Sunday, April 28, 2019 ~ Second Sunday of Easter

Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

 Sermon: “I’m Not Sure”

Gospel Lesson: John 20:19-31

© 2019, Dr. Tamilio

Remember Donald Rumsfeld?  On February 12, 2002, Rumsfeld, who was then the United States Secretary of Defense, gave a news briefing on the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with a supply of weapons of mass destruction.  He said the following:

Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know.  We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.  But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.  And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult one.

I absolutely love this statement for so many reasons.  I’m still trying to figure it out, mind you, but I love it.

Prof. Horace Allen, who was one of my advisors during the first half of my doctoral studies at Boston University, was a member of the same fraternity with Donald Rumsfeld.  They lived in the same frat house.  Prof. Allen once told us that Rumsfeld’s nickname was Rummy, because he like to play Gin Rummy and he liked to drink rum.  I remember sitting there thinking, “It wasn’t because his name was Rumsfeld?”

There are things that I do not know.  The list is long, and it includes:

  • Euclidian Geometry
  • How to speak Russian.
  • How to tie a bowtie.
  • How to win as much money on Jeopardy as James Holzhauer.

There are other things that I don’t know either

  • When I’m going to die.
  • Whether or not I will ever be diagnosed with cancer.
  • Whether my children will be successful in life.
  • Where Cindy and I will one day retire. We’ve thought of many places, but we really don’t know.

I could even add God to the list.  Don’t get me wrong: I believe in my heart of hearts that he does, but I do not know this for certain.  I cannot prove that he does.

The central question in the Philosophy of Religion is whether or not God exists.  It is a question that cannot be answered either way:

  • The Theist cannot prove that God exists. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot prove that a higher power exists.
  • The Atheist cannot prove that God doesn’t exist. No matter how hard he tries, all the scientific evidence he gathers will not be able to definitively disprove God.

It comes to down to faith: what you believe.  The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says in 11:1, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  That is as good a definition of faith as there is — and it comes straight from the Scriptures.

And then there is Thomas, whose big appearance in the Bible appears the first Sunday after Easter each year.

Thomas has gotten a bad rap, hasn’t he?  He will forever be Thomas the Doubter.  What’s interesting is that the professor I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, Horace Allen, used to say that Thomas is really Thomas the Believer.  Yes, he doubts.  He wants empirical evidence that Jesus has risen from the dead.  He wants irrefutable proof.  Once he gets it, he offers one of the greatest proclamations in all of the New Testament, saying, “My Lord and my God!”

But we cannot escape what Jesus says in response.  “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  We think that Jesus is talking about us, right?  Thomas believes in Jesus, because he has seen him.  We haven’t seen him (at least not in the flesh) and yet we have come to believe in him.  That’s us.  We’re so good, aren’t we?  We’re so much better than doubting Thomas.

Don’t be so quick.  Look at his name carefully.  We are told it means “the twin.”  Why is that?  “The name Thomas is derived from the Aramaic or Classical Syriac name‎ Taumā/Toma, which is equivalently to the Hebrew Teom, meaning ‘twin.’  The equivalent term for twin in Greek, which is the language of the New Testament, is Didymos.”[1]  That’s the name John uses in today’s Gospel lesson.

So, the name Thomas means twin.  Maybe he had a twin.  Who knows?  The Bible doesn’t say so he did, but also doesn’t say that he didn’t.  Maybe twin is used as a nickname, like Rummy, or maybe it is just the etymological meaning of his name.  But maybe there’s something else going on here.  Maybe we are his twin!  We doubt as much if not more than Thomas does.  Let’s face it.  We do.

We believe in God when all is well and good, but when things go wrong in our lives we doubt his existence.  Not all of us do so all the time, of course, but the times during which most people struggle with believing in God is when they are confronted with evil — in their lives or in the lives of others.

  • The shooting at yet another synagogue in San Diego yesterday.
  • Reports about underage Asian and Mexican girls being kidnapped and sold around the world through viral human trafficking rings.
  • Bullying in school, which has led some kids to commit suicide, or to perpetrate mass shootings.

These stories and so many others leave some people scratching their heads, pondering why an all-powerful, all-loving, all-good God would allow this to happen.  And this doesn’t even touch upon the personal tragedies we all experience in our own lives: sickness, loss, unemployment, anxiety, depression, addictions, infidelity…fill in the blank.  Add your own pain to the list.  Such pains often lead us to doubt God’s existence.  We are just like Thomas.  We his twins.

I could go on about how the bad things that happen in life aren’t caused by God, and I could often reflect upon why God doesn’t prevent them from happening.  You’ve heard that sermon recently.  I want to conclude by thinking about something else.

There are lots of things that we do not know for sure.  There are all kinds of mysteries that pervade our lives.  God is one of those mysteries.  We have faith in God, but we do not have solid, scientific proof — and yet, I, for one, do not want that kind of proof.  I am happy with God being somewhat of a mystery.  If our faith could be proven with 100 percent certainty, it would seek to be faith.  It would become another fact.  Spirituality would be drained of its allure.  It would become just another subject.

God is far greater than that.  Much like love, which is felt but cannot be proven, the existence of God is something richer than calculus or chemistry.  Jesus himself said we are blessed, because we believe without seeing.  If you think about it, there are lots of things that you do not know for sure, but you still trust in them — you still believe.    You don’t need to

[1] From Wikipedia