Awake

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Bernardo Strozzi

Sermon for Year B, the Second Sunday of Easter

By The Rev. Torey Lightcap

April 12, 2015

St. Thomas Episcopal Church

John 20:19-31

Here we are, sitting in a church building named after Thomas the saint,

 And I’m not sure I’ve ever really gotten what Thomas is about.

The further away I go from this reading,

 The more apt I am to say things like “Doubting Thomas.”

This, of course, is the label famously applied to anyone

 Who cannot be trusted because he himself cannot trust anyone,

   And so it puts him on the outs, socially.

Well, sisters and brothers, the issue isn’t trust.

It isn’t that “some of just have to be shown.”

It’s presence versus absence.

Thomas isn’t present when the first round of folks is witness to the resurrected Jesus.

Thomas isn’t there; he shows up later; he misses the scene the first time around.

BUT once he has shown up,

 He requires no greater burden of proof than any of the rest of them do.

He’s not some special hard case.

And of course he has that one beautiful line,

 “My Lord and my God!” –

 Which seems like a terrific summation of the entire Gospels to me:

   It slowly dawns on us that God is trying to save us from the worst of ourselves,

     And we finally have enough vision to be able to see that and be thankful for it.

So it isn’t about Thomas’ doubt.

It’s simply about whether he was there to behold the truth.

At first he wasn’t. Then he was.

We should cut him some slack.

I think, sometimes, that this little moment with Thomas

 Is not only a good summarization of the Gospels –

 It is also a lovely metaphor for the human condition of a life lived in Christ.

Because I, like you, am both here and not here at the same time.

My brain is drifting in and out of this space and this sermon.

I can be thinking about any one of a hundred different things right now.

I can check out and check back in again,

 And everyone will think I’ve been here the whole time,

   But the truth is, I haven’t, and you haven’t, and if we’re all honest, none of us has been:

     We’ve been with to-do lists and shopping lists and old memories and relationships;

     We’ve been with the boss we’re going to have to deal with tomorrow;

     We’ve been with spouses and children and grandchildren and mom and dad;

     We’ve been with something we read or saw or heard that we’re trying to remember now;

       We’ve been with exercising, or castigating ourselves for not exercising;

       We’ve been with whatever we’ve eaten, or what we should have eaten,

         Or someone we would like to be with or not be with,

         Or whatever has us anxious or worried or hopeful.

And, as long as we’re in church, we’ve been with the need to pray more,

 Or with the earnest desire to give more money or time,

   Or Why don’t I read my Bible more?

   Or When did I sign up for coffee hour?

     Or anything – ANY thing.

The brain is a very clever distraction device,

 And it will take us into a thousand different guilt-inducing self-improvement schemes,

 Or down some well-worn path of worry and insecurity,

   And yes, some of them will be related to church,

     But a worry is a worry is a worry.

And when at last we let the resurrected Jesus into our mental headspace, ...

 Well, it’s a lot to take in.

Meanwhile, then, because we work like this,

 It’s as though God is forced to play an unplanned game of Hide & Seek with us,

   Only the stakes aren’t child’s play; they’re much higher than we might imagine.

After the sin of Adam and Eve,

 They do what? Go and hide.

And God has to play peekaboo with them.

God comes to enjoy them in the refreshment of the Garden, the cool of the evening.

Can’t find them.

Finally, there they are.

Where were you? God says. I’ve been looking all over for you!

Well, they answer, ... we’ve been hiding.

The most fundamental question in the whole of the Bible:

 God is asking, Where are you? ....

When we do this – when we check out and get distracted and end up hiding –

 When we are content with being absent from whatever God is doing in our midst –

   Our name is Thomas.

“Sorry, can you repeat that?

 I didn’t hear what you said just now. I was Thomas for a minute.”

I checked out. I was gone.

Yes, I was standing here. No, I didn’t physically remove myself.

I just mentally pulled away and took a little vacation. Sorry. Can you repeat that?

The brain will put up a mighty fight to keep us away

 From wherever we are, whomever we are with, whatever it is we are supposed to be doing.

It will check out and refuse to check back in again.

Fortunately, for Thomas and for us,

 The brain is in conversation with the heart.

Now this is a metaphor, of course, and not a very scientifically accurate one, but –

 In other words, our logistical and rational faculties

   Are competing with our emotional and nonrational faculties

   For the right to sit on center stage and get all the attention.

And the brain likes to win; it’s used to winning; so it sets up camp on the stage –

 Says, I’m not going anywhere. I have important things for us to spend our energy on.

You know that feeling, though, when you’ve just been sitting and staring off into space,

 Completely lost in a world of vague worry and fear and insecurity,

   And then something happens – click – and you’re back?

And it feels like snapping out of something unreal and back into something very real?

Know that feeling?

All of a sudden, you hear or see or smell things

 That have been in your environment the whole time – a clock ticking, a small gust of wind –

 Things that have been in your environment the whole time,

   Only just now they snap into focus.

It’s a sharp moment. It can feel shocking, forceful.

That’s what happens when you tear away the veil.

It’s the force of the revelation of the truth.

It’s the force and the shock of reality.

Sounds strange, but that moment is a gift.

Because then we get to see – really see –

 Whatever it is that has been in front of us the whole time.

We live so much of our lives just sleepwalking from appointment to appointment,

 One urgency to another,

 Tending one source of worry, then another.

Largely unconscious about what we’re doing.

Meanwhile, the resurrected Jesus stands before us, waiting to receive our acknowledgement.

Imagine – can we imagine? – what it would be like to see him in every circumstance.

To go about our lives, awake as it were, and finding him wherever we went?

Can we imagine being here now, doing what we’re doing when we’re doing it,

 And seeing Christ before us –

   Not being absent to the reality of his Easter, which, after all, is our Easter, too.

Can we just ... imagine?