Second Sunday Of Easter
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle C
Object:
Theme For The Day
Doubt is not the enemy of faith, but is rather its alter ego.
First Lesson
Acts 5:27-32
Peter And The Apostles Proclaim Christ's Resurrection
Today begins a seven-week series of First Lesson readings from the book of Acts. Peter and the apostles had been arrested at the order of the high priest, and clapped into prison. During the night, however, they were freed by an angel of the Lord, who commanded them to go to the temple and preach (vv. 17-26, not included in this reading). They do exactly that, and are subsequently hauled before the high priest and the council, who question why they have violated the order not to preach in Jesus' name (vv. 27-28). This, of course, is the very same group that had tried Jesus, and sent him to be condemned by Pilate. Peter and the apostles, declaring that they must obey God rather than any human authority, proceed to share, in brief form, the good news of resurrection that is the heart of the Christian proclamation (vv. 29-32). Peter's use of the phrase, "the God of our ancestors," indicates that they do not see faith in Jesus as discontinuous with Jewish tradition. Jesus was "raised" by God; he did not "rise" of his own accord (v. 30). He is seated at God's "right hand" (the place of honor, following Psalm 110:1; v. 31). Peter and the apostles are not simply teaching doctrine, but are "witnesses" to events they have personally heard and seen. For the rest of us, who have not been privileged to have the same firsthand experience, God gives the Holy Spirit as a gift, so we may also be assured in the faith (v. 32).
New Testament Lesson
Revelation 1:4-8
The Risen Christ Exalted To Rule Over All
This week begins a six-week series of passages from Revelation. After a brief prologue, these verses are the first words John writes to the seven churches in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) who are the chief focus of his attention in this book. "Grace and peace" is a traditional apostolic greeting; "him who is and who was and who is to come" is God. The "seven spirits who are before his throne" may refer to the seven "angels" assigned to each of the seven churches, from whom we will hear more in subsequent chapters; but more likely, they refer to the Jewish belief that seven principal angels ruled over creation on God's behalf (v. 4). The greeting from Jesus -- "the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth" (v. 5) -- is of particular interest in the Easter season, and may be why this text was chosen for this particular place in the lectionary cycle. "Ruler of the kings of the earth" is a title claimed by the Roman emperors; John is showing his hand, right at the beginning of this letter, that he looks to Jesus -- not the emperor -- as the true, divinely ordained ruler. The risen Jesus exercises "glory and dominion forever and ever" (v. 6). Verses 7-8 are the first of many hymnic fragments embedded in the text of Revelation. They celebrate the future "coming on the clouds" of the risen Christ, in such a way that "even those who pierced him" will be able to see and wonder "on his account all the tribes of the earth" -- including, presumably, the Romans -- "will wail." All this is blessed by God who is "the Alpha and the Omega."
The Gospel
John 20:19-31
Jesus Appears To The Disciples, And Later To Thomas
Beginning this Sunday and continuing through the season of Easer, the lectionary Gospel Lessons are chosen from the Gospel of John. Today's passage occurs in all three annual cycles of the lectionary for this day. There are two principal parts to this story: Jesus' appearance to his disciples behind locked doors, and his personal self-revelation to Thomas, who had not been present for the earlier encounter. John describes the reality of the resurrected Jesus in a somewhat baffling way. Jesus is both able to appear behind the doors of a locked room (v. 19) and to "show them his hands and his side" (v. 20). He will later invite Thomas to physically touch his wounds (v. 27). John has described the crucifixion in an earthier way than any of the other gospels -- speaking (as they do not) of nails, blood, and a spear wound in the side. Now, he describes the resurrection body of Jesus in an equally physical way. John is perhaps the most eager of all the gospel writers to display the risen Jesus reigning on high, but he portrays Jesus reigning with the nail marks still in his hands. "The Word became flesh," as John sees it -- and it is the one who is both Word and flesh who rules from on high. The imparting of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus' breathing on his disciples (v. 22), is John's version of Pentecost. While Thomas has often been portrayed negatively as "doubting Thomas," in fact he demonstrates a bold and questing faith. There is no hint of condemnation in the way Jesus invites him to touch his wounds. Thomas, after all, did not have the same opportunity the other disciples had to see Jesus (and touch him) on the occasion of his earlier appearance.
