Staying Power

The first sermon that I ever preached was based on today’s Gospel passage from John. I don’t remember much of what I said about this well-worn passage about the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to Thomas. Other and better exegetes have pointed out that Thomas actually demonstrated a great deal of boldness and perseverance. Sacred history has been particularly unkind in giving him the moniker “Doubting Thomas.” 

Recently, I realized—with some relief—that I wasn’t undergoing a crises of faith. I thought that I might be. Today, I realize the burden that places on me. A burden to speak like someone with their hopes firmly in place. . . To speak like a person who knows that the powers are formidable and perhaps even unsurmountable, but they are not almighty. . . To speak like someone who knows the powers are bold and brazen, but they are not incapable of being shamed. 

Thomas had witnessed something unbelievably traumatizing. At that point he needed more than to hear a story of the glory of risen Jesus; Thomas needed to see glory apparent in wounds and scars. He needed to see glory apparent in this world that crucifies and devastates. Thomas needed to see that the resurrection was incarnational. That the resurrection has implications for his life on that day. 

The story of Thomas reminds me that even, and maybe especially, when we are trying to be faithful we need to interrogate our doubts: need to be bold in asking for signs, markers, theophanies, thin places where we can see God or hear God’s voice or feel God’s hand upon us. It was the boldness of faith which led Moses to ask to see the backend of God as God passed over and it is the boldness of faith that compelled Thomas to ask to touch those restored wounds. 

Thomas had staying power. 

Staying Power

JEANNE MURRAY WALKER

In appreciation of Maxim Gorky at the International Convention of Atheists, 1929

Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts

outside to the yard and question the sky,

longing to have the fight settled, thinking

I can't go on like this, and finally I say

all right, it is improbable, all right, there

is no God. And then as if I'm focusing

a magnifying glass on dry leaves, God blazes up.

It's the attention, maybe, to what isn't there

that makes the emptiness flare like a forest fire

until I have to spend the afternoon dragging

the hose to put the smoldering thing out.

Even on an ordinary day when a friend calls,

tells me they've found melanoma,

complains that the hospital is cold, I say God.

God, I say as my heart turns inside out.

Pick up any language by the scruff of its neck,

wipe its face, set it down on the lawn,

and I bet it will toddle right into the godfire

again, which—though they say it doesn't

exist—can send you straight to the burn unit.

Oh, we have only so many words to think with.

Say God's not fire, say anything, say God's

a phone, maybe. You know you didn't order a phone,

but there it is. It rings. You don't know who it could be.

You don't want to talk, so you pull out

the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer

till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbery

metal bits. It rings again. You pick it up

and a voice you love whispers hello.