Thomas, Francis, and Touching Wounds

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews,

Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

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All across the country—and the world, for that matter—congregations are hearing sermons on Pope Francis, as they should. In fact, I am certain Lutherans will have not preached this much about a pope since the days of the Reformation! I am also certain today’s sermons speak much kinder of the Pope than Luther, who called the pope of his day a sewer of wickedness and the antichrist. Today, there will be none of that.

Pastors of all denominations are lifting up Pope Francis’ advocacy on migration, environmentalism, and reform in the Catholic Church. Many will praise him for his efforts to empower women and his more open posture toward the LGBTQ faithful. Others will highlight the simple lifestyle Francis chose, long before he became pope.

In Argentina, when he was known by his birth name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he eschewed the opulence of the bishop’s palace, choosing instead to live in a modest apartment. He cooked his own meals, regularly visited the slums of Buenos Aires, and took public transportation. People regularly saw the archbishop on the bus. It wasn’t just about frugality—it was about solidarity. He wanted to live close to the people he served. He was a shepherd who smelled like his sheep.

This commitment continued when he became pope. In 2013, Francis declined the luxurious papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, choosing instead a two-room suite in a guesthouse for clergy visiting the Vatican. Breaking a century-old tradition, Francis said, “I am not used to opulence. is good for me and prevents me from being isolated.”

Even yesterday, at his funeral, Francis was placed in a simple wooden box, not the traditional triple casket. His final resting place at St. Mary Major has no grand tomb, no ornate inscription—just a plain headstone with the name "Francis." A quiet, fitting end to a life marked by humility, service, and downward mobility.

How fitting it is, then, that Francis' death coincides with the story of Thomas, because both Francis and Thomas were deeply familiar with the wounds of Jesus. Usually when we hear this story from John, we focus on Thomas’ doubt. We jump to his defense—saying we all want proof, all want what others have received. But today, what stands out to me is Thomas’ courage and Jesus’ graciousness. How gracious it is for Jesus to offer his wounds to Thomas, to provide exactly what his faith needs. It’s as if Jesus says, “If it’s my wounds Thomas needs to believe, then it’s my wounds I will give.”

It is a remarkable grace—to show someone your wounds, to put on display the very thing that inflicted pain, to reveal the reminders of rejection. Yet Jesus doesn't stop there. He invites Thomas to touch them. That is grace upon grace.

And it works.

Thomas doesn’t simply see the wounds and say yes, Jesus has risen. Thomas goes further in both deed and word than all the other disciples. I imagine his fingers trembling as he touched the still-scabbing nail marks. His hand must have shook as he reached into the spear-sized hole in Jesus' side. And then, only after entering the wounds, Thomas says the deepest confession of faith yet uttered in the Gospel.: "My Lord and my God!"

Not just master, not just teacher— my God.

Jesus is revealed not through strength but through weakness. Not in greatness but in meekness. It's not a miracle of abundance, not a sign of divine power, but wounds that lead to worship. Seeing the wounds, the disciples recognize Jesus. Touching the wounds, Thomas' faith is born anew.

Francis understood this. He knew that if he wanted to encounter the risen Christ, he needed to find and touch Christ’s wounds just as Thomas did. In one homily, Francis said:

"How can I find the wounds of Jesus today? I cannot see them as Thomas saw them. But I can find them in doing works of mercy and in giving to the bodies of our injured siblings in Christ,

for they are hungry, thirsty, naked, humiliated, in prison, in hospitals. These are the wounds of Jesus in our day."

This wasn’t something Pope Francis merely preached about. He embodied this, too.

Early in his papacy, he traveled to Lampedusa to mourn migrants lost at sea and decry the "globalization of indifference." In war-torn Bangui, he entered a besieged Muslim neighborhood to preach peace, declaring Christians and Muslims brothers and sisters. In Bangladesh, he met with Rohingya refugees, embraced their suffering, and called them "the presence of God today."

But perhaps the most moving example is this:

That is Pope Francis doing a video call through WhatsApp with the only catholic church in the Gaza strip. What’s remarkable is that Francis has called that community every night at 7pm since the third day of the war. Anton, the spokesperson of the congregation, said “the pope would always ask how we were, what did we eat, did we have clean water, was anyone injured?"

Was anyone injured? Even from a video call, Francis did his best to enter their wounds, to see suffering, to understand the pain they were enduring, that they continue to endure. And he did this every night, no matter how busy he was or where he was, telling them he was praying for them.