Preaching Possibilities
We've all had the experience of coming, rather late, into a gathering of people who are laughing uproariously about some joke we've just missed. It's an odd feeling. There they are laughing, giggling, slapping each other on the back, going red in the face. Just as the laughter has run its course, one of the group turns to the rest and says, "And do you remember when...?" That sets them off again.
Finally, one of the group notices that not everyone present is sharing in the merriment. The person may have mercy on us, saying, "I'm sorry -- I guess you just had to be there."
You just had to be there. If you weren't, no amount of careful explanation would help. There's no way you're going to get that joke.
That's kind of how Thomas feels. The rest of the disciples have been gathered in that house in Jerusalem, behind locked doors, when Jesus appears in their midst. It's a powerful, unforgettable experience. Not only do they witness their Lord risen from the dead, but they thrill at the his commissioning to go out and serve in his name. "As the Father has sent me," he says, "so I send you."
They're basking in the afterglow when Thomas shows up. He plops a white, grease-stained paper bag down onto the table. "Okay, let's see what we've got here. Peter, tuna on rye; Andrew, chicken salad on white; now, who was it ordered the liverwurst?" "Uh ... Thomas, don't bother with that now. You're not going to believe what's just happened...." Then they proceed to tell him all about their encounter with Jesus.
It turns out they're absolutely right. Thomas is not going to believe what's happened. He wasn't there. He didn't see it with his own eyes: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands...."
Thomas' reputation as the poster boy of all doubters is undeserved. Who could blame him for being a little skeptical? Resurrection, after all, isn't the sort of news you hear every day. And besides, Thomas is still grieving, just as much as any of the others.
Counselors know it's a very common experience for grieving people to go into denial. The bereaved sometimes imagine that they glimpse their departed loved one coming round the corner of the hallway or sitting in a favorite chair. Maybe Thomas has even had such flashbacks. Maybe he's struggling hard, himself, to separate fantasy from reality. Maybe the only way he can keep his head above water is to act supremely confident, even arrogant: "Unless I see him, unless I touch him, I will not believe."
We live in a culture that places great value on firsthand experience. No longer is it enough for us to sit by a radio speaker and listen to a radio drama as they used to do in the 1930s. Nor is it enough to merely watch a "talking-head" announcer tell of an event on television. We've got to see for ourselves.
Now we've got reality-TV shows like COPS, in which gritty, street-smart reality is the order of the day. When folks today go to an amusement park, they don't want mere "rides." No, what they're yearning for is a total-body experience, complete with multimedia illusions that make them think they're actually there. Seeing is believing, as they say.
One thing you can say for Thomas, though, he may have doubts, but he keeps coming back. If Thomas truly disbelieved what his companions told him, he wouldn't have come back. He would have disappeared, made himself scarce, slipped into those hordes of Passover pilgrims thronging Jerusalem. Eventually, he would have made his way back home. Then he would have taken up his former occupation, and probably never thought much about religion again.
But that's not what happens. "A week later," John tells us, in the second part of today's reading, "[Jesus'] disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them." Thomas was with them -- not on his way back to Galilee after all, but staying on in Jerusalem. It's almost as though he's waiting for something. It's almost as though he expects history to repeat itself: for Jesus to pay his disciples another visit.
Well, that's exactly what does happen. Once again, the disciples are all crowded, chock-a-block, into that little house, the doors are locked, when suddenly Jesus stands among them. "Shalom, peace be with you," he says (just like before). Only this time, Jesus' first words are for his disciple, Thomas: "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."
Doubt's certainly got a bad reputation. In the eyes of many, it's the polar opposite of faith, the enemy of theism. Ask the common person "What's the opposite of faith?" and you're likely to get a one-word answer, "Doubt."
