Love for the Skeptics - Sermon Transcript

Good morning.

Once again, welcome to FUMC Dallas.

My name is Reverend Elizabeth Mosley.

I'm one of several ministers here on staff, and it's a joy to be with you in worship this morning while our senior minister, Reverend Mitchell Boone, takes a much-needed break on this first Sunday after Easter.

 How's everybody doing after Easter?

Yeah, good.

It was a great Sunday.

It was so fun, so big, so celebratory.

And of course, up until this Sunday, we have been in a really terrific worship series throughout Lent called Simply Love.

And last week, we celebrated big.

I mean, banners and all, but

 Also, I've learned that it's not just banners, it's streamers as well.

Streamers and banners and everything to celebrate the culmination of that worship series.

The message is that love wins.

Amen.

 And it was incredible and amazing, and I hope you hold on to that truth every single day of your lives.

And if we are honest, after something big like that, as we get further and further and further away from that amazing, high-energy, exciting moment, we can feel a little bit like, okay, now what?

 Do you know what I mean?

Have you ever felt that before after a big celebratory event?

Kind of the days leading after it, the days after it are a little bit of a, a little bit of a letdown maybe.

And I also think, if we're honest, that the Easter message, as amazing and wonderful and life-giving as it is, for some of us, even after Easter,

 it can still be hard to believe that message sometimes.

That love does actually win, that Christ is risen when life still feels kind of the same.

The struggles, they're ongoing.

 How many of you watched the Artemis II land safely on Friday evening?

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

What an incredible moment.

I made all my children watch this because I was like, you will want to say at some point in the future that you saw it live.

 It was such an incredible story and the whole mission was incredible.

How many of you followed it the whole way through?

We were just into it, just obsessed.

The history, the learning, the humble expertise, the going farther than humanity has ever gone before, and how incredible that they had that detailed, that precise of a landing.

They were on time from space.

 I cannot even be on time here, I'll just be honest.

It is hard for me to be on time five miles away.

I was reading so much of the comments and the memes and the interviews and all the posts that people were making about it, and one caught my eye.

One comment said, well, now what am I going to obsess over?

I need a season two, like immediately.

 And I get that.

Something that big and that huge, when it's over, you're kind of like, well, now what?

So let's talk about that today.

Would you bow with me in prayer?

Oh, Lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be acceptable to you.

You are our rock and our redeemer, and we love you.

 Now, I don't know about your home, but in my home, there is a healthy dose of skepticism at all times.

Neil and I are both what you could call critical thinkers.

We're both products of great public school systems.

Shout out to any teachers out there.

 We're both seminary graduates.

We both like to ask lots of questions, just like Monica encouraged the children to do today.

We like knowing things, but we don't typically believe things just because someone told them to us, which is, I think, helpful when it comes to synthesizing the news these days and discerning what is true and real and important.

 But that's a little bit harder when your children have inherited those traits from you.

Our children are fantastic skeptics.

 They always want to know why.

Why do we have to do whatever it is we've asked them to do?

Why can't we just do it ourselves?

They want to know how.

How will this work?

How will this help them?

How could they possibly get out of the task at hand?

 They are very comfortable with the word no.

No, they will not go.

No, they will not stop.

No, they will not whatever, unless I present a very good argument as to why they should.

And even then, they often say no.

Actually, what they say is, nabra, that's cap.

And then they tell me not to crash out.

 Even though this trait that we have passed on to our children makes it a little challenging to parent them now, I'm actually okay with them being on the skeptical side.

Asking questions, not just taking things at face value, that's a valuable skill that will serve them well not only today, but for the rest of their lives.

 And I think we all actually like to know what's real and what isn't, don't we?

Now, some of us may live in a fantasy world, but none of us want to be catfished.

None of us want to be made fools of.

None of us want to believe that something is true and then have it turn out to just be AI.

 We want the truth.

We want to know for sure what's going on.

We don't want that feeling of uncertainty.

We want to know what is real.

And if that is you, like it is me in my household, there's a story in the Gospel of John that I think offers us great comfort and hope.

 It's a story actually that occurs the very same day as the resurrection, just a bit later.

It's the story of Jesus and Thomas.

Now the Gospel of John, just in case you're not as familiar, is the fourth gospel.

You'll find it in our scriptures in the Bibles in front of you after Matthew and Mark and Luke.

 And it's a little bit different than those gospels.

