I’m working on being a better churchgoer these days. I’m not great at it, but I try. I go for lots of reasons: to connect with a community of well-intentioned people, to practice gratitude, to be more present, and probably a little bit to show my kids what I care about. I’m not sure if I really go because of my faith—I feel pretty secure in my faith. But more than anything else, I think it’s important for me to say “thanks,” so I go from time to time. I could stand to do it more.
I like the church I go to. For the purposes of this little blurb, it’s not important to tell you which denomination it is, only that the priests tend to connect religion with real world scenarios in a very human way that is easy to take in. I know of some other churches in the same denomination that can feel like a real fire and brimstone mass, making you regret the day you were born, but this one is not like that. It’s a gentle encouragement towards continual improvement, and since continual improvement is kinda my thing, I dig it.
The other thing I like about this church is I usually learn something, or gain a perspective I hadn’t considered before. Today the priest spoke of Thomas, who when Jesus rose from the dead, said, “Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” You may recognize this instance as what led to the nickname, “Doubting Thomas,” as a reflection of someone lacking faith.
But today’s sermon suggested a slightly different view. The priest pointed out that Thomas wasn’t there when the others discovered Jesus, and perhaps this was because Thomas was in such grief, he needed to be on his own. That when we grieve, everyone acts differently, and while some need company, others need to be by themselves. Perhaps Thomas, the priest said, couldn’t bear to be with anyone and so when the other disciples approached him, he wasn’t prepared to accept their word.
Perhaps then, Thomas was just being rather human. Maybe his person—his story—is meant to show us ourselves.
And yet, the priest continued, how quickly we put our faith in other things we can’t know for sure. Our ability to get on a plane, for example, entrusting our lives to a stranger and a hunk of metal that we don’t know if it passed all of its inspections. We just go on faith that everything will be alright. If we can do that, then why is it so hard to put our faith in Jesus? To trust that he will catch us when things fall apart?
Continuing on, the priest told us when he was a grad student at BC, his teacher told him if you want to understand faith, you should go to the circus and watch the trapeze artists. He said watch the moment when one trapeze artist lets go of the bar and reaches out to be caught by their partner. In that moment, when the hands leave the bar, you will see one of the best representations of someone expressing faith.
It’s a simple image but a clear one. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand it. But the point is, the trapeze artist doesn’t have any complete assurances he will be caught, yet he goes anyway. He has faith. Just like when we believe our plane flight will take us safely to where we want to go or when we drive down the highway, the other cars won’t hit us. We don’t know where all of this is going, but we have faith we’ll get to where we’re supposed to go. We put our faith in so many people and situations, every day, with no guarantee it will work out, it’s remarkable.
So why then do we fight the possibility of Jesus or a life beyond? What is it that we’re holding onto? Given our faith in humanity, isn’t it a logical notion to have faith that when this ride is over, we’ll land safely somewhere else?
And what if there is no afterlife? What if all of this is hogwash and there is nothing? Well, quite simply, that’s not something I want to believe in. You may call it delusion, but I’ve been through enough now and have seen enough. And there was a time there with my health when things were looking pretty bleak and this Doubting Thomas only had one place left to go. It was a long painful night where I found myself on the ground, not to pray, but because of the pain. But since I was already down there, I figured I’d give it a shot, and as crazy as it sounds, when I decided to let go of the trapeze bar that I was hanging onto, who do you think showed up?