Doubt It

2^nd Sunday of Easter; Yr. C, April 7, 2013

Acts 5:27-32;  Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            The disciples are brought before the high priests.  They’re called in for a tongue lashing.  “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.”  The Jewish leaders went to great lengths to discredit Jesus, and to dismantle his growing religious faction in Jerusalem and beyond.  They took him to Pilate and Herod.  They did everything in their power to get him convicted of treason.  When that didn’t work, they stirred up the crowds to get him crucified.  It was better for one to die, then for all their lives to be put in jeopardy.

            But Jesus didn’t die.  At least, he didn’t stay dead.  He started appearing to people, showing up in upper rooms and on the beach.  Talking to them, walking with them and eating fish with them.  Tongues of fire came down from heaven and rested on the disciples and they could speak in languages that weren’t their own.  The high priests hadn’t counted on any of that.  How could they?  Who would have imagined anything like this happening?  Who wouldn’t doubt something like that?   

            On the first day of the week, Jesus appears to his disciples in a locked house.  Thomas isn’t there.  Jesus brings them peace.  They receive the Holy Spirit.  He gives them the authority to forgive sins.  Everyone is there but Thomas.  So when he returns, I imagine them all rushing forward to tell him the story.  But Thomas won’t have any of it.  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.  It’s all so preposterous.  A week later Jesus returns and this time Thomas sees, and believes.  How often do we believe without seeing?  How often do we belief something without it being confirmed by experience or evidence?  We’re a product of the enlightenment.  We want proof, even as we are drawn toward mystery.

            Holy week is not always the smoothest week in our house, especially when it corresponds with school break, like this year.  I usually work more hours then normal, and my wife and daughter have the whole week off.  That just doesn’t make any sense to Hannah.  So we end up having some pretty interesting conversations around church.  One in particular went like this.  “Will you be home tonight?” She asks.  “No, today’s Maundy Thursday.”  I say.  “We’ll all go to church tonight.”  Her head drops.  “I don’t want to go to church tonight.  I don’t even believe in Jesus.”  She grumps.  “Well … what does believing in Jesus mean?”  I ask.  “Maiya”, she says with ultimate exasperation in her voice, “You don’t know how hard it is for me.  People always ask if I believe in Santa Claus and I’m the only one.”  What just happened here, I think to myself.  Jesus and Santa Claus.  What can they possibly have in common?  I can’t even grasp the connection.  I decide to stick with Santa Claus.  “So what do you tell them?  Do you believe in Santa Claus?”  “Yes, and I’m the only one.  It’s so hard.  But Jesus isn’t real.”  That’s interesting.  “What makes you think that?”  I ask.  “Maiya,” she says with pre-adolescent certainty, “there’s no biography of Jesus.”  “There’s a biography of Santa Claus?” I counter.  “St. Nicholas.  Remember him?”  Oh yeah.  I forgot about that.  “Well,” I begin again, “There is a book about Jesus.  We call it the Bible.”  I try not to use my sarcastic voice.  “I’ve never read it”, she says.  “Jesus isn’t real.”  I’m still thinking about Santa Claus.  Is Santa Claus real?  But I decide not to go there again.  I decide to take another tack.  “Is Abraham Lincoln real?”  “Yes”, she concedes.  “How do you know?”  “There’s a biography about him.”  At least she’s consistent.  “Well, Jesus is as real as Abraham Lincoln.  He lived.”  “But there’s no book.”  She’s not going to let go of that.  “It’s the Bible, honey.  That’s the book.”  I tell her.  “Jesus is real, but you may not believe in him. Those are two different things.”  That’s as far as we get.  I’m worn out, and so is she.  This believing business is hard work.  It’s not for sissies. 

            The story we heard today is often called doubting Thomas.  But, think about it.  Thomas didn’t say that he didn’t believe in God.  Thomas never said that he was throwing in the towel on his Jewish faith.  He didn’t say that he didn’t believe what Jesus had been teaching in the three years that they followed him.  He didn’t say he was leaving them because he had lost his faith.  He just said that he couldn’t grasp the idea of someone coming back to life after they were most assuredly dead.  If friends came running up to me today, and told me they had encountered someone we all knew … back from the dead?  I wouldn’t believe them for a second.  It just doesn’t happen.  And yet, here we are.  We do believe it, or at least that’s what we proclaim. 