Those first three gospels are what we would call the synoptic gospels.

The word synoptic is a Greek word that essentially means seen or grouped together.

And those three gospels really can be

 seen and read and grouped together.

They all have similar words, similar stories of Jesus, a similar structure, language.

The order of things happens in the same way.

But the Gospel of John is very different.

 It actually doesn't include the same stories.

It adds in new stories.

It doesn't have things happening in the same order.

It uses different language and vocabulary, and there's a different structure.

We think most of the scholars agree that it was written probably later and separately than the other three gospels.

 around the turn of the century, the first century, and it was written, we believe, to a community of folks who knew the stories of Jesus, who were maybe from the Jewish tradition as well, but were dealing with persecution by the Jewish leaders.

In fact, they may have been kicked out of the synagogues at this point.

 There was a lot of disagreement and confusion between different Christian groups about what to believe.

And so the exact message of Christianity and what the stance may be and how to worship God and follow Jesus, there was just a lot kind of swirling around in that time.

 And so that's what the author of the Gospel of John, it seems to us, tries to do.

Explain and defend and clarify the Christian message so that all of the followers of Jesus could have hope and be united.

 Now the place that we are going to pick up in the gospel is appropriately immediately after the resurrection.

Now remember, Mary and the other women have gone to the tomb to prepare the body, but it's not there.

And Mary actually sees the risen Jesus.

She talks to him.

He calls her by name.

 And then she goes and she tells the disciples that she has seen the Lord.

I invite you to rise and body your spirit for the reading of the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 19 through 31.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews,

 Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

 As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.

And if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

But Thomas, who was called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

 So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.

A week later, his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them.

 Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

And then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands.

Reach out your hand and put it in my side.

Do not doubt, but believe.

Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.

 Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.

 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name.

For the word of God in scripture, for the word of God among us, and for the word of God within us.

Thanks be to God.

You may be seated.

 So on Easter Sunday, the same day that he was resurrected, right after Mary had gone and told all of the disciples that she had seen the risen Lord, the disciples lock themselves in a room because they are afraid.

 And yet, Jesus appears to them there in the room.

Now, somehow he is able to enter into the locked room, but he is not an illusion.

He's not a hologram.

He's not AI.

He's real.

He has the right number of fingers on both hands.

And even more powerfully,

 This is a small detail, it seems like in the Gospel of John, but it packs a big punch.

He shows them his hands and his side.

He shows them his hands which were pierced by nails and his side which was pierced by a spear.

And it's only after he shows them these physical markings, these wounds on his body,

 that the disciples rejoice.

Now, for as much as the Gospel of John presents a very high view of Christ, we call it a high Christology, where Christ is presented as the eternal cosmic word of God, very cosmic, very eternal, very I am.

 John, in the Gospel of John, this author is not afraid of the realness of Christ's humanity.

This author is actually not afraid of Christ's body.

 This gospel is not shy about acknowledging the violence of the crucifixion, which we actually don't get in the other gospels.

This is the only gospel that describes the spear stabbing in and piercing Jesus in the side.

This is the only gospel that actually mentions blood

 around Jesus's crucifixion.

It's the only gospel that specifies nail marks in his hands.

For the gospel of John, Jesus's crucifixion is real.

It's about a real body and real damage.

About two years ago, my youngest daughter fell at the playground at school.

 and she had to get stitches.

She's actually the first Moseley kid to ever need stitches, my youngest, and still so far is the only one who's ever had them.

I hope that lasts.

If you've ever seen a wound that needs stitches, you know that that's real, and it's gross.

 And I won't get graphic here, but let me just say that our bodies, they're pretty incredible.

They're pretty miraculous, and they're messy, and they're gross, and they're cool, and that's when they're working the way that they're supposed to.

I think about this a lot.

Our bodies really are miracles.

 They heal and they grow and they change and they age and they adapt.

And I know that there is a lot of emphasis in our world about having perfect bodies with no flaws.

I think especially for women, but really for all of us, there's a lot of pressure to not let any of the marks show, to not let any of the scars or the wrinkles show.

 Sometimes I think we prefer to just cover over the aging and the realness of life.

And that's okay because we're human.

But I really love that Jesus, that the Almighty God is not afraid of a real body.

That God is not afraid of

 of even a damaged body.

In fact,

 It's in this very damage that we see the power of God at work here in this story.

Remember, they hurt Jesus.

They tortured Jesus.

They beat Jesus.

