"Doubt 101"
A Sunday Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Thomas C. Leinbach
March 30, 2008 - Harwich, Massachusetts

Preaching Text: "'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.'" (John 20:25)

I, along with many other people, feel a certain kinship with Thomas - and not just because he and I share the same name. Thomas, as we all know, wanted tangible evidence that Jesus was alive. I don't know about you, but I certainly can relate to that.

It has always seemed unfair to me that Thomas gets such a bad name, because of his doubt, that is. I once knew a preacher, in fact, who refused to talk about Thomas, seeing him as entirely unworthy of his place in scripture. And every year, like clockwork, he would disparage the fact that the lectionary would force Thomas upon him the first Sunday after Easter.

Yet he and others just may have forgotten that Thomas was one of the original twelve disciples, and a devoted follower and otherwise faithful friend of Jesus.

But Thomas had a crisis point - a faith crisis. The man whom he had loved was crucified. And Thomas had seen it happen before his own eyes, and had keenly felt its pain and agony. So why should he have believed so easily that Jesus was now alive just because the other disciples said so? As it turned out, Thomas simply would not believe unless he could see Jesus for himself and touch his very wounds.

And given the likely fact that we probably would not have acted any differently, who are we to disparage Thomas?

The reason we may, of course, is that we tend to equate doubt as the exact opposite of faith. You can't have faith, after all, while simultaneously lacking it.

Or can you?

For one thing, doubt, despite popular opinion, really is not the opposite of faith - indifference is.

Take Job, the most notorious of biblical doubters who, though he questioned and challenged everything about God, actually never did stop believing in God. It was more that he was trying to figure out why his life had gone awry - he being one of the most ardent of believers. In Job's day, it must be remembered, faith in God was thought to guarantee health, wealth and happiness. As far as suffering and hardship were concerned, well, that was for sinners.

So when Job, the hitherto reigning "success story" of his day, suddenly finds himself cast down, having lost everything and everyone in his life, the religious question becomes clear: Why do the righteous suffer? Or to put it in more modern terms: How do bad things happen to good people? If the God we worship is in fact a just, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipotent God, how can such things happen?

In the end, Job discovers that faith does not guarantee a trouble-free life, nor does prosperity and success flow simply as a matter of course to all believers. Instead, a mature faith-stance recognizes that in a broken world, where free will exists, things are going to happen that God does not intend.

But a mature faith finds in the midst of such brokenness an unexpected assurance and strength that only God can provide. Out of these experiences, in fact, faith actually can deepen, so that even in the worst moments of our suffering, a rich and meaningful inwardness can newly awaken within us - and to a degree far greater than a simpler faith that falters at every disappointment.

Biblically, one could say, Job's doubt is a kind of transition, or bridge, from a commonly held, yet immature faith, to a deeper, more sustaining one. It functions as the human means by which Job finds his sense of place in an oft confused and disorienting world.

Ask yourself this: Why would Job rail against an entity that fails to meet his expectations if on some level he didn't believe that entity existed? Or put slightly differently, if the possibility of God didn't exist for Job, why would he have bothered? Doubt, when it comes right down to it, must have a point of reference, something, at the very least, to which or against which it can question and provoke. Without such a referent, doubt becomes logically incoherent.

Take love, as an example. The opposite of love is not hate, as we suppose, just as doubt in not the opposite of faith. For both, for love and for faith, the opposite is indifference. For love and hate both involve strong emotion. You have to really care, be passionate, in order to hate someone or something. More accurately, love and hate are really nothing more than flip sides of the same coin.

Indifference, on the other hand, has no emotion. And by definition, it doesn't care, doesn't love - and doesn't doubt, either. It's just plain…well…indifferent! Job's behavior, in studied contrast, shows anything but indifference. He instead is both passionate and demanding - fully consumed. He desperately needs answers to his questions and will stop at nothing to get them.

He reminds us of the distraught father who approaches Jesus, desperate that his beloved son might be healed. "I believe," the grieving father pleads, "help my unbelief!" Such a plea, the opposite of indifference, is in reality more the face of a passionate faith seeking to be assured and comforted. It is nothing like abject disbelief.

