Easter 2
by Lane Denson

We commonly remember the disciple Thomas more for his doubt than for
his faith. We call him Doubting Thomas. Courageous or Faithful or
Risking Thomas might  seem more appropriate to his enterprise. He
already gets more grief than he deserves.

While the rest of the disciples wondered whether they’d bet their
lives and whatever fortunes they had on a lost cause and what on earth
they'd do next, Thomas was already back out in the world, pounding the
pavement, risking arrest, renewing old contacts, checking the
want-ads, looking for work.

He didn’t believe the talk about Jesus. He wanted better evidence than
the behavior of his colleagues. Then, when he got it, when he got what
he wanted, he signed on for good or ill. He accepted his commission as
an apostle. He wrote a gospel. And, some say, he started a new church
over in India. "Brother Thomas's Sawdust Trail," (aka Mar Thoma).
Sounds like a hustling evangelist full of zeal to me.

We don't have the evidence Jesus presented to Thomas. John knew that,
but he apparently knew something else, as well. Faith is not only
always in company with doubt or without show-me evidence. Faith can
create both. Faith's risks presume the inevitability of doubt. Faith's
risks become a kind of evidence on their own.

Faith is risk, and risk wouldn’t be risk without doubt. Faith that
comes only after evidence is no faith at all. Maybe trust, yes, but
not faith. Faith is that daring commitment that climbs out on life’s
limbs and leaps. Faith can create trust. That is all the evidence we
get.

That kind of faith works two ways. My faith is a kind of evidence for
me and maybe also for you. And your faith is a kind of evidence for
you and also maybe for me. Our faith — all that touch and go — is the
community that makes church church. The ekklesia — the called — is
first and foremost a community of faith — and probably of doubt, as
well. The best evidence for that is a pulsating, dynamic,
nonjudgmental heart of love and justice at its core.

The fearful disciples in the upper room may never have convinced
Thomas before he, himself, experienced the vision of the risen Lord.
Nor if fear is our only motivation and keeping us in our upper rooms
would we ever convince those who pass by that we have. Not until we
show the world by the daring way we love one another and stand for
justice and peace can our witness ever become the winsome and
compelling evangel of the Lord as did Thomas's.

For it is in that nourishing and healing love that as Paul claimed
transcends both faith and doubt and even hope. And wherever such love
is found, that is where the Lord is truly risen, where He is risen,
indeed. There is we find church, where we do church, where we are
church. Where the tomb is opened and the world knows.