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"Doubting Is A Healthy Response" Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – April 15, 2012 Centenary United
Psalm 133; John 20:19-31
This morning our
Scripture lesson is very familiar.
We remember this episode because
doubting Thomas reflected a
response that all of us engage in from time to time.
His label stuck because believers through the centuries judged
him for lacking faith or that he was a
shallow person that needed
evidence to support the claim that Jesus was alive.
Before we discuss
how doubting has profoundly shaped our lives, it might serve us well to
remind ourselves that every substantial break-through in understanding
was always surrounded by
nay-sayers that wanted to protect
the
truth as they knew it.
Historically,
the people that doubted their
reality were the ones who have helped our species evolve into a future
they would not live to see.
History has generously given us countless illustrations of people
that doubted the limits various authorities placed on
truth.
Jesus doubted
the effectiveness of his parent religion.
He forcefully resisted the religious autocrats of his day by
insisting that obedience to the
Laws of Moses was not enough.
What mattered was the spirit by which a person lived.
His teachings were offering Jews
a course correction from what
they had been taught. This is why Jesus said to his disciples, “I am
giving you a new commandment – love one another.”
(John 13:34)
This shift from
obedience to the Law
to a quality of spirit
cost Jesus his life. In 1526, a
renegade priest named William Tyndale dared to publish an English
version of the New Testament. He doubted that the priests should
be the only ones who have access to the Scriptures that were written in
Latin, a language few others could read.
His Old Testament began to appear in pieces in 1530. Religious
authorities coaxed him out of hiding.
He was captured, arrested and was tried for heresy. In
1536, Tyndale was strangled to death. To make sure that
the message was
abundantly clear that no unauthorized person should ever
translate God’s Holy Word,
his remains were dug up and burned publicly. A century later
there was a fierce verbal exchange between Galileo and the Pope.
Galileo had worked with the mathematical findings of Copernicus that
confirmed the earth’s rotation around the sun. For centuries, all
Papal authorities knew as gospel
truth was that the earth
was the center of the universe and all heavenly bodies were in orbit
around our planet. Scientific evidence was casting doubt on
the authority of the Church. This
could not be tolerated by the religious authorities. In 1633, Galileo
was tried by the Inquisition and found guilty. He was sentenced to
house arrest. It made no difference that he and the Pope had been
college roommates. He would
have been sentenced to death but he chose life by going public that his
findings were false. However, he told the Pope in no uncertain terms,
“The Church may be very powerful but it will not survive much longer if
it continues to teach what is not true.”
If we can imagine this, it was not until 1992 that Pope John
Paul II asked that Galileo's conviction be overturned.
Finally, after centuries, his innocence was restored.
It was the Church that had been wrong. Two more centuries
passed and the evolution of humanity continued. Doctors Joseph Lister
and Louis Pasteur teamed up in the 1870s to make it mandatory that all
surgical procedures use sterile dressings. These two men
doubted the effectiveness of the protocols being used by the medical
community. They also insisted
that carbolic acid be used as the sterilizing agent.
All physicians in their facility
were made to scrub their hands before treating patients. Lister
and Pasteur were viciously criticized by both the British and American
medical communities, even though their recommendations dramatically
reduced infections and deaths. It is so difficult
to let go of truth that has
been put in place for generations by tradition, heritage and cultural
preferences. Sometimes the
truth by which we live
has existed for centuries.
As more
immovable, protective walls
of truth began to weaken and
crumble in every discipline, humanity’s expanding awareness started to
reveal a different reality – doubting the present
truth allowed creation to
give up more of its secrets. Now instead of
drilling holes in people’s skulls to exorcize
demons, we use surgery to
remove tumors. Now instead of traveling on dirt roads in covered wagons,
we can board aircraft and fly anywhere in the world in a matter of
hours. Now, instead of
wondering about our solar system, we can go there with probes,
satellites and land rovers. Thomas did what
most people would have done upon receiving such information.
He doubted what his friends were
telling him. He wanted
evidence.
There is nothing wrong with
wanting to confirm the truth
of what others claim.
