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From
April 23, 2006 If you watch the Food Network faithfully like I do, then what I am about to say is old news. Tonight a star is born! Tonight we find out which culinary wizard is going to get his own cooking show. With only two contestants left standing, the winner might be off-the-hook spiky-haired Guy Fieri. But it could just as easily be the easy-going but delightfully sassy Reggie Southerland. Eight 'clock tonight can't come soon enough for this curious cat. Like other reality shows, the season started with a number of qualified contenders. Excellent cooks all, none of them had experience in front of a camera. So week by week, they had to learn the finer points of hosting a TV show. The lessons were many: how to slice and dice and plate up before running out of air time; how to lose shaky knees and nervous banter; and, because none of us have smell-o-vision, each contestant had to master the art of transporting viewers so that when the curry-coconut pork tenderloin comes out of the oven it's like they're right there holding out their plate. This last lesson is the make-or-break one. No matter how skillful a potential TV chef is with a knife, no matter how engaging the personality, no matter how sophisticated the recipes, if a contestant can't appeal to the viewer's palate by describing flavors, smells, and the whole sensory shebang, he or she gets shown the stage door and whisked home. (Sorry for the pun.) Right about now, you may be wondering: why am I telling you all this? Think about our lesson from John. Food Network viewers want, it seems to me, much the same thing Thomas wanted from the newly resurrected Jesus: they want to come to their senses. Like the left-out-of-the-loop Thomas, they want more than just information, more than mere knowledge. They want - and need - fully engaged senses so that this new learning doesn't die when the show is over but rises up in the living of their lives. There is so much in today's gospel reading that a skilled chef, I mean preacher, could cook up any number of delicious sermons. For instance, we could make a whole feast out of the moment when the Risen Christ breathes upon the disciples that breath of fresh air, the Holy Spirit itself. It fills them with peace and with the power to go forth in confident ministry. This is Christ's gift to us, as well. We could also find plenty to chew on by considering the ways we, too, are sometimes like the disciples at the end of the best day in the history of humankind. We too can band together in fear, lock our doors, and cling so tightly to each other that our arms cramp and our lives threaten to close in on themselves. Reflecting on John today, we could dip our ladles into the endless supply of peace that is Christ's post-resurrection priority. "Peace" is the first word Jesus speaks to his startled disciples. It is his first word and his first gift. Peace--spoken and given not just once but poured out several times for followers whose own cupboards were empty of this one essential. And, if we weren't entirely full from our scripture feasting and still had room for dessert, we could take bites of one of the most potent ingredients in the Christian pantry: the call to share Christ's peace through the practice of forgiveness. You'll recall that this is what Jesus empowered to do that day. Like a refrigerator packed with choices, as I open the lesson this morning I spy something there on the back shelf. Tucked behind everything else. Something that makes for a most savory entrée: Thomas and his unwillingness to be satisfied with the disciples' leftovers. Like eggplant and okra, I think Thomas might be more palatable to us if only he had a different name. Those around him knew him as "The Twin," but he's better known to us as "The Doubter." Like children who turn up their noses at the mention of Brussels sprouts or tofu, when Doubting Thomas gets passed around the table, we aren't much interested in giving him a chance. Why? Because someone told us--;the tradition of the church, that is--someone told us that Thomas' actions are distasteful. Why? Because when he came back from running out for milk and eggs (or whatever errand he'd been on) Thomas questioned, that's why. Because he refused to take the disciples at their word. He refused to swallow their wild story of Jesus' unexpected return. I don't know about you but I grew up with a bad attitude about Thomas. What a loser. What an embarrassment. Because of his flat-out refusal to believe, he's the soufflé that fell flat. He's the milk that went sour. He's the beans that burned on the bottom of the pot. No he's not. Thomas is an exotic and important ingredient. He's the spice that gives our faith stew its dimension. Or, better yet, maybe he's the meat in the stew, Thomas is. Thomas is the one who gives all the rest of us question-askers something nourishing, something that will stick to our ribs and enable us to go the distance with determination and dignity, even as we reckon with our faith-related doubts. Well, it's not just Thomas who gives us this but Thomas and Jesus mixed together. When Thomas gets back to the upper room from wherever
he has escaped to, Jesus has already come and gone.