Other words could just as well suffice. Martin Luther King, Jr., used to say the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Others have said the opposite of faith is really apathy, or indifference. One could make a convincing case for either one of these alternatives.
The simple truth is that doubt is not so much the adversary of faith, as its companion, its sidekick, its alter ego. Doubt is not so much the worthy opponent of a warrior faith, standing astride the road with sword and buckler, blocking the way. No, it is nothing other than the shadow the warrior casts. No one can outrun their shadow. By the same token, no person of faith can outrun doubt.
In order to truly believe, Thomas needed to reach out. He needed to touch Jesus' hands and side. We ought never to fault him for his caution, his pragmatism, his desire for evidence on which to found his faith. Yet, having reached out, Thomas also needed to do one thing more. He needed to let go -- to let go of his pride, his self-centeredness, his doubt.
Prayer For The Day
Eternal Power, of earth and air!
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound;
If e'er thine ear in mercy bent,
When wretched mortals cried to Thee,
And if, indeed, Thy Son was sent,
To save lost sinners such as me:
Then hear me now, while kneeling here,
I lift to thee my heart and eye,
And all my soul ascends in prayer,
Oh, give me, give me faith! I cry ...
Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve;
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe ...
If I believe that Jesus died,
And waking, rose to reign above;
Then surely Sorrow, Sin, and Pride,
Must yield to Peace, and Hope, and Love.
And all the blessed words He said
Will strength and holy joy impart:
A shield of safety o'er my head,
A spring of comfort in my heart.
-- Anne Brontë, from "The Doubter's Prayer"
To Illustrate
Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.
-- Miguel de Unamuno
***
A God you could understand would be less than yourself.
-- Flannery O'Connor
***
The church at its best prepares a safe and secure space that belief may one day fill; we need not bring fully formed belief to the door, as a ticket for admission.
-- Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), p. 46
***
For a long time, even though I was attracted to church, I was convinced that I did not belong there, because my beliefs were not thoroughly solid, set in stone. When I first stumbled upon the Benedictine Abbey ... I was surprised to find the monks so unconcerned with my weighty doubts and intellectual frustrations over Christianity. What interested them more was my desire to come to their worship ... I was a bit disappointed -- I had thought that my doubts were spectacular obstacles to my faith and was confused but intrigued when an old monk blithely stated that doubt is merely the seed of faith, a sign that faith is alive and ready to grow ... They seemed to believe that if I just kept coming back to worship, kept coming home, things would eventually fall into place.
-- Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), p. 63
***
Doubt can be seen as a step along the road to faith. We've been learning a lot of things, in recent years, about how faith develops, particularly in adults -- and the one finding all those studies point out is that faith-development does not stop with adolescence, but continues throughout our lives.
We used to think faith was fully developed, if not at the age of confirmation, then by age eighteen or 21. According to that old-fashioned view, the faith most of us adults took on as teenagers is essentially the same faith we hold today.
If any of us drifted away from that faith for a time, that experience was known as "backsliding." The only remedy, in that case, was to reverse the backward slide as quickly as possible -- or else risk the even more chilling (and permanent) alternative of having "lost our faith."
Christian-education theorist, John Westerhoff, has suggested that we look at adult faith-development as growing through several distinct stages:
The earliest stage of faith is simple, experienced faith: the faith young children hold, faith they have learned from their parents and even that they can be said to mimic (as they mimic most important learned behaviors in life). That little boy, in the oft-repeated anecdote, could pray the Lord's prayer fully believing God's name is "Harold," because he learned the prayer by rote, from someone who couldn't clearly articulate the difference between the words "hallowed" and "Harold."
A subsequent stage of faith-development is called affiliative faith. This is common in later childhood and early adolescence. Faith, at this stage, is a matter not so much of believing, as belonging. It's a matter of declaring, "This is the people to whom I belong, and this is what we believe."
