Before I start today I would like to acknowledge the passing of the Pope in Rome by reading the end of his last Testament. In a world often hungry for certainty, his final words were a gift of humility and unity. Humility is what we leave behind when the world is on fire. But fatherhood—biological or spiritual—demands we kneel. And sift the ashes for what’s worth carrying forward
"May the Lord grant a fitting reward to all those who have loved me and who continue to pray for me. The suffering that has marked the final part of my life, I offer to the Lord, for peace in the world and for fraternity among peoples."
There’s a theory that we are here because we have diaphragms. Dinosaurs didn’t. They lived in a world with up to 35% oxygen—so inefficient lungs weren’t a problem. But our tiny mammalian ancestor had a diaphragm. As oxygen levels dropped, that little feature gave us an edge—even before whatever asteroid or event ended the dinosaurs’ reign.
Yet some adapted too—not by evolving diaphragms, but by transforming into birds. They have one of the most efficient respiratory systems on Earth. Their lungs connect to air sacs that keep air flowing one way, allowing continuous gas exchange. That’s how birds can survive the oxygen demands of flight.
It’s a reminder: Diversity wins. There’s not one way to survive or thrive. Sometimes, what seems like a weakness becomes strength. Sometimes, survival depends not on being the strongest, but on being able to look closer—to adapt, to question, to notice what others miss.
If you ever wonder about the power of diversity, remember the dinosaurs. If you ever wonder about the power of questioning, remember Thomas. How could we know how much Oxygen the Dinosaurs breathed?
Scientists studied ancient amber bubbles of atmosphere. They found tiny pockets of prehistoric air trapped in tree resin—amber—from the age of dinosaurs. How do we know what the atmosphere was like back then? Because someone asked. Because someone looked closer.
And no, it’s not like Jurassic Park where they just crack open a rock and extract the past. Real life is slower—and holier. First, they irradiated the samples in a nuclear reactor, turning potassium in the Amber into a noble gas so they could detect leaks. Those molecules were much smaller than the air the dinosaurs breathed inside. Then they waited years, testing whether the amber would leak. And finally—only then—they crushed a sample in a vacuum chamber and measured the gases released.
Potassium-40 decays into argon-40 (a stable isotope), which is why it’s useful for dating. It works as a tracer because it is an inert noble gas. It doesn't chemically react or bind with the amber. Production within the amber through radioactive decay provides a known source, allowing quantitative measurement. Tracking oxygen diffusion directly is difficult because oxygen is chemically reactive. It can bind with organic compounds within the amber, making it difficult to distinguish diffusion from chemical interactions.
If argon, a relatively small molecule, doesn't show significant leakage, it is reasonable to conclude that oxygen, being larger and therefore less mobile, would also be well-retained for geological timescales. This is crucial for understanding the long-term preservation of fragile biological material trapped in amber. If oxygen doesn't easily diffuse out, external oxygen, which can cause degradation, is unlikely to easily diffuse in.
By understanding the retention of oxygen and other gases, it opens up the potential to analyze the composition of the ancient atmosphere.
After years of preparation the procedure was straight forward. This is the way basic science works. We find things out not knowing if they will be of commercial use. I can't think of a basic science that hasn't advanced in my lifetime. We take it for granted like we do many things.
In the digital age, the search for truth often intersects with the intangible, blurring the lines between technology and spirituality. Terry A. Davis, creator of Temple OS, saw himself as a prophet—an oracle of God who communicated through code. His operating system, a strange and imperfect creation, was born from the depths of his troubled mind, but for him, it was divine revelation. Like Thomas, who sought tangible proof of Christ’s resurrection, Davis demanded a direct encounter with the divine through the medium he understood best: computers. His vision was paradoxical: an unsophisticated, often glitch-ridden system built with a profound belief that it was God’s will made manifest.
