Right before I sat down to write my sermon for today, I was having my new house inspected. I followed the inspector around as he poked and prodded, his eyes sharp with seeing, his hand quickly recording his findings in a tiny notebook. He shone his flashlight into dark places and measured currants and gases that were invisible to the naked eye. He even took photos of problem areas in order to have a visual record of what he saw. Consulting his checklist, he gathered information on all that lay beneath the surface of my new home. A home inspector needs to be a down-to-earth, practical-minded person—someone who takes careful measurements and who knows the realistic consequences of what is concealed. The apostle Thomas would have made a good home-inspector, I think: practical, questioning, probing the surface of things. In the 14th chapter of John, when Jesus started talking what must have sounded like nonsense about going on some strange new journey, Thomas was the only disciple to speak up and say, “Wait, Lord, we don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about.” Then later, in today’s Gospel, while all of the other disciples were holed up in a room together, quaking in fear, lest they be persecuted as the followers of a crucified blasphemer, Thomas was the only one who was out and about, getting on with daily life, putting one foot in front of the other, not letting his imagination run away with him. And then Thomas, of course, was the disciple who refused to take his friends’ word about the presence of the risen Christ in their midst. He was adamant about first receiving evidence that he could touch, and feel, and inspect.
There is some of the inspector Thomas in all of us, I think. If only we could check out our faith before buying it! If only we could go down a check-list that would lead us to know what is from God and what is from our own imaginations. If only we could understand the workings of the unseen, could shine a giant flashlight into the dark, incomprehensible places. If only we could take clear pictures for ourselves, without having to go through the uncertain steps of interpreting someone else’s revelation. If we don’t buy a house without inspecting it, why must we have to invest our whole lives in the Unknown?
Those of us who become theologians are often what psychologists call “intuitive introverts.” I, for example, can walk by a huge hole in the church wall for a week and not notice that it is there. After I had been at St. Mark’s for two years, someone asked me something about the towering flag pole in front of the church. “Flag pole? Do we have a flag pole?” I exclaimed! I would make a terrible home inspector, but I can tell when people are hurting inside, and I can love to spend quiet time thinking about things we cannot see. When we draw sharp lines between the “mystery of God” and the more hands-on ways that we explore the rest of the world, however, we tend to sound as though we people of faith are taking the easy way out. To get back to my original metaphor, a home inspector who put on a blindfold before every inspection would not retain many clients. Even those of us who are “intuitive introverts” have something to learn from Thomas the Inspector.
Our Gospel for today does not condemn Thomas for his questioning, probing spirit. Jesus does not come to him and berate him in front of the others for his bold declaration that he will not believe without empirical proof. Jesus comes to him and offers him exactly what he demands. “Put your finger here and see my hands, Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” The interesting thing for us to note is that Thomas does not do it. As soon as Jesus stands in front of him, instead of touching Jesus’ wounds, Thomas cries out, “My Lord and my God!” And here exactly is the point: Christian faith follows neither from a neatly checked-off inspection list nor from blind acceptance of someone else’s stories. Having faith does not mean turning off one’s brain or sending all rational questioning flying out the window. But knowing God is more like making friends than it is like buying a house. Faith is only born out of an encounter with Jesus. When Jesus stands in front of us, we know it. When we are in the presence of God, our hearts leap. Faith, as one contemporary theologian writes, is “awe and trust in the presence of the holy.” [2] We cannot manufacture it ourselves or berate ourselves for the lack of it. If we are open to it, it wells up in us when we come face to face with the living God.
Since Jesus has now ascended to the Father, however, it is the “face to face” part that causes us 21st century Christians difficulty. Thomas and his friends could see Jesus in his resurrected body. Our encounters with him are going to be of the Spirit. Christian Wiman writes that an encounter with the risen Christ is often not as difficult to find as we sometimes think. God is actually always present with us—we are often just too dispirited, too “lacking in the Spirit,” to feel God’s presence. He says, “To feel God … does not usually require that we renounce all worldly possessions … or give our lives over to some cause of social justice … or create some sort of sacred art, or begin spontaneously speaking in tongues. All too often the task to which we are called is simply to show a kindness to the irritating person in the cubicle next to us, say, or touch the face of a spouse from whom we ourselves have been long absent, letting grace wake love from our intense, self-enclosed sleep.”[3]
Our encounters also depend on the witness of the Gospel writers, on stories that have been written “so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” We need to hear those stories not as recollections, not as somebody else’s memories, but as the way in which we are placed in Jesus’ presence. We need to pray for the grace to meet Jesus in the testimony of scripture, just as we pray to meet him in the Bread and Wine, and in one another. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” says Jesus to us here today. We need to hear that blessing pour over us today. We need to hear it, not as a reproach to Thomas, or as a reproach to us, but as Jesus’ benediction upon us, the disciples who must rely on Spirit and Testimony in order to follow him. I believe that Jesus would encourage us descendants of St. Thomas to proceed in all of our inspections following the advice of the poet Rilke, who writes:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Resolve to be always beginning—to be a beginner!”[4]
So: Poke around in the house, rattle the doorknobs, knock on the doors, peer into dark corners, take notes without ceasing—and relish the joy of exploration in the presence of our Loving God.
[1] Robert Frost, “A Passing Glimpse,” quoted in The Christian Century, October 23, 2002 (10).
[2] Douglas John Hall, “Against Religion,” in The Christian Century, January 11, 2011 (33).
[3] Christian Wiman, “God is Not Beyond,” Christian Century, February 24, 2009 (22).
[4] Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters on Love.
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