Doubt/Belief

Second Sunday of Easter
Year A

Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31


Doubt/Belief

Doubt and belief for me are so intertwined that I doubt they will ever be separated. I believe that I will never have a moment of pure doubt or that I will ever have even a moment of pure belief. I have been raised in a modern culture. I have been taught the scientific method. Theories must be verified and in order to be verified they must be open to falsification. They must have some implication that can be shown to be factual or contrary to the facts. If A, then B is logically equivalent to if not B, then not A. The proposition and its contrapositive are always true or false together.

Thomas seems to be of this same “modern” frame of mind. He does not reject the theory that Jesus has risen from the dead. He sees the excitement in those who have met the Risen Lord. He wishes that it were true. But Thomas, like me, is aware of the power of the mind to delude itself. Science is aware of this too. We have an almost inescapable tendency to see what we want to see, to believe what is beneficial to us. This is the reason that scientists conduct “double blind” experiments in medicine, where neither the subject nor the researcher knows who has received the placebo and who the actual medicine.

Thomas wants to avoid wishful thinking. He wishes to base his life on truth, on verifiable facts, not on hope, appearances or magic. And so he specifies his experiment. If Jesus has been raised from the dead, he will bear the marks of his crucifixion. If the person purporting to be Jesus does not have these marks, then he is an imposter. No matter how much he looks like, talks like, or thinks like Jesus – he will not be Jesus, because Jesus was crucified. Of that one fact, Thomas is sure. Thomas has felt that agony almost as if it had happened to himself. He was that close to Jesus, that much like a twin.

It is not that Thomas was the only one to seek this proof of resurrection. The day of resurrection itself, in the evening, Jesus had appeared to the other disciples. He had shown them his hands and his side. It was only then that their fear turned to rejoicing. We aren’t told why Thomas was not with this group. People are different, and their reactions to death are different. Maybe Thomas was someone who needed to be alone with his grief rather than to share it in community. But he does rejoin the community in the ensuing week, and the other tell him what happened. It is then that Thomas doubts.

Jesus does not despise Thomas for his doubts. But Jesus wants Thomas to believe. So Jesus meets Thomas in the midst of his doubts and offers what Thomas needs to get beyond them. Jesus appears again and offers Thomas the chance to conduct his experiment: to see and touch his wounds. Jesus says, “Do not doubt but believe.” And Thomas responds “My Lord and my God.”

Notice that Thomas does not actually conduct his experiment. In this encounter with the Risen Lord, Thomas moves beyond the realm of human reason. Somehow, in a way that is beyond the evidence of our senses, Thomas knows that this is Jesus.

John concludes this episode by having Jesus say “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Unlike Thomas, or the other disciples, those for whom John is writing have not had the opportunity to touch Jesus’ wounds. I have not seen the Risen Lord in the flesh. So I have doubts. I know that I would so much like this story to be true. I know that I want the death of Jesus to be so much more than the predictable end to a man who defied the Roman Empire, and lost. I want this death to be proof that good overcomes evil even when it appears that the opposite is true. I want this death to be a sacrament of God’s love for this world. I want this death to show God’s forgiveness of even those who crucify him. I want this so much, and, perhaps because of the strength of this yearning, I doubt.

I doubt and yet I believe. My belief, like Thomas’, does not come from physically touching Jesus’ wounds. It does, however, like Thomas’, come from an encounter with the Risen Christ. It comes as a gift from God. It comes through the working of the Holy Spirit. Nothing I could do could get me beyond doubt. But with God, nothing is impossible. God is not bound by human reason. God can provide proof that goes beyond physical evidence. God can speak to our minds and our hearts in words too deep to utter. And these utterances thunder with an authority that no human source can match.

But before I get too carried away with this mystic nonsense that I deeply believe. Let me say again that for me doubt and belief are inseparable. I never purely believe or purely doubt. Yet I have made a choice. I have chosen to live my life based on the premise that God exists, that God the Father is the creator of the world, that Jesus Christ is God’s son and redeems the world through his incarnation, birth, death and resurrection, and that the Holy Spirit sustains and blesses all creation through the power of her love. Of course, I’m still working out what living a life based on this premise means. So far, it’s been an incredible journey.

Faith / No Faith

Sometimes I think
I have no faith:
not even faith
the size of a mustard seed;
not even faith
the size of a grain of mustard pollen
that when combined
with a mustard ovum,
by the grace of God,
might grow into faith
the size of a mustard seed.
Sometimes I think
I have no faith at all.

Sometimes I think
that my prayers
are monologues
recited in an empty theater.
Sometimes I think
that God
is an illusion,
a conjuror’s trick
performed by my subconscious,
craving consolation.
Sometimes I think
too much.

And, when I think too much,

I remember Abram,
who heard the words
of a new, eternal God,
who left home
in radical obedience
and became a blessing.

I remember Sarah,
who laughed
at the delicious impossibility
of the fulfillment
of her heart’s desire,
an old woman
who birthed a nation.

I remember Moses,
who led his people
from slavery into freedom,
God’s reluctant ambassador
who danced with Miriam
when horse and rider
were thrown into the sea.

I remember these,
and I decide

to pretend that
I have faith,
to act as if
I really believed,

just to see
what totally outrageous,
incredibly delightful
things
might happen.

Easter 2008

My posting this week is a midrash. Midrash is a form of biblical exegesis that enters into a text imaginatively. The Institue for Contemporary Midrash says that "Midrash ... fills in the cracks ... puts flesh on the bones ... reinterprets stories and characters .. gives a voice to those in the story who have no voice." Here I imagine what Mary Magdalen is thinking as she goes to the tomb on the morning of the first day of the week.

Mary Magdalen’s Easter
(based on John 20:1-18)

Seven demons possessed me before I met him. They pressed in on every side until I cried out in fear and pain. Voices, always telling me how bad I was, how loathsome. He called their names, and at the sound of his voice they vanished. They knew him and obeyed.

I followed him, my only desire to serve and to comfort him in any way he would allow. I heard him teach. I saw others healed. I looked into those eyes, and they searched out my soul. I followed him until the end. Accused and tried, he was blameless, a perfect man. But they didn’t know him. Those rulers of men couldn’t understand. He was mocked and beaten. I followed as he stumbled under the weight of the cross. I held Mary in my arms as they nailed his hands and feet. We wept as the sword pierced him and us.

When he died the world went dark and the ground shook beneath my feet. The demons gathered round whispering - “It’s all an illusion.” “He can’t defeat us.” “See how your perfect man suffers and dies like a treasonous blasphemer.” “Where is his God now?” “ You fool!”

Now I go to perform my last service for him. Now to anoint his body, to touch him for the last time. It is cold this dawn and the others lag behind. I run because the demons hover round again. I must keep them at bay for another hour. When I am done, they may take me. All will be over. The men will return to their boats, and I, I will return to my proper place, the hell from which he rescued me.

Who has rolled away the stone? What have they done with him? Not this, I can endure no more. That gardener may help. Please God, I need help!

“Woman, why are you weeping? Who do you seek?”

I seek the dead, you fool. Who else do you seek in the tomb? And I cry because they have killed him and me, and now they have denied him even the peace of the grave. No, no. I need his help. I must be subservient, civil. The one who permitted the whole truth is dead. I must learn how to grovel again.

“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

“Mary.”

“Rabbouni!”

He calls my name and now I too know and obey. Yes, and worship. I sought the dead, but have found the Living God. Now, I cry with joy, because he has found me.