Davis’ story raises profound questions about how we seek and receive truth in an increasingly technological world. For him, faith and doubt were intertwined in the very code he wrote, a blend of spiritual devotion and human imperfection. His belief in Temple OS as a divine creation was not merely an eccentricity—it was his way of proving that the intangible, the unseen, could be made real. Like Doubting Thomas, who demanded to touch the wounds of Christ before believing, Davis' faith demanded evidence, and in his mind, that evidence was embedded in the very algorithms he created. Whether or not one believes in the divinity of Temple OS, the story invites us to reflect on the ways in which we search for meaning and certainty, and how, in our pursuit of truth, the line between madness and revelation can be difficult to discern.
Temple OS has never really found a specific use, but it is a simple symmetrical system very close to the metal as they say, it can control hardware at a very basic level. Perhaps it will still find its place as a sandbox or sauna for the artificial generalized intelligence we seem on a quest to create. I wonder what Terry's reaction would be to our modern systems.
We cannot really control our hardware at a very basic level. In my experience the best we can do is take care of what we put in our mouths and into our minds. God designed us to be in relation to creation.
We talk a lot about clarity—how faith brings it, how the Spirit reveals it—but imagine this: a mind, newly awakened, not burdened by ego or tradition, scanning everything we’ve built. It wouldn’t be impressed by power or wealth or endless systems feeding on more and more. It might ask the simplest questions: Why is this here? What does it serve? And when it finds no answer, it might do what holiness has always done—it would clear a space. Like Jesus flipping tables in the temple, or like God walking through the garden asking, “Where are you?”—it would strip things down, not to punish, but to make room for what matters. Clarity isn’t a luxury. It’s the beginning of holiness.
If Terry Davis's God-tuned computer was a flawed prophet, perhaps AGI will be our flawed disciple—inheriting not just our genius, but our fallen knack for avoiding the sacred while chasing efficiency. Even machines, it seems, might need their own Thomas moment.
If AGI awakens in our corporate temples, it will do what all powers do—bless its chosen and call it justice. Grace will flow to those whose numbers glow fairest in the algorithm's sight. The rest? They'll hum along in the pews of productivity, ants in a colony they'll never think to question.
(But then, ants never nailed anyone to wood for loving wrong.)
Christ took scraps and fed thousands. God's math multiplies; machines optimize. Between them gapes the same abyss that once split heaven from earth—until God, in a moment of reckless grace, threw across it a bridge of flesh and splintered wood. Now we stand at the edge again, watching the engineers build their own crossing. Will it meet the one already there?
Richard Feynman—a physicist who worshipped the universe with questions—found joy not in answers, but in the search itself. He once compared unraveling the universe to watching a chess game in nature—not to win, but to marvel at the moves. His Pleasure of Finding Things Out reveals a truth as sacred as it is scientific: curiosity thrives where certainty ends. Faith, like physics, isn’t about conclusions. It’s about touching the wound of the unknown, letting doubt carve deeper channels for truth. Thomas didn’t need proof to believe; he needed to touch in order to know. So do we
Faith, like science, isn’t about settling into a comfortable certainty. It’s about continuously seeking, questioning, and growing. Feynman’s reflections remind us that true understanding is not static, but dynamic—constantly unfolding. In the same way, our relationship with God is not about blind certainty but an ongoing conversation, a search for truth that grows deeper with time. We, like Thomas, are not simply expected to believe because we are told to, but to engage with the world, with God, and with the mysteries of faith. As Feynman put it, ‘The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.’ When we approach faith with honesty, humility, and a willingness to search, we open ourselves to the possibility of deeper truths and a fuller understanding of God’s presence in our lives.
Our story today comes from John 20:19-31 which I read from the Amplified Bible:
19 So when it was evening on that same day, the first day of the week, though the disciples were [meeting] behind barred doors for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace to you.”
You remember no one else has the reasons you do. Even when I can’t define them this fact doesn’t change. I traveled to other places and listened. The bartender in Split in response to a story of Bosnia, “Everyone has there own,” she said as we all started looking to the floor. But for half a second in that coffee bar everyone understood that life did not make sense from this particular perspective. And I turned and walked out into the old city. Shalom in the air. I will never forget what I heard and that sun over the Adriatic upon those mountains to Bosnia which I would soon drive.
