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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Maybe we have misnamed Thomas all these years, and maybe we owe him a bit of an apology. Doubt isn't your enemy. Sometimes it's actually the genesis of your most courageous moments. A year ago, we celebrated a decade of God's grace and guidance. This year, we're staring down another adventure.
Jeremy Duncan:But in order to do that well, we wanted to begin this new season by once again rooting ourselves in some of the core ideas that have shaped our story together. All those key commitments that ground commons in the story of Jesus. And so we are gonna take the first six weeks this fall to have a conversation we're calling grounded. And we're gonna rehearse together some of our foundational commitments. Now that said, there is a lot planned for this year, so please do flip through your journal this week to see it all.
Jeremy Duncan:And also remember that our 7PM service will be returning next Sunday. You'll have four service times to choose from starting September 14. But we are gonna dive into this new year. We're excited. Marta Loop is on the move.
Jeremy Duncan:Our new series is called grounded. And today, we're gonna talk about doubt and faith and Thomas. First though, let's pray. Gracious God, at the start of this new season, we remember your grace and your faithfulness extended toward us. For more than a decade now, you have carried us.
Jeremy Duncan:Even as you continue to invite us forward into new adventures of trust, We confess that sometimes we are bold and we are fearless, and other times hesitant or uncertain, full of questions perhaps like Saint Thomas. But we trust that you meet us in both our courage and our doubt and that this is where the journey of faith is grounded. Open our eyes once again, even today, to see your spirit moving among us. Strengthen our hearts to follow the way that is Jesus, and give us grace to risk ourselves for love for you and also for our neighbors this week. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.
Jeremy Duncan:Amen. K. Today, it's Thomas and his doubts, and we're gonna cover names and twins and doubts and proves. But first, let's talk about poor doubting Thomas for a second here. There's a lot of nicknames in the Bible.
Jeremy Duncan:Good old JC takes credit for a lot of them. He names this guy Peter the rock. He takes a pair of brothers and christens them the sons of thunder. We even think that the name Mary Magdalene may have been a reference not to her hometown, but to a famous tower that was built nearby, making her Mary the tower. There's Abram who becomes Abraham, Sarai who becomes Sarah.
Jeremy Duncan:Even Paul who goes on to write a good chunk of the New Testament switches partway through the story from using his Hebrew name Saul to his Roman name Paul. So in that sense, it's not surprising to see our boy Thomas end up with a bit of a nickname himself even if it's more pop culture than biblical exegesis. But come on. Doubting Thomas, who wants to go down in history like that? This guy was one of the apostles, one of the 12.
Jeremy Duncan:Imagine going to dinner parties. All the other apostles, people are making introductions. Oh, him, that's the rock. Over there, we call them the sons of thunder. Yeah, Mary?
Jeremy Duncan:Jesus called her the tower. And you, what do they call you? Some of the kids used to call me t bone. Why don't we go with that? I just think Thomas gets the short end of the stick here when it comes to names, especially for a guy who Jesus thought was worthy of one of 12 starting slots and honestly has been pretty important for any of us who've struggled to hold on to our faith.
Jeremy Duncan:That's it. Doubt is an interesting phenomenon. I have two kids. And to be fair, they're both adopted, but they are also wildly different human beings. My daughter is now five years old.
Jeremy Duncan:And as far as I can tell, she has never had a doubt in her life about anything. She lives with 100% conviction even if that is just about whether she should have another fruit pouch before bed. Like, she's got some convictions about that. And she is absolutely fearless to a fault. For example, I have learned that I have to pay very close attention to my surroundings even in my own house because if I come around the corner near the stairs and she is up and I am down, then she will come leaping into my arms with no warning, wholly trusting that her dad's reflexes and back, by the way, can handle the weight of her confidence.
Jeremy Duncan:And though I pray that her courage will one day be matched by maybe a little more discernment, I well, honestly, I love this about her. And in fact, I love this for her. The truth is, I have always had far more self confidence than was ever warranted. I grew up this scrawny, long haired, mediocre kid in some small town Ontario that for some reason truly believed he was up to something special all the time. I remember I ran for student council president of my high school in grade 10, and I lost, obviously.