I imagine the community on the other end of the call did in fact show the pope their wounds, like when bombs fell on the attached school, killing six Christians sheltering there. Or in these last eight weeks while no humanitarian aid has been allowed in and people have died from starvation and disease.

Anton says the pope's final call came on Saturday, two days before he died. Francis told them he was praying for them and said he needed their prayers. "He told us not to worry as he would always be there for us," Anton said. "He was with us until his last breath."

It is not our inclination to look at wounds, let alone touch them. We tend to look away from pain, suffering, and death. Yet the story of Jesus and Thomas, and the example of Francis, invite us to do just the opposite.

And I get it—looking away is easy, even necessary sometimes. All the hurt and injustice can feel overwhelming, paralyzing even. But to have the option to look away is a privilege many do not have. The invitation Jesus gave Thomas is the same invitation given to us: reach out your hand. Touch the wounds.

I know we aren’t the pope. We can’t just call someone in Gaza or travel to the war-torn places of the world. But are there not wounds here, among us? Like in our neighbors grieving losses we don't always see.

In young people fighting battles with anxiety and loneliness. In the elderly who sit in nursing homes, too often forgotten. In the struggling families trying to make rent here in Central Indiana. The wounds of Jesus are in the growing homeless population in downtown Indianapolis. They are in the food pantries and shelters that are stretched thin, even in our own backyard. They are in the racial and economic divides that persist right here in central Indiana.

Friends, the invitation Jesus gave to Thomas — "Reach out your hand and touch" — is the same invitation he gives to us. To draw near. To notice. To listen. To show up.

So where, in your daily life, is Jesus inviting you to touch a wound?

- In the coworker going through a divorce?

- In the friend who's been quiet for too long?

- In the neighbor who just lost a job?

And for the wounds across the world: stay informed. Pray. Vote. Protest. Give generously.

Stand against oppression that causes such suffering. Only when we are familiar with the wounds and what causes them can we do something about them.

And Though your fingers may tremble and your hands may shake as you do it, you are reaching out to Jesus himself. And there—in the trembling, in the reaching—we find him.

The risen and living Christ, our Lord and our God.

Amen.

Grieving Well - The Sorrows of the World

Matthew 6:25-34

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

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“The Sorrows of the World” sounds pretty ominous and like a whole lot of ground to cover, I know. If I were to ask you to wonder about what we might be invited to tackle tonight, under that banner – “The Sorrows of the World” – I suspect you might guess things like war and poverty and sickness and disease and drug culture and gun violence and racial injustice and more, right?

Well, the good news is we’re not going to go down all of those roads tonight. Instead, I’d like to take “The Sorrows of the World” quite literally. So, I’m inviting us to grieve for the world … for creation … for all that God has made … and how its sorrow – that of the planet we call home – inspires our own sadness and impacts our own grief, whether we always realize that or not. And that’s enough trouble for today, as Jesus would say. “Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Today’s grief – this very particular grief – is enough for tonight.

Because, National Geographic has reported, that 90% of the oceans’ fish populations that were around in 1950 are no longer, and that a crucial mass of the world’s stock of fish may very well run out by 2048. (That’s within my lifetime, if I’m lucky. I’ll only be 75 years old. My son, Jackson will be 44. Max will only be 41, both younger than I am now.)

According to the World Wildlife Fund, there was a 52% decline in wildlife populations between 1970 and 2010. In those 40 years, more than half of something like 3,000 species of not just fish, but mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds have been decimated thanks to global warming, pollution, and disease. On our wall, the kids and families tonight - before dinner and worhsip - put some fruit bats, some catfish, some mussels, some honey creepers, all creatures that went extinct in 2023.

So, when I was reading one of the books that inspired much of this midweek series on GRIEF – I’ve mentioned it before, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, by Francis Weller – I was particularly moved by the way he describes our souls’ innate, spiritual, bodily connection to the world around us. (Francis Weller is a therapist and counselor who does a lot of work with people – as individuals and in groups – around grief.)

Anyway, about our grief for creation and “the sorrows of the world,” he says: “Whether or not we consciously recognize it, the daily diminishment of species, habitats, and cultures is noted in our psyches. Much of the grief we carry is not personal, but shared, communal.” And he sites a psychologist named Chellis Glendenning, who has gone so far as to call all of this “Earthgrief” and she says, “To open our hearts to the sad history of humanity and the devastated state of the Earth is the next step in our reclamation of our bodies, the body of our human community, and the body of the Earth.”

