Faith which does not doubt is dead faith

Transcription

1 Christ shows himself to Thomas Some say the name you give your child plays a part in shaping their personality. Others search for a hidden meaning in each person s name. Anne, for example is said to mean God has favored me while Marc is supposed to mean dedicated to Mars,: the Roman god of war. Thomas, my name, is thought to mean the twin. The story is, Jesus recruited two Apostles named Judas: one was Judas Iscariot while the other Judas Thomas. Since they shared the same name, they were said to be twins. Today, most people only know that Thomas is the last name of this second disciple named Judas. They think his first name is Doubting. Yes: he is Mr. Doubting Thomas, the Apostle who may have made the State of Missouri to become the Show Me State. I say the Apostle Thomas is unfairly maligned for his Missouri-like approach to life. Imagine what he has just been through. The author of John tells us that after Jesus was executed, his disciples hid behind locked doors for fear that they would be the next to die. While they hid in fear of their lives, Thomas was the one who went outside perhaps to find food or see if the eleven were really in any danger. While he is away, the risen Lord shows up, shows the trembling ten his wounds, and then leaves. Thomas returns to the locked house to find his friends raving We have seen the Lord. Thomas may have felt just a little exasperated; he d just risked his life for these guys and all he gets for his efforts is a round of: We have seen the Lord. Not thank you, or are you all right, or how did it go, but We have seen the Lord. Do you wonder why Thomas peevishly replies 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?" And then a week later, the eleven are once again locked in the house, and Jesus shows up again. And Jesus says 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. Do not doubt but believe. And Thomas then does something none of the other Disciples does: he recognizes Jesus as My Lord and my God! For being the most observant Apostle, Thomas is rewarded by Jesus saying Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. From this grows the myth of Doubting Thomas, the Apostle from Missouri, the Show Me State. But is that the real message of this Gospel passage that Thomas should be criticized for his doubt? I think not: the meaning of this story stands in its final sentence: these [words] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. Preached by The Rev. Thomas C. Jackson Page 1

2 Thomas got it right: he is the one who recognized Jesus as his Lord and his God. We are to join him in accepting Jesus as our Lord and our God that s the point of this reading. But wait: there s more. The author of John has Jesus say: Do not doubt but believe. For a first century Christian, believing that Jesus is Lord and God was of central importance. But I say to you: without doubt you cannot believe. Without doubt you cannot believe: that is the point of this sermon. Doubt is central to my belief. Paul Tillich, one of the most influential theologians of our time, said Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. I say: doubt is the foundation of faith, the foundation of belief. Doubt is what keeps belief from falling into the trap of certainty; doubt is what keeps faith alive. The Spanish novelist Miguel de Unamuno wrote Faith which does not doubt is dead faith. Perhaps my doubt and faith have been shaped by my name, for I have grown up to be a Doubting Thomas. Or perhaps, as Cicero, a Miguel de Unamuno sage of ancient Rome, wrote I have learned by doubting we come at truth. That s a truth from serving as a hospital chaplain, waiting with those how have just heard bad news or lost a beloved one or are slipping from this world into the next. By doubting we come at truth. As a doubting Thomas, doubt is the zip code where I find faith, what passes for truth in my life. For I live in not in certainty but faith. If I were certain I would have knowledge, if I have doubt, I believe in faith. Without doubt we cannot have faith, only knowledge. Beware those who claim to know exactly what God wants, for they neither seek nor know God. Hear how the novelist Ann Lamott 1 sees the relationship between faith and doubt. Ann Lamott writes: The thing is, I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something my Jesuit friend Tom told me that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, and emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. The problem is, sitting amidst the mess, and emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns is hard. We don t want to do that. Anne Lamott Perhaps that s why some Christians dispel doubt with certainty and speak of a faith based on sure and certain knowledge. On one extreme, churches base their belief on the literal meaning of Biblical text: this is a fundamental or an evangelical way to be a Christian. To join this kind of Christian church you must accept that Scripture rules supreme. Often you also must agree to live by a 1 Excerpt from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Ann Lamott (originally appeared in 2003 article on Advent at Salon.com) Preached by The Rev. Thomas C. Jackson Page 2

