On Sunday, May 1, 2022, I gave a sermon at Shalom Community Church. This is an adaptation of the sermon.

Doubt

Scripture

John 20:19-31 (The Inclusive Bible)

[19] In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were locked in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Temple authorities.

Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” [20] Having said this, the savior showed them the marks of crucifixion. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw Jesus, [21] who said to them again, “Peace be with you. As Abba God sent me, so I’m sending you.”

[22] After saying this, Jesus breathed on them and said,

“Receive the Holy Spirit. [23] If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained.”

[24] It happened that one of the Twelve, Thomas–nicknamed Didymus, or “Twin”–was absent when Jesus came. [25] The other disciples kept telling him, “We’ve seen Jesus!”

_Thomas’ answer was, “I’ll never believe it without putting my finger in the nail marks and my hand into the spear wound.” _

[26] On the eighth day, the disciples were once more in the room, and this time Thomas was with them. Despite the locked doors, Jesus came and stood before them, saying, “Peace be with you.”

[27] Then, to Thomas, Jesus said, “Take your finger and examine my hands. Put your hand into my side. Don’t persist in your unbelief, but believe!”

[28] Thomas said in response, “My Savior and my God!”

[29] Jesus then said,

“You’ve become a believer because you saw me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

[30] Jesus performed many other signs as well–signs not recorded here–in the presence of the disciples. [31] But these have been recorded to help you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Only Begotten, so that by believing you may have life in Jesus’ Name.

Sermon

The “Doubting Thomas” Episode and the Gospel of John

I find it interesting that the “Doubting Thomas” episode–in which Thomas refused to believe the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other disciples until he could see and feel Jesus’ crucifixion wounds–was depicted the Gospel of John but NOT in the three synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The Gospel of John is the most distinct of the four and John is–in a sense, at least–the clearest about who Jesus is. He explains it right there in the prologue: Jesus is the Word made flesh. (“In the beginning there was the Word; the Word was in God’s presence, and the Word was God.” And a little later: “And the Word became flesh and stayed for a little while among us…”). While all four Gospels retell the beginning of Jesus in light of his post-Easter identity–for Mark it’s at his baptism and for Matthew and Luke it’s at his conception–in John it goes back all the way back to the literal beginning, the beginning of the creation of the cosmos.

John, starting with this cosmic worldview, is more a theologian than a journalist, and the contrast between John and the rest of the Synoptics isn’t hard to notice. John is full of miracles that aren’t in the other Gospels, for example, and it doesn’t contain a single parable. Unlike in the Synoptics, in the Fourth Gospel Jesus proclaims the good news about his own coming rather than the King-om of God; and in the “I Am” sayings, makes the strongest claims about his divine identity in any of the Gospels.

The contrasts between John and the other Gospels extend even to the passion week narrative. In John, Jesus is not tormented in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying for God to remove the cup of his suffering, but seems to be instead very much abstracted away from human suffering. He is completely aware of and in charge of the entire process. When the soldiers come to arrest him, Jesus says, “I am he,” and they fall to the ground. John goes on to present the death of Jesus as his glorification and return to God. In John, Jesus doesn’t suffer, isn’t forsaken, abandoned, or deserted, but is instead EXALTED(?) in death, even “lifted up.”

And… I think we all know better. In fact, one could be tempted to ignore the Gospel of John altogether because, short of Jesus crying about the death of his dear friend Lazarus, there’s just not much humanity in John’s Jesus. Crucifixion was a cruel and disgusting punishment, and because it was so cruel and disgusting, it was used by the Roman Imperial authority and authorities before and after to dissuade its witnesses from perpetrating similar crimes. Real suffering was involved, and as a result, John’s Jesus can be hard to believe in.

(There’s also a point to be made here about how obnoxious Christians can be when putting John 3:16 on everything and using “the way, the truth, and the life” passage to threaten their neighbors and friends with hell, but that’s for another time.) (Fuller)

Doubling Down on Belief

Despite all this, John, it seems, really wants us to BELIEVE. In fact, the verb “to believe” is used 98 times in the Gospel of John, which is more than all the other Synoptics Gospels combined. Actually, the root of the word (minus prefixes and suffixes) is used more times than there are verses in the gospel, and it contains almost 1/3 of all the Biblical occurrences of this root.

It’s especially interesting, even ironic, then, that this character, Thomas–the Apostle, the Twin, but forever always “Doubting”–and this episode–whose moral is something like “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed”–comes from such an UNbelievable gospel. It’s almost like John is doubling down on belief, commonly understood to be an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition about the world is true. It’s kind of outrageous.

I know a lot about belief. I went to a variety of mainline Protestant churches as a child and when I reached the “age of reason,” I went through a process called Confirmation. Just in case you’re not familiar with it, Confirmation, in Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, is seen as “sealing” the covenant created in baptism. In practice, the confirmation process concludes with a public affirmation of belief, in my case, as guided by an ex-Army chaplain in the middle of the largest military base in the United States, in TULIP: total depravity (total!); unconditional election (AKA predestination); limited–or more commonly known as substitutionary–atonement (which asserts that Jesus died “for us”); irresistible grace; and perseverance of the saints. I can’t quite remember what that last one means, but you get the picture: it was no fun. It was no fun and of course, looking back, I am aware of how much it’s like a terrible caricature of the Bible Belt (where I’m from!), being, as it is, all about “belief.”

