St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, April 23, 2005

Beyond the Door of Doubt – Rev. David Mundy

Acts 4:32-35 John 20:19-31

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Four years old. What a delightful age that is. A certain four-year-old shows up at my study door from time to time. He knows I have a basket of toys near my desk and while he is willing to make small-talk, he wants to get at those toys as fast as he can. Sometimes he just comes in, says “hi David” and starts playing.

Most of the time I don’t mind at all. In fact he is usually a ray of sunshine. But it doesn’t always suit my schedule when he drops by, so his mother and grandmother have taken to telling him that I’m “in a meeting.”

One day my door slid open a crack and a little voice asked “David, are you in a meeting?” Telling a grown-up white lie (there is no such thing) I replied “yes, I’m in a meeting,” even though there was no one with me. After a long pause the little voice said, “are you sure, because I don’t hear any other voices!”

Even though my young friend should have been able to trust his minister he didn’t get the evidence he was looking for and he had his doubts about what was going on behind the door.

This morning is the first Sunday after our great celebration of resurrection hope on Easter. Even though this is still the Easter season, it is, in some ways, “the morning after the night before.” We are a bit groggy after all the events of last weekend. And it is appropriate that we listened to a gospel passage about the doubt of one of the disciples on that same day that the tomb is found empty. The followers of Jesus sure don’t seem to be celebrating. They have hidden away in a room, behind a locked door, disheartened and confused and afraid. Jesus comes to them and says “peace be with you” as an assurance that he is alive and all will be well.

Unfortunately one of the disciples, Thomas, wasn’t with the others when this happens, and when he is told that Jesus, dead and buried, is now alive he can’t believe it, at least not right away. It is only here in John’s gospel that Thomas is allowed to be a person and he could just as easily be called Courageous Thomas as Doubting Thomas, if we consider the story of the raising of Lazarus and Thomas’ willingness to go back toward Jerusalem with Jesus, even if it meant death. But he finds it hard to believe that Jesus has risen from the dead – what reasonable person would?

Can you imagine a couple going home after the Good Friday service moved by the image of Christ’s suffering and death? The husband goes off to get milk and when he comes home his wife says “the most wonderful thing just happened – Jesus came to see me while you were out, and now I know that everything will be okay!” How is he going to respond? “Do you still see him honey? Did he leave a card?”

Thomas says to the others, “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 is only a week later that Thomas has the same opportunity the others had on Easter evening to see Jesus and to be reassured by his friend and teacher. There is a painting entitled The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Caravaggio, the great Renaissance artist, which shows the disciple leaning over and staring at Jesus’ side as he pokes a finger into the wound made by the spear during the crucifixion. It is grisly and graphic, but it really does capture what we are told in this verse.

I wonder how many of us are peeking around the corner of the door of doubt? There are probably some people here who have a rock-solid faith that has never wavered through the years and this is a wonderful gift. In fact the apostle Paul suggests that it is a unique spiritual gift. There is an expression “beyond a shadow of a doubt” which most of us know and which some of us may have actually been fortunate enough to have lived when it comes to our faith.

However, lots of us, and almost certainly the majority of us, would concede that doubt is a reality and I’m not sure that we have done a very good job in the church of addressing doubt. Every once and a while someone does come to my study door and rather anxiously tells me that they have their doubts about something. I know that it wouldn’t be pastoral to say “join the club,” but it is tempting. What I usually hear is that people are struggling with faith for good reason.

We are taught from an early age that God is good, that God is steadfast in love. We are also told that God desires justice and is active in the world. When the world doesn’t seem fair or God doesn’t seem fair we are rattled. Surely Thomas felt that it was unfair that Jesus died. We may doubt because of the “big picture” stuff – why would hundreds of thousands of innocent people die or have their lives shattered by a natural disaster?

And we wonder why it seems that the more zealous believers are, in virtually every religion, the more angry and hateful they are toward others?

