If You Cannot Believe in Jesus What Can You Believe?

David Orendorff · John 10:22-30 · April 29, 2007

As a seventh grader I lived in Missouri, the show me state. There are a number of stories and legends behind Missouri's nickname "Show-Me" state. The slogan is not official, but is common throughout the state and is used on Missouri license plates.

The most widely known legend attributes the phrase to Missouri's U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1897 to 1903. While a member of the U.S. House Committee on Naval Affairs, Vandiver attended an 1899 naval banquet in Philadelphia. In a speech there, he declared, "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me." Regardless of whether Vandiver coined the phrase, it is certain that his speech helped to popularize the saying.

Other versions of the "Show-Me" legend place the slogan's origin in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado. There, the phrase was first employed as a term of ridicule and reproach. A miner's strike had been in progress for some time in the mid-1890s, and a number of miners from the lead districts of southwest Missouri had been imported to take the places of the strikers. The Joplin miners were unfamiliar with Colorado mining methods and required frequent instructions. Pit bosses began saying, "That man is from Missouri. You'll have to show him."

However the slogan originated, it has since passed into a different meaning entirely, and is now used to indicate the stalwart, conservative, noncredulous character of Missourians. 1 Rossiter, Phyllis. “I’m from Missouri--you'll have to show me.“ Rural Missouri, Volume 42, Number 3, March 1989, page 16. Official Manual of the State of Missouri, 1979-1980, page 1486.

But before I lived in Missouri and long after I lived in Missouri I was of a noncredulous character.  I have to be shown.  It is not enough to simply tell me something.  If I am to believe a thing I must see it.  I am a product of the Age of Reason and Empiricism.  There are many like me.  We have developed the skills of critical thinking and before we believe a thing we must have proof, we must see it.

There were those of Jesus day who could not believe Jesus was the messiah.  Jesus’ answer to them, in today’s passage, is “I have told you, and you do not believe.  The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me…”  In other words, “If you cannot believe what I tell you, believe because of what you see me do.”

Earlier in John’s gospel (John 1:43-46) when Phillip tells his brother Nathanael about Jesus, Nathanael is the noncredulous one and says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” and Philip says to him, “Come and see.”  And coming to see Nathanael believes.

And later in John’s gospel (John 20:19-29) the resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples who have locked themselves in a home for fear of what might happen to them.  And Jesus says to them “Peace be with you.”  And when he had said this he showed them his hands and his side.  And then Thomas comes and the disciples say they have seen the Lord, but Thomas must see for himself.  And it is only when Jesus appears to Thomas and shows him his hands and side does Thomas believe.

In Luke’s gospel (Luke 7:18-23) John the Baptist sends two of his disciples to discover if Jesus is the messiah, Jesus responds to them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.”

There is a thought that as Christians we must believe without seeing.  But I think that we are not required to believe without seeing any more than the first disciples could believe without seeing.  If we cannot believe in Jesus then we are asked to come and see and to believe in the fruits of Jesus’ compassion and wisdom, in his healing and teaching ministry, and in the freedom of his death.  And if we do not see in the works of Jesus that this is the one who saves the world them we need not believe it.  But if we hear the good news of Jesus and we see the power of Jesus to heal bodies and lives then our belief will follow.

We, of course, can no longer see Jesus in the way we see each other so how are we to come and see today?  There are many places that Christ lives in people and creation.  It is in our schools, in our hospitals, in the random and planned acts of loving kindness that surround us daily.  But the most common place people will come to see the works of Jesus is the church.

We who are the church, and most specifically we who are called Bearcreekians, are called to be the living body of Christ.  If Jesus is not resurrected among us, is not living in us and transforming our lives and through us healing the world then those outside of us will see nothing and believe nothing.

It is to us that the world looks to see if Jesus is for real.  As disciples of Christ we are how others will come to know Jesus and will see his power to change lives toward compassion and justice.  We are the witnesses and ambassadors of Jesus to a suffering world.  We are the hope and the promise.  We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  If our minds, hearts and lives are being transformed toward the holy then the world has hope.  But if our lives do not witness God’s love, do not promise courage and strength for life’s suffering journey, do not light the way for the lost, then the world is a hopeless place.

This is why I continually remind, encourage and prod us to be faithful in our discipleship of worship, study and service.  It is for our own good and joy to be followers of Jesus.  And our faithful discipleship is for the good, the healing and the joy of the world.

The worship committee and bands work hard that Sunday mornings are a time of transformation in the presence of God.  Our education committee and teachers work hard that their classes will be places where an encounter with God will transform lives.  Our mission committee, their members and projects, give generously of themselves that Bear Creek might be a healing and saving power in our community and world.  It is up to us, the disciples of Jesus to let the Holy Spirit into our lives that we might be made whole and holy, and that we might be the seeing of Jesus for a blind world.

We are a “diverse family place of belonging” that is changing the world toward God’s infinite mercies by the divine transformation of our lives.  And by the grace of God we will become even more faithful in being the resurrected body of Christ that the world might come, see and believe.  Shalom and Amen.