there’s this: Thomas, poor Thomas, whom we condemn as “doubting,” but who I think was simply deeply unfortunate. I mean, he was out when all the other disciples received visitation from the risen Christ. And who knows why he was out? Maybe he was out gathering supplies for their lengthening stay behind those locked doors. Maybe he was out getting a sense of things, “doing recon,” as it were, to gauge how much longer they’d need to stay locked away, to determine whether it was safe at last to come out. Whatever. The point is that he was out. And then he came back, and everyone told him, “We have seen the Lord! (Oh, but you were out.)”
And we blame him for doubting. Traditionally, the church has condemned him as doubting. Jesus, however, didn’t. He simply granted Thomas his request. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,” Thomas said, “and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” So, the following week, Jesus returned and said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”
Of course, the reason we might condemn Thomas for doubting is because that separates him from us, and furthermore puts us in company with the “blessed.” Yes, to do so puts us in the company of those whom Jesus considers blessed, praises as blessed: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
So, now we’ve come to it—for by this word of blessing from Jesus, our writer John wraps into his story those who come after, his hearers and readers, we who have not seen and yet might believe.
Now we’ve come to it—John’s need for us to believe.
You know what word isn’t in our litany for joining the church?
“Believe.”
We’ve got “desire,” “seek,” and “hope.” We’ve got “promise, “welcome,” and “affirm.” But we have no “believe.”
This is by design. People didn’t, and don’t, want to have to claim to believe something, especially if they don’t believe in it—not this time with these particular new members, nor any prior time in my memory. We’re a serious bunch, it seems. We take our words and confessions seriously enough not to want to say something we can’t stand with.
And we’re not alone, here in Monterey. The whole United Church of Christ is a non-creedal denomination. We have no common creed that we’ve established as the thing that makes the difference between those who are members and those who aren’t.
What’s more, this is usually felt as one of its selling points. No creeds! After all, the Christian faith, as perceived and as practiced, has been largely reduced to a set of assertions that you either believe in (and so are Christian) or don’t believe in (and so aren’t). (Six days to create the world? Yes? You’re a Christian! Bible written by God’s own hand? Yes? You’re a Christian!) I don’t suppose any here would celebrate this as a wonderful development in the lived faith.
But remember, “creed” comes from credo, as in “I believe,” as in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth; and of Jesus Christ, His Only Son, our Lord . . .” And, though few here, it seems, want to say, “I believe . . . ,” it’s worthy to recognize what exactly John is committed to having us believe.
That Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus is the abiding presence of God and the full revelation of God in the world—this is what John needs us to believe. And why? Because people will say all sorts of things are true about God that aren’t true: that God hates fags (untrue, if “fag” is taken to mean gays and lesbians); that God blesses slavery (untrue); that God rewards with blessing the especially deserving (untrue); that God punishes with suffering those who deserve it (untrue). This sure knowledge that people will say all sorts of things about God that aren’t true is what justified the priesthood and established the church in the first place. We needed an authority to resort to when people attempted to assert as true things about God that are not true. But that presupposed the “un-corruption” of the church and the priesthood, which is unfortunately a presupposition that came no longer to hold.
And so came the Protestants, who widened the circle of those with authority, widened it so wide that now everyone has a say—those with advanced degrees, those without advanced degrees, those with no education whatsoever; those with the authorization of an ordaining body, those without such backing, those who’d spit on any such formal authorization; those with congregations, those with a viewership, those with a charismatic personality, a microphone, and an agenda. And so God is said to work in all sorts of ways that may or may not comport with what’s true. God gave Tim Tebow victory because he prayed in public. God gave Joel Osteen wealth because he prayed for wealth in just the right way. God gave America the biggest military because we’re an exceptional nation in God’s sight, but God condemned America with defeat in Iraq because we’ve legalized abortion.
No.
No.
And how do I know this? Because of the cross.
Because of the cross, this I know: God is cruciform. God is self-giving, self-emptying. God is wounded and killed that we might have peace. The cross is the standard by which we measure assertions about what God is and what God is not, about what God has done and what God has not done.
A standard is an objective and agreed upon measurement that is true and checked for being true by an established disinterested authority. When you go to the gas station, you don’t have to wonder whether the gallon you’re buying is actually a gallon. It says right there on the pump that it’s been checked and authorized by the Department of Weights and Measures.
John means for his gospel assertion about Jesus, and him crucified, to be such a department of theological weights and measures; and John understands the cross as the true measure of God, the true revelation of God’s nature, way, and end. God is cruciform. God is self-giving, self-emptying. God is wounded and killed that we might have peace. This is what John is so desperate to have us believe. This is what Thomas had confirmed when he wanted to see not only Jesus but his wounds, his mortal wounds.
And why? Why the urgency around this theological claim? Why the persistence in regard to a claim that really seems quite abstract? Because by this the world will be saved—saved, that is, from itself. By self-giving, by forgiving, by self-emptying and giving way to the other, by striving not for survival and self-preservation but for eternal and abundant life for all starting now—by these things peace will be won and salvation will be ours, all of ours, for “salvation” means wholeness, perfection. Anything less than salvation for all isn’t salvation at all.
This is what we are meant to believe.
Do we believe it?
Do you believe it?
If you do, then we need you—we of this little church with twelve members.
The fact is that church membership is about the less lofty matters of life together. Concerning itself with the facts-of-the-matter—the allocation of resources, the financial assets and the budget, the physical plant and the pastor’s time—church membership doesn’t have “its privileges.” It has its responsibilities.
And they’re sometimes quite dull, these responsibilities—cleaning up after communion, picking up the mail, stopping in to turn down the heat when I’ve forgotten to but realize the fact only after I’ve arrived back home in Lenox. And they’re sometimes quite crucial responsibilities—seeing after the upkeep of the building, or tracking down the rent from the tenant of the parsonage, or approving my annual report and how I prioritize