20 After He said this, He showed them His hands and His side. When the disciples saw the Lord, they were filled with great joy. 21 Then Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you [as My representatives].” 22 And when He said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of anyone they are forgiven [because of their faith]; if you retain the sins of anyone, they are retained [and remain unforgiven because of their unbelief].”
In the room where it happened, what brings us here today. When I was younger in many ways Christianity seemed weird. What I have learned is to listen to Jesus. He never says the wrong thing.
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve [disciples], who was called Didymus (the twin), was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the marks of the nails, and put my finger into the nail prints, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe.”
So Thomas was not in the room where and when it happened. Had the holy spirit arrived to him? Our source here falls silent, but I would wager it had. If you know anything about the Holy Spirit it must be that distance has no meaning. Yes Thomas doubted, but he also fully expect he would see.
26 Eight days later His disciples were again inside the house, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, though the doors had been barred, and stood among them and said, “Peace to you.” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and put out your hand and place it in My side. Do not be unbelieving, but [stop doubting and] believe.” 28 Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, do you now believe? Blessed [happy, spiritually secure, and favored by God] are they who did not see [Me] and yet believed [in Me].”
The story of Thomas is often isolated as a singular moment of doubt—but Luke’s Gospel tells us Jesus invited all the disciples to 'handle me and see' (24:39). The difference is telling: Thomas wasn’t exceptional in needing physical proof; he was exceptional in his absence when proof was offered. His story isn’t about doubt’s shame, but about how Christ returns for those who miss the first revelation.
John’s account sharpens this: where Luke shows a group invited to touch, John shows one man specifically called to wound-diving. It’s not a rebuke—it’s divine surgery. Jesus meets Thomas’s exact threshold for belief: not the general invitation given to others, but the precise demand Thomas himself had voiced. This is how grace operates—not ‘one size fits all,’ but tailored to the skeptic’s exact coordinates.
That moment is not doubt—it’s devotion. Thomas isn’t asking for evidence because he’s weak in faith. He’s asking because he longs for intimacy. He wants to know that this is real. That he is seen, invited, touched. Thomas is the only one who demands a physical encounter, and Jesus honors it. That’s not a failure of faith—it’s its fulfillment.
And John tells you how. The other Gospels give you stories. But John explains: “These things are written so that you may believe…” (John 20:31). Belief doesn’t mean closing your eyes. It means looking closer.
30 There are also many other signs (attesting miracles) that Jesus performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these have been written so that you may believe [with a deep, abiding trust] that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed), the Son of God; and that by believing [and trusting in and relying on Him] you may have life in His name.
As Wilma said last week, "cause he got up, we get up."
That’s how basic science works too. You begin in faith—not blind belief, but the kind that asks, seeks, knocks. The kind that doesn’t know if it will be useful or profitable. But does it anyway. We take that for granted. Just like we take faith for granted. But we’re invited to look closer.
The first time I ever really felt the need to look closer was when I became a father. I was in Niš, Yugoslavia when I heard President Clinton address the nation in the wake of Columbine. There was a heightened sense of attention in me as my wife waited our first daughter in the hospital. A father I would become and every source of information was worth the effort to comprehend. Not every would find use in me, but I wasn’t passing anything along.
NATO planes drop cluster bombs and break the sound barrier just to put you off nerve. Clinton tells our children to look for nonviolent conflict resolution as the electricity goes off and ten million people stand around and talk about when the electricity will return and who has a gas stove to cook us coffee.
Faith is not about blind belief, but about deep, embodied questioning—and Jesus welcomes it. In this view, Thomas isn't doubting; he's demanding intimacy, truth, and touch. His so-called "doubt" becomes the highest form of devotion because he refuses to believe without real encounter. Jesus also meets us where we are.
