“This Thing About Doubt”

• Scriptural Reference: John 20:24-29
• April 15, 2007

Was it 20th/21st century science that taught us to say, “If I see it, I’ll believe it”? There are those evangelists on the sawdust trail these days that would have you believe that every manner of disbelief and doubt was forged in the burning fires of contemporary liberalism. Evolution makes people doubt. Modern approaches to Bible study make people doubt. Too much new-fangled education makes people doubt. When they took prayer out of school (something that in fact did not happen – I never stopped praying – every time the teacher handed out a test, I prayed), that made people doubt. If only we had religion like they did back in the good ol’ days, then we’d have people who had faith, and we wouldn’t have all these problems with crime and abortion and filthy language. And there are those who believe that if the preacher would just do things like they used to be done, proclaim that good ol’ time religion, step on some toes, all those doubters would go away and God would bless us.

Not so. None of it. Doubt is at least as old as one of Jesus’ very disciples. In fact, Thomas almost used the very words, “If I see it, I’ll believe it.” More precisely, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” Thomas was no dummy. He made it even stronger than “I have to see it to believe it.” He said, “I have to see it AND FEEL it to believe it.” Sometimes your eyes can trick you. But if you feel it, too? THEN you have something. Here we have it. The original doubting Thomas – long before anyone ever heard of evolution, or modern biblical criticism, or liberal Democrats. Doubt was alive and well apparently because it’s a very human thing to do. I have a feeling that if someone somewhere were able to stamp out any knowledge or recollection of the theory of evolution, could eternally refute modern biblical criticism, and could get rid of every Ted Kennedy doubt would still raise its ugly head.

Back up a minute. Who was this guy here in the gospel according to John who doubted so brazenly, almost in defiance? The guy was one of the twelve – or at this point, one of the eleven. He was one of the inner circle! He was a disciple with a capital “D”! He had walked with Jesus during his ministry. He had seen five thousand people fed from a sack lunch. He had seen demons thrown out of possessed people. He had seen crippled people get up and walk. He had seen Lazarus come out of his grave smelling fresh as Fabriz. He had heard teaching and preaching more inspiring than anything he’d ever heard – or any human being had, did, or would – seen fish pulled out of empty waters and seen a storm suddenly calmed. That would be enough to make me believe. Right? But after all that, Thomas demands more! Was he a teenager?

Now, if I’d been the Messiah that would have really teed me off. “After all you’ve seen and heard, Thomas, and you still don’t believe? What’s it take, dude? Why should I continue to play to you when there are so many others who get it?”

Well, it’s a good thing I wasn’t the Messiah – for Thomas and for all of us. Because Jesus does something extremely interesting. In the fact of doubt, he provides assurance. He doesn’t toss Thomas out. He doesn’t denounce the doubting as a sin. Maybe what I would have said to Thomas had I been the Messiah reflects far more about me than it does about God. If I had done all those neat things that Jesus did for a guy and he still didn’t give me the credit and trust I felt I deserved, I’d get exasperated with him. You see, I feel like when I’ve paid my dues, I ought to get my reward. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. When I’ve done a whole lot to earn your trust and you don’t trust me then forget you! I’m outta here!

No. Jesus doesn’t respond to Thomas that way. And I don’t think he responds to us and our doubts the way we fear he would, the way we would respond if someone were to treat us similarly. Jesus responds to doubt by providing Thomas with the assurance he needs and then he calls attention to the blessedness of belief. And never – NEVER – does Jesus denounce doubting as a sin.

I think that in a very real aspect, Jesus even appreciated Thomas’ doubt. After all, Thomas made no effort to hide his doubt. He was an honest doubter. He made no effort to pretend he had faith which he knew he did not have – unlike quite a few contemporary church members!

There’s a very good principle to live by if you ever appear on stage to perform music or act. If you make a mistake, pretend that you intended it to be that way. Act as if nothing wrong occurred and the audience will never know the difference. If you’re nervous about performing, act like you have all the confidence in the world and pretty soon, you’ll behave confidently. It’s a great principle, and it works. I’ve fooled a lot of people into thinking I can play the guitar. I even convinced a few that I can preach!