Doubling Down on Doubt

I’m not so into belief these days, at least not the in-your-head intellectual-affirmation type of belief. I just don’t think it’s that central to what it means to be a Christian. And I also know that Shalom is a church that, if they believe in anything, believes in FOLLOWING Jesus. That Anabaptists Essentials book by Palmer Becker that some folks are reading, for example, states that for Anabaptists, beliefs are important, but they are decidedly NOT primary.

And even besides that, it’s been my experience that no matter how much or how hard you believe, doubt inevitably creeps in. I–and maybe you, too–have some major cracks in my religious foundation now. And, actually, there are plenty of good, very reasonable reasons why they should be there: science; the “problem” of evil; religious plurality; the state of historical evidence; and the claim of resurrection–we are in the season of Easter, after all–being foremost among them (Clayton and Knapp).

But this kind of “intellectual” exercise–as a kind of progressive Christian, I think I even take some “pleasure” in this kind of intellectual exercise–ISN’T exactly what I’m talking about here. Because it’s also been my experience that this doubt I encountered also emerged in other, more personal, more visceral, more “in your face” aspects of my life:

  • When Ashley was pregnant with our first child, doubt that we were really ready to have a baby one night when I looked up how incredibly expensive daycare is and compared that to my librarian’s paycheck. Of course, I had known that, intellectually, but somehow that night, it clicked.
  • After Leila was born, doubt that we made the right decision to move away from our families when Ashley later had a miscarriage and we realized just how far away that family really was when we needed them most.
  • Doubt, just this morning, that Sarah, Percy, and Bill’s owl mother would ever really come back home.

This brings me to the haunting words of Jesus–not John’s inhuman, unbelievable Jesus, of course, but Matthew and Mark’s more human Jesus–on the cross crying out, “My God. My God. Why have you forsaken me?” On the cross, Christ–and this is one of the few times I feel very inclined to lean into the “Christ” bit and not just the “Jesus” bit–personally experiences the loss, the absence of God. In this traumatic experience of doubt, Chist is “crushed by a deep, existential loss of certainty” and, for a moment at least, appears to “give up on everything, including God.” We are in good company, then, when we experience this kind of traumatic doubt.

Faith without Beliefs, Hope without Assurance

For me, this passage calls into question the whole meaning of faith and beliefs, at least as I inherited them. The problem, of course, is that the meaning of “faith” usually takes place entirely on the level of beliefs. Beliefs are the things that get inside our head by virtue of an accident of birth. They are conditional… part of our inherited religious identity, the positions we inherit from our parents or our culture or our church, etc.

We can and should distinguish belief, though, from faith. We can turn away, as I have, from a religious belief altogether, or try to convert to another. We can weaken our cultural or religious identity, join another church, or relocate. But faith, faith-FULL-ness, is a more underlying matter. Faith has to do with a deeper trust, a deeper responsibility to what is calling upon or visiting itself upon us unconditionally, wherever we live and whatever we believe. (Caputo)

In a system of belief, doubt produces anxiety. Because doubt threatens us with a sense that our present worldview doesn’t give us answers, and may even cause us to wonder if any system of belief could do any better, we set up protections against it. The religious believer, for example, becomes obsessed with apologetics, rehearses every argument for a young earth, collects all the evidence they can for a physical resurrection, and memorizes all the arguments for the existence of God (all things I did during that Confirmation process!). On a more personal level, this defense mechanism manifests itself in more traumatic moments as:

  • fragility (I had an emotional breakdown that night I looked up the cost of daycare);
  • denial (Ashley and I telling ourselves that, no, we definitely can do this on our own, stop asking); and
  • self-defensiveness (Sarah and Percy stating that actually they’d known all along that their owl mother would come back)…

…all of which function to keep our beliefs (and the people who believe them) protected.

Choosing and Embracing Doubt

In a system of faith, or faith-FULL-ness, however, doubt is still there, but we face and embrace this doubt–even if this is decidedly uncomfortable–rather than develop elaborate strategies like apologetics or fragility or denial or self-defensiveness or anything else to protect ourselves from it. This type of doubt isn’t in opposition to faith but is the companion of faith. Discomfort is at the root of all growth and learning, and it’s what gets you to EXPRESS and live out your faith. One thing I actually do believe is that there is a God-forsakenness intrinsic to the Christian faith (think of Jesus on the cross). It is replete with doubt, mystery, and question that is too often replaced with certainty to cover our fears. Leaning into those fears, however, is where faith begins. (Rollins)

This deeper faith goes hand-in-hand with a more deeply lodged hope in the promise of what is to-come, which lacks assurances about the object of whatever we’re hoping for. Faith-FULL-ness, trust, and hope on this level are much riskier things–more “unprotected.” I also believe that faith arises from an obscure and distant call, an ambiguous solicitation, and a hope in an uncertain future.