They killed Jesus.

His body was destroyed and buried, and that did not stop God at work in him or through him.

 Because the Gospel of John presents to us, and we should not miss this, that the risen Lord is the crucified Jesus.

The risen Lord is not a sterile, glossy, sanctimonious, ultra-filtered Instagram post or TikTok reel.

The risen Lord is the real, life-wounded Son of God.

 And the suffering that Jesus went through, it was not for show.

It was not forgotten or brushed over or covered up.

His very real suffering, death, and burial did not stop the power of God from raising him to new life.

And so Jesus carries his wounds, not because they win, but because he did.

 And our scars do that for us as well, don't they?

Our scars show how much we have lived through and what we have survived.

 Now, as if the drama of the disciples seeing the real Christ raised to new life wasn't enough, we have this whole scenario that the Gospel of John paints because, of course, one disciple was not there when Jesus first appears.

Sweet Thomas.

We don't know why he wasn't there.

 Maybe he wasn't afraid, and so he didn't want to hide out in the room with the other disciples.

Maybe he was busy.

He had errands to run or a job to do, but all we know is he wasn't there.

And when he hears about it later, we do know that he has major FOMO.

He declares that he does not believe the disciples saw the real Christ, and he will not believe it unless...

 He can put his hand into Jesus' actual wounds, which is gross.

But hear what he's actually saying here.

He is saying, I am not going to be tricked.

I am not going to be fooled by anyone who's just claiming to be Jesus.

I know what I'm looking for, is what he says.

I know what I saw.

 I know the wounds on Jesus's body.

I saw him tortured.

I saw him crucified.

I saw him buried.

He knew what happened to him.

He wanted to make sure he wanted to see and touch for himself the real Jesus.

And I just want to say that I get it.

I get Thomas.

I get wanting to know.

 especially again in this day and age.

I mean, come on, we see a headline and we want to know, is that real?

We see a picture and we want to know, was this AI generated?

Is this real?

And remember, Thomas is actually not different from any of the other disciples.

Remember, they did not rejoice until after they had seen Jesus had shown them his hands and his side.

 Jesus appeared before them and said, peace be with you, but it's not until he actually shows them the proof that he is who he says he is that they rejoice.

So Thomas is actually not different from the other disciples and he's not different than any of us who are skeptical or who question or who doubt because no one wants to be duped.

No one wants to be made a fool of.

Thomas is very relatable.

 But this story isn't actually about Thomas.

It's about Jesus.

Look at what Jesus does.

Jesus shows up and he says, peace.

 peace be with you.

He says it to the disciples when he first appears to them.

He then repeats it to those same disciples after he shows them his hands and his feet, and then he says it a third time when he appears to Thomas as well.

He says, peace be with you three times, because in case you forgot, Jesus's resurrection is about peace.

 and not just the absence of conflict.

It's about wholeness, completeness, a time when there's no more striving, no more want, no more fear.

Peace, full peace be with you.

He offers that peace to everyone.

 He offers it to the disciples and those who are afraid like the disciples were.

He offers it to Thomas and those who doubt like Thomas did.

He offers it to those who don't understand and to those who are all in.

 Jesus offers peace, even now, even to us.

And in an age where lots of people claim to act on behalf of God, I think that this story reminds us that if something is of God, it will bring peace.

Not just the absence of conflict, but wholeness and fullness, the feeling where you can finally take a deep breath and you don't have to be afraid anymore.

 Jesus also shows up for the disciples in a real way.

Peace be with you, he says, and then he shows up in person.

He shows them that it's not just his words, but he is real.

 And catch this, he isn't mad.

He isn't mad at the disciples.

He's not mad at Thomas.

He's not mad at their fear or their questions or their doubts.

He shows up and meets them exactly where they are, even when they're in a room with a shut door, even when that door is locked.

And you know what he does?

He gives Thomas exactly what Thomas needs to believe.

 He isn't mad.

He isn't upset or sarcastic or frustrated.

He doesn't condemn Thomas.

He shows up and he says, here, put your finger in the holes of the nails in my hands.

Here, put your hand.

Give me your hand.

Reach out your hand.

 He literally lets Thomas not only see his wounds, but offers them, allows him to touch them, to connect with his damaged and scarred body.

 There is no scorn here.

It's often presented that way, that Jesus has a little bit of sarcasm.

That's not what actually we read here.

There's no frustration or bitterness.

