What a fool believes

John 20: 19-31
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
April 28, 2019 – Bright Sunday 

What a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
And nothing at all



It’s a song about a guy who wants to get back together with his girlfriend. When she agrees to meet him, he thinks she’s interested too. But she’s humoring him. There never really was a relationship in the first place, but he’s stuck in what seems to be, which is always better than nothing and nothing at all.

These days it seems that anyone who believes in something they can’t prove or provide evidence for is taken for a fool and the world comes down hard on them. Certainty is the name of the game, whether it’s religion or science. You can come down on either side of religion or science (yes it’s true/no it’s not) when it comes to certainty. Fundamentalist thinking, infallibility, I am right and everyone else is wrong, is not limited to religious belief. Neither is wishful or magical thinking or superstition. We say, facts are facts and there’s no disputing them. And yet there are folks who insist the world is flat, others who deny the reality of climate change to everyone’s peril, some who vehemently won’t accept that there are more than two genders, atheists who call believers fools and vice versa.

What a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
And nothing at all

I was reminded recently that this really is the beauty of our country, of our democracy, that everyone has the freedom to think what they want and form conclusions and opinions based on how they view the world. And everyone also has the freedom and the responsibility to disagree, to put forth their assertions. The challenge is: how we do this without trying to win converts, without hurting each other, without destroying each other but actually remaining in conversation, in relationship, in covenant with each other. Evolution is hard work. Community is hard work.

In this morning’s gospel lesson, Thomas makes his friends work for it, for relationship, for belonging. I’ve always said that Thomas gets a bad rap. We hear his voice only a few times and only in the Gospel of John. And he always comes up on the Sunday after Easter. When Thomas says he won’t believe Jesus is raised from the dead unless he can touch his wounds, I don’t hear doubt but someone who loved Jesus, someone who wants to believe but maybe feels like he’s taken once chance too many. He can’t step out of the depth of his grief. He doesn’t want to be taken for a fool. He doesn’t want to be that guy in the song. (“Hey we met Jesus for drinks and he says he wants to get back together with you.”) Because it already hurts too much. And, being wounded himself, Jesus understood that and turned it into compassion.

But that’s what love does. It makes fools of us all. And sometimes it hurts. If it’s one thing we can be certain about, love will injure just as surely as it will heal. We all have our wounds. We all have complicated feelings when it comes to our families, our friends, our communities, our country, our world and yet we need to be brave fools for all of it as much as we need to be intelligent and wise. I don’t think we want a world based solely on the defense of facts because dreams come from another place, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I know where that is. Hope comes from faith, the belief in something not seen, the substance of something not certain.

So why Bright Sunday? Why Holy Humor the Sunday after Easter, with Thomas and his heart worn out from love and risk? Hope also comes from laughter. Though it doesn’t say so, I can imagine Jesus and Thomas and the rest of the disciples sharing the knowing laughter of relief, like friends who have come through a battle they thought they would lose. Anne Lamott calls laughter “carbonated holiness”. When it lifts us out of ourselves laughter can be worship. Laughter reminds us to not take ourselves too seriously but to also dig deep and find the joy and the love that sustains us and holds us together.



After all…



What a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
And nothing at all



Fools for Christ. Suckers for Jesus. And for Love. Amen.