Sermon - Faithful Doubt

Preached March 30, 2008, the Second Sunday of Easter, at The First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC

I Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31

Dedicated to Senator Barack Obama, with gratitude for his recent speech regarding race in America; and always to the glory of God.

Jesus says to Thomas “stop doubting and believe,” and I believe that the risen Jesus may bring the same message to every one of us in a particular moment of revelation along our journey. “Stop doubting and believe.” But to understand this story, I think that we need to understand what it means that Thomas was doubting, because there are different kinds of doubt. Thomas had what I call faithful doubt. This kind of doubting is good, even essential, and Jesus was not critical of it. We all need faithful doubt.

Listen to these voices that see faith with clarity.
The author Jose Bergamin wrote that “a belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.”
The theologian Paul Tillich, who did his most important work during the volatile times of the 2nd world war and the beginning of the nuclear age said that doubt is not the opposite of faith, it is an element of faith.
And finally, Frederick Buechner put it very succinctly. He told us that doubt is the “ants in the pants of faith.” It keeps us from getting too comfortable, or complacent.

Faithful doubt is that part of us that knows we don’t know everything. It allows us to have questions, and to re-examine even the things that we already think we know. I hope that when we reached the age of 25 (or will reach it), we don’t have the same view of God or of the world, or even of ourselves as we did at age fifteen. And I hope that our understanding is always growing, year by year. We can only do that if we have some faithful doubt about the views we used to hold.

Faithful doubt contains a humility about our own knowledge. It allows us to say, “I could be wrong.” And we need to say that. Think of this in terms simple things like lost keys or a remote control. When you say “I know it’s somewhere in this room!” saying “I could be wrong” is the first step to finding what you have lost. Now think in terms of family arguments, especially those that have dragged on for months and years, if only someone would say “I could be wrong.” Think of political, partisan battles: “I could be wrong.” May we always have enough humility, enough doubt, to say “I could be wrong.”

When doubt is absent, we are dangerously close to humanity’s darkest side. When the rabbi Sheila Peltz went to visit the site of the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where so many of her fellow Jews had been tortured and killed, she understood the importance of doubt. Listen to her words. “As I stood before the gates, I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place.”

We need a bit of faithful doubt, to keep us honest, to keep us searching. In fact, to keep searching is what makes this kind of doubt faithful, and makes it different from what I would call cynical doubt. Faithful doubt keeps asking questions and searching for answers, while cynical doubt raises objections and offers dismissals. Cynical doubt leaves no room for being wrong, or to be convinced by new discoveries. If you have a difference of opinion with a cynical doubter, there’s no use talking to them except to waste your time. The only thing you can do is to just show them kindness and love, which is never a waste of time.

Thomas is a faithful doubter. He says that he needs to see Jesus himself, to see his wounds. He says that he does not believe that Jesus has been raised, but even so, he sticks with the disciples for seven long days, which is how long it takes before Jesus returns to see them again. That must have been one long week. A cynical doubter would have said “I’m not going to believe what you say and I’m not wasting my time waiting for proof that will never come. I’m out of here.”

To the cynical doubter in each of us, I would say this. Don’t just doubt your belief. Doubt your disbelief. When you disbelieve that praying will get you anywhere; when you disbelieve that going on a mission tour to repair just a couple of homes in all of Appalachia will make much difference, or that an extra ten dollars a month in your offering will do much good; when you disbelieve that anyone could really love you unconditionally just as you are, with everything you have done; when you disbelieve, get some doubt. Say “maybe I’m wrong about that.” Maybe I’m looking to prayer for the wrong results; maybe I’m calculating the value of my service and offering too harshly; maybe God really is as close to us as Jesus proclaimed. You have to ask yourselves, are my reasons for disbelieving really any better than the reasons to believe? Or is disbelief just easier?

I read an article about the world of modern magicians, the ones who do tricks with their hands right in front of you, the ones who ask you to pick a card, write your name on it, and when you have put it back in the deck they pull it out from the pocket of your friend’s coat. What the magicians said is that the point of their magic is not to trick you into believing that magic is real. We all know, when we watch them, that there is some technique to the trick. The hat has a false bottom; the card was up their sleeve. And so the effect is that we watch them work, we know it is some kind of trick, and yet our minds cannot conceive of the way the trick is pulled off. They lead us down a mental highway to which there are no exits, and at the end of the trick, the effect is not that we believe the playing card was magically teleported somewhere, the effect is that we have been made aware of the limits of our own understanding. We are reminded that in life, there are some things that our minds cannot fully grasp, and yet we do know one thing: Yes, that is my card.

How much do you need to know about God in order to believe, in order to give more of yourself to God in worship, thanksgiving, prayer, and service? What do you need to see before you can say “yes, that’s my card.”

Thomas said he wanted to see and touch the wounds that Jesus received when he was killed. And what does Jesus do with Thomas, who refuses to take their word for it, who refuses to believe what his fellow disciples are telling him, who sets these conditions on his belief? Jesus comes to him and offers him what he needs. “Here,” he says, “see the places where I was pierced, put your hand here and touch these scars.” But Thomas doesn’t need to touch them anymore. Thomas proclaims “my Lord and my God.” In all of the gospel of John, Thomas is the one who finally, and most clearly states the identity of Jesus Christ. “My Lord and my God.”

But what about the rest of us? Thomas saw Jesus and saw his wounds. But then Jesus said “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” I think that John was very careful to include that line, because he was writing his gospel about 60-70 years after Jesus had risen, and he must have known many people who believed in Jesus without ever seeing his wounded body. How did they come to believe? It was not be because God made all their wishes come true, and it was not because God saved them from the pain of life. Believing in God isn’t about a shortcut to a carefree life. So how will we come to believe?

Think about Thomas again. He wanted to see the wounds of Jesus. In one sense, he may have been looking for proof that this man who claimed to be Jesus was really the same one who had been killed. But maybe the wounds were more than proof that the resurrection wasn’t a trick. Maybe the wounds were the evidence he needed to see that death had really lost its hold on us. With the wounds of the cross, Jesus suffered judgment, punishment, and death, but when the risen Jesus shows Thomas the wounds that no longer hurt him, we know that he has freed us from judgment, freed us from the system of punishment, and freed us from death. The risen Christ shows us that grace will make each of us whole.

Isn’t that what we are looking for, the way to be made whole? After all that we suffer, after all that we have done wrong, after every mistake or misguided path, God can make us whole. When we see that, then we can believe. In the meantime, let our doubt be faithful, let us hold our questions before us as we search together. It turns out that in our searching, God will find us.