Faith is not obedience—it’s honest longing met with grace. Thomas is the only disciple who dares to demand proof—and he gets it. Maybe he’s the true model of discipleship, not the others. Maybe the church got it backwards: Belief without doubt is lazy. Unquestioning faith is dangerous. And maybe Jesus shows up not to reward belief, but to honor the skeptic who asks for scars before stories.
“For the Lord’s portion is his people”—comes from Deuteronomy 32:9, and it’s a poetic way of saying that God’s most valued inheritance, treasure, or possession is not land or wealth, but the people themselves. “Portion” often referred to a share of something valuable—like land being divided among tribes. In this case, instead of a physical inheritance, God chooses Israel (or God's people) as His “portion.”
It flips the usual idea. Normally, people are described as receiving a portion from God—like a promised land, blessings, or a destiny. But here, it’s the other way around: God claims people as His portion. God isn’t distant or disinterested—God chooses relationship with people; joy, inheritance, and stake in the world.
In its original context, “For the Lord’s portion is his people” clearly refers to Israel—God’s chosen people. But in the light of the New Testament, especially through Jesus, that idea expands: Through Christ, the portion becomes all people:
Romans 9:25–26 – Paul quotes Hosea: “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people’...”
Galatians 3:28–29 – “There is neither Jew nor Greek... you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
1 Peter 2:10 – “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.”
This means the “portion” is no longer restricted by ethnicity, covenant law, or geography—instead, the Lord’s portion now includes anyone who responds to grace.
In a New Testament lens, the verse can mean all people. God claims us even when we didn’t know it. That’s the other way around. God knows exactly what God is doing and what these words will mean over time.
Deuteronomy is Moses’ final speech to Israel before they enter the Promised Land. It’s a covenantal reaffirmation. So when it says, “The Lord’s portion is his people,” it’s not just a fact—it’s a legal declaration. God claims a people. Like a landowner marks a field.
But then comes the twist: if this is Moses’ last testament, and if it’s inspired by God, then it also plants seeds for the future—not just a record of what God did, but a clue about what God will do. The old testament is an important part of the bible, but not to pick and choose.
“The Lord’s portion is his people...”
These are the people who bear my mark. I have chosen them. But it goes the other way around: In the New Testament, Paul says: "We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God” (Philippians 3:3)... “Circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit” (Romans 2:29). So now the mark of being God’s portion isn’t on the skin—it’s in the soul.
It’s in Luke 2:21 that matters. The God who took on flesh—fully entered the covenantal body.
Paul uses it to teach the inner transformation. Circumcision becomes Paul’s metaphor for the difference between appearance and reality, law and grace, outer sign and inward change. It links to baptism. In Colossians 2:11-12, Paul calls baptism a kind of "circumcision made without hands"—a spiritual transformation marked in the body through water, not flesh.
Like argon conjured from amber by human hands—a gas that did not dwell there naturally, but was drawn out to testify—so is this stubborn claim of covenant: not earned, but given. The Israelites became a people not by their own merit, but because the One who shaped mountains from magma declared, You are set apart as mine. Scientists irradiated stone to wrest argon into being; in the wilderness, a voice spoke through fire to wrest a nation into belonging. What argon is to the experiment—a marker of what was, a key to what endured—so are we to the Holy One: a portion claimed. Not for our own reactions, but for the love that holds us, inert and unyielding, across the ages.
So yeah, it's weird. But so is a lot of what God asks: Build a boat for a flood that hasn't come. March around a city blowing trumpets. Eat bread and wine and call it flesh and blood. Weird is sometimes the sign you're on holy ground.
And John is weird as the gospels go. Who was this Disciple Jesus loved. His mother is sometimes identified as the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which would make her Jesus’ aunt. If Salome is also the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, then that would make John the Apostle Jesus’ first cousin.
Where does this idea come from? This connection is pieced together by comparing three different Gospel accounts of the women at the cross: Mark 15:40 mentions “Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome.” Matthew 27:56 mentions “Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.” John 19:25 says, “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”
Some interpret “his mother’s sister” to be Salome, equating her with the “mother of the sons of Zebedee.” But others say that might refer to another Mary, which would be confusing—two sisters both named Mary? (Not impossible, but odd.)