After that, it's common for Christians to enter into a type of searching faith. We ought not to apologize for this common feature of late teens and young adulthood, but simply to acknowledge that it's the way things happen, for many of us. Suddenly, the old certainties seem not so certain anymore. The spiritual mentors who once stood so tall, in our estimation, prove to be standing on "feet of clay." There may be moments, for those going through this transition, when they question whether they believe anything at all.
It can be a trying time for parents, teachers, youth advisors -- anyone who's got a stake in a young person's spiritual development. It can be a time of fearing that the active youth-group member who's gone off to college or the military (or who's simply drifted away from the church) may never come back. In truth, it can be a dangerous time, for young adulthood is the time of greatest vulnerability to cults: simple-minded groups offering all the easy answers, in exchange for a rigid structure of obedience.
Yet that time of distancing oneself is often necessary for a true searching and testing and trying of one's faith. We ought never to advocate that kind of distancing from the church, or to consider it completely normal -- we'd all much rather that our young people asked their questions inside the church than out of it -- but we can acknowledge that it does happen this way for many.
The troubling aspect comes when a Christian never goes through this time of questioning -- when he or she becomes stuck in the affiliative faith stage, without ever having searched or questioned. Faith, to such a person, can end up being shallow, two-dimensional -- and utterly joyless. It can become the lifetime membership card they see themselves as having signed at Confirmation: a membership decision that, once made, need never be considered again.
Finally, those who persist in their testing and questioning -- particularly those who find a way to do it within the church, rather than outside of it -- end up with what Westerhoff calls an owned faith. After exploring the question, "Is this truly what I believe?" the joyful and hopeful answer comes: "Yes, it is. This faith is mine."
***
Before he was chaplain at Yale University, before he was pastor of the famous Riverside Church in New York, before he was a well-known activist in the field of peacemaking, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., was a young man searching for faith. He described a crucial transition in his faith-journey in this way: "Slowly, I found myself changing from the seeker who looks hoping something's there, to the kind who knows something's there, if only he can find it." That is the key moment of transition, on the journey to a mature faith.
Doubt is not the enemy of faith, but is rather its alter ego.
First Lesson
Acts 5:27-32
Peter And The Apostles Proclaim Christ's Resurrection
Today begins a seven-week series of First Lesson readings from the book of Acts. Peter and the apostles had been arrested at the order of the high priest, and clapped into prison. During the night, however, they were freed by an angel of the Lord, who commanded them to go to the temple and preach (vv. 17-26, not included in this reading). They do exactly that, and are subsequently hauled before the high priest and the council, who question why they have violated the order not to preach in Jesus' name (vv. 27-28). This, of course, is the very same group that had tried Jesus, and sent him to be condemned by Pilate. Peter and the apostles, declaring that they must obey God rather than any human authority, proceed to share, in brief form, the good news of resurrection that is the heart of the Christian proclamation (vv. 29-32). Peter's use of the phrase, "the God of our ancestors," indicates that they do not see faith in Jesus as discontinuous with Jewish tradition. Jesus was "raised" by God; he did not "rise" of his own accord (v. 30). He is seated at God's "right hand" (the place of honor, following Psalm 110:1; v. 31). Peter and the apostles are not simply teaching doctrine, but are "witnesses" to events they have personally heard and seen. For the rest of us, who have not been privileged to have the same firsthand experience, God gives the Holy Spirit as a gift, so we may also be assured in the faith (v. 32).
