“In Defense of Doubters”

John 20:19-31

Scott Huie

Westminster Presbyterian Church

March 30^th 2008

Poor Thomas. The man has always gotten a bad rap. Probably from the beginning of time, he has carried with him the rather unflattering nickname, “Doubting Thomas.” I remember him way back from early childhood Sunday School. We fourth graders read the story of Jesus’ resurrection and his appearance to all the disciples except Thomas. They report to Thomas that Jesus is risen. Thomas says, “I don’t believe it unless I see absolute proof myself.” The lesson here was, don’t be like Thomas. Don’t have doubts. Just believe. That is what it means to be a good Christian. That made sense to me as a fourth grader. I’m not sure it makes so much sense today.

One question that has crossed my mind lately has been: where was Thomas anyway? In such a moment of crisis, why did he venture out on his own and separate from the group? Those disciples were dejected. They had left everything to follow Jesus. They had put all their eggs in this one basket, and now it seemed that basket was broken and the eggs smashed. They were dejected. Those disciples were ashamed. The memories of pledging loyalty to Jesus during that last week had given way to abandonment when the going got tough. They were ashamed. Those disciples were lonely. They felt forsaken by the one they looked up to, their fearless leader, the one they thought would turn the tables on Rome. They were lonely. Those disciples were scared. Their leader had just been killed by the authorities, and they figured they were marked men. They were scared. There was such a whirlwind of emotion among that band of brothers locked away in that upper room. So where was Thomas anyway?

If Thomas were one of the United States, you know what state he would be? That’s right, Missouri. Missouri is the “Show Me” state. And Thomas, at least in this episode, was the “Show Me” disciple. He was not given to faddish and hysterical devotion to lost causes, and what was being reported to him seemed so far-fetched, so out of this world, that he says very simply, “I don’t believe it. Show me his scars, show me the irrefutable evidence because only then will I believe.” The man was such a concrete, practical thinker, such that he has gone down in history as “Doubting Thomas.”

Today’s Scripture reading is not the only place we get a glimpse of this disciple. There are two other accounts of Thomas in John’s gospel where he gets some significant airtime. What do we learn about the man? Was he consistently the skeptical type?

In the first passage earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus says that the time is now for them to go near to Jerusalem to comfort Lazarus’ grieving family. The disciples are incredulous: “We can’t go near Jerusalem. They’ll kill us there.” But Thomas speaks up and says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” To say such a thing, to take such a stand requires remarkable courage and devotion, does it not? Here we see one who was willing to lay his life down in solidarity with his Lord. Besides “Doubting Thomas,” I think here he could also be called “Courageous Thomas.”

A couple of days later, we hear from Thomas again. Jesus is speaking rather philosophically about his impending departure into his “Father’s house.” While the other disciples are likely just sitting there with glazed stares nodding their heads, Thomas chimes in, “Lord, I don’t get it. I don’t know what you are talking about. Could you please clarify?” That invitation leads Jesus to utter some of his most memorable words in all of Scripture: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” I think it took an amazing amount of realness for Thomas to speak up and to admit ignorance. It was an honest confession for one who was seeking to understand truth. I think here he could have easily earned the label, “Honest Thomas.” But nooooo, this disciple has not been remembered as “Honest Thomas” or as “Courageous Thomas,” but rather as “Doubting Thomas.”

What makes this distinction so peculiar is that the ten other disciples themselves apparently needed to see proof as well. As you may recall from last Sunday, soon after the early morning darkness had given way to light on that first Easter, the resurrected Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. After a moment of confusion, Jesus then speaks Mary’s name, which causes her to recognize Jesus. She runs to tell the disciples what she has seen. Their first response: “There you go again, Mary. Emotional Mary. Excitable Mary. Hallucinating Mary.” The first report of the resurrection was met by the disciples with great doubt.

And then later that night when the disciple were huddled together in that upper room with the drapes closed and the doors locked, Jesus miraculously appears to them. Did those disciples, upon seeing their Lord, immediately bow down in adoration? Did they nudge each other and say, “I told you he was coming back”? No, their first response was fear and doubt. They thought they were seeing a ghost, such that the risen Jesus had to take the initiative and show them the scars on his hands and his side, the undeniable markings of the crucifixion.

I hope the significance of this is sinking in. Those ten disciples doubted, just as Thomas doubted. Thomas just wanted to go one step further on his first encounter with his risen Lord, demanding to touch Jesus’ wounds. He wanted to make sure this wasn’t a ghost—that this was indeed the resurrected Jesus. But really, Thomas was no different than the other ten, and Thomas was likely no different than just about all of us here today.

Which brings up an important question for us to ponder: why have we Christians developed such a negative attitude toward doubt? And why has this story of Thomas always been used as such a reinforcement of that lesson? It seems like what I’ve often learned in church is that doubt is the opposite of faith. Doubt is bad. Faith is good. But isn’t the antithesis of faith simply unbelief? It’s not doubt. And what’s more, can not our doubts play a positive role in the exercise of faith?

