Wrestling with Doubts

Out of the Tomb
March 31, 2013
The Highest Form of Flattery
April 14, 2013

 

April 7, 2013. 

Last week the Montgomery County Public School’s spring break coincided with Holy Week so many of you were out of town for Easter.  Hopefully you celebrated Easter wherever you were.  However, if you couldn’t make it to church anywhere last Sunday you might come here today a bit like Thomas and some of the early disciples.  A week after the resurrection, Thomas wondered about the resurrection, whether it was true and how it applied to his life.  Unlike Mary, Peter and John who were around Jesus right after the resurrection of the Lord, or even other disciples who saw Jesus shortly after, Thomas wanted some proof.  He hadn’t seen the nails and the holes.  We can’t blame Thomas for being skeptical.  Thomas wanted to experience the resurrection for himself.  

If you were here last week on Easter to hear the resurrection story and are wrestling with questions, you are not alone.  As modern Americans in a post Enlightenment world, polls show most American Christians are accustomed to having questions about the resurrection of Jesus.  We have God-given gifts of rational thinking.  We are trained to think critically.  Our educational system encourages analytical thought.  And after all, we were not there 2000 years ago and none of us know anyone in our lifetime who rose from the dead as Jesus did.   

Furthermore, there was a fair amount of uncertainty about parts of that first Easter at the time.  Most of the main characters in the narrative around Jesus’ death had doubts about something.  Peter kept denying Jesus.  Mary mistook Jesus for a gardener.  Even Jesus expressed doubt on the cross in asking, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”  This morning the next scripture lesson from John’s Gospel after last week’s continues the Easter story with Thomas’ desire for proof.  Thomas asks the question any of us today might have asked, can you show me?

 

I know that several of you are from Missouri.  Our esteemed music director is one.  Missouri is known as the “show me” state.  It is said that in a speech at a naval banquet in Philadelphia in 1899, Congressman Willard Vandiver from Missouri declared, “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”  And the name stuck.  The eloquence of the disciples in saying “We have seen the Lord” did not convince Thomas.  He wanted Jesus to show him proof.   I like Thomas in that he is intellectually honest.  He had doubts and was willing to express them.  As with the group of Jesus’ disciples, within each of us is both faith and doubt. 

 

Now there is good evidence when it comes to the resurrection.  There is as much or more historical proof about the life of Jesus than anything else about that time period.  The fact that so many followers of Jesus risked and were willing to give up their lives in belief of Jesus’ resurrection makes it seem unlikely that it was a hoax.  That much of the proof rests on the testimony of women, who were not considered reliable witnesses during that time period and weren’t allowed to testify in court, is persuasive.  It would be unlikely someone would make up a story of a resurrection in which the proof rested on unreliable testimony.

But while I believe in it, I am not here to try and convince you of the resurrection.  Only the Holy Spirit can do that.

 

I used to worship at Memorial Church and hear Rev. Peter Gomes preach when I lived in Boston.  He quoted Sherlock Holmes saying, “One in pursuit of a criminal should not pay too much attention to evidence, Watson, it gets in the way.”  The same could be said at times of one in pursuit of a savior. 

 

Faith is a matter of the heart as well as of the head.  None of us were at the tomb or in the room.  But we all put our faith in something.  You might put your faith in yourself or your education.  In your sturdy arms and their ability to protect you on your playground.  North Korea seems to have put its faith in weapons despite the starvation of its people.  Sometimes we put our faith in bank accounts and review them like a security blanket when comfort is needed.  So this Easter season, what will you put your faith in?

 

The way God raised Jesus, so that we have questions about the resurrection, tells us things about God.  One thing it tells us that faith is necessary for joy.  In 1 Peter 1, Peter, despite all his confusion, makes a statement similar to Jesus’ writing to followers who had been persecuted by saying of Jesus that “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”

 

That is the hope of the church, that we who wrestle with doubt can appreciate the mystery of the resurrection.  That God seems to have intended for us to have questions about the central experience of our religion, the resurrection, should teach us that questioning has a role to play in our understanding of life.  For a religion that requires us to give over control to God, having some questions that we cannot answer forces us to practice giving up control. 

 

Jesus says, “Blessed” are those who have not seen and have come to believe.  The word blessed in this context means joyful.  I have found that doubt does not need to be a barrier to joy.  In fact it is necessary for it.  I talked with one scientist in our congregation recently who told me the more he knows of the universe the more he considers it a mystery.  I think the same applies to the resurrection, the more we understand it the more we appreciate God’s message within it that there is value in mystery.

 

Our asking questions can be healthy.  We need doubts to keep us from becoming exclusive, rigid and falling into the trap of dismissing all other points of view but our own.  I watched the Oscar nominated film, Zero Dark Thirty this week.  What struck me most in the film was the absolutism of both sides.  Certainly those who attacked America on September 11 showed few doubts about their religiously motivated actions.  The movie shows the moral certainty of those on the U.S. side, the morality of whose actions many Americans now question.  

