Scripture: John 20:19-31; Nehemiah 2:11-20; 1 Corinthians 15 Series: Easter
Preached on the Second Sunday of Easter, this sermon pairs Doubting Thomas (John 20:19-31) with Nehemiah inspecting Jerusalem’s ruined walls (Nehemiah 2:11-20) to launch Covenant UMC’s capital campaign to pay down roughly $358,000 of sanctuary debt. Pruitt argues that resurrection should reshape how Christians see everything—including money—and that congregations are eager for Jesus’s costly self-gift on the cross but reluctant for the ongoing ‘maintenance’ of building the kingdom on that foundation. Using the Pruitt-Igoe housing project as a cautionary tale that the true cost of any building lies in upkeep and rebuilding, he reframes Thomas’s bare-facts realism as a commendable financial diligence, names his own avoidance of money-talk as a ministry weakness, and calls the church—like Nehemiah—to look honestly at fallen walls and rebuild faithfully (not foolhardily) so resources can flow into ministry. Our scars, like the risen Christ’s, are not erased by resurrection but redeemed.
Illustrations: pruitt-igoe-housing-project, investment-pitch-conversation, promised-gift-not-yet-in
April 12, 2026
Come and See the Trouble — Come and Start Rebuilding
John 20:19-31
“So I came to Jerusalem and was there for three days. Then I got up during the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal I took was the animal I rode. I went out by night by the Valley Gate past the Dragon’s Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no place for the animal I was riding to continue. So I went up by way of the valley by night and inspected the wall. Then I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate and so returned. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing; I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work. Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.” I told them that the hand of my God had been gracious upon me and also the words that the king had spoken to me. Then they said, “Let us start building!” So they committed themselves to the common good. But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they mocked and ridiculed us, saying, “What is this that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven is the one who will give us success, and we his servants are going to start building, but you have no share or claim or memorial in Jerusalem.”” Nehemiah 2:11-20 NRSVUE https://bible.com/bible/3523/neh.2.11-20.NRSVU
“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”” John 20:19-29 NRSVUE
One of the largest housing projects in the United States was built in St. Louis in the middle of the 20th century, and it had my last name as part of the title of the complex, the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project. It was built state-of-the-art. It was phenomenally expensive. There was a huge capital output to try and house people in St. Louis, trying to house people coming to the city in the post-war period, as methods of agriculture was shifting, people were returning from the war within a few decades, they tore it down.
Often drugs and the rise of crack cocaine was blamed for the downfall of Pruitt-Igoe. One key details was that there was federal funding to build it. There was no funding to maintain it, no money to rebuild it.
We try, when we build anything, to plan for the future, but the building is built for the present. The future cost is in maintaining future cost is in rebuilding.
After the Resurrection
After the resurrection on Easter Sunday, a few of the disciples saw Jesus. He came and met them. They had shared the Passover meal a few days earlier. They are all there except, except two. Judas wasn’t there for obvious reasons, nor was Thomas.
Thomas gets the nickname, Doubting Thomas. He hears word of Jesus coming and he doubts what the other disciples say. Understandably, he’s not the only one who doubts in the Gospel of John. In fact, there are a lot of people, and over again, a consistent theme throughout the Gospel of John from chapter one, when Nathaniel is told about Jesus and said, what, what good could come from Nazareth
In John Chapter three, when Nicodemus comes by night, the Pharisee too check on Jesus and, and says that he’s a wise teacher. Whenever Jesus says he must be born from above, Nicodemus responds by saying “how can I be born again? Am I gonna go back into my mother’s belly?” In John chapter four with the Samaritan woman, John chapter nine, with the people about the, the man born blind, John Chapter, Martha and Mary confronting Jesus about their brother Lazarus.
This questioning of Jesus is not a new theme nor a unique theme to Thomas. It is this consistent message, people have high opinions of Jesus, but they don’t fully grasp what he is offering and giving. They enjoy a portion of the good news, what I will call the good-ish news. They’ve heard, and they’re ready for Jesus’s great expenditure of dying on the cross for them, but they’re not ready for the maintenance of building and rebuilding a new kingdom on that foundation of Jesus. Thomas was a realist. People don’t come back from the dead. That’s not what happens. He was a bare-facts kind of person, which is funny in that if we come back to thinking about buildings and finance in those kinds of aspects, it’s a commendable attribute to be diligent and transparent with finances; to pay for what you can, not what you can’t.
If the claim of the disciples wasn’t about Jesus showing up, but was about a big check coming in to finance the growth of the new church, but they didn’t have the actual check yet, I don’t think any of us would blame Thomas for doubting them. If someone says they’re going to give a very large gift to the church, just being perfectly honest, I’m not gonna doubt them before it comes in, but I’m not going to count on it until it’s actually there.