When we in the church confess our doubts, I think that means that we are being real and authentic. It means that we are not just subscribing to the “party line” of church doctrine because “that has been what is always taught.” Think about this: have you ever thought about how many brilliant discoveries in history have been made when someone had the courage to doubt. Martin Luther doubted the efficacy of certain church practices and beliefs in the late 15^th century and he helped start the Protestant Church. Copernicus doubted the earth was the center of the universe, as was commonly believed, and his discoveries revolutionized our scientific thinking. Doubting can often lead people to a greater sense of truth.

Every spring on the first day of Confirmation Class for the last 15 years, I have gathered with a bunch of excitable, fresh-faced 8^th graders and a few slightly smug high schoolers and been very intentional about telling every one of them to not just shake their head at everything I say, but to be real and be honest, and ask questions and raise doubts. And only in that honest give and take, I believe, people grow in faith and truly claim it for themselves as their own.

“A live heresy,” I once heard, “is better than a dead orthodoxy.” I believe it: a live heresy is better than a dead orthodoxy. Or to put in another way, it’s better to believe whatever it is that you really believe than it is to be fake and believe something just because it is expected of you. Of all places, church should be a safe place, where folks can come and truly wrestle with truth, a place where doubts—and even “live heresies”—expressed are met not with judgment, but with grace.

That’s one thing I love about being a Presbyterian. I believe that we are generally good about extending grace to folks wherever they are in their spiritual journeys. We are pretty good about welcoming folks without banging them over the head with some sort of spiritual litmus test. Such welcome is even encoded in our Presbyterian Constitution in the practice of the Lord’s Supper. Our Book of Order puts it this way:

“The invitation to the Lord’s Supper is extended to all who have been baptized, remembering that access to the Table is not a right conferred upon the worthy, but a privilege given to the undeserving who come in faith, repentance, and love…Even one who doubts or whose trust is wavering may come to the Table in order to be assured of God’s love and grace in Christ Jesus.”

I love that. You don’t have to be a spiritual giant to partake of the bread and juice. Even the “doubting Thomases” in our midst are invited to participate.

Presbyterian writer Frederick Buechner once said, “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” I have heard doubt described as the midwife of faith, and also the prelude to faith. But I like Buechner’s definition best: “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith.”

I’ll confess here and now there are ants in my pants when it comes to faith. I have doubts. I have quite a few unresolved questions of faith. I sometimes wonder about the whole issue of predestination that we Presbyterians are supposed to so tightly cling to. I wonder if there are truly folks who, from the beginning of time, have the promise of salvation, and are there therefore folks who have the promise of damnation? Is salvation 100% an act of God? I also wonder about the providence of God. Is it really true that everything that happens, happens for a reason? Is God that involved with my life and the world, and if so why did my 42 year old cousin die last month of Lou Gehrig’s disease? I wonder, is this book, the Bible, truly 100% inspired. Is every word in here really God-breathed? If so, then I need to figure out what to do with 1 Corinthians 11. I wonder, is the formula for salvation so cut and dry? Believe this and get that. Is it that simple? I could go on.

We all have questions, if we are honest. We all have ants in the pants. But in every life, there comes a time when we discover that an overabundance of ants in our pants can be very detrimental. We discover that we can’t live in the house of doubt forever. And the real question becomes, are my doubts getting in the way of my profession of faith? Are my doubts keeping me from joining Thomas in saying to Jesus, “My Lord and my God”?

The call of Jesus, my friends, is to doubt your doubts. Look them in the eye and doubt them. Don’t let them control your mind. Be bold and step out in faith even in the midst of doubts. Notice in the scriptures how Jesus never commends people for their doubts; he commends them for their faith in the midst of doubt. So hear the testimonies of those who believe and those who have gone before you, and may doubt become not your dwelling place, but simply the front porch through which you go to get to the house of faith. I imagine that certain unresolved questions and doubts will stay with us, but can we get to the point of saying, as one witness does in Mark’s gospel, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief”?

Christian tradition has it that Thomas, after making his confession of faith, made his way to India where he started the Christian church there. So let us find inspiration in Thomas to be real and authentic and to see doubt not as a stumbling block, but as a front porch to faith. Perhaps the first step is to let go of such a negative image of Thomas, the Doubter.

I have heard of one church in Houston, Texas that has done that in a very public way. In fact, it actually named itself St. Thomas Presbyterian Church. There are thousands of Presbyterian churches named for various other saints, but I am told that this is the only one named for Thomas. Maybe we Presbyterian are a little threatened by Thomas and his doubts, or we would likely have named more of our churches after him. I read that this church’s seal is inscribed with the motto: “We begin with uncertainty, and we end with exclamation.”

Beginning with uncertainty and ending with exclamation. Is that not the journey that every one of us is on? I believe that if we are honest, each of us here today is on a path that is a mixture of uncertainty and exclamation. And wherever we are on that continuum, Jesus comes in the midst of us, just as he came to Thomas, and he gives us permission to ask and to probe and to wrestle and to inspect, and yes, even to doubt.

And for all of that, what we receive is not a word of condemnation or judgment, but rather words of welcome, words of incredible grace: “Peace be with you,” Jesus says. “Blessed are you who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now is the time of salvation. Thanks be to God. Amen.