Wanting confirmation is at the heart of every honest inquiry. When Jesus appeared
again to his disciples, Thomas was with them.
Jesus said, “Stop doubting and believe.
Do you now believe because you have seen me?
How happy are those who believe without seeing me.” (John 20:27f)
Doubting is often like a rock
that we use as we cross from one side of a stream to the other. Sarah and Allen
Crenshaw were Anglicans that lived in When they arrived
home, their answering machine was blinking.
When Sarah listened to the phone message, she and Allen were
brought from When they arrived
at the hospital, they learned that a pick-up truck had crossed the
median and hit their son’s car head-on.
The driver of the truck was killed instantly as were three of
their son’s college classmates. They
were all juniors at They sat in the
waiting room praying, knowing that their son had been in surgery for
hours. Soon the surgeon
came with the news that their son’s injuries were too extensive and that
he did not survive. Sarah collapsed into Allen’s arms and both of them
shook with intense grief. The
four young men had been excellent students that had been friends for two
years. Sarah became numb
and preoccupied. She drifted and
remained aloof from Allen. Even though she knew better, there was an
overwhelming feeling that if God is a loving God and has the power to
stop such nonsense, why did God not do it?
Their priest came
by the home and after listening to their story, he gently reminded them
of what happened on Good Friday.
God did not intervene to save his son even though God had the
power to do so. Sarah
reasoned that somehow this incident was different.
This experience was very personal for her.
She did not need or want hugs.
She did not want to hear truisms or scriptures quoted to her.
She was not looking for timeless, distilled wisdom that may have
lifted others from their despair. Her problem was not
with how she thought about her son’s death.
Sarah’s inner drama was how she felt about it.
Her emotions were raw.
She felt betrayed. She felt
her faith journey was useless because it was not able to serve her now
when she needed it the most.
She was floundering, angry and could not control her emotions. For the first time
in her life, she began to doubt.
She felt that the faith she had known all her life was nothing
but a spectator experience.
How removed she had become from her heightened spiritual experience of
the Good Friday cantata and the Stations of the Cross.
How meaningless were the words, “Don’t worry, Sarah!
Michael is alive.
He’s gone to be with Jesus.”
This experience
would force Sarah to search.
It would force Sarah to redefine herself.
It would cause her to agonize over deciding what beliefs
supported her and which would not. This was a battle she was determined
to win. Allen had
negotiated the loss of his son successfully, but Sarah found that doing
so was beyond her ability at the moment. What caused her to turn back to
her faith journey were the words in our lesson today – “Do you believe
because you see me? How
blessed are those who believe and have not seen me.”
Sarah was in this latter category.
She had to trust God.
There was no other alternative. One of the fascinating qualities
that comes to people when they have won this internal struggle is that
they often become a powerful, creative witness to everyone in their
future.
The disciples doubted. They
denied. They ran after
Jesus was arrested. They
went into hiding. Their
fears and cowardice got the best of them.
Later they used their own weakness of faith to empathize with
those not yet convinced that Jesus survived the grave. Have you ever
wondered what happened to Thomas?
There is nothing in the Bible that tells us what Thomas did after
seeing the Master alive.
According to tradition and some second century scrolls, Thomas became a
spiritual teacher, energized by the resurrection experience. He became a
missionary. There is no
historical explanation concerning how Christianity arrived in As
for Sarah Crenshaw,
she finally found the answer she needed and her months of
self-absorption eventually gave way to a complete energy-reversal.
Just as Thomas
went to What we can take with us this
morning is knowing that everything in creation is evolving.
Barriers to our evolution are only in place because we created them.
God absolutely protects the spirits of all of us but not
our bodies. We are not our
constantly changing bodies.
Eventually, all of us lose our temporary
shelters just as Jesus did.
What is essential to know
is that whether we live life as a doubter or a believer in our continued
evolution after our physical death, neither response has any influence
on what God created. When some Christians take issue with the understanding that all of us survive death, they may find their beliefs are exactly opposite to our Creator’s design for the destiny of humankind. Be at peace. Remember that God’s love is much larger than anything we can possibly imagine. There is always room in this weary world, however, for one more Easter Christian. |