Bridestowe, Lydford, Easter 3, 22/4/2012
Doubt is not a bad thing. Doubt is not the opposite of believing - doubt is an essential part of the process of believing. The writer Oz Guinness, who has thought about this very deeply, says that doubt is ‘faith in two minds’: Doubt is not the opposite of faith, unbelief is, he says. Unbelief is a state of mind which is closed against God, whereas doubt is a - hopefully temporary - suspension of faith, a state of mind which is not closed against God, but which has questions needing answering. [1]
Last week we heard the story of the man who has been dubbed Doubting Thomas and made an example of, because he wouldn't believe the resurrection had happened until he'd seen Jesus with his own eyes. Thomas Didymus, meaning 'twin', or 'double', or 'twofold'. Thomas was a man whose faith was in two minds, a man for whom seeing was believing.
And in today’s gospel we see how the other disciples reacted when Christ appeared to them - they were startled and terrified, and thought they had seen a ghost. Even after Jesus had spoken to reassure them, and invited them to touch him to be sure it was he, alive, before them, the disciples, we are told, were simultaneously joyful and disbelieving, still wondering, despite the sight before their eyes.
The stories of these disciples’ encounters with Jesus are not in the bible to make an example of people who doubted, nor are they in the bible to show that doubt is wrong. No - doubt is a normal and acceptable part of believing: Jesus does not condemn it. Jesus' opening words to his disciples were 'Peace be with you'; he said this to Thomas too, when he first saw him.
These stories are not about unbelievers, but about believers who doubted. After meeting the risen Jesus, Thomas confessed his faith clearly and confidently, exclaiming ‘My Lord and my God!’ It is one of the greatest and most emotional professions of belief in all of the gospels. And the disciples got through their time of doubt after Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures; they became confident witnesses of the Messiah’s mission.
The gospel writer John tells us the reason why he put Thomas’s story in the bible: it was ‘so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name’. Through the questions raised by a disciple bold enough to express his doubts, it becomes possible for us to have faith.
If we approach them in good faith then the stories of these disciples will help us to see that there are different ways of believing ... each of us comes to Jesus in our own way; and that there are different stages on the journey of believing ... each of us is at a different place in our life of faith. And that if we are in a position of doubt, if we are in two minds about the reality of Jesus Christ and his place in our lives, then we are in an acceptable place, a place where Jesus wants to meet us and show that he accepts us, and say to us, 'Peace be with you'.
I wonder if, like me, you can give thanks now for those times of doubt in your life, when you have learned and grown in your faith through struggling with an aspect of it and coming through that time with a greater understanding, a sense of having become closer to God through the process.
I give thanks for the time of doubt I had after attending the funeral of a schoolfriend who had died in a road accident. We were both only 18 and not godly boys at all. The service was full of words about my friend’s heavenly destination; I didn’t know how much of them I could believe, and I was left with all sorts of doubts and concerns about my own eternal destiny. I started praying what you might call a prayer of unbelief: never having really prayed before, I would say, ‘God, I don’t know if you are there, but if you are, let me know, help me to find you.’ And over time that prayer was answered, and I did begin to get a real sense of God in my life.
And I give thanks for the doubts I had about God’s love and mercy at the time when my beloved grandmother - a woman of quiet but deep faith - was suffering terribly in a hospital bed at the end of her long life, keeping the others in her ward awake at night with her cries of ‘Help me, Jesus’. Why wasn’t he helping her, by either healing her pain or - better still - taking her to the place she by then really wanted to go? Through the anger and bitter tears, through the doubts that God was loving and merciful, I gradually came to see both God and my grandmother in new ways; to understand them and their relationship more deeply. Her cry of ‘Help me, Jesus’ was a cry of firm faith, not unbelief: she was being bold, making demands of her Lord like that; my cries of anger drew me closer to God too, and the doubts I had about him gave way to keener insights into how God does draw close to us in suffering, and sees us through.
We should not be afraid to doubt, if we see it as a means of learning and growing in our faith. And we should not be afraid to engage with other people who express their doubts, for Jesus yearns to meet them and show that he accepts them, and say to them, 'Peace be with you'.
We live in an interesting time and place when it comes to issues of faith and unbelief. On the one hand there is what the previous Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey describes as ‘the marginalization of public faith’ where Christian practice is being called into question and challenged by secular voices, as witnessed for instance in the ongoing debate about the suitability of opening council meetings with prayers. [2] On the other hand there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that those outside of religion increasingly see it positively. In his Easter sermon last week the current Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams noted the way in which some secular commentators ‘no longer see [faith] as a brainless and oppressive enemy, it is recognized as a potential ally in challenging a model of human activity and social existence that increasingly feels insane, a model [of] unlimited material growth and individual acquisition.’ The Archbishop said that ‘We may groan in spirit at the reports of how few young people in our country know the Lord's Prayer, but there is plenty to suggest that younger people, while still statistically deeply unlikely to be churchgoers, don't have the hostility to faith that one might expect.’ [3]
We live in a time and place where no-one can take Christianity for granted any more. Believers and churchgoers can’t assume that their friends and neighbours outside the faith know and understand what it is about. And there are many outside the faith who have genuine interest, genuine questions, sincere doubts. In the spirit of Thomas and the first disciples, this situation should be seen as a good thing, to be embraced; those who have faith should be encouraging others to raise their questions, to air their doubts, we should be thrilled to try to help them in their understanding, we should seek out and encourage such conversations as they will stretch us and challenge us and help us to grow in our faith too.
At The Last Supper (in John 14:5) Thomas spoke up for those who can’t take Christianity for granted. When Jesus told his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them, and said, ‘You know the way to the place where I am going,’ Thomas responded, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’
We know how Jesus answered - by telling Thomas that 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' And Thomas, a man for whom seeing was believing, understood at that moment that for him to know which way his life should go, Thomas had to see Jesus. It is the experience of all of us who have struggled with doubts and difficulties at various stages of our life - waiting for God to reveal himself to us so he can direct us, yearning for Jesus to show us the way. And having come through those times strengthened in our faith we understand that process as a good thing.
So if we think of our faith as a work in progress, if we think of our life as a journey on the way, with all its unexpected diversions, twists and turns, then we should be encouraged by the story of Thomas and the first disciples; people on a journey of faith who had questions on the way. When we go on long unknown journeys we have those moments where we doubt we’re going in the right direction, we wonder if we should have taken a different turning, and we seek out help and confirmation from one who knows. And when a traveller stops us and asks us for directions, it makes us happy if we can help them on their way.
The disciples had the luxury of seeing Jesus in person. We see Jesus differently - usually when others show Jesus to us through their love and care and generosity. This is how the early church grew: as people were drawn to a community which cared practically and wholeheartedly for each other. The early Christian groups described in the Acts of the Apostles modelled a social existence that replaced material growth and individual acquisition with holding all things in common: their way of life was deeply attractive to those outside looking in.
We can’t take Christianity for granted any more. But if we live it out faithfully together, if we work through our doubts together in confidence that Jesus will show us the way, if we talk our faith through honestly with those who have genuine questions and sincere doubts: then our faith will grow; and those whose faith is in two minds will see Jesus, and believe.
Notes
This talk is very similar indeed to last week’s talk on Thomas, and both draw on material from a sermon preached in Liverpool, 7/4/2007.
[1] Oz Guinness, God in the Dark
[2] George and Andrew Carey, We Don’t Do God
[3] Archbishop's Easter Sermon 2012 - God raised Jesus to life
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