A bit later on, I got a microscope for my birthday and began to look at all the tiny things that we can’t see with our naked eye. What wonders were in a drop of swamp water! A piece of onion skin! My own saliva! I became obsessed with seeing the unseen, from the bio-luminescent secrets of the deep-sea fish, to the tiniest microbes, to the x-rays at the doctor’s office, to the far-away planets. I remember pestering my chemist-father with my doubts about the existence of atoms, since I couldn’t see them.
The apostle Thomas would have made a good naturalist, too, I think: touching, questioning, probing the world around him. In today’s Gospel, all of the other disciples were holed up indoors, quaking in fear, lest they be persecuted as the followers of a crucified blasphemer. But Thomas was out and about, observing, enjoying the sunshine, perhaps, and 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.
When it comes to faith, there is some of the apostle Thomas in all of us, I think. We can have a hunger to touch and see God for ourselves, like I had for those unseen atoms my father talked about. If only we could cut open the workings of God with a sharp knife; if only we could shine a giant flashlight into the dark, incomprehensible places of our souls. If only we could take clear pictures of divine things for ourselves, without having to go through the uncertain steps of interpreting someone else’s revelation.
That’s why it’s important to note that our Gospel for today doesn’t condemn Thomas for his questioning, probing spirit. Jesus doesn’t appear and berate Thomas in front of the others for his bold declaration that he won’t believe without empirical proof. Jesus comes to him and offers to show Thomas what he needs: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side,” Jesus invites.
We can’t touch Jesus with our hands today, but we can touch the world that Jesus made, the many-faceted world that reflects our Creating, Generative God. Arapahoe elder Ava Hamilton, speaking here at St. Ambrose yesterday, called the earth, “our Mother:” Our Mother Earth, who gave birth to all living things, her children. Christian theologian Sallie McFague calls the earth “God’s Body,” the tangible sign of God that we can indeed touch and see. Yes, Jesus invites us, like Thomas, to touch and see him in Creation. Even more, Jesus wants us to touch and see his wounds. Listen to Jesus’ voice in the wind, as it rustles the trees and grasses: “Put your finger here and see my scars,” Jesus whispers to us. “Reach out your hand and put it on my bloody wounds.”
Many years ago, I preached a sermon in Kentucky on this text for Earth Day. I said that Jesus was inviting us to touch and see the ugly gashes in his side made by mountaintop coal removal. I was told in no uncertain terms to stop “meddling in politics.” But I still stand by that sermon today. The same human fear, greed, and self-interest that put Jesus on the Cross now puts Creation to death, as well. If we want to see the God who loves Creation enough to suffer with Creation, then, we need to look at more than flowers and blue skies. We also need to train our curious eyes on the oceans filled with plastic; we need to smell the dead fish and birds on the beaches; we need to touch the charred remains of trees; we need to observe firsthand the piles of garbage in our landfills. Only then can it tug at our hearts.
I think that’s what happened to Thomas, don’t you? Did you notice that when Thomas’ attention was pulled to Jesus’ wounds, he put his hands back in his pockets and knelt before Jesus, suddenly confessing with awe, “My Lord and my God.” By confronting Jesus’ wounds, Thomas finally recognized the Wounded Healer whom he loved, and his heart went out to him. It was this love that connected him with Jesus, even beyond death.
Just as our faith in God ultimately hinges on loving relationship, so does the health of our planet. Author Emily Johnston suggests that, as we observe Creation in peril, we ask ourselves: “What does it mean to love this place? What does it mean to love anyone or anything in a world whose vanishing is accelerating, perhaps beyond our capacity to save the things that we love most?”[1] What an important question for us each to ponder: What does it mean to love this place, this Creation, this piece of God’s Body? What will we do for it? What will we give up for it? It’s not enough just to touch and observe it. The next step is to live our love for it.
Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe, whose book Saving Us is part of our adult formation class, advises that real hope doesn’t have anything to do with misplaced optimism or with complacency. We humans have a built-in defense mechanism that causes us to shut out unfamiliar dangers. We tend to think that we have more control over our circumstances that we really do. “My house won’t burn down,” we think. “I’ll never get divorced.” “I won’t die young.” “That’s all for other people—not me.” Real hope, then, can only start by truly seeing what’s at stake. Before we can move toward change, we have to touch and see the realities. Hayhoe invites all of us Thomas’s to be brave enough to examine the wounds in Creation’s hand and side, to truly grasp the urgent need for change.[2]
After that, though, Hayhoe adds that our next step is to envision a future that we want to live in: a future that is “riotous, wild, gorgeous, generous, miraculous” on a “life-cradling planet that’s home to a society that works for everyone.”[3] We focus on that loving vision, taking the steps needed to arrive there, lifting up the people and technologies and innovations that are taking us there, step by step.
“Peace be with you,” are the resurrected Jesus’ first words to his gathered disciples. “Peace be with you,” he then says to Thomas. For Jesus, this is more than a greeting, more than a formality. Remember Jesus’ words at the Last Supper: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Peace, shalom, is wholeness. It’s completeness and well-being. It is reconciliation. It’s oneness with God and neighbor and world. The peace that the resurrected Jesus brings with him into the upper room is reflected in those glorious words from the book of Revelation: “Look and see, the dwelling place of God is with human beings … Look and see, I make all things new.” The peace of the resurrected Jesus is the peace of creation the way that God means for it to be. A creation made new.
Get out into the good, the bad, and the ugly of this God-body that we have hung on the Cross of our greed. Touch it. See it. Analyze and study it. But above all, love it. See the Creator in it, our Mother, underneath all the scars. See the Creator who speaks of peace, wholeness, newness, the well-being of all.
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