Do Not Doubt

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 20:19:29:

Nicknames are interesting things. Sometimes they seem strange, sometimes they hit the mark, and sometimes we might not even know what they mean or where they came from. And as nicknames go, sports stars often end up with some great nicknames, especially those who are the best of their craft. There is Walter Payton, known as Sweetness, and Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, and Jack Nicholas, the Golden Bear.  But of course, the best nicknames come from baseball.  There is Stan the Man, and Cool Papa Bell  and Double Duty Radcliff. Some nicknames become so famous, like Babe Ruth, Pee Wee Reese and Dizzy Dean that we forget their real first names.  But for every great nickname like Mr. October or Hammerin’ Hank there are also those nicknames that are a little less glorious, a little more likely that people probably wish they would have gone away, like Luke Old Aches and Pains Appling, or Ernie the Schnozz Lombardi, but perhaps the worst nickname belongs to Hugh Mulcahy who, because he never had a winning record in any complete season in which he pitched, was known as Losing Pitcher Mulcahy.  I am sure that if you were to have met Mr. Mulcahy he would not have appreciated you calling him by his nickname and just wished it would all go away.  But just like those nicknames are a little unfair, so too is the nickname that has been forever appended to Thomas, who, for some reason, for 2000 years has been the poster boy for doubt, an idea that is not really fair either to Thomas or to the concept of doubt.

Today we begin a new worship series entitled the nots of Jesus, which has nothing to do with ropes, but instead with the things that Jesus tells us not to do. Normally we talk about the things we’re supposed to do like forgive or feed the hungry or be peacemakers, but there are actually quite a few things Jesus tells us not to do, and so we’re going to spend the next nine weeks, which seems like a lot, but doesn’t cover all of the nots, looking at, interpreting and trying to figure out how we should not be doing certain things. And that’s sort of the point because often the things Jesus says not to do are things that also often cause us to tie ourselves in knots. And so, we’re going to find ways to free ourselves through Christ. And today we start with the injunction that gets read every year after Easter and that is Jesus telling Thomas “do not doubt,” form which Thomas gets his terrible nickname, and so I’d like to take just a moment to give a defense of Thomas, which I think will also help us to get at the subject of doubt and what it means for us.

And so, to do that we need to step into the not quite way back machine to early on Easter morning. There, in John’s account, which is different from the other gospels, and they are also different from each other, Mary goes by herself to the tomb and when she sees the stone moved she runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple that something is up. She has not yet encountered the risen Christ. And they run to the tomb, and both enter and see that Jesus is not there, and while we are told that the beloved disciple believed, it’s not quite clear what he believes because we are told they didn’t yet understand about the resurrection. Then they leave and Mary encounters the risen Christ, and then she goes to them and says “I have seen the Lord.” And then on Easter night, as we heard in today’s reading, we find the disciples in a room that is locked because of fear, which is another indication that they don’t really believe what Mary has told them about the resurrection and we can see that from how Jesus greets them. He says “peace be with you.” Now to understand that greeting we need to get in the genuine way back machine, because in chapter 14 as part of what is known as the farewell discourse, Jesus says to them “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” So, again, why were the doors locked? Because they were afraid, which indicates that they didn’t understand not just the resurrection, but also Jesus’ call to peace, and we’ll return to that next week when we look at the command not to be afraid.

But, after Jesus greets them, do they react to seeing Jesus there? Do they bow down and worship? Do they say “Hey, Mary was right, why did we doubt her?” No. They don’t do any of those things, so then what does Jesus do? He shows them his hands and his side, and once they disciples see this then we are told that they rejoice knowing that it is indeed Jesus, because apparently there might have been other people who could walk through closed doors. Then Jesus again says “peace be with you,” and he blows the Holy Spirit into them. And then we are told that when all of this happens that Thomas wasn’t there. It’s not clear why he wasn’t there. Perhaps he wasn’t living in fear and thus didn’t want to be locked in the room, or maybe he’d run out to grab dinner for everyone since they didn’t yet have grub hub or uber eats, or maybe he had been told that Easter candy went on clearance and he wanted to be first in line for discounted peeps and Cadbury eggs. But for whatever reason he’s not there, and so when he comes back the disciples say to him “we have seen the Lord.” Now notice this is exactly the same thing that Mary tells the disciples originally. And does Thomas believe? No. And what does Thomas say will make him believe? “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 for that he gets labeled with the moniker of doubting, and that’s how he’s been seen throughout the millennia since.