Now, Weller doesn’t attach any of this to Scripture or faith, necessarily, but it helped me to think about the creation story in Genesis differently. We get so caught up, too often, in the details of the creation stories – how there are two versions of creation in Genesis, for instance, and that they tell very different stories about how it all came to pass. And we wonder whether we should understand them literally or as prehistoric poetry, for example.

But, I think it may be enough to focus and reflect on a Truth our creation stories try to tell: that we are, all of us – men and women, birds and bugs, fish, flora, fauna, stars and sand – created from the same dust; and that we are, therefore, bound together by the source of life we understand to be God, the creator of the universe. And that when one or some of what God has created suffers, we are all – each of us – bound to that suffering, in a cosmic, spiritual, practical and holy way.

And, just when I was wondering if this Francis Weller guy might be a little too “new age-y” or esoteric or “spiritual, but not religious” enough; I came across this bit from an encyclical published by Pope Francis, himself, where he said, “Thanks to our bodies, God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement.” (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel [Evangelii Guadium], no. 215) Again, this is a grief we know and feel, in our being, whether we always give it words or attention or credit for the impact it has on us, or not.

And, honestly, the more I thought about this, the more I realized I didn’t need Francis Weller or Pope Francis to tell me this.

When I was in elementary school and fishing off the dock at my Uncle Charlie’s house in Celina, Ohio, I caught a nice-sized carp at a family gathering. The thing was huge, I could hardly lift it, but I don’t think anyone even thought to take a picture. While I was impressed with myself, and learned that no one in their right mind – in the great state of Ohio, anyway – would eat carp for dinner, I was scandalized when my uncle demanded that, instead of throwing the fish back into the lake from whence he came, we dig a hole and bury it alive, instead. It was a trash fish, I was told, and did more harm than good, wasn’t good for anything, and all the rest. Which I kind of understand. But again, I felt sorry for that damned fish as it died in the dirt!

A few years later, my friend Dave and I were visiting my grandparents and found an old BB gun that belonged to my mom and her siblings when they were kids. We did what many young boys would do, of course. We tested it out … shooting at trees and cans and bottles and whatnot. Until I saw a perfectly innocent robin in the field across the street. I was as surprised as Dave to see the feathers fly when I killed the poor bird in one clean shot. I didn’t even need the scolding I got from my grandfather to feel some much-deserved shame and sadness for what I had done.

My point in all of this is to say, I think it’s true that we experience grief for the hurting world – in our bones, in our bodies, in our spirits, and our souls – whether we’re always aware of that or not, but certainly when it is called to our attention, by way of random facts from our Pastor on a Wednesday evening in Lent; or when we hear about the latest, wildfire in Texas, which was breaking news when I woke up this morning; or when we see something as common as road kill; or when our imagination invites us to wonder – not just about the human homes and lives lost in places like Gaza and Ukraine – but when we wonder, too, about the natural habitats that are also destroyed; the air and water that are poisoned; the terror of the birds, bunnies, and beasts of all kinds, who also dodge bullets and bombs; who are also left homeless, limbless, lifeless, orphaned, and more.

This “Earthgrief” is real, it seems to me. And all of creation seems to groan and grieve right along with us, as Paul suggests.

So, I chose tonight’s Gospel reading a bit facetiously. I think I know what Jesus means, but also wonder if the birds of the air are more worried, these days, than they may have been when Jesus was around. I wonder if the lilies of the field really are toiling and spinning in ways they haven’t always.

And while I’d love to make this a call to action, reminding us about our command to care for creation… to restore and replenish what we use up from God’s good earth… to compel us all to give up plastic, limit our carbon footprint, reduce, reuse, recycle, and all the rest… I wonder if we might first, actually have to simply acknowledge our grief over it all. (Again, today’s trouble is enough for today.)

So I hope that the things we’ve left on the wall this evening do nothing more and nothing less than bear witness to our part in what makes us grieve and God’s creation groan; and to our shared sorrow for the suffering planet we call home; for the creatures and creation God calls “good,” and for that which is ours to tend to, at God’s command.

And I pray, too, that – as we engage all of this season’s grief – we can do it deliberately … grieve the sorrows of the world, I mean … because our faith gives us hope that it will all be redeemed, according to God’s goodness and grace, in the end.

Amen