He just meets Thomas where he is and gives him what he needs.

And it works.

 It works.

We don't actually know if Thomas touches Jesus.

Again, kind of gross.

But we don't know if he actually touches him.

But what Thomas does say is the most complete and full declaration and recognition of who Jesus is that the gospel wants to make clear all of us here, which is my Lord and my God.

That's who Jesus is.

My Lord and my God.

 And just Jesus showing up to provide what Thomas needed was enough for Thomas to have that realization.

The truth is, is that Jesus has and does meet us where we are as well.

This is actually what the incarnation, Jesus' birth and life and death is all about.

 He meets us as we are and reminds us of the miracles that we are.

God becomes incarnate, embodied, just like us.

And in doing that, God redeems us even when we are wounded, even when we are damaged and broken.

God raised Jesus and God raises us.

And finally,

 Just like God sent Jesus, Jesus sends the disciples and also us.

 to continue God's work in the world.

He breathes on the disciples.

Did you see that?

Giving them the Holy Spirit.

Side note, this is actually Pentecost and the Great Commission in the Gospel of John, all wrapped up on the same day as Easter, okay?

Pentecost, the way we celebrate it in 50 days, that's the Lucan timeline, okay?

The Great Commission in Galilee on the mountaintop, that's the Matthew timeline.

But in John, it's all together.

 The resurrection is connected with the giving of the Holy Spirit and the sending out of the disciples to continue Jesus' mission in the world.

And the language there is to the whole community.

Look, the Gospel of John truly hardly ever focuses just on this small group of 12.

There's sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more throughout the whole Gospel, but this message is for the whole community.

The work is given to all who follow Jesus

 And it is done in and through that community ongoing.

So that means us.

That's for us as well.

And this is where that amazing little kind of breaking the fourth wall comes in at the end of this chapter, where the author is directly reminding the readers, us, that Jesus did actually even more signs in the presence of his disciples, but that these signs

 These physical, tangible manifestations of God's love for the world were done so that all who hear of them or read about them, even if they don't get to see or touch the physical Jesus, may believe that Jesus is still the one who was sent to save us and love us.

And why is it important that we believe this?

 Why is Easter important?

Why are we even here today?

What is all of this for?

What all of this is for, what all of this means, all of the stories, all the writing, all the traditions, all the music, all the ministry, all of this is actually for us so that we might have life in his name.

 God did this for us so that we might have life.

And isn't that what we all want?

Isn't that what we need?

Life, to have life, not just to live, but to have a life that is worth living, that is real, that is full of peace and hope and meaning, that is full of love and ultimately is greater than anything we could imagine.

 This story reminds us that Jesus offers this to us but he doesn't dangle it out of our reach.

This is not a scam.

This is not an illusion.

There's a lot out there in our world that promises to make our life better but actually just sucks the life out of us.

There's a lot out there in our world that claims to be peace but is actually just more violence.

 There's a lot in our world that claims to be love but is actually about dominance and control.

There's a lot out there that claims to give hope but actually just peddles in fear.

It's not surprising that there are skeptics of what our faith tradition claims.

 It's not surprising that there are people who want proof that what we claim to believe is real.

This story reminds us that the disciples, Jesus' closest friends, were skeptics.

They doubted, they questioned, they didn't understand.

And Jesus' response is not to judge, reject, or treat them with contempt.

It's to treat them with love.

In fact,

 The very same love that took Jesus to the cross takes him to those who need even more.

He shows up in a real way with his wounds out.

He meets Thomas and the disciples and all of us where we are.

He doesn't say, haven't I done enough?

He says, here I am, touch my wounds.

 And don't miss this, especially if you claim to be a follower of Christ.

As the Father sent him, so he sends us.

If we follow Jesus, we also must show up.

 scars and all, wounded and damaged though we may be, we must show up in real and tangible ways for others, for the world, for our neighborhood, for our communities, in ways that bring peace, to make life better for everyone, regardless of whether or not they believe, maybe especially if they don't.

And if you are here, and you, like my children, are still skeptics,

 I really get it.

And I hope you know that this church is not afraid of your doubts and that we welcome your questions and your conversation.

Any of our clergy are here.

We're available.

We would love to listen and to talk and to just hear you out and meet you where you are.

And that's my prayer.

My prayer

 is that every person in this room who calls themselves a Christian will show up for you in a real way, that they will meet you where you are and that you will feel loved as you are.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.