In fact, John, the witness to Thomas' doubt, tells us this story not with disdain, but with another purpose altogether. For John, there are different kinds of faith and different levels of faith. There is weak faith and strong faith; there is faith that is growing and faith that falters. There are those who come to faith only after having witnessed a sign, while there are those who seem to require none. Some people find faith easily and gently, while others seem continually to be wrestling with doubt.

For John, these different kinds of faith include those in all times and places - for the eyewitnesses and apostles and for those of us here miles and centuries removed. And in John's gospel, faith is a decision made not once but made anew in every situation.

As proof that John (and Jesus) do not disdain Thomas' doubt, Jesus appears to him a week later and allows him what his doubt requires, to see and hear and touch. He presents to Thomas his wounded hands and side and, what's more, blesses him, revealing to Thomas (and us) a Jesus who not only knows the depths of our weaknesses but, even more importantly, is willing to come to us in our confusion and need, speaking these comforting words: "Peace be with you." In happy response, Thomas, the erstwhile struggling doubter, suddenly believes! "My Lord and my God!" he proclaims, boldly. For John, this is one more way of coming to faith. Thomas believes - through the experience of doubt!

One of our problems, of course, is that we're more accustomed to the kind of faith found in the Book of Acts. There, we see the young, emerging church filled with confidence and the courage of the Holy Spirit.

Early on in Acts, standing before the Sanhedrin, and threatened with imprisonment and the whip, or worse, Peter and the other disciples announce without a trace of doubt or fear: "We must obey God rather than any human authority," - this, after having been told, in no uncertain terms, to silence their tongues.

Repeatedly in Acts we find the early church performing signs of healing and teaching, of preaching that is both convincing and courageous, with the number of new followers growing daily, exponentially, all clear evidence of the active presence of the Holy Spirit - of faith, that is, and not doubt.

And while most of us have know from time to time such glorious moments of faith's confidences, we are all nevertheless quite familiar with the many lesser moments where faith seems utterly absent and where we cry out in the midst our doubts for assurance.

At the lowest points in our lives, if we're honest, we identify with Thomas. At such times, we want tangibly to see and feel Jesus. Though we may not ever lose our sense of love for Jesus or our confidence that he loves us, we all still know that deep and terrible desire for a tangible sign, just to be reassured.

The fact is, we all know the kind of doubt Jesus ultimately affirmed in Thomas. It's the very same kind of passionate disillusionment that accompanies most people who seriously seek to know and understand God, not to mention follow him.

How can we look around us and not wonder about things? How can we read the paper or watch TV, or even look out our window, without wondering whether the resurrection really has changed anything? I don't know who it was who once characterized Original Sin as the only Christian doctrine that is empirically verifiable, and observable to all day in and day out, but surely he was onto something. To never doubt, it seems to me, in the midst of daily life, is to turn a blind eye either to what goes on in the world around us, or to what the gospel's promises truly are.

We come here this morning, because John had it right: we all need to be reassured, as did Thomas. And while we certainly applaud and aspire to the kind of faith exhibited by the apostles in the early years of the church, John knew, living years later, of the real struggles and challenges of capturing and sustaining such a faith.

Coming at the very end of John's original manuscript, Chapter 20 offers unexpected hope and assurance to those of us struggling with periodic bouts of doubt and despair. The good news is that the risen Christ enters into our darkness and confusion and need, and offers himself to us - not out of contempt and disdain - but out of compassion, mercy and love. Having borne our sorrows, he reaches out to us in even the darkest of nights, saying, "Peace be with you."

In the end, Jesus blesses Thomas, despite his doubt. And despite ours, we, as well, are blessed - and even given authority and responsibility.

In the end, doubt, when honestly acknowledged and passionately pursued, is not the end of faith, or even its opposite. It's just the all-too human means by which we tend to find a truer, deeper and more profoundly assured form of faith.

Amen.