That principle can work in church, too, depending upon the audience you play to. If other church members are your only audience when you come to church, then you can pretend not to have any doubts about anything, and you’ll fool them. Use the right religious words, repeat the right rituals and you’ll look quite pious. If your own disquieted self is your only audience, then you can pretend to yourself that you have no doubts, and pretty soon, you could fool even yourself. But if God is your audience, you can’t pretend to have a level of faith you don’t have. You may as well be honest. As long as you’re pretending not to have doubts, God will not be able to respond to your doubting and give you the reassurance you need.

I wonder why Thomas doubted. Was he depressed? Was he disappointed with the way his life had turned out? He had left everything to follow Jesus, and things didn’t end up the way he had dreamed. He had plans, perhaps, visions, perhaps, dreams, perhaps, for the way the world would be when the man he followed came to power. Now all those plans were ruined. Life hadn’t worked out the way he had planned.

If that’s what was going on with Thomas, then many of us know how he felt. Many of us know what it’s like when we see our cherished dreams shattered by circumstances beyond our control. Many of us know what it’s like when our goals aren’t met due to one or more of our own shortcomings, when we haven’t taken hold of an opportunity. And we realize that a door has shut and a dream has died. It makes us wonder where God is in all of this, wonder what God is up to.

Or maybe Thomas was off running a little Greek philosophy through his head, a little Stoicism, or a little Epicureanism. “There’s nothing more to living than what we can see and feel and touch and smell and taste. Any life after death is only our wishful thinking. May as well enjoy life while we have it. Eat drink and be merry!” That’s what the Greek philosophers of that stripe taught, and lots of people adhered to that attitude.

You see, those kinds of thoughts are older than Christianity itself. They’ve been around much longer than the modern era. The doubts we have, or have heard other people having, are ageless. It will do no good to hide them and expect them to go away. At least, our good Thomas didn’t think so. He didn’t hide his doubts. He expressed them to his friends, quite openly.

And that’s where we need to congratulate ol’ Thomas.

I don’t think it’s insignificant that the doubter, for some reason, wasn’t with the community. For some reason, Thomas wasn’t on hand when the rest of the disciples saw Jesus that first time. Did he have a prior appointment? Scheduling conflict? Busy cooking supper for his mom? Or had he decided to cut himself off from all those “losers?”

Listen, doubts thrive when you’re cut off from the community of faith. If you’re not regularly nurturing your faith in fellowship, you’ll begin to entertain alternatives. It’s no coincidence that the doubter is the one who wasn’t there.

But Thomas, while he missed one gathering, didn’t keep it that way. He didn’t make his absence a habit. Thomas ultimately didn’t shun his friends. He went back and met with them. Despite his doubts he went back to their fellowship.

And notice something else – the disciples didn’t shun Thomas because he hadn’t accepted right away the same realization they’d all had. The doubter was included and the doubter included himself in the community of faith.

This should teach us a valuable lesson. Honest doubt needs to be brought to the community of faith. And the community of faith needs to welcome honest doubt in its midst. When Thomas and the disciples did that, Jesus appeared in their middle and provided them with exactly the assurance they needed, and then pointed them toward a better, more blessed estate.

Gordon Allport has said something wonderful about doubt. “Mature faith,” he said, “is forged in the workshop of doubt.” Doubt, when we are honest about it, can challenge us to rise to new intellectual and spiritual heights. Doubt can point out the weak spots in our understanding. Doubt can be precisely that which makes us wiser and stronger, not dumber and weaker. Doubt can spur us to new levels of trust, new levels of faith, and deeper levels of devotion. Doubt can point out the inadequacies of our old ways of viewing the world, can force us to develop new eyes which will in turn see God in ways we never dreamed were possible.

All of that happens, though, when we stay connected.