Doubt isn’t disbelief.  It’s wonder.  It’s questioning.  It’s testing the spirits.  Doubt is an essential ingredient of faith.  In fact, it’s what makes faith a journey!  Questions propel us into new territory.  Wonder opens our minds to new understanding and insight.  Doubt creates space for God.  It never fails.  As soon as I think I have God all figured out, and tied up in a neat little box, something happens that just blows the box to bits.  God doesn’t fit in neat little boxes.  God is much bigger than that.  Doubt relies on faith.  Michael Hopkins goes so far as to say that certainty is the opposite of faith.

             Sometimes, I hear people remembering the days of Dick Comegys here at St. Stephens’s.  When they talk about his sermons more often than not I hear this about them.  “Dick struggled with things.  I liked that, because I struggle with things too.”  That always makes me smile.  That’s so Thomas!  What a gift!  Thomas was a faithful Jew.  He became a faithful Christian.  He gives us permission to doubt, to think, to ask for evidence.  In fact, a number of our Anglican forebears claimed that in order to be a faithful people, we had to ask questions.  We had to be a thinking body of faith, or we were not being faithful.  If anyone knows that, surely it’s those of us in the Episcopal Church.  Over the last decade, our thinking about God and communion has been a real challenge to many in the Church. 

Ten years ago, we elected an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire.  Many of the religious leaders of the time told us to beware.  Think of Christians in other parts of the world.  Play it safe.  Don’t make waves.  This will cause trouble.  But the convention that year approved the election, both Bishops and Delegates.  Several months later, wearing a bullet-proof vest, Gene Robinson was consecrated a bishop in our Church. 

Certainly, we were not of one mind when that vote was taken.  There were plenty of doubts.  It was a struggle for many in our church.  Some left.  Others stayed.  Like those disciples the Episcopal Church has been brought before the religious powers of our age and given a tongue lashing.  Some say we have abandoned our tradition, that we’re leading people away from true faith, that we are ignoring Biblical commands, betraying our vows.

There have been ugly moments within our own church and in the Anglican Communion.  Some provinces have declared that their communion with us is impaired.  Others from around the Anglican Communion have refused to attend the Lambeth Conference of Bishops if we were there.  Some of our churches have tried to leave the Episcopal Church entirely and align themselves with Anglican Provinces in Africa and South America.  There have been lawsuits and squabbles and strife, but our actions grew out of a strong precedent.  One set by the very disciples who walked with Jesus in the first century.  Sometimes, people of faith have to act … even in the face of doubt, even if it is going to “make waves”.

There is nothing wrong with struggle.  It reminds us that what we believe, that what we think about God really does make a difference in the world.  Crossing that line in the sand has brought the Anglican Communion into conversations it never would have had without our actions.  We have looked very deeply at the structures that unify us, and asked ourselves what it means to be “in communion”.  We have struggled to articulate the theology behind it, and that work has contributed greatly to the conversation around homosexuality in the secular world, a conversation now finding itself playing out in the supreme court of this country.  Without the support of the religious communities, it never would have gotten this far.  What initially created an outrage of opposition has slowly over time turned into a groundswell of support.  Thinking keeps us relevant.  Struggling keeps us in the world.  Our theology, our thinking about God, should make sense, even if it begins in something as astounding as the claim that Jesus was raised from the dead.

            That’s one of the things I love about our Episcopal tradition.  We don’t have to agree on everything.  There is no confession we sign, or dogma we defend.  At Bible study on Thursday mornings we grapple with our understanding of God in faith.  Sometimes we “don’t get it” or we “don’t believe it”, but we don’t ignore it.  We talk about it.  Sometimes we disagree, but we keep going in faith.  We come from such different perspectives that someone almost always sees or articulates or shares something in a way that adds a whole new layer of meaning to something I’ve only understood in one way.  That’s why we promise to continue in the apostles teaching, the prayers and fellowship together.  We prod each other forward in faith … just as the other disciples prodded Thomas.  I am thankful for those pioneers, those saints, and for you.

Amen.