But, I would encourage you to go back and read through John and pay attention to how Thomas is portrayed. Because courageous and inquisitive might be good monikers for him, but I think what we have here is a little bit of doubt shaming, something that still happens today. Because, again, did the disciples believe Mary when she told them she had seen the risen Christ? No. and when did they believe? After they had seen the wounds. And so, what is Thomas asking for here that is any different than asking for exactly what the other disciples had seen and doubting exactly as they had? As far as I can tell there is nothing different, and yet Thomas gets the moniker and none of the rest. Now when Jesus does appear the next week, and notice that this time we are not told that the doors are locked out of fear, perhaps because they’ve understood Jesus’ message of peace? But again, Jesus doesn’t knock on the door but instead simply appears before them and after giving them the same greeting that peace be with them as the first time, he then addresses Thomas. Some commentators, and other preachers, will say that Jesus rebukes Thomas in his response to him, or at the very least there is some sarcasm being used, I don’t personally think that’s there. I see, instead, Jesus responding to Thomas with care and compassion. He, in fact, meets Thomas where he is, and I think this is the key to the story and to understanding this sense of doubt.

Jesus basically says to Thomas, do what you need to do, or what you said was necessary to believe, and then he says the title of this message, “Do not doubt.”  But notice what Thomas doesn’t do. He never actually touches Jesus, which is what he had said would be necessary for him to believe, that is his doubt was not really as bad as others thought it was, and not what he thought it was either, and then comes Thomas’ pronouncement about Jesus. This is really the highpoint of John’s gospel. In John, there is not the proclamation made by Peter about Jesus being the messiah. In fact, Jesus has been understood to be the messiah right from the start of John’s gospel, but this is the proclamation that he is more than just the expected Messiah, but that Jesus is actually God made flesh, “My Lord and my God.” And so what Thomas does here is to actually connect back to the beginning proclamation at the beginning of John, that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And so here Thomas is the one to make this claim explicit amongst the disciples. His doubt leads directly to a stronger and deeper faith.

But, here is the first thing to know about this passage and about doubt: 100% of the disciples were doubters. Every single one of them. It wasn’t just Thomas. Even Mary, and the other women in the other gospels, did not believe what they initially saw or heard.  But at least Thomas’ doubt is honest because he is actually willing to admit it, not try and cover it up, so perhaps instead of calling him doubting Thomas we should call him Honest Thomas or faithful Thomas. Even though the other disciples doubted, they were not strong enough to admit it, probably because they thought they were the only ones. They believed, wrongly, that everyone else was “strong” in their faith, and they were the only ones who had these issues or concerns.  We do the same thing. We think everyone else must have it together, but I can say that the doubts that most of us have are the doubts that all of us have, but by trying to keep them a secret we not only hurt ourselves, but we hurt each other in being able to share this walk of faith together, of being able to carry one another’s burdens, and also in being able to help one another.  That when someone expresses a doubt or concern, someone else who has been right there can say “I had exactly the same feelings once” and then share their experience, strength and hope.

100% of the disciples doubted.  So, if you have doubts, you are in good company, and I don’t really believe that Jesus is saying here that doubt is a sin. That’s how we often think of it, and certainly how we hear of it especially in the church, that if we are not 100% certain of everything that we are supposed to be believe, or think we’re supposed to believe, or that others think we are supposed to believe then something is wrong with our faith. That if you have any doubt, that you don’t therefore have any faith, and that means you’re in trouble, because the opposite of faith is doubt right? But, as the author Ann Lamont said, “the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” Or as Father Richard Rohr has said the opposite of faith is control. When we are searching for certainty, what we are actually searching for is control. To know that everything is firm and its not going to change and that we can comprehend and understand it all, and it all makes sense, and fits in this nice small little box with a bow wrapped around it. That’s really what fundamentalism is all about is certainty and control. But faith isn’t like that. Faith is messy and difficult and cluttered and confusing and faith is also something that is flexible and grows and changes, and when our faith leaves room for doubt it leaves room for growth and it’s a lived faith rather than a static faith. It’s as Jesus says in the parable of the wine skins, that no one puts new wine into an old wine skin, because it can’t handle it. It’s too brittle and not only will you lose the wine, but you lose the wineskin as well. Our faith has to be flexible enough to grow with us and with the circumstances of our lives and to be strong enough to recognize those things that are beyond our control and also beyond our comprehension, because if we think we can conceive of and understand the entirety of God then our God is way too small.