I have a pastor friend from seminary named Greg who pastors a big church down in Georgia. When he was in seminary, though, working on his NT PhD when I was doing my Psychology of Religion PhD, like me he pastored a small country church. It was out in the far reaches of Meade County, Kentucky on those rolling green hills just south of the Ohio River. The church building sat on a knoll that swept down to a two-lane black top. A cemetery surrounded the building on three sides and huge oaks and maples shaded the sanctuary. Right across the road from the church was a small house with a front porch and every Sunday as Greg stood out on the front porch of the church building, Greg could see Walter Wallace sitting in his rocking chair, usually with a bottle of beer in his hand, watching the worshipers as they left church. One Sunday, the chair of the deacons looked across the sloping lawn and said to Greg, “Ol’ Walter – he’s a tough one.”

Every once in a while, during the 11:00 service, Greg would have to raise his voice a bit to be heard over the roar of Walter’s Harley-Davidson as he buzzed off somewhere to get a sack lunch – which he’d be munching as he watched the worshipers leave. The chair told Greg that he’d been by a few times to talk with Walter and maybe the preacher ought to go, too.

One day after services, Greg walked down the slope, crossed the road, and called out to Walter, “Mind if I join you?”

“Naw! Come on up preacher!”

They talked about the weather, about farming, about hunting, and about the Kentucky Wildcats. Walter told Greg about his divorce, his wild life, his drinking, and how sad he’d been since his dad had died.

Then Walter asked Greg what the sermon was about. Greg told him that it being the first Sunday after Easter, it was on doubting Thomas. “Oh,” said Walter, “You mean the guy who said that he’d have to see and touch Jesus’ scars before he’d believe in him.”

“That’s the one.”

“I should’ve been named Thomas,” said Walter. “I feel the same way, but I just don’t think Jesus is going to come and show me the way he did Thomas. He sure didn’t help me out much when my dad got cancer.”

The conversation went on some more, Greg invited Walter to come to church, and Walter told Greg to come by on a day besides Sunday so he could have a beer.

About two months later, Walter was cleaning the gutters around his house. As he got up to the top of the ladder at the apex of the two story roof, a bat shot out from a slot in the vent. Thomas without thinking stepped back to avoid the bat – right into midair, and ultimately landed in the hospital with three cracked vertebrae.

Greg learned about this event from the deacon chair who happened to be visiting a sick church member and saw someone who knew someone who had run into someone who told him about Walter. “We gotta help that boy,” said the chairman. “He hasn’t got anybody.”

And so they did. The put together three teams of people to cook and clean, to transport Walter to doctor’s appointments, and another team just to keep him company. Greg went by the house one evening about four months into this process to check up on the team that was keeping him company and found out that they’d brought Walter some gourmet beer from an import store in Louisville. When Greg walked into the living room, everyone greeted him, and Walter slapped one of the team members, another deacon, on the back and declared, “Y’all’re alright, pastor!” The deacon was trying to hide the beer behind his back.

Then one Sunday, Walter came in, threw a cushion on the back pew, and sat down. After the worship service, Greg greeted him with delight. “Great to see you, Walter!”

“It’s great to be here with my family,” said Walter.

The next Sunday, Walter came in, threw his cushion on the second pew and when the service ended and Greg gave the invitation, Walter got up, came up to Greg, and stuck out his hand. “I’m joining up, pastor.”

“I dare say, Walter,” said Greg with a grin, “That Jesus didn’t come by and show you his scars, did he?”

Walter stuck out his jaw. “No, pastor, but I figure over the last few months, Jesus has been touching me, pushing my wheel chair, buying me food and keeping me company.”

Greg grinned even more broadly. “No doubt about that, huh?”

“Nope. No doubt about that.”

When Thomas expressed his doubt honestly within the community of faith, the upshot of the whole thing was Thomas hitting his knees and shouting, “My Lord and my God!” Be assured that when we express our doubts openly and honestly to God and stay connected to the family of faith, we will join Thomas in his doxology one day – “My Lord and my God!” We’ll discover that we’ve been touching Jesus all along.