Love, Reaching | Thomas' & Jesus' Touch | April 2025

Peace, all. I preached Sunday. And this not the sermon! Not at all. That said, I had some surplus notes that I wanted to put somewhere. So here we go. Last week, it was meaningful to reflect back on 15-20 years of sermons on Thomas & Jesus. Wild. Thinking this may develop into a project. We'll see. Anyhow, keep fighting the good fight, friends. 

These reflections are based on a translation of the Easter II text that's posted here. 

Peace, Love, Liberation. 

~Tom

[ image source ]

It’s true.

Whatever we lose when we 'lock tightly the doors'–

whatever it is we forfeit

in the circling of wagons

or in the piling of stones–

whatever we give away or give up

as we enter into our isolation,

at least what we gain is clear. 

Here.

Hidden.

We find a sense.

Of safety. Of security.

At times, even of home.

Perhaps most importantly of all:

we find peace. And certainly, to possess peace is something rare.

So it’s understandable. Sensible. It makes sense to us.

That is, it touches us.

Or: it touches on something in us.

And it’s justifiable–if this is the path we choose.

To gather.

Together.

Alone.

To stack the bricks.

To clink the rod.

Because of course we do.

Because sometimes

what we need

is peace. 

And yet, in this text, in the tale of Thomas and in this tale of his savior

whom he touches

and wishes to touch,

we find a testimony.

A testimony that

perhaps

there might

maybe

be another kind of

(or at least another way to?)

peace.

A peace that, disregarding delineation, arrives.

Seamlessly. Solid.

And Yet: through.

Through a wall embodied.

In. With. Etc.

Heartskin. Eyes. Bones.

Common.

Shared.

With the women.

The ten.

With Thomas.

Taking place.

And breath.

Breathed.

Into.

In-to (?) spaces, closed:

enclosures,

isolations,

absence(s),

Void(s) / faces of Deep(s),

Into (in transgression)

in the crossing,

in the chōra (as Vítor would remind us),

on/within the front(s)

across

(in-dash-marks-arriving-differentiating-connecting-modifying).

Collision of bodies.

Tuckpointing.

Barbs.

"The only thing we have

to lose."

Rejection. Misunderstanding. Death.

Nothing small is at stake. 

And yet:

In the stretching of Thomas' hand into Jesus.

In Jesus’ bursting or burrowing or apparition or _____

into that secret space.

In the disciples' eventual bursting out. Into the public square.

Drunken gossolaliac mediterraneanholiday birdfiretonguewindpneumatic eruption.

In Bread in borders

broken.

In the Angiotropic.

The helio-.

The aspir-.

Stretched, marked warm breath suns.

There, here.

Here

is the story

of Spirit

arrived.

"My peace / I leave."

Perhaps we should add:

Here with Thomas, [together? locked? absent from? hidden? touch-desiring? alone?]

Here, wherever. We learn.

That: in the risk and in all of the dread and terror that any real risk invites . . . though in that risk there may reside a threat of ends or of annihilation,

nevertheless, in it, (with, under, through, etc., etc.) there arrives, also:

a possibility

of

salvation.

Of motion. Of emotion. Of bodies. This risk:

sometimes we've described it as Love.