New Testament Lesson
Revelation 1:4-8
The Risen Christ Exalted To Rule Over All
This week begins a six-week series of passages from Revelation. After a brief prologue, these verses are the first words John writes to the seven churches in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) who are the chief focus of his attention in this book. "Grace and peace" is a traditional apostolic greeting; "him who is and who was and who is to come" is God. The "seven spirits who are before his throne" may refer to the seven "angels" assigned to each of the seven churches, from whom we will hear more in subsequent chapters; but more likely, they refer to the Jewish belief that seven principal angels ruled over creation on God's behalf (v. 4). The greeting from Jesus -- "the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth" (v. 5) -- is of particular interest in the Easter season, and may be why this text was chosen for this particular place in the lectionary cycle. "Ruler of the kings of the earth" is a title claimed by the Roman emperors; John is showing his hand, right at the beginning of this letter, that he looks to Jesus -- not the emperor -- as the true, divinely ordained ruler. The risen Jesus exercises "glory and dominion forever and ever" (v. 6). Verses 7-8 are the first of many hymnic fragments embedded in the text of Revelation. They celebrate the future "coming on the clouds" of the risen Christ, in such a way that "even those who pierced him" will be able to see and wonder "on his account all the tribes of the earth" -- including, presumably, the Romans -- "will wail." All this is blessed by God who is "the Alpha and the Omega."
The Gospel
John 20:19-31
Jesus Appears To The Disciples, And Later To Thomas
Beginning this Sunday and continuing through the season of Easer, the lectionary Gospel Lessons are chosen from the Gospel of John. Today's passage occurs in all three annual cycles of the lectionary for this day. There are two principal parts to this story: Jesus' appearance to his disciples behind locked doors, and his personal self-revelation to Thomas, who had not been present for the earlier encounter. John describes the reality of the resurrected Jesus in a somewhat baffling way. Jesus is both able to appear behind the doors of a locked room (v. 19) and to "show them his hands and his side" (v. 20). He will later invite Thomas to physically touch his wounds (v. 27). John has described the crucifixion in an earthier way than any of the other gospels -- speaking (as they do not) of nails, blood, and a spear wound in the side. Now, he describes the resurrection body of Jesus in an equally physical way. John is perhaps the most eager of all the gospel writers to display the risen Jesus reigning on high, but he portrays Jesus reigning with the nail marks still in his hands. "The Word became flesh," as John sees it -- and it is the one who is both Word and flesh who rules from on high. The imparting of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus' breathing on his disciples (v. 22), is John's version of Pentecost. While Thomas has often been portrayed negatively as "doubting Thomas," in fact he demonstrates a bold and questing faith. There is no hint of condemnation in the way Jesus invites him to touch his wounds. Thomas, after all, did not have the same opportunity the other disciples had to see Jesus (and touch him) on the occasion of his earlier appearance.
Preaching Possibilities
We've all had the experience of coming, rather late, into a gathering of people who are laughing uproariously about some joke we've just missed. It's an odd feeling. There they are laughing, giggling, slapping each other on the back, going red in the face. Just as the laughter has run its course, one of the group turns to the rest and says, "And do you remember when...?" That sets them off again.
Finally, one of the group notices that not everyone present is sharing in the merriment. The person may have mercy on us, saying, "I'm sorry -- I guess you just had to be there."
You just had to be there. If you weren't, no amount of careful explanation would help. There's no way you're going to get that joke.
That's kind of how Thomas feels. The rest of the disciples have been gathered in that house in Jerusalem, behind locked doors, when Jesus appears in their midst. It's a powerful, unforgettable experience. Not only do they witness their Lord risen from the dead, but they thrill at the his commissioning to go out and serve in his name. "As the Father has sent me," he says, "so I send you."
They're basking in the afterglow when Thomas shows up. He plops a white, grease-stained paper bag down onto the table. "Okay, let's see what we've got here. Peter, tuna on rye; Andrew, chicken salad on white; now, who was it ordered the liverwurst?" "Uh ... Thomas, don't bother with that now. You're not going to believe what's just happened...." Then they proceed to tell him all about their encounter with Jesus.
It turns out they're absolutely right. Thomas is not going to believe what's happened. He wasn't there. He didn't see it with his own eyes: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands...."
Thomas' reputation as the poster boy of all doubters is undeserved. Who could blame him for being a little skeptical? Resurrection, after all, isn't the sort of news you hear every day. And besides, Thomas is still grieving, just as much as any of the others.
