I AM THOMAS

The story of Thomas the Apostle is quite familiar. It is read on the second Sunday after Easter every year, not once every three years as all the other Gospel passages are. It is the story about a man who doubted, a man like each and every one of us. Perhaps that is why it is read every year, read as a reminder that if we have any inclination to take Thomas to task for his doubts, we had better reconsider such thoughts. For the truth is, each one of us can say, “I am Thomas.”

What that is also to say, and I think this is why the Common Lectionary which is used in moist denominations, is that we all need to be reminded that no matter how strong we think our faith is, it isn’t as strong as it could be. It is also a reminder that even the greatest believer has his or her doubts. Remember not too long ago when it was reported that Mother Teresa spent her whole life and ministry filled with doubt about God and her faith in God? If a saint like that can have doubts, we all can and we all do.

Thomas’ problem and maybe even Sister Teresa’s and certainly mine is that all too often there is the need to reduce not only the resurrection but everything else to our human standards of touch and sight. If we cannot see it, if we cannot touch it, then maybe it is not real. Thomas wanted to touch the risen Jesus. Mother Teresa want to grab hold of the God she believed in just to make sure there really is a God to believe in even if we cannot reach out and physically touch that God.

There is northing wrong or even sinful about that. We are human beings, physical people and we deal in the physical, what we can see and touch. When we get into the realm of the spiritual, well, that is when we begin to have doubts. But we live in the spiritual as well, do we not? We live in a world where we must trust one another and trust is not something that can be materialized. It cannot be felt. It can only be experienced.

Trust allows us to be mystified, to be enchanted, to enable doubts to be resolved. We are mystified why others love us especially when we often do not love ourselves but learn to trust that they do. We are enchanted by God’s creation which we cannot for the life of us understand much of any of it. We simply stand there in awe and believe, trusting that God has the world in God’s own hands. Our doubts about whatever it is that causes them are resolved when we finally trust that those doubts will be resolved.

Thomas learned a hard lesson the hard way. He was forced to face his doubts. Once that lesson was learned, he could leave that upper room and go out to preach the Gospel, even die for it, because he experienced the truth. Mother Teresa, like us, I think, did not let her doubts control her, but faced them every day. Those doubts, however, never prevented her from continuing her ministry of service because she trusted God more that she trusted herself. So must we; for like Thomas and Mother Teresa we are forced to face our doubts each and every day. They are part of life.