"Doubt and Belief"	April 11, 2010
James 1: 1-7, John 20: 19-29	1st Sunday after Easter
Colesville Presbyterian Church	Rev. Ken Eimer, Pastor (Interim)

If I mentioned the names of certain disciples, and you were to write the first word or phrase that came to mind, most would have different descriptions. If I said, ‘Judas,’ you might write, “betray” or “thirty pieces of silver.” If I said, “Simon Peter,” you might jot down, “rock,” or “fisherman.” If I said, James and John, you might scribble, “Sons of Thunder.” If I said, “Matthew,” you’d write ‘taxes,’ and if I said, “Thomas,” you’d print ‘doubt,’ as in doubting Thomas.     
 

Thomas is listed as one of the twelve disciples in Matthew, Mark and Luke but nothing is said about him. Only in the Gospel of John does Thomas become a distinct personality. The Gospel of John describes Thomas as a willing follower of Jesus but someone who needs explanation and physical evidence as a kind of guarantee to move forward. In today’s reading, Thomas will not believe in Jesus until he sees the mark of the nail in his hands and touches his wounds.   
 

Though Thomas is associated with doubt, he doesn’t ask for anything more than what the other disciples had seen and Thomas isn’t the only disciple who thought the resurrection of Jesus was over the top. When Jesus appeared before his disciples in the last chapter of Matthew, we read that some doubted. Doubt may have been rampant among the common population. But before we go any further, we should define what doubt is so we won’t have any doubts about it. 
 

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If you look at your bulletin insert, the word, ‘doubt’ can be traced to the word, ‘two’ and, as you can see, two closely associated terms are ‘double’ and ‘dubious.’ One of these describes Thomas. He was dubious about confessing Jesus until he could see the mark of the nails in his hands and touch his wounds. Thomas was hesitant, unsettled and uncertain. He wavered as to whether to could believe.        
 

To believe in someone or something is to accept a person or a fact as true. We say that people who tell the truth are ‘straight arrows’ because straight things are steady and what’s steady runs true.
 

Conversely, a false statement is erroneous. False people mislead which is why we call some of them crooks. They’re crooked because they don’t run true. Crooks are the opposite of straight arrows.

The third choice is to waver. People who waver go back and forth between belief and unbelief. Wavering between choices is where doubt gets its name.         
 

Let’s say you’ve known someone at your place of work for ten years and during this period of time both of you’ve had good times and bad. Sometimes, you’ve been close to this person and other times you’ve felt pretty distant because of a long standing conflict. One day you go to lunch and he tells you that he deeply admires you as a friend. 
 

You can believe that he’s telling you the truth. He’s a straight arrow. He runs true. But you may think he’s disingenuous. He’s saying this because he wants you to do something for him. A third option is to waver. You say to yourself, “I don’t know what to believe. Sometimes he comes across as the genuine article and sometimes he doesn’t.” To doubt is to flip flop between belief and unbelief. 
 

Given the skeptical age in which we live, we give doubters a lot of room, especially when it comes to religion and spirituality. Doubting is described as the “ants in the pants of faith.” Doubts are the itches and twitches that keep our faith awake and moving. True doubt is nothing to be alarmed about because doubt is the natural consequence of true faith. Doubt and faith go hand in hand.
 

Doubt can be a path into faith. Lee Stroebel, a former award winning editor for the Chicago Tribune and an atheist, was highly skeptical of Christianity but came to believe through a two year research project into the life of Jesus and through the care and understanding of his congregation.
 

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The good thing about doubt is that it gives us time to discern the facts of a situation. Suppose you’re called to serve on a jury and heard the evidence of a case involving the murder of someone. Suppose on day four of the trial, you made up your mind to believe the prosecution and voted guilty on day eight. But what if you exercised some healthy doubt and wavered until the evidence was in. If you stayed open, you might have decided in favor of the defense. 
 

We can say the same about complicated moral issues, like capital punishment and euthanasia. Our beliefs about these, and other difficult subjects, may be based on childhood or popular teaching. But if we interject doubt – if we remain uncertain – our hesitancy can open space to make a more informed decision. Our final determination may not change but we’ve given ourselves opportunity to examine both sides.
 