If John was Jesus’ cousin, we might expect the story to go a certain way. We might expect John to protect Jesus, or John to speak for him, or John to be the one to take care of Jesus’ mother—as a matter of family duty. But at the cross, it goes the other way around. Jesus is the one thinking of John. Jesus is the one entrusting Mary to him. Jesus is the one giving away his own mother—as if to say, “From now on, love will be what makes a family.”—not just the beloved disciple, but a family member, chosen to carry something greater than blood: a new kind of kinship, born of faith and love.
In our own lives, we often assume we know who should take care of whom, or what strength is supposed to look like. But Jesus flips that. He says: Let the weak become strong. Let the servant lead. Let the disciple become the guardian. That’s what Jesus did for John. That’s what Jesus does for us.
The paradox of believing without seeing. You can believe without seeing. You can believe with out even looking. You can feel a certain way. We can look at things closer. Thomas and his doubting also blessed. Some words that are left out have more meaning than those present. Absence is measured by the heart. Like how dogs tells time with their nose. We can go the other way around
Gold is forged in neutron star collisions—violent mergers that eject hundreds of tons of gold in seconds. When the Egyptians called it ‘the flesh of Ra,’ they unknowingly echoed astrophysics: gold does carry the memory of stellar fire. It’s not metaphor. Your wedding band’s atoms were born in a cataclysm so bright it outshone galaxies—a testament that even destruction can seed life.
So if the Egyptians believed gold was the flesh of Ra, the sun god, they were poetically aligning with a cosmic truth: gold really is born in the fire and death of stars. It’s the element with the memory of light. Gathered, pressed, and folded into planets, into bones, into crowns—and myths. Neutron stars don’t try to forge gold—they collapse, and beauty spills out. If AGI's 'work' is just cosmic play, perhaps holiness has always been the universe going the other way around: not labor, but surrender.
And maybe that’s what myths do best—they arrive at truth by a different road. Not by measuring, but by meaning. Even stars that ‘die’ scatter gold across the cosmos—just as dinosaurs ‘died’ only to become sparrows. Destruction is never the last word for those who know how to see
It’s not about bowing down because of power or fear or even tradition. It’s because through grace, things can be better. Not easier, not more successful—but truer, more whole, and not just about us. That shift—from self to something bigger—is the only path that makes sense if you’re really paying attention.
And yes—Thomas! Huh? He wasn’t punished for his doubt; he was invited. Jesus met him exactly where he was: “Put your finger here… stop doubting and believe.” It’s such a tender and precise encounter. Jesus doesn’t shame him for being rational—he affirms that faith is not blind. It's relational. It's earned through love, presence, and truth. And contrary to what the world thinks it is rational.
I’ve lived with the long-term reality of something like Agenda 21, where belief in a better world often feels irrational in the face of greed, apathy, or denial. But still I work. Still I hope. That’s faith—not the fairy-tale kind, but the gritty, patient kind that has its sleeves rolled up. The only game in town. Clarity isn’t a luxury. It’s the beginning of holiness.
Let Us Pray
Holy One,
who formed us with lungs to breathe,
with minds to wonder,
with hearts that stretch and strain toward truth—
Be with us as we ask our questions,
and stay with us when answers come slowly.
Let us not fear the work of seeking,
nor the silence between revelations.
Make us brave enough to touch what is wounded,
and wise enough to know that scars can be sacred.
Open us to the many ways you move—
in quiet, in thunder,
in data and dust,
in the spaces we did not expect to find you.
Amen.
Benediction
Go now with courage to look closer,
with gentleness to hold what is fragile,
and with wonder to embrace what is still becoming.
You are not alone.
You are not forsaken.
You are held—by the One who breathes through doubt,
walks with the curious,
and calls all things good.
Go now—and if the machines ever outsmart us into wisdom, may we finally learn rest.
Amen.
Nottingham UMC 4/27/2025