  • I (usually, at least) have faith in God and God’s kin-dom, even if I have serious doubts about TULIP. And so, I try to act accordingly, even though it complicates conversations with other Christians in my life.
  • I eventually came back around to faith about the prospect of having a baby, even if I also had those momentary doubts about whether we could afford childcare. Because of that emotional breakdown, Ashley and I sat down to talk it out and made plans.
  • I had faith that Ashley and I would find the support we needed, even if I discovered that we lacked assurance that we’d find it from family in moments of extreme distress. We leaned on friends from church and work, and try to support others now going through the same thing. Because we learned it the hard way, we no longer kid ourselves into thinking we don’t need family now, even though it definitely makes things harder sometimes.
  • Sarah, Percy, and Bill had hope that their owl mother would return, even if, like them, I grew to be more and more uncertain about that future. They offered each other encouragement, hope, and positive self-talk, and later huddled together and “prayed” about it.

This kind of faith and hope speaks to our present condition, especially for those of us who love our “right to comfort” (something I recognize more and more as I learn about the White Supremacy Culture we live in): it demands that we assume responsibility for a past we had nothing to do with shaping and a hope for a future we cannot control, even while admitting that we have not been hard-wired in advance to know “The Truth.”

Toning Down the “Doubting” Thomas Schtick Altogether

All that’s well and good. But how does it relate back to the Gospel of John? What about “Doubting” Thomas (who, after all, only asked for the proof that all the other disciples had already got)? What about the Crucified One? How can we bring this biblical text into a more pointed encounter with a world that is in need of healing and justice?

…

After multiple failed attempts across twelve decades, and Senator Rand Paul notwithstanding, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, a federal law which makes lynching a federal hate crime, was signed into law a little over a month ago on March 29, 2022.

The measure is named for Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago. In 1955, the Black teenager whistled at, apparently grabbed, and, ultimately, offended a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi. A few days later, some grown, adult men went and snatched Emmett Till away from his family and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. This was a cruel and disgusting punishment, performed to dissuade its witnesses from perpetrating similar crimes. Unspeakable suffering was involved, so much so that I worry I am appropriating it now.

Three days later, the boy’s bloated body was discovered and retrieved from the river. His mother, Mamie Till, insisted on an open-casket funeral, putting Till’s mutilated corpse on display. Photographs of his corpse circulated around the country, notably appearing in Jet magazine and The Chicago Defender, both Black publications, generating intense public reaction.

By the way, we know from a historian that Emmett Till didn’t even TOUCH his “victim,” because she later, much later, admitted as much. Just like John’s Jesus, who doesn’t suffer, WE KNOW BETTER.

When Jesus GRACIOUSLY says to Thomas to “take your finger and examine my hands. Put your hand into my side,” Jesus doesn’t pretend that the violence that occurred in his death isn’t there. And, as Mickey ScottBey Jones, a Black, queer woman and a “Justice Doula,” reminds us, neither did Mamie Till. Instead, Jesus, who was “put to death on a tree”–a very specific kind of death (not unlike a lynching, wrote another Black American theologian, James Cone) that was supposed to bring SHAME to Jesus and his followers and SHUT THEM UP–puts the wounds of this violence on display, because they’re part of his story. So did Mamie Till. And, in fact, her son’s death and the horrific nature of it did NOT put Emmett Till or his mother to shame and, like Jesus’, his followers have NOT SHUT UP. He would posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement, and the brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States, persecutions that continue to occur to this day.

I don’t think John recorded this episode with Thomas for Jesus’ benefit. I think John recorded it for OUR benefit, just like Mamie Till insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket. For our benefit. In the midst of the disciples’ worst nightmare, in the midst of a mother’s worst nightmare, they had the foresight to think about us, “for US.” We–at least most of us–are the ones who will never see Jesus’ wounds. We’re the ones who doubt. We’re the ones who refuse to believe in the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States, until we see it laid bare.

I think it’s worth pointing out this last bit was inspired by two Black theologians. (And Jo helped me think it through.) I’m ashamed to say, or maybe it helps illustrate a point about my own positionality, that I’m not confident I would even know who Emmet Till was if it wasn’t for a Black rapper–Kanye West–and a Black comedian–Dave Chapell, two men who aren’t exactly beloved by liberal, White America. Likewise, I feel indebted to folks like Ramsey Orta, who shot video of Eric Garner’s 2014 arrest that lead to death by police chokehold, and Darnella Frazier, who filmed George Floyd’s murder.

Maybe the “Doubting Thomas” episode isn’t about Doubt, at all. Maybe it’s not even about Thomas. Maybe it’s about Jesus accepting the wounds of the violence he endured, and the people who believed in them having the foresight to think about us, “for us.” I won’t go so far as to say that the Emmett Till Antilynching Act is the metaphorical equivalent to our accepting the wounds of the violence he endured, or anything like final healing or justice, but may we at least have faith that the beauty of new life, resurrected life is so deep BECAUSE of, not in spite of, those wounds.

Categories: talks