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Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, July 3rd 2016
The Very Revd Prof. Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford
(& on the 25th Anniversary of his Ordination to the Priesthood)
On July 2nd avid watchers of the skies celebrate World UFO day – the
anniversary of the supposed crash of a flying saucer near Roswell in 1947.
Helpfully, the National UFA Reporting Centre, a non-profit, has catalogued
almost 90,000 reported sightings of UFOs, mostly in America, since 1974. It
turns out that aliens are considerate beings. They seldom disturb
earthlings during working or sleeping hours. Rather, they tend to arrive in
the evening, especially on Fridays, when folks are sitting on the front porch
nursing their third beer, the better to appreciate flashing lights in the
heavens. The state aliens like best is Washington. Other popular
destinations are also near the Canadian border, where the Northern lights
are sometimes visible. UFOs tend to shun big cities, where there are lots of
other lights, and daylight hours, when people might think they were just
aeroplanes (Economist, 11/07/14).
So what do we learn about Aliens? First, they are shy and retiring creatures,
preferring night-time and remote rural spots to bright lights and big cities.
Second, they share some characteristics with some humans, showing
marked trends towards being slightly agoraphobic and claustrophobic: they
avoid crowds and busy areas. Third, they are basically nocturnal.
And so to the question: can we trust what we see with our eyes? And if so,
how might we redeem St. Thomas? He is often dubbed the Patron Saint of
Doubt. Indeed, the phrase ‘doubting Thomas’ has entered into our lexicon
of cherished national epithets. Who would want to be Thomas – the man
who could not trust his own eyes?
But I beg to differ. Thomas is not guilty of guilty of doubt – only hesitancy.
And there is a world of difference between the two. Thomas’ question
does not flow from unbelief, even though it is quite normal to link Thomas
with similar synonyms: halting, indecisive, unsure, and so forth. But
Thomas’ hesitancy is bold: – indeed ‘bold hesitancy’ is a kind of a paradox
here. Indeed, some of our best descriptions of Anglicanism are like this:
‘passionate coolness’, ‘faithful doubt’, and so forth.
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It is sometimes said that Thomas really deserves to be the Patron Saint of
Anglicanism. If you are looking for a religion that is cool, rational and
considered, Anglicanism is for you. As a faith, it tends to look both ways
before it leaps. In fact, come to that, it will spend several years debating
and deferring before it takes a single, tentative step.
But we are surely not being fair to Anglicanism here? And we are certainly
not being fair to Thomas. So what does he have to say to us today, on this
his feast day, and about us and our faith? In John Hull’s profound book, In
the Beginning There was Darkness (SCM Press, 2001), he meditates upon
the interplays between sight and blindness and light and darkness that
abound throughout scripture. He writes as a blind person, and the burden
of the book is to challenge what he calls ‘the sighted monopoly of
interpretation’ that so often governs our readings of the scriptures. He
works through some familiar passages about blindness – such as Samson
and Saul – and brings fresh wisdom to the exposition of these texts.
But it is in his meditations as a blind person, feeling, imagining and thinking
his way through scripture, as it were, that start to make the reader think
that they may be missing something because they actually ‘see’ too much.
Our eyes can play tricks on us. But the person who knows that God is both
beyond the darkness and the light has already begun to perceive something
deeper and richer than most sighted persons can ever begin to understand.
Thus, and in the presence of God we are actually all blind, for his light is too
dazzling; and his darkness is too deep. To not ‘see’, therefore, is not
necessarily to become disabled, for there can be substantial gains in such
perception. The Gospel of John concurs with this kind of thinking; the ‘life’
of Jesus is full of such subtle interplay, and it is no less so when we come to
the passage on Thomas: ‘blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe’.
But John is not talking about those who (literally) have not seen Jesus; he
means something else. When it comes to loving God, we must remember
that we are all blind, because as Paul says (1 Tim. 6.16) God ‘dwells in
unapproachable light, whom no-one has ever seen, or can see’.
Unapproachable light might as well be darkness. And as Hull says, ‘there is
darkness visible and there is brightness invisible. In these images…people
are overcome, transcended’.