Sometimes it is very personal. We pray and pray for the health of others, or for peace in our spirits, the peace that Christ offered those first disciples, and it just doesn’t seem to come.

All of these seem to me to be reasonable grounds for doubt and no platitudes that I can offer will lead to a “quick fix.” What unsettles us is that we aren’t sure whether doubt is leading toward faith or away from it.

Some scholars make a distinction between doubt and unbelief, although they concede that there are no hard and fast lines between the two. Os Guinness has written a thoughtful book on doubt in which he points out that "Doubt is not the opposite of faith, nor is it the same as unbelief. Doubt is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief so that it is neither of them wholly and it is each only partly." He also reminds us that while doubt has the potential to be destructive it is not always so. In fact, it can lead toward clarity and actually help to deepen faith.

So doubt can lead us in two directions. It can either lead us to a renewed and more nuanced faith, of it can be the precursor of disbelief or unbelief. When our doubts are not addressed we may find ourselves drifting away from a relationship with God. Some of you will have read the award-winning novel Clara Callan. It is the story of two sisters, Nora and Clara Callan, whose lives go in very different directions. Nora heads off to New York City and becomes a celebrity on radio while Clara continues to live in the small Canadian town where they were raised, working as a schoolteacher. She is the model of 1930's respectability except that at one point she stops attending the Whitfield United Church and singing in the choir. She explains why in a journal entry dated February 10, 1935, 4:00 P.M.

I cannot for the life of me remember the last time I missed morning service, but today I did not go church and this is why. I was sitting at the kitchen table after breakfast looking out the window at the snow on the bare trees and the blue sky through the branches. I was thinking of how the light is returning and of how different the morning sky now seems from two weeks ago.

And then it came to me as I sat there at the kitchen table looking out at the trees and the snow and the sky – I no longer believe in God. I have been feeling such intimations for some time now, but today, at twenty minutes past seven, it came to me clarified and whole. God does not exist. The proposition that He does not exist obviously cannot be proven, and so we must rely on what we believe to be true. Or feel to be true. Or want to be true. As they say, we must take it on faith. But for some time now, my faith has been like the branch of a tree that over the years has been weakened by wind and weather. And today it was as if that part of me, that branch, finally gave way and fell to the ground.

This description of the loss of faith – more like the evaporation of faith – is both honest and ordinary. Any of us, even the most committed churchgoers and model Christians can go through times of doubt and disbelief.

So how do we go beyond the door of doubt into the presence of Christ? It is important to remember that in the story of the so-called Doubting Thomas his encounter with the Risen Christ leads to faith and hope once again. What happens for Thomas is a combination of the very practical – stick your fingers here – and the emotional. And it doesn’t happen on the same schedule as the rest of Jesus’ followers. Yet he eventually receives the gift of Christ’s peace and he makes a declaration of faith, “my Lord and my God!”

I want to encourage you this morning in your encounters with Christ. I want to encourage you to be Easter people. That may mean being like Thomas asking for the evidence, seeking more. You might want to take part in a discussion such as the Exploring Your Faith group that will start soon, or one of the other study groups we offer here at St. Paul’s. It’s always helpful to be in the presence of other disciples, because that’s what we all are.

It may be through your personal prayer or reading scripture that faith is renewed and strengthened. Several months after Clara Callan concludes that she no longer has faith she has a traumatic experience which leaves her shaken and fearful. One night after a nightmare she finds herself awake and overwhelmed, unable to regain sleep. She reaches for something to read and chooses the bible. In Clara’s words “Even though I no longer believe, the words somehow comfort me.” It is psalm 28 she turns to for solace

Unto thee will I cry, O Lord

my rock; be not silent to me:

lest, if that be silent to me,

I become like them that go

down into the pit.

Even as Clara is convinced of her unbelief she reaches out to her faith tradition for meaning. We can do the same. Jesus is never “in a meeting.” Wherever we may be in our faith this morning Christ comes through the locked doors of our hearts and minds to give us peace.

Jesus says to us “blessed are those who have seen and yet come to believe.”