So often we think about resurrection in a spiritual way. Even if we talk about the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ, which I want to talk about. I believe it fully that the tomb was empty. If the tomb wasn’t empty. Like, I’m, I’m with Paul in first Corinthians 15, like, let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. Christianity is a failed social experiment if that tomb is an empty.
If Jesus rose from the dead, we should look at the world in a different way. We shouldn’t go back to the same way of thinking once someone brings up money.
When we bring in the money stuff in conversation, it gets different fairly quickly. This happens in all of our lives, right? You’re playing golf with someone, you’re having lunch with someone. Once they bring up money, it’s a different conversation than you were before.
There are different stakes involved. If you run into an old friend from a long time ago, you talk about your kids, your grandkids. You talk about your travels, then they start talking about an investment opportunity and you switch into a different mode.
It’s a different kind of conversation with different stakes involved. There are very little stakes involved in talking about our kids. I love our kids. I love hearing about your kids. I mean that, but the stories I hear about your kids arm isn’t gonna change my life. The stories I hear about your trip to Cancún isn’t gonna change my life.
It’s nice. The fellowship is good. These are good things. We need to be having these conversations. If we get into an investment venture together and it goes sideways, there are different stakes involved with that.
The Bible talks about money a lot and building and rebuilding a lot. I want to think about that and the doubting of Thomas with regards to the building and the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah takes place early in the Old Testament. It’s before all the sets of the prophets, but it’s set during the exile. It’s set with the people of Israel. They lost their way of life and they’re scrambling to figure out what to do next. The world is not how they expected it to be. It did not turn out how they expected it to be. We could say the same about the disciples after Good Friday. This is not the world they expected. It changed. How are they going to adapt to this change? What Are they going to do?
And so we have Nehemiah, a Jew working in the court of Susa the Assyrian King. He hears that Jerusalem is without walls, so he heads to his homeland to rebuild the walls.
And he comes and he walks around the place. He walks around and he boldly declares that with God, he is going to rebuild the walls. He hasn’t seen what is going to take place, but he believes.
When Thomas is finally confronted by Jesus and he touches the, the wounds on his hand and the hole in his side that are still there, the scars are still there. Our scars are not erased by resurrection but redeemed. Our scars do not define us, but they are a part of us. Our past does not define us, but it is a part of us.
Capital Intro
My friends, today, we are starting a capital campaign for the rest of April to try and pay down a good chunk of the debt that was put in place when this sanctuary was built. That many of you, many generous people invested in the future of the church, but through various reasons and situations and historical realities, the payments for this building were not fully completed.
We have about $358,000 left on our debt in September of last year. There was an adjustment to our interest rate with that loan through the Texas Methodist Foundation, and, shocker, it went. So now we are paying less principal and more interest every month, and I think it added three years to the payoff.
If we just make payments every month, our debt servicing is over 50,000 bucks. These details in the newsletter, if you’re able to read it, but it gets back to this as I was saying, like when, when someone brings up money, it’s a different kind of conversation. When a preacher brings up money, it’s a different kind of conversation. And I often avoid talking about money, and this is a weakness of my ministry, but I’m not avoiding it today or for the next few weeks because I think it matters.
And I think this matters because if we can pay down a good chunk of this, it opens up the opportunity for ministry in new ways that we are currently basically paying a full-time, you know, children’s director, youth director every year. You know, it’s, it’s more than we pay for the maintenance costs. It’s more than the other costs of the building. Thankfully, our insurance cost finally went down after a few years of sky-high expenses. But we need to do something soon. We are at a critical point in the history of this church.
For those of you who are still here from the beginning, and there are a few of you, Covenant does not look like you expected it to look when you started it. It definitely doesn’t look like you expected it to look when you built that building. For those of you who came later like me, looking back at the records, Covenant used to be a much bigger church. That’s why we have the nice large sanctuary. It had twice as big a budget in 2000 as it does today in, you know, dollar for dollar. That does not include inflation.
So we have a physical footprint to take care of, but like I said, we are growing. People are coming and worshiping here, connecting with God here. And so we have an opportunity to bring down this burden and rebuild in order to invest your resources directly into ministry. Directly into ministry, to find a youth director and a children’s director, to find people who can care for the next generation.
When we spend 15% of our budget every year, paying back the past, it makes us scrape by in the present when we don’t need to.
After I finish and we say the creed, I am going to ask Rich to share for a moment about what this campaign means to him.
We have to look honestly at where things stand, like Nehemiah walking around the fallen walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah saw a future and worked for it because of who God is, what God had done in the past, and what God promised for the future. That is the same for us today. We are not called to be foolhardy but faithful. Faithful in this season of resurrection to not be trapped by our past but to build for the future that God would have for our community. To invest in that future with our time, our prayers, and even the different conversation of our money.
In this season of resurrection, may we be so bold.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.