Resident Skeptic

April 11, 2010

Hebrews 11:1-3 and John 20:19-31

Last Sunday we offered strong, confident assertions to the resurrection of Christ and God’s victory over death. With

• the conviction of an old-time preacher and all the thunder I could muster,

• a crowd of bodies jam-packed in the pews,

• brass band, organ and choir giving their all,

• and a veritable Garden of Eden of lilies, daffodils, azalea, and hydrangea blossoming in the chancel –

• as well as a fine pancake breakfast before all of that …

we celebrated the grandeur, glory, and triumph of Easter.

Over-the-top? Maybe. But I, for one, went home feeling fantastic.

Now – seven days later – the flowers are mostly gone. The choir is on break. My sermon doesn’t need to soar for the people who only show up twice a year, and there’s room for you (you and you) to spread out in the pews.

Reflecting this post-Easter letdown, we also get to deal with Thomas today – and not “confident” Thomas, or Thomas the Bold, but Doubting Thomas. He’s a vivid reminder that glimpses of Easter tend to be brief and not universal. Some folks miss them. The joy of the moment passes all too quickly away. Then what? Where do we turn? What do we believe?

* *

To be sure: the world is full of skeptics, doubters, and deniers like him.

Some deny the Jewish Holocaust ever happened … or 9/11, believe it or not … even moon landings. After Apollo 11, one woman famously argued: “They couldn’t have flown to the moon or they would have crashed into heaven.” She thought it was staged for TV.

Others dispute the existence of God, the divinity of Jesus, and organized religion. I’m in that camp. I don’t know when I’ve seen religion anywhere close to being organized.

What sets Thomas apart from other doubters, though, is that he … is … ours.

John calls him the “Twin,” which means there are others just like him. He’s not a stranger, and he’s not alone. He belongs to a family. Our family. So we can’t kick him out or ignore him.

John also says Thomas was “one of the twelve” – an original disciple. He belonged to the inner circle around Jesus. Another reason we can’t brush him aside. He’s our Resident Skeptic.

Who are his kin? I could nominate a few folks in this congregation – people who cross their fingers or fall silent for certain lines of the Creed … or ask bold questions the rest of us would sweep under the rug … people who want faith to be served up with reliable answers.

The only problem is: if I started naming names, where would I stop? Maybe not every day, but some days, there’s a bit of Doubting Thomas inside each one of us. Including me.

A week after Easter, he’s the one disciple that won’t go away and isn’t in hiding.

* *

We may not like Thomas much more than we like Judas. But the fact is: we need him … along with his tough stance.

If nothing else, Thomas proves that doubt and faith are not opposite each other. They’re like next-door neighbors. They talk to each other every day. Even a week after Easter, faith merits connection to real life. We ought to be able to touch it and feel it, and let it touch us. And isn’t that all Thomas wanted?

Thomas takes nothing for granted. He provides an early warning that any claim we make about new life in Jesus will get tested – sooner or later, but probably sooner. Nothing about Christian belief can be taken for granted or go unexamined for long.

Indeed, doubt can be incredibly faithful. You don’t need faith if you think you have all the answers.

So the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, but ignorance … and apathy. (That reminds me of what William Safire, a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, once said: When asked, “Which is worse, ignorance or apathy?” he answered, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”)

Cynicism falls in that category too, as a faith-killer, especially when it is willing to take advantage of others. (“I’ll get all I can for myself! To heck with the others!”)

Another destroyer of faith is pigeon-holing. When we say we believe, but keep our beliefs in a separate box, isolated from daily life and decisions, faith becomes dry as dust. If it doesn’t relate to the people and situations around us, what good is it? If I go to church on Sunday, but leave God out of the equation all week, I make a mockery of faith.

I think that’s what Thomas was trying to say when he declared, “Unless I see the mark of the nails … and [touch] his wounded side, I will not believe.”

A disembodied faith, confined to heart and mind alone, is puny. Faith has to show up and be counted. But when it does show up, Thomas gives the perfect expression of faith: “My Lord and my God!”

* *

Thomas ensures that we make room in the church for doubt, instead of dogma. Fresh on the heels of the most important day in the Christian year, he insists that faith has to give more than paint-by-number pat answers.

