For His Wounds- For Our Wounds

April 27 2025

“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable unto your sight oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” Amen.

A friend once told me that I air my dirty laundry too much- that I should not be telling the world all of my hurt. And as any good Southerner knows, that’s about as low of an insult as it gets.

Now, needless to say, as she was telling me this, she was also saying she was no longer my friend- someone that she no longer wished to be associated with, and I respect her for this. She was being honest.

But you see the thing is is that I have always been a storyteller. I have always been somebody who had to tell the world what was on my mind. Even when I was a little kid I used to draw these stories and they were pantomime reflections of the She-ra cartoon series, this woman’s superhero with a fiery sword that would slay for justice throughout the land. 

And in some ways I am still doing that.

For our Gospel today we have the story of Doubting Thomas. Now, Doubting Thomas is something that has been a consistent theme in my life. I first wrote about doubting Thomas in 2017 saying that I needed “to place my fingers in the flesh of the risen Christ before I can sing my Alleluias again. I waver between that feeling of great doubt and one of great faith when I see so many around me suffering.” Continuing…  “Knowing that God is here for me and has raised me above so much and while I never doubt his love for me- I cannot tell someone else they should not. What does that make me?”

I first wrote that in 2017 and over the years my thoughts on this have evolved somewhat. I revisited this again in 2019, saying “My faith isn’t just rooted in Christ, but in a greater need for the good of others…. I will sing Alleluia again after its long absence. Alleluia, an expression of praise from the original Hebrew word for it. We can praise Christ, we can praise good words, we can praise the goodness of love that abounds in and around us. But that also means sitting in the grief. Acknowledging the darkness. Holding out a hand to someone when they are in it and telling them that you are there for them, both now and when they have the bravery to venture out….” Continuing on: “We live in a world where people are bad, where people hurt others- even by accident, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try to stop it. The love of Christ I believe is an actionable one, one that we can use to help others. To make our world a better altar for the One who gave His life for ours. Let’s live it in a way to honor that sacrifice.”

And In 2023, as I was wrapping up this discernment cohort for licsened lay ministry I said “I think now I see…. there was a straight line for me. I just didn’t know it. I was meant to work through these things….  Even when I thought I was crying alone, there was a shoulder for me.” And going on to say “This past Sunday as I watched my oldest two get confirmed I knew it. For the first time I felt that conviction I had craved for nearly forty years. Forty years- mirroring the forty days and nights. We are, after all, in the middle of Lent- absent of our hallelujahs. But I found mine, my hallelujah came in the Cathedral of St. Phillip- one week after Here I Am day. After forty years of searching, my conviction came. It’s not to say I won’t still ask questions… I know I will! It is, after all, so much of what makes me an Episcopalian Christian. But the conviction is here, it a way it never was before. Here I Am God- and my arms are open wide, drinking in all that you offer me.”

Even two years later from that moment of conviction I think that this need to place my fingers in the wounds of Christ Still repeats itself throughout my life- throughout these accusations of being somebody who has to air their dirty laundry. 

I think that through showing our wounds it humanizes us- humanizes Christ- letting people know that we are hurt. It does injustice to God to show that we are invincible all the time because we are not. No one on this earth is. And it’s not what Jesus taught us in this reading either.

I think that this is something that so many of us Americans especially get wrong and I think that’s why we have been led to this place where we feel like we have to stay on our own 2 feet we have to be on our own. I can reflect on this in my own dating life, even. Every time I’ve had my heart broken- having to rebound from it and say I’m fine. I’m stronger on my own, but the truth is I’m stronger when I am in community whether that’s a romantic relationship or in relationship with my community and the people around me. I think that’s something that has been reemphasized to me over these past few years that I have gone after finishing the discernment process.

There’s no need in hiding behind the wounds and I would much rather parade them so that people can see me and see me in my scars, and what I have gone through. 

I think that we can learn this from Jesus- rather than trying to hide and pretend that we are fine on our own that we don’t need anybody that we have this manifest destiny of being able to move forward out on our own, whether it’s striking it rich or simply living without companionship without help of anyone else and by God I will do it alone I think that is what has led us to where we are now. 

Where we can’t be in community with people who don’t think like us – who don’t look like us – who don’t love like us.

And as you know, I am somebody who always draws from the headlines around me to talk about what is going on to try and make sense of the gospel in this broken world that we live in and of course I get the second Sunday in Easter with doubting Thomas this theme that has resonated in my life over and over and over again and it’s the same week that Pope Francis has died. It’s the same week that one of our elected officials celebrated this over social media. The dichotomy of those two things are right there plain as day in front of us. You can’t tell me the Holy Spirit doesn’t work with intention. For this reading this week with these things right in front of us.

How have we gotten to this broken place – I feel can tell you it’s because we think that we don’t need anyone else that we can do it on our own. I am telling you we can’t. We have to show our wounds. We have to show how much we hurt. We have to show that we need others in community with us. I need you and you need me and we need each other. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with showing our hearts- our wounds- our scars.

Again to refer even to modern dating as just one example: I see so many people reverting to saying we don’t need one another- and it is a beautiful, convenient lie– because to isolate ourselves means to reduce the risk of getting hurt. It is a lie that we tell ourselves every day and often to the point where we believe it, we believe that we don’t need anyone- we believe that we are fine on our own and it is a lie. A lie lie lie.

And I don’t know about y’all, but I am sick of the lie. I am exhausted from the lie. I am tired and I cannot keep up the pretense of it all anymore. I need each of you. I need people, I need this community in order to move forward in order to have hope.

I know that saying that I need people to be in community with me when we very likely disagree on any particular issue is not the popular thing to say for anyone these days but it is true. I need people, we need people, regardless of how they think and feel regardless of the popularity and I know for me, I for one have never ever been one to do what was most popular.

And Jesus wasn’t either- it was what led the Pharisees to be wary of him. It was what led him to disappointing his followers for not being radical enough- for coming into Jerusalem on a donkey rather than a raging stallion. It was what led him to crucifixion- to being nailed on the cross lynched in front of his mother to see dying a slow painful humiliating death and still crying out to God for mercy on those who do not know what they do.

For coming back, not to admonish those who turned on him the people who denied him like Peter- not to admonish the one who wasn’t there- Thomas-  for showing us his scars- for telling Thomas to put his fingers in the flesh of his wounds. 

This past Lenten season I tried an experiment- along with posting my sermons and general thoughts about this season on social media and my website I also asked people to join with me in doing small acts of kindness. Taking flowers to someone, making a casserole for someone else- these are the kinds of things we used to do for one another and somewhere along the way we got lost. We thought we didn’t need these things anymore. We thought we did not need community. What divided us became more important than what brought us together and friends I am asking you… what if we stopped that? What if we stopped trying to live on our own, what if we stopped trying to hide that we hurt and that we need people and tried living again in true community?

I think that is the lesson from Doubting Thomas. To stop hiding our wounds. To embrace them. To allow them to make us kinder- and more willing to live in true community. 

To put forth the lie that we are invincible all the time- it does injustice- and violence to God, to Jesus, to the crucifixion.