So here we are on a Sunday, reserved every year for the same story that addresses doubt. Thomas always gets singled out, but really all of the disciples had their moments. Think about how Jesus dealt with doubt lovingly and didn’t condemn it. Think about how physically and personally he dealt with it. He spread light. So often we view doubt as an offensive gesture and retaliate against it. The church throughout the world spends so much time lingering over and speculating about the book of revelations and what’s coming; with dragons and beasts and hellfire, golden streets, apocalypses, wars, horsemen, souls, trumpets, snake handling, raptures, and a thousand things that are out of our control that Jesus never mentioned or brought attention to in scripture. What Jesus did turn his attention to in scripture, over and over again, was compassion and love for the hurting, the bereaved, the poor, the sick, and the outcasts.
We divert our attention away from these things because they are difficult to grapple with or because they make us uncomfortable. I think the allure of all the other things is so great because they don’t really require much of us. We get to keep our comforts and our individualism and declare that it is all out of our hands. As Lutherans we have a saying, “God’s work, our hands.”, which we celebrate through actions and service. It is up to us to build and bring about God’s kingdom. By lifting up the lowly, demanding and working for justice, eliminating poverty and binding up the broken hearted, we are ministering to and alleviating injury. We are participating in mending and healing. The work of our hands, God’s work, is wound care. It’s not nearly as dramatic and made for the movies as all the other things, but it is, without a doubt, what Jesus commanded us to do.
Are we fulfilling our mission? Are we seeing the brokenness and wounds around us? Are we turning a blind eye, or are we seeing it and excusing ourselves like those who passed by the injured man in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, holding up a list of “good” reasons or excuses to pass by. So many are wounded, scarred, and languish in need, from loneliness, abuse, depression, self-harm, poverty, illness, guilt, anxiety, abandonment, neglect, or being ostracized and rejected because of race, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation or identity and, I’m sure, many other hurtful and wounding actions. Some have scars that they write off as incidental and not worthy of attention, and others have wounds so profound that they dare not think or speak of them.
There’s a scene in a movie where three men are called to confront a monster. All three of them are extremely different, but they all fight this war against the monster alongside each other. The movie in question is Jaws, and the scene is the night when they begin to share. Brody touches the fresh abrasion on his forehead, where the fishing rod caught him. Quint bends forward and pulls his hair aside to show something near the crown. QUINT That’s not so bad. Look at this: t. Paddy’s Day in Knocko Nolans, in Boston, where some guy winged me upside the head with a spittoon. Brody looks politely. Hooper stirs himself. HOOPER Look here. (extends a forearm) Steve Kaplan bit me during recess. Quint is amused. He presents his own formidable forearm. QUINT Wire burn. Trying to stop a backstay from taking my head off. HOOPER (rolling up a sleeve) Moray Eel. Bit right through a wetsuit. Brody is fascinated. Quint and Hooper take a long pull from the bottle. QUINT Face and head scars come from amateur amusements in the bar room. This love line here… (he bends an ear forward) …that’s from some crazy guy coming after me with a knife. HOOPER Ever see one like this? He hauls up his pants leg, revealing a wicked white scar. HOOPER Bull shark scraped me while I was taking samples… QUINT Nothing! A pleasure scar. Look here –He starts rolling up his own dirty pants leg. QUINT Slammed with a thresher’s tail. Look just like somebody caressed me with a nutmeg grater…Brody is drawn into their boasting comparisons. He secretly checks his own appendix scar, decides not to enter the contest. HOOPER I’ll drink to your leg. QUINT And I’ll drink to yours. QUINT Wait a minute, young fella. Look. Just look. Don’t touch… He starts lowering his pants to reveal a place on one hip where the tissue is scarred and irregular. QUINT …Mako. Fell out of the tail rope and onto the deck. You don’t get bitten by one of those but twice — your first and your last. HOOPER I think I can top that, Mister… Hooper is pulling at his shirt, HOOPER (indicating his chest) There. Right there. Mary Ellen Moffit broke my heart. QUINT (shows belly) Look at’ that — Bayonet Iwo Jima. Brody is looking at a small white patch on Quint’s other forearm. BRODY (pointing) What’s that one, there? QUINT (changing) Tattoo. Had it taken off. HOOPER Don’t tell me — ‘Death Before Dishonor.’ ‘Mother.’ ‘Semper Fi.’ Uhhh… ‘Don’t Tread on Me.’ C’mon — what? QUINT ‘U.S.S Indianapolis.’ 1944.
Quint recounts the torpedoing of the navy vessel in WW2 where many men were killed and went down with the ship while many others were left to float in the Pacific for 4 days. There were approximately 900 men left adrift and only 316 survived with the others succumbing to exposure, salt poisoning, and thirst, and shark attacks. Quint recounts the sounds and the fear and most of all his memories of the sharks. That ordeal left scars far more profound than the others he had received, so much so that he created a scar to try to not be reminded of the ordeal. Brody doesn’t reveal his scar because he doesn’t think it’s significant and Quint Doesn’t offer it because of the depth of the pain.
So many scars lie hidden while others may seem small but are just surface indicators of a much deeper and more serious wound. We cannot judge the impact or severity of another’s wounds. We can only stop and not pass by. We can reach out and offer our aid and our resources and we are called to do this out of thankfulness for what Jesus did for us on the cross. We cannot comprehend the depth of another’s wound, but Christ can.
New Testament scholar and dean of Duke Divinity Richard Hays comments on this Gospel passage: “Isn’t it curious that God could raise Jesus from the dead but didn’t heal the nail wounds in his hands? Was this an oversight? Surely not. The power of death is conquered, but the [scars] remain. Jesus, our Lord and our God in the glory of the resurrection, still bears the wounds of his experience of God with us on earth. The resurrection did not remove his human experience. The risen Lord still bears on his body the scars that speak of his solidarity with human suffering in all of its forms. These scars serve as a reminder that God is with us through all things, especially the appalling, destructive and death-dealing times. The image of the risen Christ with wounds in his hands and his side reminds us when we suffer that so did our God; when we cry out in loneliness, so did our God. When we feel abandoned and alone, we remember that Christ hung on a cross and yelled for us, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ We don’t have a God who stands at a distance but rather one who entered fully into the reality of our pain. So when we suffer, we know that Christ can say, ‘I’ve been there, and I have the wounds to prove it.’”
So often we are reluctant to share or expose our scars. I’ve met those who felt embarrassed or humiliated by their scars. They felt that the scars made them ugly, or that acknowledging certain scars causes them to relive the wounding. It can help us to understand exactly what scars are. Psychotherapist Dr. Anne Brown points out that we should never be ashamed of our scars. “A scar simply means that you were stronger than what tried to hurt you.” and I would add, that scars are an indication that you are alive and still in the fight. God changes our wounds to scars because he was stronger than what tried to hurt him: sin, death, and the devil, the monsters of the deep. So our scars are evidence of his grace, healing and love, and God sends us along that road in life to be the Good Samaritan. He sends us and breathes on us as he did the disciples. In Jaws the scars are where you see the three united as one against the monster of the deep. By Jesus’ wounds and blood, we are healed and united to wage war against the darkness and the monsters of the deep, a war that we know has already been won through the blood of Christ.
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