John 20:19-31
“Normalizing Doubt”
Last preached Sunday, April 14, 2024
Here we are, two weeks after Easter and doubt is setting in - in our Scripture this morning and maybe in our lives. After the celebrations, ham dinners, and “alleluias,” might come doubts. Is the resurrection real? Did it historically happen? Even if it did, did it happen the way the Gospels said it did? Which Gospel? And besides that, what does it mean for me, here in 2024? If God is all loving and all powerful then why is the world filled with hate, evil, and death? If Christ conquered death then why is this world so sinful? Why do we still die? And these questions can compound on top of more questions we already have and sometimes each question leads to more questions rather than answers. So here we are, two weeks after Easter with all our doubts...but, if we’re honest, really honest, we would recognize that doubt is with us almost every Sunday morning - well, maybe not always at 10:00am in the brightly lit and beautiful sanctuary. But what about at 3am when you’re awoken in the middle of the night? Or after a terrible tragedy? Yes, if we are honest, we all doubt more than we perhaps let on. But most of the time our doubts and questions stay inside of us, unshared and unanswered.
We keep our doubts hidden because doubt in the church gets a bad wrap. Because after all, as we heard in today’s reading: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” And somehow, over the years since the Gospel of John was written, this text has been used to shame those who have doubts. After all, if we who have not seen doubt then we are not blessed and to not be blessed is to be cursed.
But friends, that is simply not true. Our doubts are not a curse. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. I am going to say that again cause I really want you to hear it: Doubt is not the opposite of faith. In fact, I might argue that doubt and faith go hand in hand, at least in our human nature. And doubt is a long withstanding Christian tradition. Take Holy Week. From Maundy Thursday when the disciples doubt Jesus’ intentions by washing their feet. And Peter, doubting everything and denying Jesus three times. To Good Friday when all the disciples, those who supposedly believed in Jesus more than anyone, fled and left him deserted. And all the way to Easter morning with Mary, weeping at the empty tomb, doubting that her savior was risen from the dead and instead his body was stolen. And then to a locked house with the disciples, afraid and fearful, despite the news of Jesus’ resurrection. And beyond Holy Week, doubt is a long-standing Christian tradition. Jacob wrestled with God. Abraham argued with God. Sarah laughed at God. Doubt is written throughout the Bible.
And yet doubt has not been necessarily welcome in the Church. Doubt has been seen as a sign of weakness. Perhaps it is partly due to our political and worldly climate of right and wrong, black and white, alternative facts and fake news. We feel like we have to dig our heels in just to defend ourselves from the onslaught of secularism and those that would claim that we are a lie and a scam and bad for society. For fear of showing any weakness we shut our mouths, dig in our feet, and keep out doubts to ourselves. Or, we shame others for their doubts - “just believe,” “have faith,” “don’t question.” Historically the Church has silenced and shamed questions instead of holding them together.
But when we keep our doubts inside, instead of protecting the Church and our faith, we actually do it harm. I believe it is one of the reasons many young people have either left the Church or are leaving. By digging in our heels we shut out the voices and concerns of a bright generation full of critical minds that could be and should be and are the future of the Church! We are shutting out a generation of people who want to talk about faith and science and their reconciliation. About heaven and hell and salvation in a pluralistic society. About the tension of the Church’s mission to do good in this world and yet our complicity in racism and violence. We want to talk about the chasm between Jesus’s call to love all and how Christians act in this world. By not creating room for these doubts to be voiced and for these conversations to be had, we cut these young people - or any age people - out and many leave the Church.
We -need- to remove ourselves from the mud in which we have dug our heels in and make room for the gray, for the unknown, for the doubter and for God’s grace. What I find remarkable in the Gospel reading is that Thomas announced his doubt to all the disciples who had experienced Jesus and who had felt his breath upon them. Thomas says to them, “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." Basically he’s saying “Malarky! I’m calling your bluff - fake news!” Now I do not know how the other disciples reacted to this - shaken, angry, sympathetic? The text does not say...but they did not shun Thomas. After all, a week later, Thomas was still with them. He did not believe, maybe he thought the others were crazy or the news was just too good to be true. And maybe the others were annoyed or frustrated with his doubts…or maybe they thought it was reasonable. After all - many of them did not believe in the Resurrection when they were told by the women. They too doubted until they saw the evidence themselves. Unfortunately for Thomas none of them were given the nickname “Doubting” to follow them through the centuries…but, nevertheless, despite Thomas being completely open about his doubts, the community stuck it out - Thomas and all his doubts were included.