So imagine this sermon, not as monologue, but the start of a two-way engagement. On the way out of church, instead of saying, “Good sermon,” what if a few people said, “I plan to talk with my family or friends over lunch about what you said”? Or, “You and I need to have more conversation on that topic”?

What about daring to say, “I’m not sure I follow you. I think I disagree. That’s not how I see it”? Or even more like Thomas: “I don’t see it at all.”

Don’t get me wrong. My ego loves hearing you say I did a good job. But if it’s just me doing it, so what?

Another “for instance.” What if prayer wasn’t pretty and nice, and perfunctory? What if we talked to God not in a half-hearted tone, but as if wrestling with all our might for a blessing, the way Jacob did at the River Jabbok (Gen. 32)?

What if we decided to ask the hard questions, and demand more from God and Jesus and Church – not to tear faith down – but (like Thomas) in the conviction that it can build up belief?

* *

When I started in ministry in Wilmington, Delaware, there was a church down the street, a mile or so. Second Baptist Church. Their street sign said, “Worship at 9:30. Heretics Class at 11:00.”

Heretics Class! That was the name of their adult education program. They wanted people to ask the hard questions of faith. They knew their faith could take it. They knew God was up to the test. They wanted non-believers on the street to feel welcome too, along with their questions and doubts.

I’m not sure every church could do that. Second Baptist could, but First Baptist, or First anything might be too concerned about protecting their image and doing things the “right” way. But Second Baptist, Wilmington, didn’t care about its image.

They wanted to be about the work of making disciples, not small-thinking, unquestioning conformists. What about us? What do we care about?

* *

Well, here’s the good news for us: If Jesus could accept – and work with – Thomas’ doubts, he’ll work with us too.

I mean, after all, Thomas was right there to see it in person. We aren’t. Two thousand years have gone by. Yet, Jesus offers a Beatitude for you and me. He says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

More than a beatitude, that’s an invitation to overcome our passivity and apathy and timidity regarding our doubts. Jesus invites us to “believe” by tackling the big questions of life. Taking nothing for granted. Connecting faith to the challenges of life.

* *

The author of the Fourth Gospel echoes that invitation. Like a character in a stage play who addresses the audience directly, John turns to us at the end of chapter 20 and says, “Jesus did many other signs … but these are written so that you may come to believe … and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

In the end, that’s the true test of faith – not that we lack doubt, but that we are willing to dive deeply and fully into life.

* *

At it’s best, faith is not just propositional but performative – not merely spoken but lived. What matters most is not what we say but what we do. Not answers but actions.

A lively new book by Terry Eagleton makes that point. He takes on recent doubters and deniers of God – best selling authors, like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Lumping them together as what he calls “Ditchkens” he takes these modern atheists to task for lightly dismissing the Christian faith.

He says that Ditchkens can rail on forever that there is “no God.” But the proof is in the pudding. And the proof is that Christians live what they say. They care for the vulnerable and the weak. They build hospitals for the sick. They provide soup kitchens for the hungry, and beds for the homeless.

Like modern-day twins of ancient Thomas, we insist on looking at the wounds – in the hand and side of the risen Christ, or a fellow mortal beside us – and we are moved to touch those wounds with healing.

We bandage. We embrace. We wipe away tears with a Kleenex or a kiss. We build and re-build. We allow people to be who they are – different and diverse, rather than insisting on mono-culture sameness.

We make sure our faith is performative, not just propositional, no matter what Ditchkens says!

Instead of guarding what we know – or think we know – we go out on a limb and take a look around. We don’t stay locked in one room (notice that Thomas wasn’t in there the first time Jesus came to the others!). Like him, we go out to snoop around, explore, learn, wonder, touch, and observe. Then come back to report, and experience together.

We even ask probing, awkward questions in front of other people, like Thomas did, so that they have to wrestle with them too – questions that can’t be solved overnight. We don’t keep our thoughts to ourselves.

* *

Having Thomas around as our Resident Skeptic isn’t easy. He forces us to think, gets us out of our box, and insists that we put flesh on our faith. Flesh-to-faith. And faith-to-flesh.

For some folks, that’s a problem. It’s way too much.

But if having Thomas around after Easter is a problem, I say, he’s a good problem to have. After all, he’s just demanding that we be Christian – in ways the world will notice. And as always …

To the glory of God.