Acts 4:32-35; John 20: 19-31

Once again we go from the high of Easter’s joy to the doubt of Thomas.  Last week we looked at the story of Easter from the vantage point of science and saw that the Resurrection of Jesus wasn’t quite the rational obstacle to faith that people have long claimed it is.  But it is a deal breaker for Thomas the disciple.  He is not there when Jesus appears to the disciples.  They see to Thomas:”We have seen the Lord.” Thomas scoffs or maybe he pouts and he says:”Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”  Friends, Thomas is not a bad disciple, not at all, but his legacy is forever scarred by his doubt.  Of course his doubt soon vanishes when he sees Jesus face to face and he exclaims: “My Lord and my God.” Jesus is not pleased and says: ”Because You have seen me, have You believed?  Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”  Peter was able to overcome the image of an impulsive, but unreliable and sometimes violent disciple. Paul was able to overcome his image as a persecutor of Christians.  There is St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and St. Paul’s Cathedral in Rome.  Many churches around the world carry their names.  Even popes have chosen to be their namesake.  There are churches named after lesser saints, like St. Hillary and St. Sebastian the Martyr and St. Andrew.  Mary’s is probably the most popular name for a church.  But have you ever heard of the parish of St. Thomas or Thomas Church or the Cathedral of St. Thomas the Doubter.  I cannot recall it.  There is the Marthoma church of South India which is believed to have been founded by Thomas, but that is the exception it seems.

In our other text, the the book of the Acts of the Apostles, we get the picture of faithful and obedient Christians of the young Church living with great faith and harmony as they share their possessions with one another.  It is the true community of believers.  Now this is our problem, friends: we are caught between the idea of that true Christian community and the idea of ourselves as being a lot more like Thomas.  Or to say it another way, we try to think of ourselves as Peter and Paul and Mary (not Peter, Paul and Mary), but we are a lot more like Thomas.  So wouldn’t it be a lot more honest to call ourselves the church of St.Thomas, a church of doubters and skeptics and “I’m not really sure about that” kind of followers of Jesus?  Let’s face it, we do not have the faith of the early apostles who gave up all their possessions.  Let me give a current example. I know the President’s plan to insure the uninsured is controversial, for a number of reasons. When I hear in a radio interview the head of the ethics office of the Southern Baptist Church say that “evangelical Christians want to see Obama care dead and buried with garlic and a stake through its heart,” I am trouble believing I hear what I am hearing.  He didn’t even acknowledge that the poor need health care.  Where is the alternative then?  What are you doing for the health care of the poor as the largest Protestant church in America?  Sure there are a few Christian communes and some Mennonite/ Amish groups that practice the sharing of resources, but we think they’re a bit weird.  Certainly the kind of Christianity supposedly Christian political candidates espouse has very little to do with Christ.  In a recent cover article in Newsweek Andrew Sullivan writes that Christianity is crisis.  He writes that the genuine Christian message is perhaps more needed than ever, but the Church is not a very good example for Christian.  Those kind of articles are a good wake up call for Christians every so many years, even though they focus on the most public faces of the Christian church.  But you see, friends, Christianity has always been in crisis. It has always struggled to stay pure and genuine and obedient and faithful and compassionate.  But we’re at most 50/50 on that. That’s how badly we’ve done.  In reality the church has never had enough faith to live the way the followers of Jesus in our text did.  We’re always looking out for ourselves.  If God is plan a, we always have a plan band c and d.  We are a lot more like Thomas than we are like those the Book of Acts describes.  Maybe it’s about time that Christians recognize that.  Maybe it feels better to say that we are a member of St. Peter’s or St. Paul’s or St. Mary’s. But maybe it would be more honest to say that we are a member of that church if St. Thomas.  I mentioned that even the son of Josh McDowell, one of the most enthusiastic defenders of the Christian faith had trouble with his faith.  If he can, so can we.  We all have to make the Christian faith our own.  We always have a lot of questions we would like to ask Jesus face to face.  It’s just that unlike Thomas we don’t get to do that. Faith is a life-long process.  We are never done being on our way from the faith of Thomas to the faith of the apostles in Acts.  So, in the mean time, friends, welcome to the church of St. Thomas. Thanks be to God. Amen.