We too are called to welcome the doubters and their doubts into our community here at Boardman United Methodist Church. This morning following the sermon we will accept new members and as part of that liturgy we will do a profession of faith together, the Apostle’s Creed. Like most creeds, this creed was formulated by a counsel to come up with a list of things Christians are supposed to believe - but I’ll admit, at times, I have struggled with one part or another of the creed or of other tenants of the faith...but the beauty of saying those creeds, those statements of faith in community, is that we may not fully believe every line as individuals, but as a community we do. When we welcome the doubt in our midst, we can enter into dialogue on what we believe and why - not as a litmus test for who is in and who is out, but to understand ourselves, each other, and God more fully. When we engage in this dialogue around doubts and differences, we grow closer to God and are a witness of community to this world.
One way to be a witness in this world as a church that embraces doubt is to model conversation around hard questions and to hold different sides in tension and unity with each other.
Our world does not do this well. We live our lives in echo chambers based on how we vote, what news stations we watch, how we were raised, and many other socio-demographic markers. But I think…if the rest of the world can’t have hard conversations with each other, shouldn’t at least we be able to as a church? Here we are as a congregation, and as a denomination, with people on different sides of many issues - and yet we are still worshiping together and holding each other in community. We love each other and because there is love - there is also room for disagreements and conversations around those disagreements. Often we shy away from the “touchy” subjects but perhaps it would be a better witness to the world if we didn’t. We could be a powerful witness of what it means to be community to the world.
But perhaps even more powerful than being a witness to the world, by creating room in the Church for our doubts, we have the opportunity to come to know God more fully. After all, Thomas expressed his doubts and stayed in his community and he - above all the other disciples - was invited by Jesus to touch him. Jesus said, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put in my side.” Thomas, through sharing and sitting through his doubt, by not backing out but staying part of the community, he grew closer to God. He was given the chance to experience the power and love of the resurrected Jesus.
So part of the message to us today is that doubt can be a good thing. Rachel Held Evans is the author of the book “Searching for Sunday” subtitled “loving, leaving, and finding the church.” Evans writes about growing up in a very conservative evangelical church where her doubts were not welcome. She was shunned for asking questions and for disagreeing. Ultimately she left the church and went through a period where she didn’t know if she could ever come back to it. But she still loved Jesus and still felt the call to community so she searched for a community where she could be who God called her to be, doubts and all. In a blog post. Evans talks about the difference between Good doubt and Bad doubt.
Bad doubt causes you to be disobedient to God. She says, “For example, it is not a sin to have questions about my interpretation of Genesis in light of the science that supports evolution. It is a sin to allow these questions to kill my prayer life or keep me from reading the Bible altogether.” Bad doubt causes a sense of entitlement - we demand to know all the answers and reject God for not telling them to us. And bad doubt causes in us a sense of cynicism. And when we are cynical, we are no use in God’s creation of a Kingdom of Love.
Good doubt on the other hand, allows us to be obedient to God. When we have doubts and yet we still follow God, it is a testament to just how strong our faith actually is. Good doubt is accompanied with a sense of humility - when faced with the vastness of God, we must realize that we can never grasp all the questions, let alone all the answers. And good doubt leaves room for love. Evans says, “Love should be our motivation behind everything, particularly doubt. The person who loves God will often choose to struggle through intellectual objections rather than ignore them or succumb to them. The person who loves his neighbors and his enemies will often ask serious questions of himself, of the Church, and of God about how to truly care for them.”
So today I invite you to embrace your doubts, embrace the doubt that is good for you, for your faith, and for the Church. And embrace those who share doubts and the questions they bring. I invite each of you to seriously consider a doubt or question you have surrounding your faith and I invite you to share it with someone this week. And if someone shares their doubt with you, do not be shaken or try to shove doctrine down their throats or automatically make it “right” or “correct” them - but meet them with love and conversation and time - see how you both could come closer to God together - through exploring and sitting in your doubt. May it be so.
Amen.
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