A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Peter De Franco
At St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, New Jersey
March 30, 2008
Every year, after all the hoopla of Easter, every year we gather again on this day called Low Sunday to contrast it to the High Celebrations on Easter Day. We hear on this Sunday after Easter the most comforting Gospel for many of us – the story of Doubting Thomas. This morning I would like to share with you some stories about doubters.
At St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, New Jersey
March 30, 2008
Every year, after all the hoopla of Easter, every year we gather again on this day called Low Sunday to contrast it to the High Celebrations on Easter Day. We hear on this Sunday after Easter the most comforting Gospel for many of us – the story of Doubting Thomas. This morning I would like to share with you some stories about doubters.
The first story comes from my best friend in grammer school. I will call him Tony. Tony had a terribly scared face. Some childhood circulatory disease of childhood cut off blood to his extremities and left his face horribly scared. You would have thought that he was terribly burned the scars so disfigured him. But somehow, in the way that children understand reality, I did not compare him with the rest of my friends but only thought that this was the way Tony would look. He was my friend so it was all fine.
His mother marveled that his friends only saw the person and not the scars. For her, Tony was terribly disfigured and she was terribly angry. Angry with those countless trips to the hospital for plastic surgeries. Angry that her hope of a normal life was upset by this child. But mostly angry with God that God would allow such a terrible thing to distort her life and make of her beloved baby a disfigured angel. That anger with God led her to lose her faith.
She could not imagine a God who would allow such a disaster to befall her baby.
She is the first type of Thomas. She is the Thomas whose faith is lost when they experience some life changing tragedy and assume that the only God who exists is one who creates a perfect world, not the real world where health is not guaranteed, where fortune is not assured, where stability cannot always endure.
She could not imagine a God who would allow such a disaster to befall her baby.
She is the first type of Thomas. She is the Thomas whose faith is lost when they experience some life changing tragedy and assume that the only God who exists is one who creates a perfect world, not the real world where health is not guaranteed, where fortune is not assured, where stability cannot always endure.
When I was going to seminary, one weekend we visited a couple whom we had known for a long time. One of the women grew up in a neighborhood not unlike my own, with a devout Italian mother who insisted that she go to Roman Catholic School and made her First Communion and Confirmation. As an adult she created a phenomenal career for herself climbing up the ladder in a large and prestigious corporation until she reached the summit of her department. We all praised her intelligence and political savy in negotiating the corporate structures.
That night at dinner, she said that she was an atheist. I congradulated her on taking a positive step in her religious development. For as we were talking about her understanding of God, I realized that, for all her adult understanding of the business world, she still clung to a child’s understanding of the divine world. God for her was the old man in the sky, a distant father figure with whom she could not longer relate. She too lost her faith. But this faith was best left behind. She outgrew the faith that sustained her as a child but did not discover the faith that would sustain her as an adult. She too was a doubting Thomas. The Thomas who doubts because faith has seen a better day.
That night at dinner, she said that she was an atheist. I congradulated her on taking a positive step in her religious development. For as we were talking about her understanding of God, I realized that, for all her adult understanding of the business world, she still clung to a child’s understanding of the divine world. God for her was the old man in the sky, a distant father figure with whom she could not longer relate. She too lost her faith. But this faith was best left behind. She outgrew the faith that sustained her as a child but did not discover the faith that would sustain her as an adult. She too was a doubting Thomas. The Thomas who doubts because faith has seen a better day.
Doubt is as vital a part of your spiritual journey as is faith. Many of us think that something is wrong with us when we experience doubts in our spiritual path. Doubts arise in our hearts for a variety of reasons. Doubts come when we are faced with a tragedy that overwhealms us. It could be the loss of health, someone we love dies, a financial crisis takes away our security, the evil that exists in the world touches us and we cannot bear its presence. Doubts arise in our mind when the ideas we have about God no longer work for us. When we are moving from our childhood idea of God to an adult idea, we are caught in the middle when we have no viable idea of God. Doubts arise in our minds when any idea of God does not satisfy our mind. When the encounter with the living God robs us of any adequate image that would embrace the living God.
When doubts arise in our hearts, the first impulse is to leave. We sense that the church is the place where believers gather and we find ourselves in a place in which we do not fit. If only we could understand that we are moving from faith to faith, that our minds and hearts are on an interior journey to deeper faith and sometimes we are caught in the middle. When we are in the middle, we can rely on the community to support us in the transition.
When we collectively profession our faith week by week, we affirm that faith as a community so that if we feel that we cannot make that profession with a full heart, we can rely on the others in the community to make that profession with us and for us. The journey of faith is a lifelong journey. I think that Jesus invites Thomas to put his finger into the nail mark in his hand and into the spear slash of his side as in invitation to join in the pain of transformation into new life.
When we collectively profession our faith week by week, we affirm that faith as a community so that if we feel that we cannot make that profession with a full heart, we can rely on the others in the community to make that profession with us and for us. The journey of faith is a lifelong journey. I think that Jesus invites Thomas to put his finger into the nail mark in his hand and into the spear slash of his side as in invitation to join in the pain of transformation into new life.
Jesus invites you into that transformation of faith. Put your finger this day into his hand and know that presence in your heart of the one who never abandons faith in you.
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