A Sermon based upon John 20: 19-31
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
2nd Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2010
Once, while traveling in the town of York in England, I came upon a tourist store which sold Family Coat of Arms with small histories of family names. Upon reading the etymology of the name Tomlin, I found that the oldest form of Tomlin may go back to name Thomas, derived from the disciple known as “doubting Thomas”. That was not exactly what I wanted to find.
This disciple we find in today’s Scripture has not been favorably remembered primarily because of his doubt. But the truth is, Scripture tells us that at one time or other all the disciples doubted. In the gospel of Matthew, we read how even when Jesus appeared a second time and maybe even a third time to the eleven, “they worshiped him; but some doubted” (Matt. 28:17). Did you catch the meaning hear? Some disciples of Jesus were worshipping, following, seeing, and being with Jesus, but still they had their doubts.
In the longer ending of Mark’s gospel, we also read that when Jesus appeared to the eleven, “he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.” (Mark 16:14). It was his to these very disciples, the ones still doubting, still struggling to come to grips with what had happened, that Jesus gives the Great Commission: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). Do you not find it a little strange and very ironic, that Jesus gave his great message of faith to the very ones who were still dealing with disbelief themselves?
I think it still happens. I honestly don’t think Jesus would have it any other way. Easy believers, are just that---too easy, and also very shallow. When I say that I think doubt still happens, I say this because when I teach a Bible study around here and ask for questions, there are always people who look at me with blank stares hardly know how to react. I’m not sure whether we have so many doubts we are afraid to admit them, or we are so used to covering them up, denying or ignoring them, that we would rather move on to the next subject. But the truth, I believe, whether we want to admit them, confront them, or deal with them, we too are disciples who have been given the Great Commission to share Good News with the World, while we are still trying to get our own hearts and even our beliefs figured out.
Jesus would have it no other way. There is no such thing as a disciple who is absolutely certain of everything the faith teaches. There is no such thing as a follower of Jesus who has everything figured out and knows how to express it. There is no such thing as a Christian, who doesn’t deal with surprises, unknowns, and have questions that are still unresolved in both their minds and hearts. True faith in Jesus and discipleship with Jesus does not wait on having all the answers, nor on having absolute certainty, and most of all, doesn’t wait to figure out all the details of Christian teaching and understanding.
I think it was Augustine who said that “Faith seeks understanding,” not the other way around. Faith comes before we understand everything and depends more on a living a trusting relationship with Jesus Christ who transcends all our own “stubbornness”, all our own ideas of faith, or transcends even our “lack of faith.” (Mark 16:14). Just like the great father of faith, Abraham, the greatest faith “goes” and keeps on going even when it does not always “know” where it is going or where it will end up. If your faith is the same place its always been, it is not a living or growing reality. Just as living things have dying foliage that needs constant trimming and casting away, so does true faith have both dying parts and growing parts, which need trimming and refining.
This is why I think it is very important that the Sunday after Easter, we study Thomas and consider, not just the faith we believe in, but we also consider why and what it means that we call it “faith” in the first place. I also want us to briefly consider the nature of some of our own doubts about the faith we have been given to believe. While there are some who will say that confronting your doubts is not good for faith, I would rather trust the Bible’s own wisdom and keep even doubt right in middle of the living story of living faith and declare the contrary; only when you face your doubts, learn to keep going with God even with your doubts; only then will you discover the strongest faith which can give you hope and strength for the most challenging storms of your life.
So, let me tell already, where I’m going with this sermon. I’m not trying to get you to doubt, but I want you, like Thomas, to come to an even stronger faith through your doubts. Even though Thomas doubted, and even though all the disciples at some time or other doubted who Jesus was or what he was doing, Jesus was able to walk through the locked doors their hearts (all except Judas. And Judas wasn’t a doubter as much as he was also a deceiver). It was even this “doubting” Thomas, who also doubted, who was able to give us the greatest confession of faith in the entire Bible.
This brings me to my first observation from this story of doubt: Even though this moment of doubt brought a crisis of faith in Thomas’ discipleship with Jesus, it was a faith crisis which also had a good side and a good outcome to it. Contrary to popular expressions of faith, the Bible wants us to see how honest, open, and sincere doubt can be a good and healthy thing.
One current example of “good” doubt is in the movie, entitled “Doubt” which stars the very talented, award-winning actress, Meryl Streep. Streep plays as nun who is caring for children, but has her own “doubts” about a Priests who may be abusing those children. This movie is powerful because, while it shows the true doubt about those people who can disappoint us the most, like a ill, sinful, and deceptive priest, it also shows us the good side of people like this nun, who puts her own life and reputation at risk to doubt that this priest is as sinless as he claims to be. While there are reasons to distrust the corrupting influences around the institution of the church, the movie leaves you reaffirming the cause of the church and many of the unsung heroes who really do try to do the right thing.