Counselors know it's a very common experience for grieving people to go into denial. The bereaved sometimes imagine that they glimpse their departed loved one coming round the corner of the hallway or sitting in a favorite chair. Maybe Thomas has even had such flashbacks. Maybe he's struggling hard, himself, to separate fantasy from reality. Maybe the only way he can keep his head above water is to act supremely confident, even arrogant: "Unless I see him, unless I touch him, I will not believe."
We live in a culture that places great value on firsthand experience. No longer is it enough for us to sit by a radio speaker and listen to a radio drama as they used to do in the 1930s. Nor is it enough to merely watch a "talking-head" announcer tell of an event on television. We've got to see for ourselves.
Now we've got reality-TV shows like COPS, in which gritty, street-smart reality is the order of the day. When folks today go to an amusement park, they don't want mere "rides." No, what they're yearning for is a total-body experience, complete with multimedia illusions that make them think they're actually there. Seeing is believing, as they say.
One thing you can say for Thomas, though, he may have doubts, but he keeps coming back. If Thomas truly disbelieved what his companions told him, he wouldn't have come back. He would have disappeared, made himself scarce, slipped into those hordes of Passover pilgrims thronging Jerusalem. Eventually, he would have made his way back home. Then he would have taken up his former occupation, and probably never thought much about religion again.
But that's not what happens. "A week later," John tells us, in the second part of today's reading, "[Jesus'] disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them." Thomas was with them -- not on his way back to Galilee after all, but staying on in Jerusalem. It's almost as though he's waiting for something. It's almost as though he expects history to repeat itself: for Jesus to pay his disciples another visit.
Well, that's exactly what does happen. Once again, the disciples are all crowded, chock-a-block, into that little house, the doors are locked, when suddenly Jesus stands among them. "Shalom, peace be with you," he says (just like before). Only this time, Jesus' first words are for his disciple, Thomas: "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."
Doubt's certainly got a bad reputation. In the eyes of many, it's the polar opposite of faith, the enemy of theism. Ask the common person "What's the opposite of faith?" and you're likely to get a one-word answer, "Doubt."
Other words could just as well suffice. Martin Luther King, Jr., used to say the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Others have said the opposite of faith is really apathy, or indifference. One could make a convincing case for either one of these alternatives.
The simple truth is that doubt is not so much the adversary of faith, as its companion, its sidekick, its alter ego. Doubt is not so much the worthy opponent of a warrior faith, standing astride the road with sword and buckler, blocking the way. No, it is nothing other than the shadow the warrior casts. No one can outrun their shadow. By the same token, no person of faith can outrun doubt.
In order to truly believe, Thomas needed to reach out. He needed to touch Jesus' hands and side. We ought never to fault him for his caution, his pragmatism, his desire for evidence on which to found his faith. Yet, having reached out, Thomas also needed to do one thing more. He needed to let go -- to let go of his pride, his self-centeredness, his doubt.
Prayer For The Day
Eternal Power, of earth and air!
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound;
If e'er thine ear in mercy bent,
When wretched mortals cried to Thee,
And if, indeed, Thy Son was sent,
To save lost sinners such as me:
Then hear me now, while kneeling here,
I lift to thee my heart and eye,
And all my soul ascends in prayer,
Oh, give me, give me faith! I cry ...
Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve;
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe ...
If I believe that Jesus died,
And waking, rose to reign above;
Then surely Sorrow, Sin, and Pride,
Must yield to Peace, and Hope, and Love.
And all the blessed words He said
Will strength and holy joy impart:
A shield of safety o'er my head,
A spring of comfort in my heart.
-- Anne Brontë, from "The Doubter's Prayer"
To Illustrate
Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.
-- Miguel de Unamuno
***
A God you could understand would be less than yourself.
-- Flannery O'Connor
***
The church at its best prepares a safe and secure space that belief may one day fill; we need not bring fully formed belief to the door, as a ticket for admission.
-- Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), p. 46
***
For a long time, even though I was attracted to church, I was convinced that I did not belong there, because my beliefs were not thoroughly solid, set in stone. When I first stumbled upon the Benedictine Abbey ... I was surprised to find the monks so unconcerned with my weighty doubts and intellectual frustrations over Christianity. What interested them more was my desire to come to their worship ... I was a bit disappointed -- I had thought that my doubts were spectacular obstacles to my faith and was confused but intrigued when an old monk blithely stated that doubt is merely the seed of faith, a sign that faith is alive and ready to grow ... They seemed to believe that if I just kept coming back to worship, kept coming home, things would eventually fall into place.
-- Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), p. 63
***
Doubt can be seen as a step along the road to faith. We've been learning a lot of things, in recent years, about how faith develops, particularly in adults -- and the one finding all those studies point out is that faith-development does not stop with adolescence, but continues throughout our lives.
We used to think faith was fully developed, if not at the age of confirmation, then by age eighteen or 21. According to that old-fashioned view, the faith most of us adults took on as teenagers is essentially the same faith we hold today.
If any of us drifted away from that faith for a time, that experience was known as "backsliding." The only remedy, in that case, was to reverse the backward slide as quickly as possible -- or else risk the even more chilling (and permanent) alternative of having "lost our faith."
Christian-education theorist, John Westerhoff, has suggested that we look at adult faith-development as growing through several distinct stages:
The earliest stage of faith is simple, experienced faith: the faith young children hold, faith they have learned from their parents and even that they can be said to mimic (as they mimic most important learned behaviors in life). That little boy, in the oft-repeated anecdote, could pray the Lord's prayer fully believing God's name is "Harold," because he learned the prayer by rote, from someone who couldn't clearly articulate the difference between the words "hallowed" and "Harold."
A subsequent stage of faith-development is called affiliative faith. This is common in later childhood and early adolescence. Faith, at this stage, is a matter not so much of believing, as belonging. It's a matter of declaring, "This is the people to whom I belong, and this is what we believe."
After that, it's common for Christians to enter into a type of searching faith. We ought not to apologize for this common feature of late teens and young adulthood, but simply to acknowledge that it's the way things happen, for many of us. Suddenly, the old certainties seem not so certain anymore. The spiritual mentors who once stood so tall, in our estimation, prove to be standing on "feet of clay." There may be moments, for those going through this transition, when they question whether they believe anything at all.
It can be a trying time for parents, teachers, youth advisors -- anyone who's got a stake in a young person's spiritual development. It can be a time of fearing that the active youth-group member who's gone off to college or the military (or who's simply drifted away from the church) may never come back. In truth, it can be a dangerous time, for young adulthood is the time of greatest vulnerability to cults: simple-minded groups offering all the easy answers, in exchange for a rigid structure of obedience.
Yet that time of distancing oneself is often necessary for a true searching and testing and trying of one's faith. We ought never to advocate that kind of distancing from the church, or to consider it completely normal -- we'd all much rather that our young people asked their questions inside the church than out of it -- but we can acknowledge that it does happen this way for many.
The troubling aspect comes when a Christian never goes through this time of questioning -- when he or she becomes stuck in the affiliative faith stage, without ever having searched or questioned. Faith, to such a person, can end up being shallow, two-dimensional -- and utterly joyless. It can become the lifetime membership card they see themselves as having signed at Confirmation: a membership decision that, once made, need never be considered again.
Finally, those who persist in their testing and questioning -- particularly those who find a way to do it within the church, rather than outside of it -- end up with what Westerhoff calls an owned faith. After exploring the question, "Is this truly what I believe?" the joyful and hopeful answer comes: "Yes, it is. This faith is mine."
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Before he was chaplain at Yale University, before he was pastor of the famous Riverside Church in New York, before he was a well-known activist in the field of peacemaking, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., was a young man searching for faith. He described a crucial transition in his faith-journey in this way: "Slowly, I found myself changing from the seeker who looks hoping something's there, to the kind who knows something's there, if only he can find it." That is the key moment of transition, on the journey to a mature faith.
