubted the authority of scripture. Now I think people seem alike to doubt. Did y'all know there's a flat earth society? They maintain that the world was told a myth that the world is round, and that they have diligent banded together to preserve the knowledge that the world is flat. Or did you know there's a group which is dedicated to the understanding that the moon landings were hoax, cooked up by NASA to increase its budget. Neil Armstrong never walked on the moon, the moon rocks are fake, no flag was planted, no golf balls were hit, a hoax, pure and simple. Or do you know that there are multiple gospels? Not just the four synoptic gospels that we have in the biblical canon, not just Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there are other gospels. And strangely enough, one of these gospels is the Gospel of Thomas. 100 years ago, three Greek fragments of what is called the Gospel of Thomas was found in the dry sands of Egypt, and they date from the third century after Christ. Then, shortly after World War II, a complete, maybe, manuscript of Thomas was found. It was written in the Coptic language and dated to the middle of the fourth century. This complete Thomas is made up of 114 sayings with no narrative framework, no mention of the passion or the resurrection. Some scholars say that the Gospel of Thomas recovers for us, Jesus actual words that were spoken that are not found in the synoptic gospels. And further, did you know that the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches, this Thomas in these churches, that this Thomas is called Saint Thomas, and that they hold a special festival called Saint Thomas Day. So how does this man we call doubting Thomas become Saint Thomas the believer? Thomas, I think, has received a ridiculous amount of ridicule about his doubting position. We scoffed that he actually felt that he needed to touch Jesus before he would believe that he had risen from the grave. But you see, Thomas was living in a world of facts and grief. It was a fact that Jesus had been put to death. Thomas saw it. It was a fact he was put in a tomb, and Thomas could not get any further in his thinking because he knew how the natural world worked. He was thinking about death and the finality, and he was lost in his pain and his grief. Jesus was gone. He'd never seen him again. He was heartbroken. He was shattered. He was left with emptiness. And in our passage in John, we have the grieving, overwhelmed, inconsolable Thomas hearing unbelievable stories of Jesus siding told by women, by people walking home on a road, and now the disciples are saying it. I think Thomas probably said to them, listen. I thought I saw him too. I thought I saw him going around a corner when I was coming to the upper room, which I don't think he called it the upper room, but when I was coming to meet y'all, I thought I heard his voice calling me, but he wasn't there. I know my mind is playing tricks on me, and my desire to have him with me and with us is overpowering, and it's overpowering your reason. Y'all must, he didn't say y'all. Well, he was from Southern Israel, so. Y'all must be wrong. He's dead. You couldn't possibly have seen him. Why? To believe you, I'd have to touch his hands. I'd have to touch his side in order to believe. And he did. Thomas the doubter becomes Thomas the believer. Church history and legend has recorded that Thomas the believer went to India and founded seven churches. And then on to Mesopotamia and perhaps even to China to spread the news of what he believed about Jesus Christ. Thomas moved from doubting to believing. He became St. Thomas by acting on his beliefs, by spreading the word of what he had seen and he had experienced. Are many of us still a little bit like Thomas? Do we want to see Jesus actually standing in front of us in order to believe? You can, and you do. Look at the wounds in your bodies, the marks of where you've lost a child, the death of your parents, the destruction of a marriage, the wounds of child abuse or the rejection of your gender identity. Frederick Beekner in his book, The Hungering Darkness wrote, "Whenever you have looked to the deepest needs beneath your own face, you have seen the Christ in yourself. Whenever you look at the deepest wounds of those around you, you have seen the Christ. Look for him in your mirror and sitting right beside you. We all doubt. We doubt ourselves and each other. We doubt our perceptions and reality. We doubt that we have seen the risen Lord. So open your eyes. Remove your blinders of doubt and grief and behold Christ in your midst, in each other, in your children, in your neighbors, in yourself and believe, and go forth and share Christ, the Christ that you know as your Lord and your Redeemer." Amen.