Doubting
“...the other disciples kept telling Thomas, ‘We have seen Jesus.’ But Thomas answered them, ‘I will never believe it without putting my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand into the wound of the spear.’” — John 20:25.
I am quite sure most of you know our Music Associate, our Composer in Residence, Tom Rasely— he’s right back there as I speak. [1] Don’t worry, Tom, I won’t say anything bad about you. On the other hand, I may do my best to embarrass you.
Now, anyone can do this but Tom does this maybe once a month. He comes breezing into the office and, if I am available, we sit, say for about ten, perhaps fifteen minutes and just shoot the breeze— no agenda— maybe a little catch up chat about our families, maybe just a little of discussion about baseball.
I relax; he relaxes. Then we both get back to work. Well, last week, Tom came breezing in, I was in the office and available and our discussion turned to the topic of music— probably no surprise there, either. But specifically, the topic was music literacy and, by extension, literacy in general.
Tom, as you may know, teaches guitar— gives lessons on how to play guitar. But, needless to say, it’s hard to offer lessons on how to play guitar without also offering some overall advice and information about music— in short literacy.
As Tom put it, ‘I can teach someone to play something on the guitar. That does not mean they will know anything other than how to do that one thing. They will not be able to go beyond it, to integrate it with anything else unless there is an eagerness to see the big picture.’ And Tom and I were and are both on the same page about the overriding necessity for the individual not just to have basic information which extends beyond the narrow. We need to go beyond that.
And, indeed, when it comes to music or when it comes to the field in which I used to work, theater, there is an obvious question to be asked: do you, as an individual, know something about the field, know something about the literature? As a playwright, if I did not know something about the works of William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, August Strindberg, George Bernard Shaw, Neil Simon and Samuel Beckett, to name a few— I would not know enough about the art of theater and the history of theater to make play writing my own.
Similarly, if an individual does not know who Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and who the duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney are and what they did, the place that individual starts in terms of knowing something about the field, is behind the proverbial eight ball. In short, if an individual wants to learn to play the guitar and nothing else but playing the guitar, that individual also needs to know enough to about the art of music and the history of music to be able to make playing the guitar their own.
This may sound like a paradox, but once an individual begins to know enough about a field so that they can begin to know what they don’t know, that individual can start to really become grounded. This is true of music. This is true of theater. This is true of medicine, This is true of banking. This is true of any field. You need to get to the point where you know what you don’t know.
Further, even so called experts can’t know everything. We are all striving to learn and to grow. (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work commonly referred to as the Gospel of John: “...the other disciples kept telling Thomas, ‘We have seen Jesus.’ But Thomas answered them, ‘I will never believe it without putting my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand into the wound of the spear.’”
Question: is doubt a necessary part of faith? Is doubt a necessary part of faith? (Slight pause.) What follows are a series of quotes from several writers and theologians on the topic. I shall name the author of the quote after I’ve given the quote.
“A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.” — Jose Bergamin. “Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt they are right.” — Laurens van der Post.
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” — René Descartes. “Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.” — Andre Gide.
“Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.” — Miguel de Unamuno. “There are two ways to slide easily through life: namely, to believe everything, or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.” — Alfred Korzybski
“Faith requires something more than comfortable self knowledge. It requires difficult, uncomfortable things— doubt, repentance, observance— these are perplexing in our world of going with the flow and doing your own thing, a world of comfortable, personal space.” — Winifred Gallagher. “Doubt is as crucial to faith as darkness is to light... faith is, by definition, uncertainty.” — Carter Heywood. (Slight pause.)
Once an individual becomes familiar with the Bible, a realization dawns that there are a number of passages in which faithful people express doubt. For instance, in a story told by Matthew, Jesus appears to a crowd of disciples after the resurrection. Even so, with the resurrected Christ in their midst, the Gospel says this about those present: “When the disciples saw Jesus, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”
What I want to suggest is that, if you do not know the literature, you cannot realize how central doubt is to faith. Indeed, the passage read today says these signs (quote): “...have been recorded so that you may come to believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Only Begotten,...”
But the most important idea in this phrase is that you may come— come to believe. Coming to believe, arriving at the point of belief, if it can even be described as a point, is a process. Further, belief does not happen without doubt acting both as a part of that process and as a continuing factor. As is clearly outlined in the passage, belief does not come without some fear— why did they lock the doors? Fear. But it was fear of the unknown. They doubted.
It seems to me only God can be sure of anything and if we claim that we are sure, we are claiming an ability which belongs only to God. The philosopher Bertrand Russell puts that premise this way: “...I think it very unlikely God would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt the existence of God.” (Slight pause.)
Well, I have just insisted doubt is and needs to be a part of faith. But where does that place me or you or any of us on a faith journey? (Slight pause.) I would suggest once doubt is realized one begins to understand there are things we don’t know. You get to the point where you know you don’t know everything.
And, indeed faith is defined not by what we know. Unquestionably, a definition of faith, perhaps the central one, is what we believe but cannot be fully known. We can have faith only in that which we can neither fully see nor fully understand. Faith, in short, is not about what we see or understand. So, what is it? Could it be that faith has something to do with what we feel? With how we feel?
And what is it that cannot be seen but felt? Well, let’s start with this list: love, trust, hope, joy. These can be experienced. These can be felt. Here’s another way to put it: love, trust, hope, joy can be thought of as solid in the sense of: foundational. But, paradoxically, love, trust, hope, joy are not [the pastor] knocks on the pulpit with a fist] concrete. (Slight pause.)
Well, having said that, how does one get on a faith journey, the journey toward faith? I would suggest we need to start to learn the literature. We need to, thereby, start to know what we do not know. So finally, let us remember this: faith is clearly not a destination. Faith is a journey. Are we willing to be on that journey? Amen.
04/11/2010
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “I suppose the real issue in literacy, especially literacy when it come to faith, is making it one’s own. Personally, if my car breaks, I go to a mechanic. I take my taxes to an accountant. I don’t care, particularly, if I am illiterate about fixing cars or doing taxes. But faith deals with my immortal soul. I don’t think I want to trust that to someone else. So, I need to be as literate as possible.”
[1] Mr. Rasely was standing in the back of the nave at this point.
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