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So how do these positive things about doubt square with what we heard in our first Scripture lesson – the double-minded person is unstable in all of his ways. Remember the connection between doubt and the words, ‘two,’ ‘double’ and dubious.’       
 

The context that we find ourselves in can make doubt into a negative. If you need to be evacuated from a burning building, you don’t want your firefighter to engage in lengthy discussions about the virtue of going into the building. If you’re going into go battle, you don’t want your commanding officer to waver on his ability to lead you through it. On the eve of open heart surgery, the last thing you don’t want your doctor to be double-minded about how to proceed. Imagine meeting with your physician the evening before and having him or her say, “Harold,” I’m going to operate tomorrow but I’m a little unsettled about a few of the procedures. Here are the options. Which one would you like to go with?
 

You’re at the marriage altar and are asked by your pastor to express your love for your fiancé. You’re expected to be unequivocal in your commitment because to love in every circumstance provides the foundation for both of you to move forward in life. But suppose what you’re really saying to yourself at that moment is, “Sometimes I love you and sometimes I don’t. I go back and forth on whether I love you. On Monday, I love you but on Wednesday I’m not that sure. I waver on how deeply my care is for you.” If that pattern of thinking continues through the marriage, what are the chances for happiness?  
 

So a situation or context has bearing on how we approach doubt. In the courtroom it’s a good thing. If your house is burning down, not so much. And it doesn’t work very well at the altar. But doubt can be destabilizing when it doesn’t seem to end. If doubt is a terminal condition; if we doubt for doubt’s sake; if we make a career out of doubting – and some people do – we will be like someone who is pushed to and fro in the wind. 
 

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Doubt’s helpful if the outcome is clarity, when we see light at the end of the tunnel. In the tunnel, we grope for answers. Life is filled with double-mindedness, wavering and uncertainty. But when we enter into the light, we can see things for what they are. We can get clear.     
       

Thomas doubted but got clear when Jesus appeared to him. Lee Strobel had doubts about the truth of Christianity but once he got clear on his relationship to Christ he left the Chicago Tribune to become a full time apologist. You may have heard about or read one of his well known books such as The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith.   
 

You may have doubts about your faith. They may be intense and they may be long lasting. But if you find clarity through a search for understanding, through your relationships in a Christian community, or through a mystical experience, where God reveals himself to you in a new way, or a combination of these, you can use your doubts to become a stronger person.
 

One of the reasons why seminary was of benefit to me is that it helped to remove doubt. When I entered, I was pretty confused about my faith but a three year search for understanding went a long way to help establish a better foundation for my life. Most of us don’t have the opportunity to embark on such a significant search but don’t discount the importance of study as a spiritual discipline to help you get clear. 
 

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What’s true in our faith is true in other areas of life. If we doubt our ability to perform on our jobs -- or whatever we’re called to do during the day or evening -- the longer our doubts last, the more debilitating they are. If we’re unsettled about the quality of our relationships, unless we do what we need to, to gain clarity on the issue, we will be haunted by uncertainty.
 

Oftentimes, what lies behind self-doubt is fear and the only way to chase fear away is to plunge into whatever it is that’s holding us back and see where it leads. If you doubt you can climb a mountain, it may be because you’re afraid of heights or maybe you fear that you can’t sustain the climb once you get started. The only way to remove doubt is to train for the climb and, if you do so successfully, you can address your fear of heights.
 

Climbing may not be our thing but there are mountains or challenges that we face each day: the challenge of marriage; the challenge of parenting; the challenge of work; the challenge of health; the challenge of emotional well being; the challenge of faith. Strategies or techniques are needed to address each of these – some different, some the same. But if we abandon all hope, we’ll stay stuck in doubt and it’ll be hard to move forward.
 

From time to time, we see sayings on bumper stickers or placards that read, “You gotta believe.” If we read between the lines, what’s being said here is, “Faith is more powerful than doubt.” “Journey into the light.” “Get clear.”     
 

Can we use our doubts to move forward as single-minded people who are not tossed to and fro by the wind?