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What then, does Thomas’ testimony now have to say to us about our faith,
and perhaps about our own discipleship and ministries? I suspect that John
is trying to say something to us about seeing and touching, and about our
role in holding people in the liminal, dark and uncertain places of life. In
the Gospel of Mark, we read that Jesus ‘leads a blind man by the hand’.
This is a gentle, tender image – as most of us would take a blind person by
the arm, and walk side by side. But ‘leading by the hand’ has an edgy, risky
feel. Jesus does this: for even in his hand, we are safe to move forward.
Even though we cannot see, his hand is enough for us – for all of us.
A closer look at the gospels on Thomas suggest that we should perhaps be
less inclined to remember him as a person of doubt, and instead focus on
the depth of his profound faith. Thomas is, according to John, one of
several who have not yet seen the resurrected Jesus. Yet for Thomas, sight
is not enough. Perhaps he already knows that our sight can be faulty, and
our eyes can sometimes deceive us. So what Thomas wants is a deeper
encounter; something tactile that shows that there is a relationship
between the tortured and crucified person he loves, and the person who
now stands before him. In this sense, hands start to play a significant role
in the encounter. Thomas must see the hands of Jesus for the mark of the
nails. And he must touch the wound in Christ’s side with his own hands.
Touch then, not sight, becomes the dominant theme of this encounter.
And it reminds us that touch can carry so much more weight than words or
sight. That what is seen and heard is sometimes not enough – for we ache
for embrace: to be held, and to hold. Interestingly, so much of our ministry
is about holding and touching. Even for clergy, and perhaps especially in
the first few years of priesthood, one becomes aware of just how crucial
touching and holding can be. Cradling a child at baptism; joining hands at a
wedding; holding the dying and comforting the bereaved; the breaking of
the bread; the anointing with oil: these are all ‘touching places’ where
words are not enough.
So what does God ask of you and me – any already in or preparing for
ministry, whether lay or ordained? That I use my eyes to see the world as
God might see it; and touch it as God might; with love, care and cherishing.
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Perhaps the most important thing about being formed for ordained
ministry is, after all, not to be vested in the notion of profession, privilege,
leadership roles, gifts or competencies; but rather, of occupation. As I
reflect on twenty-five years of ordination as a priest, it seems to me that
we have to start with the amazing risk of love and vulnerability that God
takes in Christ. He comes to dwell amongst us. God occupies our world.
And what does God ask? Only that we become occupied with this God who
loved us first and fully, before we could ever love God back. And then to be
pre-occupied with what we think occupies God’s mind and heart: all the
people, places and parishes that are given by God into our care. To dwell
amongst, care for and love those people and places as Christ would himself.
Can I be occupied with God? So occupied, in fact, that I begin to glimpse
what God might be occupied with? This is an uncommon occupation, to be
sure. But one that comes only from the sense of vocation; that profound
and humbling wisdom that calls us to recognise that God loved this world
enough to both live for and die in it. He came to live with us for a while, so
we might live with him for eternity. That is the good news in which we all
share. And so may our lives and ministries proclaim nothing less.
I can’t put it much better than this poem - written forty years ago, and
addressed to anyone contemplating a vocation, and I end with it today
(whilst apologising for the masculine pronouns):
Give us a man of God
Father, to pray for us,
Longed for, and insignificant,
But excellent in mercy,
And ordain him
Someone who loves the mystery of the faith
Whose conversation seems
Credibly to come from heaven
A poor man, a hungry man
Whose hospitality is endless.
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Give us a preaching man,
Father, who doesn’t know how to fake,
A free man, on holiday
In this parish, a still man
Good as an ikon
With a heart full of treasure;
Someone to talk to
When death comes here,
A fellow countryman of birth and death
And the dynasty of our family,
Whose eye has missed nothing.
Give us a man without sanctimony
Father, to handle what is eternal,
A private citizen among miracles
Not his, modest
Capable of silence
Someone who reminds us now and then
Of your own description
And another kingdom
By the righteousness of his judgement
Or some grace in what’s done
In laying down his life even
For his friends.
Reginald Askew, (From an Advisory Council for Church Ministry Prayer Card,
Petertide, 1975).