Honest Doubt

If I were to mention the names of certain disciples and ask you to write down the first word that comes into your mind, it is unlikely we would all come up with the same words.

For example at the name of Judas many would write down the word “betrayer” but some might write “traitor” or “money grabber” or “deceiver”. At the name of Simon Peter we might write down the word “faith” or “rock” or “coward”.

However at the name of Thomas we would all write down “Doubter” or “Doubting Thomas.”

We know Thomas so well and yet the first three gospels don’t mention him. It’s as if Matthew, Mark and Luke want to get on with the big story. The story of a disciple doubting Jesus sounds negative so they leave it out.

It is only in John’s Gospel that Thomas appears and his experience and character shine through in relatively few words. And in the telling of Thomas’ story John recognises that honest doubt may be a very necessary prelude to faith.

As Tennyson said: “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.” So if nothing else Thomas is the one who stands for the virtue of honesty in our faith – no glib lip service for him, no half way house, no fudge, no sitting on the fence.

Thomas, as we say, was a ‘concrete thinker.’ He refused to say he understood what he did not understand. He refused to say he believed what he did not believe. He had an honest to God approach to faith.

What made him tick? How come he just wasn’t there when Jesus appeared to the disciples? Perhaps he was so depressed over the death of Jesus that he wanted to get away, to be alone, to give himself time to think and decide what to do next. Perhaps he was in retreat, backing off, bemused.

When he eventually met up with the disciples and listened to their excited testimony why did he not believe them? Perhaps he had had too many disappointments in his life. Perhaps he was just one of those people who was cautious and guarded and didn’t want to risk being taken for a ride.

And how, we may wonder, would the Thomas story have turned out if he had not been with the disciples the next time Jesus came amongst them? He probably would have sunk without trace never to be heard of again. He would have been the disciple who missed the boat, the one who just wasn’t there in the right place at the right time.

And so in isolation and cut off from the community of believers his faith in Jesus would have been doomed to wither away and become a dead thing, a fading memory, a snuffed out flame.

It’s said the resurrection did not result in a committee with a chairman, but in a fellowship with an experience. Thomas found faith in the fellowship of a believing community and in the presence of the Risen Lord. It was a personal experience.

When Jesus appears to them the second time Thomas is there. “My God”, he exclaims, the only person in the New Testament to acknowledge the divinity of Jesus in such a direct way.

In this experience a new understanding of faith is born in their hearts and minds. It’s not about “seeing and believing.” Jesus helps them make the transition to “hearing and believing.” They realise faith is founded on trust.

And Jesus affirms the faith of generations to come. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

So Thomas reminds us of this transition from ‘seeing’ to ‘hearing.’ He represents the doubters and the concrete thinkers and he demonstrates that what ignites faith is not our ability to see things clearly but rather Jesus himself in the fellowship of the Church.

“The sheep hear his voice,” says St John. And St Luke says they listen “in an honest and good heart and having heard the word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience.”

The seeds of Thomas’ faith are sown as he wrestles with doubts and uncertainty. Jesus is direct and says plainly: “stop doubting and believe” and in the same breath gives him the responsibility of faith and witness. Jesus tells him, along with the others, “ As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Jesus doesn’t want us to spend our lives dithering.

One commentator has said that the “only way God’s gift of faith can be let loose in the world is through the more extended activity of Christians beyond the worship service itself.” The implication is that Christians live out their faith by grace, in a baptismal unity, that crosses denominational lines and gets on with the practical demands of Christian service.

In this commission the Church is not breaking with the past, but rather continuing what God has been doing from the beginning, “making known” as the Psalmist says, “the path of life.”

Thomas became part of that divine mission. Jesus led him out from behind closed doors, out of uncertainty and fear and into the upper air of faith and hope. He became a man with a mission, with a purpose in life, sent into the world.

So as we grow in the faith, bearing witness to it by a life of service, in the fellowship the Church we have a God given responsibility as witnesses. As members of Christ’s church that is who we are – what you individually do with that responsibility is up to you.

When believers break the bread

When a hungry child is fed

Praise the love that Christ revealed

Living, working, in our world.