Keeping company with Thomas
Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
Preaching in Hampstead is quite a task. For a start you are fairly sure that someone in the congregation knows more about what you are saying than you do, whether it is to do with German Verse, the Plays of Shakespeare, Augustine’s view of Original Sin, parsing Latin verbs, or the use of the subjunctive.
Then there is the fact that there are so many of you from so many different walks of life: Lawyers, Doctors, Bankers, television produces, lawyers, philosophers, writers, parents, lawyers, accountants, actors, singers lawyers.
How can one speak to people who know a lot and do a lot? Then there is that wonderful Hampstead “remembrance of things past” [Proust] many of you have seen curates come and go and heard much of what we have to say before but we are grateful that you humour us.
I remember Joan Barton looking at me once, a year or so after I arrived, when she was still as active and energetic as she had been for most of her 80 years. She looked at me and seemed to sum me up. She had seen my like before, but she did not reserve judgement, she did not turn up her nose, she received what I had to offer, and in a whole number of ways, and alongside others, taught me how to be a priest. You have taught me how to be a priest and I am very grateful. Today I want to reflect on some themes that have struck me forcefully while I have been here.
This sermon is about things not going to plan. About being surprised and drawn out of a cynical posture about the world into a more optimistic one that looks for new possibilities. It is about resurrection. And about finding ourselves loved before we ever do anything, and therefore being able to act not acting to earn love but being loved and therefore acting.
On July 8th 2001 I preached about the sending of the 70 disciples. I talked about the plan that Jesus had for spreading his message more widely, and about the surprises that the disciples encountered on the way.
It was my second Sunday here, my first sermon, I read it yesterday and want to remind you of some of what I said:
“Well that’s it, you can breathe a sigh of relief, we’re all in. No more clergy arriving for a while, time for settling in and a moment to draw breath.
Beginning at St Johns this week, I feel some affinity with today’s Gospel.
Imagine those being sent, wary, nervous and cautious, waiting to see if they will be welcomed into the house. They approach not knowing what they might find. Will those in the house take to the strange visitor. Will they welcome them?
It almost sounds like the bright-eyed deacon leaving the steps of St Paul’s and appearing as if by magic in a new role in a parish the next day. “
The sermon went on to talk about the plans we make, the mission we want to engage in, but it also talked about being surprised, and things not going the way you had planned, having to react to contingencies. Looking back years later, it seems remarkably prescient there are always plans in any ministry they rarely all work out, but it maybe that what actually occurs is in fact part of some greater plan written in the providence of God.
I like Thomas he is my second patron after Matthew my full name is Matthew Thomas. My first mass was celebrated on the feast of St Thomas. He is often called the doubter he is criticised for his doubt, but he is good company when you are confused or unsure, or even fearful. At that first Mass Fr Nick Mercer who taught me at college preached and told us that the opposite of faith is not doubt the opposite of faith is certainty. Doubt goes hand in hand with faith they are not opposites they live in creative tension. Certainty quashes both it forecloses on possibilities it finishes off discussion it ends creativity. And I am not just talking about Evangelical certainties, there are liberal ones too, there are Hampstead certainties. I will leave you to work out what they might be.
Thomas made his way from the darkening street into the inn and up the stairs to the upper room. He was finding it harder to make this journey each time he did it. What would he find this time would the women still be hysterical? He opened the door, strange, he thought, that it wasn’t locked, they were getting braver inside he peered in, there was a bustle, they had not caught up with the evening, he moved into the room, locking the door, perhaps they were being too confident! Martha glanced at him warily as he entered; she was busy lighting lanterns, each one pushing light a bit further into the corners of the room. She was still trying to be holy through doing, Thomas thought but then she surprised him with a smile, it transformed her face. He looked to the edge of the corona of light and saw Peter talking to John, and Mary Jesus’ Mother talking to the other Mary. One or two of the others looked over to him and appraised him for a moment, then kept talking.
There was an energy in the room, it surprised Thomas, it was nowhere near the emotional chaos he had felt last time he was here when they insisted that Jesus was alive. The idiots he had set them straight saying how ridiculous they were, believing the ranting of a few deluded women and some deranged men who were so desperate in their grief that they would grasp at any straw.
Thomas had told them that he would believe it when he saw it his hand in the spear wound on the side, his fingers in the nail holes. They were shocked of course, but that is what they needed, to be brought back to their senses and away from this fairy tale. He had stormed off in a huff not wanting to be around them any longer only tonight he had plucked up the courage to come back, perhaps he had been too harsh. But they were different, calmer, more peaceful smiling dopily at one another, as they used to when Jesus was alive.
It annoyed him again as he glanced round the room, they needed to get real, to shape up, toughen up to realised that Jesus was not coming back, that the plans they thought he was implementing were not going to happen, that the Romans were in charge, the religious leaders were set on restoring the peace and that they should just get on with their lives, the revolution ended on Friday, nothing had changed, nothing ever would it was over.
Then he heard his name, ‘Thomas’. Spoken in the way he remembered, every head turned towards the place where the voice came from, but Thomas could not move.
“Peace be with you,” the voice said, and then it addressed him again “Thomas, here are my hands, my side, feel them. “
Thomas turned, tears on his face, fell to his knees and said: “My Lord and my God. “
Jesus smiled, knelt down, embraced him and loved him.
At the end of my first sermon here I talked about the fact that Jesus warned his disciples, as they began their ministry, that they should not celebrate the fact that wonderful things were happening, but rather rejoice that their names were written in the Book of Life. At the time I wondered whether this meant that, ” our identity does not lie entirely in our successes or failures. And perhaps that there are things which are more enduring than the next project, the next mission, the next three years. “
I have tried to achieve a number of things while here, but plans rarely work out exactly as you imagine them. Whatever has been achieved has been the combined work of so many, Colleagues, Sunday School teachers, teachers, parents, other members of the community and the children themselves. I don’t think I have achieved half what I wanted to, but I have been surprised by a great deal else that just seems to have happened. Over those three and a half years I have become convinced, as I have taken funerals, baptisms and weddings, taught in school, preached and celebrated for you, and read the bible over and over again in the context of a community, that the first letter of John is entirely right in the picture it paints of divine love.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us
It is not because we love that we know ourselves to be Christian but because we are loved. It is not to earn love that we live lives of service it is because we are loved that we love one another. To realise this, is to be given new life indeed. To realise this is to see the world in a new way, to have the weariness blown away by our saviours breath to take a deep breath of new life. To realise this is to receive the peace that is offered by Jesus in our Gospel reading.
I leave Hampstead with all sorts of plans unfinished but other things have happened for which I am grateful, not least your acceptance of me and your ability to be a Christian community that is capable of training curates forming priests. I have all sorts of ideas and plans for the next phase of ministry at St Saviour’s I am sure half of them will not come to fruition and I am sure I will be surprised by what does occur. Whatever happens I will be grateful for all you have given me, for the welcome I received and for the love I have known here.
Peace be with you. Amen.
Matthew Woodward