This movie represents one of the major problems we often confront when we have doubts. When we run into to doubts about something, does this mean we stay with them and confront them, or does it mean we deny them or that we immediately cast them aside, or that we throw out everything we have believed, along with the doubts we have. Many people do this. They find themselves in doubt about an issue in their faith, so they decide to lose all faith. They discover something that is not what it appears, and they, as the old adage says, “throw out the baby with the bathwater.” But what we really need to do with our doubts is not ignore them or run from them, but stay engaged and deal with the doubt itself until we come to a breakthrough and a deeper understanding of it. This is part of what makes Thomas’ story so powerful and pertinent to our own struggles with faith.
For whatever reason, Thomas was not there when Jesus first appeared. Maybe he was struggling. Perhaps the surprise of Jesus crucifixion had overwhelmed him as it did each one of the disciples. This feeling of doubt did not come because he disbelieved in Jesus, but it came exactly because he had believed in Jesus, and believed very deeply. This is what I often see when it comes to honest doubt. Many who have great doubts, are often the very people who want or wanted to believe very badly, but for some reason they are now struggling. Maybe Thomas’ struggle came because he wanted to see Jesus succeed. Maybe he had already made his own conclusions and had his own expectations about what success was suppose to look like. When that did not happen, because of his faith and not due to a lack of it, Thomas came to have some very serious doubts.
I don’t think we, the faithful, always realize that the very people who have doubts or who don’t believe as we do, could someday be the great believers. I think we too quickly want to rush to conclusions and make other people see things like we do. Why do we do that? Probably, we don’t want to face their hard questions because we can’t answer them. Often we don’t want deal with these questions because we have not worked through our own doubts as we should.
I recall several years ago, how church leader told me about a woman in her church who had many fears and doubts about her daughter going to college. The openness, the discovery of other ideas, the marketplace of many approaches to truth, made this parent and could make any parent nervous. But I also remember what this wise man told the mother. Instead of giving her advice about her daughter, he asked her a hard question she needed to consider. He asked, “Do you think your daughter has your faith that you force upon her, or did you share your faith and let her develop her own?” Then he gave this warning: “If she only has your faith, then she might lose it while she is there in school, but if she has been allowed to develop and grow in her own faith, then nothing and no one can take if from her because it is hers.”
I think there is a great word of wisdom here. If we have true faith, one day we will have to struggle with it. The point is that when are allowed to struggle and go through times of testing, this is the way we become stronger in our faith. The crisis of faith we can have in our lives, is necessary for developing a faith that grows stronger through trials and can endure the greatest tests.
But this brings me to the second observation, which reminds us of how doubt can also become a bad thing. Doubt can become a very bad thing when we face them alone, or when we become disconnected from others, or we, who have faith, push away those who are struggling without sensitivity or understanding.
Let’s notice again what happens with Thomas and his doubt. What does he do with it? First it overwhelmed him for a week or so, but then, notice where we find him the very next week? He is back with the others and with the group. Even though he still has doubts, he does not stay home and face his doubts alone. This group of disciples who have seen the Lord, and are very convinced, have not put Thomas down, excluded him, but have allowed, maybe even invited Thomas to remain with them, even with his differences of opinions and even with his doubts.
If I went around this Sanctuary today and asked certain questions about our Christian faith, I could find expressions of both faith and doubt about many issues. Many and maybe most of you would believe much of same things. But while some of you would believe certain things with your whole heart, others of you have some doubts about these very same things others are most convinced about. The problem Is, especially in today’s “quick fix” world, is that we don’t have enough time to talk about, discuss, share or listen to each others doubts. We place the major emphasis upon our faith and what we believe, and this is good, but it is not good that we suppress the doubts and what we struggle with.
I’m not asking today, that we make church a doubting party, nor a place that puts the major emphasis upon what we should doubt. That would not be healthy. But I also don’t think it’s healthy to deny our differences or cover or force a quick resolution to these doubts either. While we don’t always get all the doubts out, we can realize that there are doubting Thomas’ here every Sunday, and there is something of a doubting Thomas in each one of us. Again, what I like about this story of Thomas is that when they locked the doors, they didn’t lock Thomas out.
Years ago, I came across a story that illustrates well what happens when people learn to accentuate differences instead of learning to accept and deal with them in positive way. There was a Jewish congregation who got into a debate about whether the great traditions was to stand when saying the prayers, or to kneel when saying the prayers. When the new young Rabbi came he found the people doubting each other’s tradition, and so he went to their former Rabbi and explained to him, that when he came to the congregation, nobody knew which was right, should they kneel or should they stand. They were always fighting. Which is right tradition? “They are following their tradition, the Rabbi said, they are following it as they always have. They are fighting over the truth. That is their great tradition.
Many people have at the center of their faith the desire, the need to fight for what they believe, but the truth is that we seldom fight fair. It is unfortunate that for many Christians the great tradition has been to “shot our own wounded”.
When I went to Turkey, where many great churches once stood, I found none. I wondered to myself why. Did the Turks kill all the Christians? Well, the truth is that they did persecute some, but for the most part, the Church was dead long before the Arabs and Turks got there. Back as early as 451 AD, right in the very churches Paul started, they eventually had a political war over Jesus. When Christianity started to gain power, those who got power were quick to label and even attack those who didn’t agree with them (See Jesus Wars, by Philip Jenkins, HarperOne, 2010).