Jeremy Duncan:So what did I do with that information? Well, I ran again the next year, and I won. And looking back over most of my life, I've become convinced that most of the things I have succeeded at are precisely the result of the fact that I failed at them pretty badly the first time. Now, is that the antithesis of doubt? No.
Jeremy Duncan:Not exactly. But it's also why I want to argue that maybe we have misnamed Thomas all these years, and maybe we owe him a bit of an apology. Doubt isn't your enemy. Sometimes it's actually the genesis of your most courageous moments. So let's take a look at this story.
Jeremy Duncan:And to be honest, there's really not a whole lot of material for Thomas. His big moment in John 20, where he demands to see the risen Christ and touch his nail scarred hands. That's pretty poignant. But he really doesn't get the word count that a Peter or a Paul or a Mary Magdalene take up in the gospels. There are, however, three important moments where we get some insight into who Thomas was and perhaps insight into what Jesus saw in him.
Jeremy Duncan:So we're gonna look at John 11 and John 14 today, and, of course, we'll move to John 20. But right from the start, in John 11, where we are first introduced to Thomas, this is a big moment. We're gonna see something here, though, that is a little different than we might expect if all we've ever heard about is Thomas and his doubt. John 11, a man named Lazarus is sick. He's the brother of Mary and Martha.
Jeremy Duncan:And at this point, we've already read a story about where Mary brings perfume, expensive perfume. She pours it over Jesus' feet, And we know her. We know the relationship there. But here in chapter 11, we get hints that there is actually a long and deep friendship that's developed, not just between Jesus and Mary, but between Jesus and her entire family. In verse three, we read that the sisters, they send a message to Jesus, and they say, Jesus, the one that you love is sick.
Jeremy Duncan:Our brother is dying. Now we never really get to see it, but clearly, Jesus and Lazarus have met. They've developed this friendship outside the pages of the gospel. That alone is really neat. But the problem is that Mary and Martha and Lazarus, they live near Bethany, and the last time that Jesus was up in Bethany, things did not go well, like at all.
Jeremy Duncan:In fact, his friends point out to him, Jesus, the last time you went up there, the town tried to kill you. And so they try to dissuade him from going back. They say, look, He probably just needs some rest. Let him sleep it off. You can go visit when the heat dies down.
Jeremy Duncan:But in verse 14, Jesus tells them plainly, guys, Lazarus is dead. And then he adds, and actually for your sake, I'm kinda glad. This can be a teaching moment so that you may believe as well. Let's go to him. But then we read this, that Thomas, also known as Didymus, said to the rest of them, yes.
Jeremy Duncan:Let's go with him. That way, if necessary, we might die with him. Couple things here. Start with this. Thomas, also known as Didymus.
Jeremy Duncan:That's an interesting one Because both of these names are references to a Aramaic word, tomah. In Aramaic, tomah meant twin. So Thomas is a transliteration. It's an attempt to say the Aramaic word tomah with a Greek inflection, tomas. Didymus is the actual Greek word that means twin.
Jeremy Duncan:So the name Thomas, also known as Didymus, is literally just twin aka twin. And that brings up a surprising number of questions because the New Testament writers really want us to know that Thomas is called the twin. They're putting it out there in multiple languages, and yet there's not even a hint anywhere in the gospels of who this twin was. Now it's very possible that Thomas just had a twin, and that twin wasn't a contributing character to the story. Maybe he moved to another town when he turned 18, had his own life.
Jeremy Duncan:Who knows? We just don't know anything about him. That's not very fun though, is it? And so perhaps that's why very early on, Christians started speculating about this very conspicuous attention to this duplicated, pun intended, name. For example, the Acts of Thomas, a third century Syriac text says that Thomas was actually the twin brother of Jesus.
Jeremy Duncan:Now it doesn't mean that in a biological sense. The text implies that this is intended in a spiritual sense. They even suggest that Jesus travels to India after Jesus' resurrection as his representative, a spiritual brother in a sense, to introduce them to Jesus. Even today, the church of Saint Thomas in India draws its story all the way back to the third century. There's also an even earlier second century text.
