Sermon — April 27, 2025
Michael Fenn
The wonders of the lectionary have it so that this gospel reading appears every single year the Sunday after Easter. And this particular Sunday has gotten an affectionate nickname after the most memorable character in the gospel reading. This Sunday is nicknamed “Thomas Sunday” after our disciple who features so prominently in the story. Thomas, who gets his name attached to this day, also gets his own–rather unfortunate–nickname. If you know it say it with me…doubting Thomas.
But I think this nickname is a bit unfair–we don’t make nicknames in the same way for any other disciple. We don’t call Peter, “Denying Peter” or “Fell-in-the-Lake” Peter, or “Cut-Off-Someone’s-Ear Peter, or “Get-Behind-Me-Satan” Peter. And! Thomas is not the only one who doubts. In fact, the other disciples also have a moment of doubt and unbelief–in the story we read from Luke on Easter Day just last week the disciples do not believe Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James when they tell the disciples that two angels told them that Jesus had risen. The disciples do not believe them–they have doubt.
In all of this, I don’t mean to be very “gotcha”. Rather, I think doubt–whether from Thomas or from any of the other disciples, is a very human thing. I think each of them experiences a deeply human thing when they cannot believe that Jesus actually resurrected. Humans like proof; and I am well aware of how many scientists and lawyers are in the room right now when I say that. We like proof in the face of things that are almost unbelievable, and I will [try] to really drive it home with an example. Mathemathicians in the room, if I flounder, and you know it, help me out.
So the Monty Hall Problem is a kind of probability brain teaser that takes its name from the original host of the gameshow “Let’s Make a Deal”–Monty Hall. The Problem became most famous when it was answered by Marilyn vos Savant in the “Ask Marilyn” column of Parade Magazine in 1990. The problem is as follows, “Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. [By the way, the problem assumes that you would rather win a car than a goat]. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens a different door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, “Do you want to pick door No. 2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?” Now, most people who answer the problem would say that switching your choice is neither advantageous or disadvantageous. Remember, there are still just two closed doors, and so, logically, most would say there is a 50% chance that the car is behind one of them. Thus, it does not matter if you switch your choice or not. That is what the vast majority of people believe to be the correct answer to the problem.
Savant’s response, published in the magazine, was that the contestant should switch to the other door. By the standard assumptions, the switching strategy has a 2/3 probability of winning the car, while the strategy of keeping the initial choice has only a 1/3 probability.
So the readers of the magazine were in an uproar. Though in this room it still seems relatively calm. I can assure you it is 100% true, and verifiable. If you set up the conditions of the gameshow, and you follow vos Savant’s advice, you will win the car ⅔ of the time if you switch your choice. I can even give you a website where you can play through the scenario yourself an infinite amount of times. Unless every single one of you is a statistical genius (and I’ll admit, I was banking on a few in here), I imagine you are having a moment of disbelief at this absurd statement, despite my own assurances that it is true. I might even wager that you might be experiencing some doubt of this verifiable fact.
I hope that I have garnered some sympathy for Thomas and our other disciples with this thought experiment. The lack of verifiable physical proof is a difficult thing to deal with, both with the Monty Hall Problem and with the resurrection. It was difficult for Thomas to have faith and live into the reality of the resurrection based on nothing but someone else’s account. So difficult, in fact, that Jesus made a specific appearance for Thomas’ benefit so that Thomas would believe.
As it was with Thomas, so it is with us today. Easter reminds us of the fact that our faith is fundamentally about Christ who died and rose again, and is still alive and ascended into heaven. It is a strange reality to live with–that Jesus is in fact risen, that Jesus defeated the powers of sin and death, and that the story of the resurrection is still underway. We do not believe in a God who ascended into heaven, pulled the ladder up behind Him, and left us to our own devices. The work of Christ continues, and the resurrection is a reality we live in right now.
Still, it is hard to really believe this when we are separated by the events of the resurrection and the physical body of Jesus by so many years. But, Jesus and the gospel have this in mind today. We, as people who are living so long after the events in the Bible, actually get mentioned in the Gospel reading today. We “are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We are the ones on whose account that these things are written down, so that we might have some help in believing.
As much as I love the Bible, I think I would like an encounter with the risen, physical body of Christ a bit more. Of course, we get moments of encounter with Christ in our own lives. Greg mentioned, very aptly, in his Easter sermon just last week that we can encounter Christ in every act of love we witness in the world. Still, we bear a heavy resemblance to Thomas, and it is hard to live into the full picture of the resurrection even with the signs that we get.
However, the good news is that we are not doing this alone. And I don’t necessarily mean that we have a wonderful church community to lean on when faith becomes hard–even though that statement is very valuable, and very true.
What I mean is that, in a moment, we will be baptizing our friend Nick. Baptism is a moment of a full and deep initiation into the Body of Christ; and involves a series of promises. Nick will answer some questions and make some promises about living his faith on his own. Afterwards, we all will make some promises–we will renew our baptismal vows. The first three promises are the Apostle’s Creed adapted into a question and answer form, and are about what we believe. The last five are more specifically about what it means to be Christian, and are about what we will do because we are Christian. For all five of these questions the answers are the exact same. “I will, with God’s help”.
That, to me, is the key. As we affirm the promises of our baptismal vows, we get an indication of how we are to live into these vows. As we respond to these questions, we state how we are going to try and live into the full reality of the resurrection. We say how it is we will deal with our moments of doubt.
Because “with God’s help” can mean many wonderful things. In one way, it means that whenever we are moved to belief, or moved to do something nice for others, there is some mystical presence of God that is encouraging us and moving us. We will try and do so many wonderful things: proclaim by word and example the Good News of Christ, seek and serve Christ in all persons, continue in the breaking of bread, and so on. Whenever we do this, God is there with us, helping us, pushing us on.
“With God’s help” also recognizes the fact that when we are baptized, we become part of the Body of Christ, and are suffused from that moment on with the grace of God. In all that we do, God is present with us. We see this most clearly when we are gathered together as the Body of Christ, the church, in a visible and tangible way. In all that we do, we are suffused with the grace of God, and benefit from God’s help.
“With God’s help” also means that when we fall short of the promises of our baptism: when we struggle to show love to our neighbors, when we do not come to church for a while, when we have our doubts, or struggle to pray: God will be there to help us. It is a difficult claim to make, but one that I sincerely believe. In moments when we struggle to be “good Christians” God is still working with us, just like Jesus worked with Thomas. Jesus did not leave Thomas to his own devices when he experienced doubt, and God does not abandon us when we have our own shortcomings.
Today, as I’ve said, we continue to live in the reality and mystery of the resurrection. After Easter, we are reminded of this dimension of our faith so pointedly. Having a baptism in our community the Sunday after Easter gives this an extra depth and special kind of meaning.
And, in all the wonderful mystery, the story of Thomas shows us that, in our lives of faith there is room for doubt–a very natural human response to something as great and unbelievable as the resurrection. Doubt is not the end of faith, and we are never far from the help of God. In the name of the One who first loved us.