A sermon for the Feast of St. Thomas, preached at St. Mary Magdalene, Richmond, on the occasion of my best friend’s first mass.
Old Testament: II Samuel 15.17–21
Gospel: John 11.1–16

Transcript

May I speak in the name of the Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thank you for welcoming me back to Richmond. It’s always such a pleasure to be here: you’re always so kind to me; and it’s such a privilege to join you all this evening as we celebrate The Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, as we celebrate the presence of a new priest in our church, and most of all as we celebrate this eucharist.

For those of you who don’t know me or don’t remember me, I’m Bethany. You can call me Bea for short though. I trained with Charlie at Ridley for the priesthood together, and ever since we’ve been best friends. As such, I was there when she was deciding what the readings would be for this evening, which set of the lectionary we would go with. I was very pleased when Charlie picked the second service of Thomas the Apostle, not least because the gospel reading features my name, but because it’s a story that I know very well and one that’s important to me. Indeed, this is the story that my mother named me after, so I’m really pleased to get to share with you some of the content of this wonderful story.

If you were at the service this morning and you heard that gospel reading, or if you were paying attention during the collect a moment ago, or if you have some memories from Sunday school or from some other church services, you might know of Thomas as ‘Doubting Thomas’. This is a nickname he, perhaps rather unfairly, has gotten that rather hyper-focuses on a single episode of his life, recorded just over a couple of sentences. He was also known as didymus, as Thomas the twin. But this evening’s reading shows us a different side of St. Thomas, a side of Thomas that resonated well with Charlie, and as such we read it tonight. The story, as I like to call it, of Thomas the Emo.

Now I know there are a couple of other Panic! At The Disco fans in this evening, but for those of you who are unaware, an emo (or an emotional rocker) is a sort of subculture that was very popular when Charlie and I were teenagers. One which involved listening to certain melancholic music, dressing in skinny jeans, wearing lots of eyeliner, straightening one’s hair, and having a particular aesthetic, musical, and philosophical interest in darkness, in pain, and even in death. This is a side that we see this evening in St. Thomas, in those words that close our gospel reading, those words that echo down the ages: from Ruth, when she spoke to Naomi; from Ittai the Gittite when he spoke to David; from Thomas when he spoke to his co-disciples about Jesus; and even to us as we gather to celebrate the eucharist. Those words: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Now, whether you entered this evening past the cenotaph, or through the graveyard, or when you arrived if you happened to glance at the walls or look at the central pane of the stained glass window, or even listen to the collect, you’ve probably thought about death already this evening. Death is something central to the Christian faith, an obsession on a par with that of us teenage emos. This is because we are called to follow the way of Christ, the way which leads to the cross. This evening, in our eucharist, we are invited to participate in a mysterious way, a way which none of us can ever fully understand, but in a nonetheless very real way, in the paschal mystery of Christ. We are invited to go, that we may die with him; the Christian call is one to co-crucifixion.

These words of Thomas, and even these words of Christ that sound quite Emo, don’t they? He seems rather callous when he hears about his friend’s illness and his friend’s death. His friend’s illness is met with his remaining away from him. His friend’s death causes him to be glad for his disciples. This rather confusing mentality can only make sense in the light of this paschal mystery. Of one where death, the death of Christ, is the most powerful, atoning, redeeming act that this world has ever seen.

Now this is not to say that we ignore or shirk death; that we pretend it isn’t as bad as it is. The old adage, “believers don’t cry” is simply not true. As so many of us know only too well, death and mourning are painful. As Christ weeps at the tomb of his friend, so he sanctifies our tears and our pain in the face of death. So, if the paschal mystery is not the denial of death, what is it? It is the declaration that death does not have the last word.

As a former emo, I can relate all too easily to all this talk of death and pain and suffering. It comes very naturally to me, from all the lyrics that I’ve memorized over the years. Like Thomas the Emo, this has fostered in me an attitude of cynicism, an attitude of doubt, of refusing to believe unless confronted with solid evidence. The walk that Jesus invites us on though, is one from that place of being an emo, from that place of doubt, into a place of hope and joy.

Let me emphasize, we don’t skirt around death. Those tears at Lazarus’ tomb were real. But we are invited through it, through our co-crucifixion, into that co-resurrection. We, the broken, as we partake of Jesus’ broken body, are invited to become one whole body, one filled with life. As we do so, we gather alongside all those who have gone before us, all those who call Jesus Lord. That great cloud of witnesses is here celebrating with us this evening.

You see, rather than embrace doubt and cynicism, the story of Thomas encourages us to be ready to recognize the resurrection when we see it. So, our call is twofold, and so this meal is twofold. We must be ready to follow the way of the cross. We must be ready to walk in pain and suffering in this dark and broken world of ours. But we must be ready to recognise those signs of the resurrection, those real wounds that Thomas touched, those real broken places in our world. I believe that that is where we are to start to look, where we are to start to see the miraculous work of the kingdom breaking through.

So, I leave you with this exhortation. As we move into the liturgy of the sacrament, I say to you, “Let us also go, that we may die with him. And let us also go, that we may be resurrected with him.”