Jeremy Duncan:It's called the gospel of Thomas, and it speaks of this unique closeness between Thomas and Jesus. So maybe this twin identity has something to it. He is the twin of Christ in a sense. Just as interesting though is another angle that other church fathers took. In the third century, a very famous church father named Origen argued that twin the twin was a retro nymph and that the gospel writers gave this disciple that name to represent all of us.
Jeremy Duncan:The idea that faith and doubt are not really opposites. They're two sides of the same coin, twins perhaps we could say. And even the fact that we have twin here in two different languages kinda reinforces this reading. Faith and doubt are two ways to say the same thing. Hold on to that.
Jeremy Duncan:We'll come back. But for now, just know it's a very common reading. Saint Ephraim, the Syrian, in the fourth century develops this idea. The Thomas struggle is the journey of every believer. Augustine picks up that idea, and even modern scholarship, Raymond Brown, gives Thomas the title, the twin of every believer.
Jeremy Duncan:And this passage here in John 11 is where all of that is grounded. See, often, we think of doubt when Thomas comes up, but that's not the theme here in his introduction, is it? Jesus wants to see his friend. The disciples are scared to go with him. Thomas is the one who says, better to be close to Jesus than to hold on to even our own lives.
Jeremy Duncan:That's not a guy I would label a doubter. So where do things go off the rails? Well, there's one more stop along the way to John 20. Because next, Thomas shows up in John 14. And look, Thomas doesn't get a lot of airtime in the gospels, but I'll tell you what, this guy knows how to make his moments a stick.
Jeremy Duncan:He is there when Jesus raises someone from the dead in chapter 11. We're gonna see him interact with the risen lord in chapter 20. And right here in the middle, well, here's Thomas popping off at the last supper. I mean, this guy knows quality over quantity. So at the end of chapter 13, Jesus has been talking about his impending death.
Jeremy Duncan:Peter, as he wants to do, jumps in, says, forget that. I'll defend you to the end. Jesus says, unlikely. But then he goes on to say, don't be troubled by this. You know that you trust God.
Jeremy Duncan:Now I need you to trust me. I have to go away, but it's not for nothing. I promise I will be back for you. And then he says this honestly kind of cryptic line. You know the way to the place that I'm going.
Jeremy Duncan:Now for my money, I think what Jesus is saying here is that, look, you've been with me all this time. You know my way in the world. The way to where I'm going is just for me to continue to be who I've always been. The way to where I'm going is simply to continue the self giving love that sacrifices itself for those around you, that's how you follow me. That's how we all get to the fullness of life that we were intended for.
Jeremy Duncan:But here, it's Thomas that jumps in with the rejoinder. Lord, we don't know what you're talking about. We don't know where you're going. How can we possibly know the way there? And Jesus answered, I am the way, and I'm the truth, and I'm the life.
Jeremy Duncan:In fact, no one comes to the father except through me. Now just pause here because honestly, you gotta tell me. Thomas gets three moments in the gospels. He's there when Jesus resurrects his best friend. He's the reason Jesus drops an absolute banger of a line about way and truth and life.
Jeremy Duncan:He's there to touch the scars on Jesus' hands post resurrection. Guys, Thomas is a legend. But let's look at this moment for a second. Because one of the things I've noticed here is that when Thomas is discussed, chapter 11 gets kind of ignored. It doesn't really fit the doubting narrative.
Jeremy Duncan:Chapter 14, on the other hand, sometimes does get brought up. It's the, oh, we should have known he would be the one to doubt moment because look here. The guy just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand. And I have some thoughts about that.
Jeremy Duncan:But first, let's talk quickly about Jesus' big line here. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the father except through me.
Jeremy Duncan:Now we tackled this line a couple years ago. It was in a series called the book of glory about the latter half of the gospel of John. If you wanna hear this passage in more detail, you can find that on our YouTube channel. Here's the long and short of it. I think this line is intended to be far more expansive, more important than we often give Jesus credit for.
Jeremy Duncan:This isn't a threat. As if Jesus is saying, I'm the only way to get to God. If you don't come through me, you're on your way to the bad place. And it doesn't even really make sense in Christian thought. Jesus is God.
