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The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 19)
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The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): John 20:24-29; Hebrews 10:35–11:1
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
John 20:24-29; Hebrews 10:35–11:1
✛
The Last Beatitude.
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From our Epistle reading today: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)
Recently, on my vacation, I was on a long journey in a taxi and I asked to listen to the BBC news which I had not heard for some time. Now, I must admit it was a ploy on my part because the driver hadn’t stopped talking since I got in! At the end of the hour’s news program I said he could turn it off. “You enjoy listening to that?” said the driver, “it’s just one bit of bad news after another!” and he tuned back in to his easy-listening music station.
Since I have been back from my vacation, only a matter of weeks, there have been racial crimes and riots in the US; terrorist attacks in Europe; a hurricane that became a tropical storm that flooded Texas; even as I speak, a second hurricane is approaching Florida after destroying several Caribbean islands where I know that some of you sitting here today have homes and family. There have been wildfires raging in California, huge landslides in Switzerland and an earthquake measuring 8.1 magnitude in Mexico. Closer to home, Father Spurlock and I were contemplating the number of deaths of parishioners or close family members of parishioners that have happened in only a few days – some expected but others sudden and upsetting.
How do you respond when there is so much bad news? Thinking of my driver friend, how do you turn bad news into good news? My thoughts turn to the Old Testament and to the book of Job and its very beginning when Job loses property, family, and even his health: “They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” (Job 2:13 NRSV). Sometimes, it is better not to try and find any words at all.
For many people, including people of faith, these are testing times and some will have their faith tested to breaking point. Some will suggest that our faith and even what we are doing here in church today is a waste of time. But, my friends, faith is a gift from God and when faith is tested we need to turn to God and ask him for strength. It’s like the desperate man we read of in Mark’s gospel whose son had an unclean spirit that made him do terrible things, he cried out to Jesus, asking him to save his son if he could and Jesus said to him “All things can be done for the one who believes.” Immediately, the father of the child cried out pitifully, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (see Mark 9:14-29).
The Gospel reading, today, about the encounter of our patron saint with Jesus is one about faith being tested and the blessings that come from faith being nurtured even in adversity. It is, I think, an example of how bad news can be transformed into good news.
Did you notice where the disciples had gathered? Behind closed doors and at night. In John’s Gospel, darkness and light are very significant. The disciples are in the room with the doors shut; isn’t it amazing that, even though they had seen the Lord after his resurrection, they were still in the dark – still behind closed doors. And did this darkness come from their confusion and disbelief? Or did it come from fear? And there, in the midst of them, is Thomas who has not yet even seen the Lord. We call him doubting but, perhaps, he is filled with grief. I wonder what the other disciples said to him? Only a matter of days before they had all abandoned Jesus and one had even denied that he knew him. Was there also embarrassment on top of their incredulity? Then, in the darkness, in spite of the locked doors, appears Jesus in their midst. What is the first thing he says to them? “Peace.”
“Peace,” he says and immediately turns to Thomas and invites him to touch his wounds. And what is the response of Thomas? In the rectory, there is a lovely painting that used to belong to Father Andrew; it is reminiscent of Caravaggio’s great painting ‘The incredulity of Thomas’ which I have always loved for its physicality, and Jesus gently guiding the finger of Thomas directly into his wounded side while two other apostles crowd in, their faces amazed. The gospel does not tell us if Thomas touched the Lord’s wounds; in fact, his response to the invitation from Jesus is as immediate as it is startling: “My Lord and my God!” to which Jesus gives a blessing; but to whom does he give this blessing? My friends, he gives the blessing to you and to me! “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” The late Michael Ramsey had a beautiful description of these words of the Lord; he described them as “The last Beatitude.” He described these words as, somehow, linked with Christ’s Sermon on the Mount – his manifesto of the Kingdom of God and how things would be turned upside down; not as the world would have them. Turning bad news into good news – and what is another Christian word for good news? ‘Gospel’.
“Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Preaching on this same text, Michael Ramsey said this: “So to all of us the last Beatitude is spoken. Happy are you, you in any century, you in any place…you in any part of the world, you perhaps who are in cruel grief and sorrow, you perhaps who are bewildered and frustrated: happy are you, happy because though you do not see Jesus your Easter faith is sure.” [1]
He went on to say that our faith should be like Thomas in two ways: That, firstly, true faith does not try and deny the wounds of Calvary but, rather, seeks them out; that the cross and the resurrection go together and that we can never fully know the risen Lord if we deny the reality of the cross. That means not minimizing our sins, or our grief, or the suffering of others, or our questions, but bringing them to his cross so that they can be transformed by him through his Resurrection. This brings us to the second way of faithfulness – the declaration “My Lord and my God!” For we declare that Jesus is God and we can worship him even when others tell us that there is no hope. But he is also Lord over our lives and our world – in the here and now -Lord of our journeys of faith which, like Thomas, can sometimes be filled with doubt and despair at times; “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
When we find our faith tested to the limit, like Thomas we can bring our despair and even our doubts to the wounds of love and hear again the last Beatitude: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” To which our faith, no matter how small or insignificant may allow us to say, even in a faltering whisper, “My Lord and my God.”
_______________
[1] Sermon preached in Canterbury Cathedral, Easter 1972, and published in “Canterbury Pilgrim.”
