ants – Grits and Grains

Sermon notes for Easter 2A for St Alban’s, Broadheath. Again, it could be said better, and I hope it will be. I share it anyway. The Gospel reading is John 20:19-31

Still Doubting by John Granville Gregory

Who likes ants?

We are told to learn from the ants. Proverbs 6:6 – “Go to the ant, you sluggard: consider its ways and be wise.”

It’s true. We can learn a lot about community and industry from ants. We can also learn that if they get lost they die. When ants get lost, they follow a simple rule. The rule is to follow the ant in front. But they don’t know that the ant in front of them is only following the ant in front of him. They finish up going round and round in circles, blindly following the one in front until …. They die.

There is a famous example of this deathmill from the Guyana jungle. The ants were just going round in circles – it was a trail of ants which just kept marching in a column 400 yards long (the length of a running track). It took them 2 days to complete a circuit. On and on till they died from exhaustion.

Consider its ways, and be wise. What do we learn from the ant? We learn the importance of thinking for ourselves. We learn the importance of seeing for ourselves.

“Seeing is believing.” That’s what we say, isn’t it?

“We have seen the Lord” is what the disciples say in today’s gospel reading. “We believe”. “We have seen the Lord” is what the disciples say to Thomas, who wasn’t there to see and believe. He is the odd one out.

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and missed seeing Jesus.

Seeing is believing is the theme of John’s gospel. Time and again John refers to the disciples “coming to see”. The frequency increases as we move to the end of John’s gospel.

Mary Magdalen came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed,
Peter and the beloved disciple ran to the tomb and saw the linen wrappings lying there. They went into the tomb, and saw and believed.
Mary Magdalen told the disciples that she had seen the Lord.
Mary Magdalen, Peter, the beloved disciples come to see the Lord.
And then, that same evening of the day of resurrection, the disciples “see the Lord” – apart from Thomas. Where was he? What was he doing?

Seeing is believing.

But if seeing is believing, what about those who are not there to see, like Thomas?

And what about those who can’t see? What about those who not even Specsavers can save?

This was a problem for a friend of mine who became blind. He was troubled about all that the Gospels say about “seeing” and “believing”, and about “light” (good) and “darkness” (bad). How could he believe when he couldn’t see? How could he be saved when he had been cast into outer darkness?

Do you see his problem?

He worked it out in the end, eventually realising that there are other ways of seeing. He called it “whole body seeing” and wrote the story of his blindness and his later whole body seeing in a book called Touching the Rock.

This is how he discovered his “whole body seeing” (WBS for short). He was staying at Iona. He had been told about the altar there by people who had described it to him. Then he saw it for himself. This is what he wrote:

“After several nights, I discovered the main altar.

I had been told about this, and I easily recognised it from the description. It was a single block of marble.

Finding one corner, I ran my fingers along the edge, only to find that I could not reach the other.

I worked my way along the front and was amazed at its size.

The front was carved with hard, cold letters. They stood out baldly, but I could not be bothered reading.

The top was as smooth as silk, but how far back did it go?

I stretched my arms out over it but could not reach the back. This was incredible.

It must have a back somewhere. Pushing myself upon to it, my feet hanging out over the front, I could reach the back. I did this again and again, measuring it with my body, till at last I began to have some idea of its proportions. It was bigger than me and much older.

There were several places on the polished surface which were marked with a long, rather irregular indentations, not cracks, but imperfections of some kind.

Could it have been dropped? These marks felt like the result of impact. The contrast between the rough depressions and the huge polished areas was extra ordinary.

Here was the work of people, grinding this thing, smoothing it to an almost greasy, slightly dusty finish which went slippery when I licked it. Here were these abrasions, something more primitive, the naked heart of the rock.”

When I read that I just went WOW. He had seen things which would not have been noticed by the casual observer with her naked eye. With his whole body seeing he had found things there which I am sure he’d be telling others about over breakfast the next day. “Come and see” he’d have been telling everyone.

I mention this because I think there is something in today’s gospel about the importance of seeing things for ourselves. When we see things for ourselves we are not seeing through other people’s eyes. We are not conforming to their vision, and we are seeing things that nobody else sees.

This brings us to the beauty of Thomas who is the focus of our gospel reading.

Thomas is a disciple who captures our imagination, isn’t he? That’s shown in the number of Thomases there are. (How many here are called Thomas, or have a Thomas in their family?)

Two of our children have Thomas in their names, after their grandfather.

We often talk about “doubting Thomas” and then refer to him as typical of us, who are often “doubters” like him.

I’m not sure that this is helpful. Thomas is actually someone who sees and believes, but in a different way. Isn’t that a more helpful way to remember Thomas?

Thomas sees things differently. This is brought out in the gospel. He wants to see through his hands and fingers. He uses his body. He doesn’t just see with his eyes. He inspects. He uses his senses and his sense. He sees with feeling. He sees from the heart.

That is the way that Thomas comes to see.