Jeremy Duncan:That's what we believe. Not a means to get to God, not a means to an end. And so the key here is to understand that each of these words are actually divine titles that have been taken from the Hebrew scriptures and applied to Jesus by Jesus. The intention then is not that Jesus is the way to get to God. Instead, Jesus is the way of God, embodied for us perfectly in the human story to imitate.
Jeremy Duncan:Jesus is the way of God walked out in front of us. Jesus is the life of God lived with us. Jesus is the truth of God now made tangible for us. That's what the incarnation is about. And what that means is that no one has ever, no one will ever, knowing ever could possibly find their way back to God without finding themselves walking the path that Jesus shows us.
Jeremy Duncan:That's why for me, the idea that Jesus is simply claiming you have to go to church or you have to even call yourself a Christian to get to heaven, it tragically minimizes the scope of what Jesus is actually claiming about himself here. Jesus says, I am divine life on display for you to follow. And what's beautiful about that is that that is very much a continuation of how this whole section starts. Right? Jesus is telling his disciples, you know the way because you know me.
Jeremy Duncan:You've watched me. You've walked with me. You've ate with me. You've seen how I move the world. And even when you struggle to follow it, you know what grace and peace really looks like now.
Jeremy Duncan:For the record, I absolutely love this part of John. It's one of my favorite moments anywhere in Jesus' teaching. It's a passage I work to remind myself of regularly, that my faith in Jesus requires me to trust his way, his path in the world. Faith is one foot in front of another every day. I owe that lesson to Thomas.
Jeremy Duncan:I'll always be grateful to him. Still, what I wanna pay attention to here is actually Thomas' interjection that leads to Jesus' proclamation. Because I noticed something very interesting. A few chapters ago, when Thomas is with Jesus, standing beside him, he's ready to go. I mean, tea is ride or die in chapter 11.
Jeremy Duncan:Where Thomas starts to stumble, is it the mere suggestion that Jesus might not be there beside him in the future? And that at least has me asking the question, what exactly is Thomas beginning to doubt here? Is it Jesus, or is it stick with me here. Is it something about himself? Another way to ask this question is, is Thomas doubting the way of Jesus, or is Thomas doubting his ability to follow that way?
Jeremy Duncan:Without Jesus there, holding his hand by his side in the way that he's always known. Because I'll be honest here. I think that's where the doubt begins to creep in for him. He's bought into Jesus. He's not yet convinced about why Jesus has bought into him.
Jeremy Duncan:And look. I'm I'm not talking about you earning your salvation here. I'm not talking about just believing yourself and everything will be okay. I'm not talking about doing anything apart from the grace of God that surrounds and sustains us all. What what I'm talking about here is the fact that faith is not just about giving mental assent to ideas about Jesus.
Jeremy Duncan:Faith is learning to trust in a relationship that tangibly changes something about us. And that is always fundamentally going to be about taking a risk. This is why I think the church fathers are really onto something with Thomas the twin. This idea that faith and doubt are intertwined in ways we sometimes fail to grasp. Because sure, if your concept of faith is just about believing the right things, thinking the right thoughts, then sure.
Jeremy Duncan:I get it. Okay. Doubt is anathema. But if, on the other hand, faith is actually about learning to trust yourself to someone, taking a chance because you trust them more than you trust even yourself, well, then all of a sudden, I would argue faith and doubt are just two ways to say the same thing. Do you trust what's possible enough to doubt what is?
Jeremy Duncan:Do you trust what you can see now enough to doubt what could be tomorrow? And that relationship is just constantly always in flux. It's the push and pull of what is versus what could be. So I think if I ever reached a place where I ever woke up, I and I had zero doubts left, and at least have to ask myself this question, What's left that you're trusting yourself to, Jeremy? Doubt doesn't mean you don't believe.
Jeremy Duncan:Doubt means you believe in something that hasn't taken shape yet. That's why every time you try something new, every time you challenge yourself, every time you aspire to be better or stronger, more kind, or more generous, every time you resolve to fix your mistakes and change your habits, every single time you tell yourself tomorrow can be different than today, and then you act to make that true, you experience a bit of doubt not because you don't believe, but because you believe enough to trust yourself to something that isn't yet. It's a possibility. Well, faith is really just that scaled up to God's imagination for you. Another way to say it is that faith is believing Jesus when he says, you know the way.
