When I read the scripture reading for this week, I immediately remembered the story from my childhood about “doubting Thomas.” As a child, I always thought it was sort of sad that Thomas didn’t “get it” somehow and the rest of the disciples did. Now re-reading the text, I wondered why, according to the writer John, Jesus comes back especially for Thomas’ sake.

I wondered if the other Gospels treated the story the same way so I tried the comparison approach that Pastor Rick has shared with us in the past when dealing with important stories in the Bible. I read the same story in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and found some of the differences from John interesting. In the book of Matthew, for example, it’s a no frills approach, no multiple appearances of Jesus. Matthew writes that the 11 disciples (without Judas) went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus’ basic message was to… go and make disciples of all nations… So, the message seemed to be more about the work.

Mark’s version is full of doubters -- all the men doubt that Jesus was risen. He writes that when the men heard that he was alive and had been seen by Mary Magdalene, they would not believe it. After this Jesus appeared in another form to two of them. And they went back and told the rest, but they still did not believe them. Later Jesus appeared to the eleven together and scolds them for their lack of faith and stubbornness.

Luke’s version has several women: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women with them telling the disciples but again, they did not believe them. But, in this version, Peter gets up and runs to the tomb and then amazed at what happened, he returns to talk with the other disciples.

Why then is it only in the book of John that Thomas is identified as the doubter? When I read other sections of the book of John, I noticed that Thomas is quoted as questioning Jesus earlier in that day. In John 14, for example, Jesus tells the disciples that he will be leaving and says … “And you know the way to the place where I am going.” But Thomas questions, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? “

So it seemed that Thomas had many questions. According to the scripture read this morning, Jesus identified Thomas as his “twin” so we assume that Thomas was close to Jesus whether he was his spiritual twin or a close friend. That may be why John had a particular reason to focus on Thomas – maybe he was a VIP disciple who had a lot of followers who needed persuading. I needed to find out more about the historical Thomas.

Who was the historical Thomas?

It turns out that Thomas was very important in the early church. He is considered a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church where this Sunday, always one week after Easter, is called Saint Thomas Sunday. In fact, there are records that indicate Thomas was a world traveler as an evangelist and founder of many churches around the world. He supposedly wandered to Brazil, Mexico, Syria, Egypt, China, and India. We know he died in India and that he too was martyred.

But we in this little church here in Carmel Valley also know something about the rest of the story. Pastor Rick has shared with us some sections from the sayings which are called the Gospel of Thomas. These fragments were not discovered until 1945 in Egypt and some scholars think these were written before Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

It appears that Thomas thought Jesus was an inspired teacher but not the Messiah and not the son of God, as the other writers present. Thomas also was a teacher in the Gnostic movement. The Gnostics (which means the Knowers) believed that the True God is spirit and that our goal in life should be reconnection with wholeness, similar to ideas about enlightenment found among Buddhists and mystics in general. Some of us in this room might think those ideas were first thought about in the 60’s but it turns out these ideas of enlightenment are ancient ones… It may be that Thomas was a little far out for the other disciples… and maybe when the early church leaders were trying to make an organized religion and structure of Christianity, Thomas and his group were just too fringey.

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. That could explain why John refers to Thomas in his book – maybe, after Thomas died, John was trying to correct the record somehow or maybe focus it on the core message and leave the messiness out.

So how does it help us to know more about the shades of grey in a man’s life story? I think it helps us today in understanding our own questions.

Our youngest son, JP, was home last week and shared some conversations that had been bothering him. His college roommate keeps challenging JP with questions about his faith and when JP shares that he is still developing his ideas or “no, I don’t know what my soul is or what I believe about heaven”, his roommate pressures him to believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. If JP would just accept the Bible as truth, he would be saved. This is a dilemma for JP because he likes his roommate in so many ways; yet the pressure makes him feel insecure and is beginning to chip away at their relationship. The message seems to be: stop thinking and just accept. Don’t ask questions.

Of course when your child is struggling, you as a parent wonder whether you did enough to prepare your son for the world of today. It is especially hard for a set of parents like Peter and Adrienne who have deliberately not taught their children to accept the Bible literally; but, to think of it as powerful literature and great poetry with life lessons to think about.

Of course, as I’ve just shared with you – there are at least four different variations of this particular story in the Bible – I want to jump in and ask JP’s friend questions back about the Bible such as which one of these sets of details is the “true” version? … and which truths are the important ones? That Jesus was risen from the dead? That Jesus wanted his teaching to continue? That Thomas, the doubter, was somehow convinced, according to John, anyway? What about the fact that there is real evidence that there were other groups at the time who had differing views of what happened to Jesus? Should we just ignore this evidence?

In fact, Thomas sounds like the rest of us… he was complicated; he had questions about what he had seen and he kept asking those questions. He was trying to make sense out of his experience. When one of his best friends was killed, he continued on his quest to share his friend’s most important teachings -- that we should love one another as he loved us. I think the teachings he heard from Jesus were big enough ideas that Thomas didn’t need to place his friend on a special pedestal in order to keep wandering around sharing these ideas for his own lifetime.

I appreciate having had a chance to think about Thomas and his place in the history of early Christianity. I also appreciate feeling that he was a man struggling as we humans do in every generation with important questions. I give Thomas thanks for his good works and, together with all of you in this time and place, I plan to keep on asking questions like he did about such incredible events and ideas that they have survived for 2000 years. I plan to keep on sharing my own questions and learning with my children.

Oh, by the way, I don’t feel sorry for Thomas any more. I’m glad to have met him when I was grown-up. As to what his real place in history should be, I’m not the judge but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

John 20: 19-31