Do you know what they didn’t agree over? Interestly these early Christians agreed on all the most important faith issues and were much more alike than different. They agreed that Jesus was God come in the Flesh. They agreed on on communion, on baptism, and on the nature of the church, etc. The only thing they didn’t agree was how to put their faith in Jesus into words. Some believed that it should be stated that Jesus fully God, but only one nature. They didn’t want anyone to mess with God. The others believed that Jesus was God, but he was also fully man, of two natures, both fully God and fully man. They didn’t want to lose the human side of Jesus. The one nature group thought this wasn’t logical, so they disputed it. The two nature group though mystery didn’t have to be logical. But instead of letting each other co-exist, both groups let politics and power opinions shape their discussion and ended up fighting bloody political wars over, of all things, the very Jesus Christ who taught love, not war.
It was the “two nature” who won the wars, and this is what orthodox Christians still believe, but the truth is they both lost. Now, the same soil upon which those bloody battles were fought, over the next 100 years, became ripe for followers of Mohammed to come in and make peace, where Christians only knew how to make war. The same thing still happens today. Even in denominations and churches where politics and power plays take priority over fellowship and sharing in God’s mystery, the soil of evangelism and missions can grown hard and barren and people get hurt. This is why so many religious weeds grow in God’s garden, instead of the fruit of faith, hope and love.
Why does this kind of thing still happen? It is because we still haven’t learned learn from the biblical story of Thomas, to do all we can to stay connected with those who don’t see what we see or disagree. “Doubts can be the ants in the pants of faith, to keep it alive and moving’ says Fredrick Buechner. Only when we allow for the differences and the doubters to stay together with believers do we come to deepest, and strongest confessions of indisputable truth. But when we grow suspicious of each other, become over protective of our viewpoints, when we don’t allow for the doubters, or when we shut the door and lock out those who differ with us, and we end up only trusting our own conclusions, not the God who reveals truth to us all.
This brings me to the final thing we need to see from Thomas’s story. Only Jesus can walk through the locked doors of fear and doubt.
Isn’t this a powerful scene in this story, when Jesus comes into the situation of doubt and resolves all of Thomas’ confusion? Jesus didn’t need an invitation nor an open door, he just needed people to wait on him to set things right. When we wait on Jesus, then the problems, the doubts, the hurts, the struggles truly can be resolved and in the best way possible. But when we try to play Jesus, or we try to make people fit our own conclusions, then fellowship can be broken and confusion continues and faith and mission can be weakened.
I don’t know if you know the name of Ann Rice, but she is a writer of some very famous Vampire stories, long before the Twilight series hit the movies. Ann was really a quite respected novelist, and still is. And even though she had grown up in the Catholic faith, as she went through adolescence, like many of her generation, she began to have her own doubts. But most recently, Ann Rice has returned to become a person of faith, and even in a much stronger way. She has now put down her Vampire stories, and is writing about Jesus, about faith, and about her own unexpected search for truth and discovery of a deeper faith, even through her doubt.
In the notes of her book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, Rice speaks of the doubts she had about upbringing: “ I had experienced an old fashioned, strict Roman Catholic childhood in the 1940s and 1950s… we attended daily Mass and communion in an enormous and magnificently decorated church … Stained glass windows, the Latin Mass, the detailed answers to complex questions on good and evil—these things were imprinted on my soul forever… I left this church at age 18... I wanted to know what was happening, why so many seemingly good people didn’t believe in any organized religion yet cared passionately about their behavior and value of their lives… I broke with the church violently and totally... I wrote many novels that without my being aware of it reflected my quest for meaning in a world without God.
Now compare that with how she finally surrendered all her doubts to Jesus, not any person, to any church, to any pastor or priest. In her memoir Called Out of Darkness, Rice she writes:
In the moment of surrender, I let go of all the theological or social questions which had kept me from [God] for countless years. I simply let them go. There was the sense, profound and wordless, that if He knew everything I did not have to know everything, and that, in seeking to know everything, I’d been, all of my life, missing the entire point…. So, In 1998 I returned… I realized that the greatest thing I could do to show my complete love for Him was to consecrate my work to Him—to use any talent I had acquired as a writer, as a storyteller, as a novelist—for Him and for Him alone... to write novels about the Jesus of Scripture, the Jesus of Faith, in His own vibrant first century world... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rice)
Isn’t it amazing how “the Jesus of Faith” can still break through the locked doors of our hearts, beyond our confusion, unanswered questions, unresolved difficulties? But are we willing to stay together in our differences and discussions about faith, and wait on Jesus to settle things? I believe people who really believe in Jesus, and trust Jesus, will also stay with each other, even in their differences and doubts, and will wait on Jesus himself bring the resolution. It happened to Thomas, to Ann, and it still happens to us. We too can believe again, as if for the very first time, if we will take all our doubts to the only one who is able to transform them into faith. Amen.
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