Jeremy Duncan:I've done the hard work. I've made divine love tangible in history for you to see. I've shown you the path to follow. You just need to trust me when I tell you, you can walk it. And that right there is such a big part of what I think faith is important.
Jeremy Duncan:Not not just for your soul, but for your life as well. Because learning to believe in what could be tomorrow, learning to trust and then take risks based on your convictions about what could be, that's more than just church. That's the stuff of life. It's what will get you up in the morning. It's what will give purpose to your day.
Jeremy Duncan:Faith is where we practice the kind of commitments that make every other part of our lives worth living. In fact, I'm convinced that faithful people should be more comfortable with doubt, more practiced at taking risks than almost anyone else on the planet. Because faith is where we get used to trusting ourselves to what we hope for. And that makes every tomorrow an adventure with at least some possibility for you to uncover. However, it's also why I think the end of Thomas' story is so important.
Jeremy Duncan:Because after Jesus dies and is risen and Mary Magdalene shows up in the face of all that is reasonable and says, Jesus is alive. And then the other disciples get to see him and talk to him, and then Thomas stands up and says, well, I want that too. I wanna see Jesus. I wanna touch resurrection if I'm going to trust my life to it. I think our instinct to see him as the antagonist is actually misguided.
Jeremy Duncan:Because I think what Jesus does here, which is not to scold him, but to meet him in that moment, to acquiesce to his demands, is to acknowledge that faith and doubt are twins and that none of us ever get one without the other. Now does that mean we're all gonna get to see Jesus? We're all gonna get to touch his hands? Sadly, no. And the story makes that abundantly clear to us.
Jeremy Duncan:But I would argue the story is structured. These names are given intentionally so that we can see Thomas as our twin. He's the stand in for your doubts. He's the stand in for my questions. Thomas is the twin for all the ways that all of us really do need to see what we trust made real and concrete in the world.
Jeremy Duncan:And I know I won't get to touch his hands. I've made my peace with that. But if I'm gonna say with a straight face, I believe in Jesus, then I'll tell you what, just like Thomas, I'm gonna need to see some proof of life. And for me, what I've realized is that what I need is I need to see that tangibly Jesus' way in the world can change something about me. It can make me more kind, more generous.
Jeremy Duncan:It can expand the scope of my story in surprising ways I didn't expect to include my neighbors. It can shape me, train me to believe in what's possible tomorrow. It can repair my relationships when I have damaged them. It can soften my pride and strengthen my resolve. Jesus can make me a better man than I was yesterday.
Jeremy Duncan:And Thomas is the one who tells me, it's okay to say, Jesus, I need to see that. Because if not, I'm not sure I can believe. But the thing is, if I can get even a glimpse of that kind of transformation, even slow steps in the right direction, then maybe I can begin to trust in what could be possible with just a few more. More than what is right now because that makes all the difference for my tomorrow. That's why I've actually come to hope that I never wake up without a doubt because I never wanna stop asking for proof in my life.
Jeremy Duncan:And I never wanna stop pursuing the kind of life that Jesus invites me toward and promises me that I can find. That kind of change is worth following. Let's pray. God, for those times that we have reduced our faith down just to what we think and we have forgotten the steps, the way, the path that you lay out before us, The divine life for us to follow one step after another. It's never a straight line, but that there is movement and transformation.
Jeremy Duncan:There's proof of how your way can shape us and change us. Conform us to the likeness of Christ. God, might we recognize that in the ways that we become better fathers and mothers, better friends, better neighbors, that this is resurrection, alive and tangible for us to touch. And that it's good for us to reach out, to place our hand there and say, this is what I need to see. Might that lead to more resolve to take another step, which proves our faith in new ways, gives us new doubts about new things we can overcome, and new trust to lean on you to change them.
Jeremy Duncan:May that path walked over and over and over again lead us all the way back home to you. And in that, might we learn to have faith just like Thomas. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Hey, Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast.
Jeremy Duncan:If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website, commons.church, for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus.
Jeremy Duncan:We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.