Second Sunday of Easter, 28 April 2019
Austwick, Keasden
‘The doors of the house where the disciples met were locked for fear of the Jews’
In the aftermath of last Sunday’s terrible bombings of churches in and around Colombo, Sri Lanka, our thoughts are with Sri Lanka’s Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, who has ordered the country’s churches not to hold services until police could be sure they would not be attacked, and who instead delivered a homily by TV to Catholics celebrating mass in their homes. [2] And our hearts go out to all of our brothers and sisters in Christ who today meet in secret, behind locked doors, for fear of those who will punish them for practicing their faith.
The organisation Open Doors supports Christians who suffer for their faith, and they currently list 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. From North Korea where Christians are considered enemies of the state because they dare to believe in a higher authority than the Kim family, to Azerbaijan where no religious activities outside of state control are allowed and Christians are considered traitors, betraying not only Islam but also their country: worldwide, hundreds of thousands of believers’ doors are locked for fear of those who would punish them. [3]
Our hearts go out to them - and to all others who are vilified or oppressed for their religion. One young UK Muslim woman recently described her life as “living in a constant state of low-level anxiety… (of feeling) vulnerable all of the time but especially after a terrorist attack anywhere in the world. It’s a form of post-traumatic stress disorder,” she said, “except we are living the trauma here and now.” [4]
And back to that opening line from John’s gospel: the disciples met behind locked doors ‘for fear of the Jews’. Now, please understand that this was written during a time of fierce competition between rival Jewish groups in the uncertain period after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Taken out of context these words have often been misunderstood: and one of the oldest and most shameful Christian traditions is that of Jew-blaming, Jew-hating. And so the Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, recorded its third annual increase last year, and a current exhibition at the Jewish Museum in London, titled “Jews, Money, Myth”, helps visitors to understand how Christians have - often unknowingly - absorbed the tropes that associate Jews with money, power, and threat. [5]
Why should religious followers who have so much in common live in fear of each other? ‘Why religions do harm as well as good’ is the topic of a new book by respected theologian John Bowker called ‘Religion Hurts’. Most of his work describes the immense good that religions have done, but he wrote Religion Hurts, he says, “because we’re living in an extremely dangerous world, with wars and conflicts in which religions are involved and in which countless people are being killed or are suffering greatly. The claim is then made that it is not religion but the abuse and corruption of religion that is involved. That’s wrong,” he says, and “we must always take a full look at the worst, and … give an honest account … of the destructive harm and evil that religious people and their religions have done in the past - and still do. [6]
An unlikely ally in helping us address those fears of others which are the cause so much conflict, and to begin to find a fruitful way forward, is the man who has been dubbed Doubting Thomas.
Now, it seems a little unfair that he gets called Doubting Thomas, for we don’t call the others Doubting Mary or Doubting Peter although - just like him - each of them couldn’t quite believe it at first, that the crucified Jesus had risen. I think Thomas gets singled out because of all of them, he was the one who dared to ask the hard questions, he was the one who clearly voiced his doubts.
Let us be clear about doubt. Doubt is not a bad thing. Doubt is not the opposite of believing - doubt is an essential part of the process of believing. The writer Oz Guinness, who has thought about this very deeply, says that doubt is ‘faith in two minds’: Doubt is not the opposite of faith: unbelief is, he says. Unbelief is a state of mind which is closed against God, whereas doubt is a - hopefully temporary - suspension of faith, a state of mind which is not closed against God, but which has questions needing answering. [7]
Thomas’s exchange with the risen Jesus shows that there’s no shame in being in two minds about faith. The point of the story is not to make an example of someone who doubted, nor to show that doubt is wrong. The point is rather that doubt is a normal and acceptable part of believing. Jesus does not condemn Thomas as an unbeliever, but addresses him as a believer who doubted. When we hear him cry, ‘My Lord and my God!’ we should call him Believing Thomas, for this showed how his doubts had overcome his fears, how his questions had led to his eyes being opened.
John tells us that he put Thomas’s story in the bible ‘so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name’. It’s possible for us to have faith because of the questions raised by a disciple bold enough to express his doubts.
Remember at the Last Supper, when Jesus told his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them, and ‘You know the way to the place where I am going,’ it was Thomas who replied, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus answered Thomas saying, 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' [8] It was Thomas’s questioning that clarified to every disciple ever since that our lives are a journey on the way, with all its unexpected diversions, twists and turns, that faith is about keeping on turning to Jesus for direction.
So let’s be encouraged by the story of Thomas. A man on a journey of faith who had questions on the way. When a traveller stops you to ask for directions, it makes you happy if you can help them. Which is why Jesus embraced Thomas and helped him to see the way.
In today’s conflicted world we can’t take Christianity for granted any more. We have to accept that it is part of human life which, when we misinterpret it, can lead to conflict, aggression, persecution.
But our doubts can help overcome our fears. If we determine to live out our Christianity faithfully, alongside those who see things differently from us, if we work through our questions and doubts together in confidence that Jesus will show us the way, if we find ways to talk our faith through honestly with those who have genuine questions and sincere doubts: then our faith will grow; and that part of our religion which hurts can give way, buy God’s grace, to that better part of our religion which liberates and heals.
How about we create an open forum for discussing, in an atmosphere of friendship and acceptance, the difficult questions about our life and faith? If you’re interested in that idea, let me know. And if you have your doubts about it - doubts are good: so let me know them as well!
Notes
[1] This talk draws on material from sermons preached in Somerset in 2016, Devon in 2012 and Liverpool in 2007.
[2] Emma Graham-Harrison, Sri Lanka bombings: everything we know so far. Guardian, 26 April 2019.
Associated Press, Sri Lanka: churches shut as worshippers mourn one week after bombings. Guardian, 28 April 2019.
[3] Open Doors UK: Country Profiles.
[4] Shaista Aziz, Islamophobic attacks in the UK leave Muslims feeling increasingly anxious. Guardian, 21 March 2019.
[5] Rob Thompson, The persistence of a myth. Church Times, 26 April 2019.
[6] Terence Handley Macmath, Interview: John Bowker, theologian. Church Times, 26 April 2019.
[7] Oz Guinness, God in the Dark.
[8] John 14.1-6.
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