 

We are gifted with doubt to keep us honest and humble.  When you don’t have questions or doubt and stay in a narrow view of the world, you don’t learn.  I had lunch with Rabbi Schnitzer of BJC this week as we plan next stage of our collaboration.  Our dialogue with our brothers and sisters here helps expand our horizons in our own understanding of the sacred and make space for new growth.  We need humility to engage with others.

 

As I think about our national life, one of the great challenges of our time is the lack of humility and common ground.  Too many are convinced they are absolutely right.  In his new book On God’s Side, Sojourners President Jim Wallis writes that “Many people in America feel politically homeless in the raging battles between ideological extremes.  But they could find their home in a new call for the common good – a vision drawn from the heart of our religious traditions that allows us to make our faith public but not narrowly partisan.”  Wallis argues that too many of us, convinced of the certainty of our views; look at public issues from the narrow focus on personal gain, “what’s in it for me,” rather than a vision of the common good.  A vision rooted in Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbor but shared by all faiths that appreciate the diversity of creation.

 

I like that Jesus shared such grace towards Thomas.  Not dismissing him or leaving him to figure out faith on his own after all he missed the resurrection, but giving him a chance to understand grace.  Thomas had the chance to experience God as the other disciples did.  Jesus said to him, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Instead Thomas fell on his knees and showed his faith in Jesus confessing, “My Lord and my God.” 

 

I am glad he didn’t reach out and touch Jesus.  If he had done that we would not have been able to relate as well.  For our chance to touch Jesus’ hand and reach out to his side has passed.  Instead, Thomas does the work of the Easter season; he embraces the mystery of faith.  Now he does see Jesus.

 

Jesus says to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  Faith is necessary for joy.  When it comes to the resurrection life, there is more to it than seeing Jesus.  For Mary, Peter and John, in addition to Thomas, they saw Jesus after the resurrection but we here don’t get to see them after death.  For them, and for us, to have joy they, and we, have to trust that the resurrection gift of life applied to us.  Mary, Peter and John had more proof about Jesus than Thomas did or we do, but they still had to have faith in what it all meant for them.  They could see Jesus, but none of us can see what is on the other side of death for us.  To celebrate the joy of the resurrection we, like Thomas, must have faith.

 

Regardless of how close his followers were to Jesus, they still had questions.  Thomas wanted to see the nail marks.  The disciples before him wanted to see his hands and his side.  Peter and John denied Jesus before running to their homes and the upper room and locking their doors.  Mary walked about on Easter confused by a gardener by an empty tomb.  And most people in the culture at the time missed it completely.  The resurrection of Jesus was not such that everyone got it without question.  In fact, there were few around Jesus for whom the process of Jesus’ death and Easter resurrection was a straight and clear line.  There was mystery inherent in each experience of the resurrection. 

 

A few weeks ago Jerry Maddox, a member of our community, shared a poem with me about his experience of this resurrection time.  With his permission we share it with you as I bet it expresses many of our feelings this time of year.

 

Jerry wrote,

“Once more I sit and hear old songs and words;

a story that spans the years  comes from a land

of crumbling stone and sun washed sand,

of olive trees and camels — it sounds absurd:

a tale of death undone and fear let go,

this resurrection mocks good sense and leaves

a lingering doubt as nothing seems to ease

my quest to grasp a thing I do not know.

 

How often have I heard these songs?  Their sound

of triumph extolls a truth revealed, a sign

of substance more than flesh that falls away.

All logic flees as holy notes rebound;

I hear the music rise and try to find

In it my hope reborn — and praise the day!

 

It seems that God meant for us to feel, think, to question, and to reflect.

And then to choose.  To choose what it is in life we are going to put our faith in.   That can mean letting go of our need for complete clarity.  If you were here recall last week the tomb had power over Mary because she wanted so badly to see and then to not let Jesus go.  But he resisted saying, “Do not hold onto me, I am ascending to my father.”  Jesus was not planning to remain as evidence. 

 

If we require absolute certainty before stepping out in faith, then the tomb has power over us too.  When by the power of the Holy Spirit we come to believe in our time, then we start to see the Lord. We notice evidence of the Lord’s presence in the world.  We see how Jesus speaks to us through music and scripture and worship.  We feel on how Jesus touches us spiritually through prayer.  We notice how Jesus works through us to bring compassion where it is needed most.  We experience how love changes lives.  We understand that our lives are blessed beyond belief through belief.  We start to believe that resurrections are possible, even for us. 

 

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  For Christ is alive.  Our savior rose and is out there waiting to be found.  Jesus our companion is ready to walk through life with us.  Walk with our questions.  Walk with our emotions.  Walk with our anxiety about things we do not understand.  To provide a glimmer of a better world.  A whisper that love really is stronger than death.  And a faith that hope can be reborn.  May it be so.  Amen.