Sales Tactics with Jesus

“Sales Tactics with Jesus”

Rev. Roberta Howey

April 27, 2025

If LPCC were to have a patron Saint, I would argue it would be Thomas. A healthy level of skepticism mixed in with the faith, a desire and call to love and serve others but also to want to make sure that we are being logical. That is at the core of this community. And as I will now have officially preached more about Thomas than I will have the resurrection (though there is always next year!), let’s talk about one of my favourite people in the Gospel.

I want to take us back to Thomas, in the days between Jesus’ death and the resurrection. Thomas was the one of the most enthusiastic of Jesus’ disciples. He stayed with him right up to the end, and after Jesus was dead and in the tomb,  the insults of onlookers for days. His beloved teacher is dead, and instead of condolences he is treated to scorn, mockery, even people saying he should be glad they killed Jesus, because he now knows Jesus is nothing but a con man and now Thomas can return to his actual community.

He returns to the home the disciples were staying in, and the mood is radically different from just hours before. It is not despair. They are electrified with joy. ““We have seen the Lord,” they declare! And Thomas says what any reasonable person would say at this point. “Absolutely not. That is impossible”. How dare they joke about their teacher like this? How could they be so cruel to Thomas, making fun of him with this mean prank?

This is the story of the first major attempt for the disciples as a group to evangelize. And it flops. The women at the tomb on Easter Sunday were the first to hear of the resurrection from the angels, and were the first to tell John and Peter. But this is the first time Jesus comes back, speaks to the group directly, and they get the chance to spread the word themselves. 

They start with the first one that makes sense, Thomas, their friend! He would know of how powerful and miraculous Jesus is, he has known the disciples for a while now, he would absolutely believe them! “We have seen the Lord!”

Their sales pitch goes down like a lead balloon. We don’t know of the reaction the group had to Thomas saying that he needed to see the wounds on Jesus to believe. But I can only imagine their frustration. If Thomas, who knows and loves them and his only error was being away that morning, can’t believe them, what hope do they have in sharing the awe-inspiring power of God? 

It takes Jesus himself, arriving a full week later, to convince Thomas. He asks Thomas to look at his side and see where he was pierced. To see the holes in his hands. To no longer doubt, but to believe. And Thomas does, being the first of the disciples to put it all together when he declares “My Lord and my God!”, where Jesus is not just the Son, but God as well. The nuances get more complex but he understands on such a deep level that it shakes up his world. 

Jesus’ final comment to him, that blessed are those who believe without seeing, is where this story takes a weird turn. When we hear this we may go back to the beatitudes, “Blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers” etc. They are the ones who will receive the blessing from God, not their logical opposites. The one who is not meek but instead bullies, the one who makes war, they do not receive God’s blessing. With these two instances of “blessings” in our minds it is not unreasonable to now have to wrestle with our new problem- if those who believe without seeing are blessed, what happens to those who need to see to believe? I know that in my initial readings that is where my hang-up is in this gospel. Hang on Jesus, you expect us to simply take someone’s word for it, and if we ask questions or doubt, we are not blessed?

Let’s make this clear. God gave you and me big beautiful brains, filled with the ability to wonder and ponder. It would be a crime to waste them. And I don’t think God wants us to be naively following whomever insists they saw God’s Son wandering around.

This translation of blessing is a bit ham-fisted. A better one might be to be happy, content, or at peace. Or in other words, those who can just believe Jesus has returned without having to question it are those who have lived happy and easy lives. It is so much easier to believe when we don’t open our eyes and ears to the suffering of the world. Ignorance, blessed ignorance, is bliss.

Thomas is not naive, not stupid, not stubborn. He has seen and experienced suffering, he knows what it is to see a friend murdered by the state and not allowed to interfere. He will not be sold by the flippant joyful trumpets. He won’t be sold on even seeing the Divinity of Christ, He wants the real deal. He wants to see the humanity of Jesus, to believe the divinity of Christ. It is only when Jesus shows his wounds, his vulnerable, imperfect parts, that Thomas fully believes he is back. And then, Jesus delivers, he can see Christ in full glory.

On Easter Monday the world arose to news that Pope Francis had died. This was not unexpected. And amidst the irony that he had spent his last day on earth rebuking tyranny in the name of justice, and watching one more Easter Sunday rise, millions of people shared a general consensus: They may not be Catholic, may not be Christian, may or may not like the church. But they saw a genuinely good man, one with many flaws, trying his best. I won’t spend the next 30 minutes idolizing or villainizing him, there are many more learned folks than me on the subject. But Francis knew that no one would be sold on the church with ostentatious shows of power and wealth. He didn’t use the church to persecute those who disagreed with him. He spent his term, and his life before, being a source of hope, asking people for forgiveness, blessing and praying over people of all walks of life, and using his authority to remind world leaders that they have a duty towards peace. He called for wars to end, for human rights to be upheld, and as far as popes go, moved the needle of the church towards a humanity-embracing era. Again, not perfect by a long shot, but he would never be perfect. He could only be a human.

These are, bluntly, weird times. We are seeing more and more discourse around how to exercise power, and to resist, and what makes the church powerful. What makes a country powerful. What makes a human powerful. I argue here, friends, that Thomas knew that God’s authority would never be about displays of brute strength, wealth, or number of followers that would constitute power and reveal Christ. It would be that Jesus, resurrected and returned, would still have his humanity. The wounds on his hands and the need to eat breakfast on the beach. Thomas didn’t doubt. Thomas simply knew what he needed to see.

What do we need to see in order to believe in God’s love? What do we need to encounter to have hope in humanity? What can we, us world-weary, skeptical, and relentless followers, experience to know that we are not alone, and that the spirit of love, and compassion moves through us all as the holy spirit? Anyone can be offered displays of power, or the latest grift for unlimited wealth and romance. Maybe we need to see the humanity. The summer camp where kids who have struggled to feel safe can let loose. Or showing up at Out of the Cold yesterday only for me to be turned away- there were too many volunteers and they were fine! It is a delightfully humbling experience. It is when even when we are angry, or grieving, ready to hit first and ask questions later, we see the human before us, warts and all. And in that divine moment, they see the human in us.

Peace be with you, my friends. May peace be with us all. Amen.