3 list of rules in order to join their church. Fail to meet even one of these standards and you cannot join; fail when you are a member and you will be expelled. Others churches build a sense of certainty not on the Bible alone but upon centuries of traditions and teachings interpreting scripture. After centuries of controversies and putting down many heresies, leaders of these churches can draw upon a rich heritage of theological debate. What this church believes is based on the arguments that defeated a specific heresy or sparked a wave of reform or were adopted by a specific Pope. This is the Roman Catholic way. In the other extreme, some leaders of that church seek to punish or reject Roman Catholics who defy church authority in areas ranging from women s health to civil marriage equality. Neither of these ways of being Christian seems to have room for doubt. But I need room for doubt. And so, I hope, do you. This brings us to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican way of being Christian. We are the church that advertises: Jesus came to take away your sins not your mind. 2 In our church, we use scripture, tradition, and reason to discern our way forward. Our three-part approach to life arose from the mind of Richard Hooker more than 400 years ago. Hooker was a Church of England clergyman during the reign of Elizabeth I, a time of great conflict between Puritans (who believed in the supremacy of scripture) and Roman Catholics (who emphasized tradition or the church s teachings). This was no minor matter: both of Elizabeth s predecessors had burned those they saw as heretics at the stake, Elizabeth decided to steer her state church along a middle path or via media between the two opposing sides. She said: I have no desire to make windows into men s souls. Rather than insisting that everyone accept the same religious belief, her demand was that everyone use the same Book of Common Prayer and worship in the same manner. This is the context of Hooker s work, and why he is often described as the father of Anglican theology. His appeal to three authorities scripture, reason, and tradition are often described as Hooker s three-legged stool. Richard Hooker Hooker s great insight is that God has not given us a single, infallible source of authority. Instead God offers us scripture presenting a variety of views that we must weigh and balance against each other. Hooker had had a dynamic understanding of tradition: he saw a need for church to change as the times change. Hooker s balancing act is based on doubt, for since none of us is infallible, none of us can be completely sure we are completely correct. Doubt saves us from the trap of certainty; it forces us to admit that we may on occasion be wrong. Making room for doubt makes room for diversity of 2 Church Ad Project Preached by The Rev. Thomas C. Jackson Page 3

4 opinion, for us to be a church where diversity is not just skin deep. Most important, doubt opens the door for us to converse with God, and that just may be the real purpose of doubt. My most challenging seminary professor, the rabbi, said: if you pay attention to life, you will get mad at God and doubt God and then argue with God. The one who lives without doubting or arguing with God is, the rabbi said, simply not paying attention. So, the rabbi said, pay attention! Doubt! Argue! Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says his hunch is that this God does not want to be an unchallenged structure but one who can be frontally addressed 3 Our scripture is full of examples of people arguing with God. Abraham argues with God to try and save the City of Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction. While still standing before the blazing bush, Moses argues with God saying he is not up to leading the people of Israel out of bondage. Remember the Canaanite woman argued with Jesus saying: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon?" If we look, we see our God welcomes this kind of interaction. Why? Perhaps because it shows we are paying attention. Or perhaps because it is by living with doubt and arguing with God that we build both our faith and our relationship with God perhaps that is the pilgrimage we are called to take, living as Doubting Thomas or Doubting Anne or Doubting Marc. Perhaps the poet David Whyte was right when in his poem Mameen he tells us to: Walter Brueggemann Poet David Whyte look back down the path as if seeing your past and then south over the hazy blue coast as if present to a wide future. Remember the way you are all possibilities you can see and how you live best as an appreciator of horizons, whether you reach them or not. Admit that once you have got up from your chair and opened the door, once you have walked out into the clean air toward that edge and taken the path up high beyond the ordinary, you have become the privileged and the pilgrim, the one who will tell the story and the one, coming back from the mountain, who helped to make it. 3 From The Message of the Psalms(Augsburg, 1984) Preached by The Rev. Thomas C. Jackson Page 4

5 May God give us the grace, wisdom and courage walk through the doubt and turmoil of our lives to become the pilgrims who will make and tell a new story of our living God in this time and place. Let us pray: Sisters and brothers in Christ, God invites us to bring our doubts and fears, our joys and concerns, our petitions and praise, and offer them for the earth and all its creatures. So we ask,creator God, that you open our hearts to your power moving around us and between us and within us, until your glory is revealed in our love of both friend and enemy, in communities transformed by justice and compassion, and in the healing of all that is broken. Amen. Cover art: Meiere, M. Hildreth, d Christ shows himself to Thomas, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. [retrieved April 6, 2013]. Original source: Preached by The Rev. Thomas C. Jackson Page 5