He puts his hand into Jesus’ wounds. He reaches beyond first impressions. And then he sees. He feels the love in those scars and jumps to his joyful conclusion that he is seeing our Lord and our God. This is the staggering realisation which comes from seeing from the heart, which comes from seeing with feeling, which comes from his insistence that he should see things for himself.

Thomas is not the doubter. He is one who was willing to see.

Thomas is a twin. That is how he is introduced in the gospel. “Thomas the twin”. We don’t know whether Thomas had a twin brother or sister. IT’s more likely that “twin” was Thomas’s nickname because the meaning of the name Thomas is “twin”. But if Thomas had a twin, who might it be?

That might have been a question that entertained John’s community. “If Thomas is the twin, who is his twin brother or sister?”

They could have played with that question and wondered “is that me?”

We can play with the same question. If Thomas is like us in his doubting, can we be like him in his seeing and believing? How much like him can we be? Can we be his twin brother or sister in the way that we are so much like him in wanting to see Jesus from the heart?

Jesus made many “resurrection” appearances – or should I say that Jesus makes many “resurrection” appearances. John admits that there are so many ways that Jesus showed himself and supposed that “if every one of them were written down the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” Jesus wants us to see him for ourselves. He wants us to be witnesses.

Mary Magdalen, Peter, the disciple (disciples?) Jesus loves/loved, Thomas and ourselves come to see in their different ways. Together we are a body of believers who through our whole body seeing see things differently.

It is in such company that Jesus shows himself so that we might see life differently – with compassion that is able to feel for scars and wounds, and with the hope that love is stronger than death.

It is in such company that Jesus shows himself to us so that we might follow him in a way of life that is life giving, instead of blindly following others till, like the ants, we drop from exhaustion.

the quote is from Touching the Rock by John Hull
I found the picture of Still Doubting at Mattseyeshaveseen – with some interesting reflection.

If army ants are wandering around and they get lost, they start to follow a simple rule: Just do what the ant in front of you does. The ants eventually end up in a circle. There’s this famous example of one that was 1,200 feet long and lasted for two days; the ants just kept marching around and around in a circle until they died.

James Surowiecki in The Wisdom of Crowds

We learn a lot from ants. “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise.” (Proverbs 6:6). The death mill of the ants remind us of another biblical truth, that “where there is no vision the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18). Helen Keller remarked that “the most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but no vision.”

The lesson we learn from the ants is that blindly following our leader is no guarantee of better times. We might just be going round in circles. The person in front of us might not have a clue where we are heading. Call him/her a leader? I don’t think so. But in bad times we will look round for the people we think can get us out of the mess. We will not always search out the same person. Someone who can get us through a forest of emotions may not be the same person to get us through deep water.

We talk about vision in leadership as if there is only one vision to be had, and as if there is only one person to have it. But we don’t have a single vision, we have visions. Some of those visions are immediately relevant, but other visions will only be useful once we have got over the hill we are currently climbing, for which we are depending on someone else who can help pace our climb and who can help us envisage cresting the hill. A community will thrive on the visions of its visionaries, not on the vision or hallucinations of its appointed leader.

Intelligent living means picking up information from the data around us. Where have you been? What have you seen? What have you found? Why do we see what we see? Why do we see it that way? These questions of curiosity shape what we see into something wiser. Vision is 360 degrees, and arises from looking all around us. My own work is supporting ministers in their parish ministries. Looking all around is so important for them if they are to be numbered among the visionaries (and leaders) of their communities. They have to look behind them to be aware of how they have arrived at their current position and to appreciate the journeys made by the people who make up their communities. They have to look round them to listen to the visions of those around them and the longings they represent. And they have to look forward with all these horizons in their mind’s eye to try to discern their foci.

David Runcorn underlines the importance of looking backwards in a sermon he preached at Lee Abbey. He comments that the best pastoral counsellors have learned to be “careful historians”. We all live in and from our history and none of us can leave our past behind. He said: “The need for understanding and healing of memories; to be reconciled to people, events and hurts there, remains one of the most commonly expressed needs. It is also vividly illustrated through the experience of asylum seekers and victims of abuse or torture in our time. Before they can embrace any kind of new life they must find a way of recovering their past from the horrors they have endured. What is not remembered cannot be healed.”

There are many histories, longings and visions in a community. Vision needs to be celebrated as a complex process. It should not be reduced to a leadership task but should be allowed to develop as the height of intelligence.

What we learn from the ants is the importance of independence. According to Surowiecki “independent individuals are more likely to have new information rather than the same old data everyone is familiar with. The smartest groups are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other. Independence doesn’t imply rationality or impartiality, though. You can be biased and irrational, but as long as you’re independent, you don’t make the group any dumber.”

Oppressed communities have leaders and views imposed on them, but when we are free we are able to choose the leaders who will help us. Those choices aren’t based on position and status. Instead we turn to those who have deep knowledge and understanding of where we are. They are our wise guides. In their hands we feel safe. They will help us find our way.

Tag: ants

Thomas’s Twin – a sermon for Easter 2A

Visions, leaders and ants – feeling my way