And so, if there is a criticism to make of Thomas, it’s one that could be made for most of us as well, and that’s that Thomas is trying to set limits and standards by which he will judge everything, and really, he’s also trying to limit and control God. My doubts often try and do the same thing. So, for example, when I begin thinking about the immensity of our galaxy, with its 100 billion planets, and then think about the estimated 100 billion galaxies beyond ours and I wonder if God could actually be responsible for all of that.  But does that question say anything about God, or does it say everything about me? That I believe that my God is not big enough for that. My doubt does not show God’s limits, it shows my limits. So, when we are in the midst of doubt, do an examination and ask yourself what is at the heart of your doubt, and what assumptions you are making, and then ask if your doubt is about you or about God.  We often need to let God go free to be God, and doubt is a way to do that.

Doubt can also cause us to admit that we don’t know it all, to be able to say that God is ultimately a mystery, and that faith is ultimately a mystery. As someone I read this week said, “Faith… is giving one’s heart by trusting in and being faithful to a Larger Reality that no belief can begin to define or capture. Faith is what consciously and intentionally connects us to” something larger than ourselves. That’s what assuredness or certainty doesn’t really understand. There are people who are more sure about everything than I am about anything. To me that is not a good or a healthy faith.  Instead we need to understand that our conceptions and knowledge of God grow and change over time, and hopefully our faith is getting stronger and deeper over time, and so we should easily be able to say, to paraphrase Aristotle, “The more I know about God, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”  That is not the end of faith, or the destruction of faith, to me, that is the very beginning of faith and our search to know and to love God.

Now can doubt be destructive of faith? Of course it can, but it is entirely dependent upon what we are seeking to get out of our doubt, what we are using it for, and most importantly what we are bringing to the situation. If we are searching for certainty, then we are nearly always going to be disappointed, and even worse, certainty is easily broken, and not easily put back together.  But certainty is not what faith is about. Faith involves stepping beyond what we can prove and knowing we are never going to have entirely satisfactory answers, and yet we still have to believe, and be comfortable in the ambiguity, which is what Jesus says to conclude the passage. After Thomas’ proclamation of faith, Jesus says to him “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  That statement is not really to Thomas, but to us, because unless some of you have had a religious experience that you have not shared with me in which you have encountered the risen Christ, and then we are called to believe without having seen.  And what Thomas shows us is that Christ was not dependent upon Thomas’ belief in order to be present for him. And so, when someone makes the proclamation of faith to us about the risen Christ, it’s then about the what now and seeking the experience of God, of encountering God through the movement of the Spirit present in the world

And so, Jesus’ injunction then about doubt can be not to doubt that he is in the world. Do not doubt the work of God that is being done through the Holy Spirit, because notice that Jesus doesn’t breathe the Spirit into Thomas as he does to the other disciples. And Thomas makes his proclamation without that movement because the Spirit is already there, the presence of Christ is already there. Just as I say when we begin worship that we should come with the expectation that we will encounter the risen Christ and that the Holy Spirit will be moving and working amongst us. Because that the step beyond someone’s proclamation of faith to us, is to then to know that Christ is here, that Christ is risen, and that the Spirit is here for us to make that reality known, and that is the basis of our faith. Because our faith has to be real for us. The presence of God has to be real for us, even if we aren’t feeling it all the time. We cannot live off of the faith of others, we have to make it our own even with our doubts, because that’s a part of faith as it’s a part of being human.

You can be faithful and not know everything. You can be faithful and question. You can be faithful and doubt, and you most certainly can be faithful and live with ambiguity and incomprehensibility. And I believe that doubts can help to strengthen our faith, and even help us from moving from mere belief in God, to living in and with God.  But we have to be honest with ourselves about our doubt, and why we are doubting and what it means, and we have to be honest with God.  That’s what Thomas does.  God cannot find us where we want to be, or where we want our faith to be, but can only be with us and encounter us where we are.  So be honest with yourself and be honest with God, and here might be the most important things to remember from this story about Thomas, and that is that it is not a story of rebuke or reprimand, but instead it is a story about hope and presence, that hope is possible and that Jesus is present. If even we don’t think he is there, even if we don’t think it’s even possible for him to be there, that Christ is present for us, because Easter is not about the fact that the tomb was empty or that the burial clothes were nicely folded, but it’s about the power and presence of the risen Christ and blessed are those who have not seen, but still believe, and still know that Christ is present for each and every one of us. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.