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In Praise of DoubtApril 15, 2007 Second Sunday of Easter Thomas wasn’t there. He missed Act I. So upset was he by this that he insisted on an encore performance. But, he warned, Act II better include the real deal – wounds, scars, and piercings. Absent this, Thomas was prepared to expose the sham. Do you know what I like about Thomas? Thomas said what everyone was thinking, but no one dared say. When first greeted by the resurrected Jesus, the other disciples were shocked. Of course they doubted. That’s why John records that Jesus showed them his hands and side. In other words, they had the exact experience as Thomas and based their belief on the very same evidence on which Thomas based his. Yet Thomas is labeled the doubter simply because he said what the rest were thinking. Doubting Thomas – the first scapegoat of the post-resurrection era. For me, Thomas is the first hero of that era. He modeled the most authentic path to faith: righteous doubt. “If this is true,” he said, “I want to see it for myself.” With the stakes that high, Thomas insisted that a closer examination was called for. And I agree. Interestingly, John records that after Jesus and Thomas exchange words, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now here’s the irony of that statement – no one else knew. No one else had yet “come to believe.” At that point, Jesus had appeared only to this most intimate group of men and women. How then could Jesus speak about “those who had not seen yet believed,” when no one knew this had happened? In light of this, most scholars believe that these words, supposedly spoken by Jesus, were actually added as commentary to the story. It was a way of making the story, written some 60 to 70 years later, more immediate, less remote, and easily applicable. I tend to agree with their position, because I’m not sure that statement is consistent with the Jesus revealed elsewhere in scripture. The Jesus of the gospels is not a guru interested in spreading a disembodied faith. Rather, the Jesus of the gospels touched the unclean, sat at table with sinners, welcomed the outcast and fed them, cared for them, healed them and called them to follow him. This was the same Jesus who once taught that the kingdom of God was like the despised Samaritan, who unlike the pious faithful, chose to stop and help a man beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. The Samaritan touched the man, carried him to the nearest inn and provided care for him. Jesus’ faith was a carnal faith. Touch and physical nearness was something with which he was familiar. Therefore, Thomas’ desire to touch him and smell him, to feel his scars and his wounds would not have troubled Jesus in the least. Note that Jesus never once excoriates Thomas for his request. Jesus himself was familiar with doubt; remember the night in the garden at Gethsemane when he pleaded with God for a different direction for his life? Thomas wanted evidence that the Kingdom of God was drawing near, and he got what he asked for. He understood that talk of God’s kingdom was cheap; signs of God’s kingdom were necessary if Jesus’ life and teaching were to matter. Talk of God’s goodness, or peace, or mercy, or power, or faithfulness was empty if there weren’t visible signs of it in the world. Thomas’ doubt was righteous doubt, and for that he deserves an exalted place among Jesus’ first followers. What makes you doubt? As you ponder your life, your faith, our world, and our God, what gives you pause? What troubles you and leaves you feeling uncertain or shaken to your core? Do you ever wonder if you’ve been duped? Do you ever have moments of profound doubt about what we are doing here? I do. One recent occasion happened on Easter morning. It was just after 6 a.m. and I boarded a bus on my way here. This double-sized bus was at least half full. Yet, something struck me as different that morning. As I looked around I realized that every last one of us on that bus was Hispanic. Each of us was either on our way to work or on our way home from work. Each of us immigrated to this country, whether by choice or not, for opportunity and a more promising life. We were all tired. No one spoke. Most of us were probably on our way to make others’ Easter celebrations possible. I was the only one in a suit. “What’s wrong with this picture?” I thought to myself. How is it that over 2,000 years later, on the day in which we celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection, so little of the injustice he fought has changed? How is that after all this time a whole class of people enable our celebration of his Resurrection? How is it that my life turned out so differently from the rest of us on this bus? I wondered in that moment how the Resurrection really mattered. I was able to transition from my bus ride, but even later as I thrice proclaimed, “Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!” the experience of that bus ride was not far from my consciousness. And like Thomas I was riddled with righteous doubt and indignation. War, poverty, AIDS and other epidemics, malnutrition, corruption, gender inequality, economic disparity, pervasive, lingering racial prejudice: does that stir in you a righteous doubt? What about that which is closer to home, such as those times when you ask God for help and are left feeling helpless and hopeless? Or for relief from anxiety or illness, for yourself or for one whom you love? Or to alleviate the pain you are experiencing in an important relationship? Are any of these causes for doubt; doubt that the in-breaking of God’s kingdom is actually taking place? If that kingdom is really dawning, then where is the evidence? I’ll tell you one place where I see the evidence. I see it right here among us. I see it when this community of people is determined to live God’s love with passion and conviction in the world. I see it in among us when our worship and praise go beyond these doors in service to those in greatest need. I see it as we care for children and youth, providing a dynamic, meaningful context for them to explore their faith and their doubt. I see it among us when we reflect the fullness of God’s kingdom from every land and tribe, and from every walk of life. I see right here, right here among all of you righteous doubters, who have come here, in part, because you know that all is not well, with the world or with yourself. That disturbs you, and thank God it does. It is that righteous doubt that has inspired us to make of this community what it is and what will sustain us as we work to make it what it should become. “Blessed are they who believe but have not seen?” What? Shouldn’t it read: “Blessed are they who believe because of what they have seen” – believe because they have seen evidence that God’s people are indeed birthing the kingdom in our midst; seen evidence that the downtrodden and outcast are finding relief; seen evidence that peace and justice are what nations desire; seen evidence that love is winning the battle against fear and hate; they believe because they’ve seen evidence that the church of God takes seriously our duty to love God and neighbor. Friends, righteous doubt is a way of seeing the world. It is a way of noting that something is not right, something is not as God would have it. Righteous doubt is a way of saying that the incongruity of the world’s reality and God’s love cannot remain unquestioned and unchanged. This doubt is a protest of what is and a choosing to be part of how God will make all things new. In this way doubt is actually an expression of faith; two sides of the same coin. They are in tension with one another, a tension that draws us nearer to God. Perhaps this is why Lord Tennyson once said, “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.” Or why Dostoyevsky, who privately suspected that doubt was an angel and not a devil, wrote, “My Hosannas have been forged in the crucible of doubt.” [1] Having said all this, perhaps caution is in order. Doubt, even righteous doubt, is not a destination. Doubt is a prick or prod to faith. Many of us love to wallow in doubt because we don’t want the responsibility faith produces. We hide behind our doubt. We fool ourselves into thinking it makes us intellectually honest and sophisticated. In reality, persistent doubt for the sake of doubt is intellectually dishonest. It keeps us detached, uncommitted, and prevents us from seeing a larger truth, and larger possibilities. This is what Thomas understood. His doubt was not about a lack of definitive answers; rather, it was an expression of hope that God was indeed creating new possibilities for a new age. I continued to think about my bus ride throughout the week. I’m not any less troubled by it today. And so one afternoon in my office I picked up a book I hadn’t touched in years. It was a collection of the writings of Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of El Salvador, a man filled with righteous doubt and indignation, as well as a profound faith and trust in God. In a letter to friend about the reality he and his people were living, he expresses an authentic Easter faith. “Tell them things are desperate,” he said, “and tell them we are joyful.” ___________________________
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