The disciples are still licking their lips and rubbing
their spiritual tummies. But not Thomas. No, not Thomas. He doesn't even get a morsel of Jesus. He doesn't even get a whiff of the feast the other ten got. Late to the upper room, late for his spiritual supper, all Thomas gets is a most unsatisfying report: we have seen the Lord. Now if those disciples were auditioning for their own Food Network program, they'd flunk right there. No flavor, no flair. Nothing but those five flat words: we have seen the Lord. Imagine Emeril at the end of his hour of exquisitely wonderful N'Awlins cookin' pulling a spoon out of his mouth muttering, "The gumbo's good." Or better yet, picture Paula Dean diving into a pan full of oozy, boozy Kahlua brownies simply saying, "Yum," while holding up a fork full of molten chocolate mess. You'd want more than that, wouldn't you? You'd want all the juicy, tasty details. And even then all the sensory info in the world might not be enough for you. Maybe the only thing that would truly satisfy you is if you were handed a serving of the same deliciousness that Paula and Emeril were enjoying. Can you fault Thomas for needing and wanting more? And can you see the predicament he's in? He's got everything he needs except one thing: he ain't got no Lord in his larder. He ain't got the Risen Christ right in front of him. He has everything else, Thomas does. He has the interest. He has the eyes that ache to see his Lord. He has the hands that long to touch Jesus' cross-time wounds. He's also got the guts to put his hunger into words. "Unless I see, unless I touch, I will not believe," Thomas says with a growl as loud as any stomach. He's got everything he needs, Thomas does, except the one thing that brings believing all together for him: Thomas ain't got the Risen One standing next to him, breathing onto him like Christ did for the others. Thomas doesn't have the Christ resurrected and ready to be gobbled up again by a Thomas who is starved for Christ's resumed presence in his life. Thomas makes no bones about it. He tells it like it is--he doesn't want the recipe, he doesn't want the dry details of Jesus' recent visit. Thomas wants the real deal. He wants to see, touch, and hear this Lord of his. If Thomas is a doubter, he's also enormously courageous. As is anyone who dares to say that in order to believe certain things need to be taken seriously. Questions perhaps. Or hesitations. Reluctances. Others might judge us, they might call us skeptics or worse, they might think we are behaving like complete disbelievers because there are certain matters of the faith we have a hard time digesting, but I say it takes courage to hold fast to what holds us back from believing. It takes courage and a certain kind of faith, even. The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is disinterest. Indifference. The opposite of faith can even be infidelity, being fickle or unwilling to commit oneself. Doubt is not a bad thing. It shows that we have an appetite that needs satisfying. Think about it: it takes a certain kind of faith to admit to ourselves and to God that there's something we need in order to believe with integrity. Integrity being the key word here. Like the cook who never settles for margarine but insists always on butter, a doubter refuses to substitute pat answers for integrity of belief. Everything you and I need to know about how God approaches our questions and doubts, our hesitancies and our skeptics' stance can be found in Christ's response to Thomas today. He circles back a week later, Jesus does, to visit the disciples when they're all together. This time Thomas is right where he needs to be, front and center, rather than off and away. So here comes the Risen One, passing again through tightly-locked doors. Passing again his profound peace. And before Thomas can so much as take a breath and speak his need, Christ has already sensed it. "Here," Christ says holding out his holy hands with every bit of openness as when he was on the cross. "Here, touch. Put your finger on my wound. Touch the gash in my side." "I see your needs, Thomas," Jesus says wordlessly. "I see them, understand them, and I even honor them. They don't scare me. Your doubts don't offend me. Your way of coming to deepened faith isn't off-putting to me. I hold myself out to you. Take as little or as much of me as you like. My love for you, Thomas, doesn't depend on what you do or don't do; it doesn't depend on whether or not you believe in me. I believe in you. So go ahead. Touch. Feel. Experience." "My Lord and my God!" Thomas says, words filling his mouth and his soul like nothing else ever has. If Thomas was the first doubter, he certainly won't be the last. Doubting is a necessary ingredient for authentic spiritual growth. As someone who's had more than her fair share of faith questions, it seems to me that Jesus is always ready to dish up what we truly, deeply, genuinely need. Jesus can dish it up. The question is: will we take it? Thomas did and look, two thousand years later, we are still savoring that spiritual meal. Amen. © Rev. Karen Winkel |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen
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