A sermon by Fr. Davenport ©
Church of the Ascension and S. Agnes, Washington, D.C.
7 April 2002
Acts 2:14a,22-32
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Feast of S. Thomas is on 21 December, the longest night of the year, the day of greatest darkness. We may assume that doubting and darkness go hand in hand. For many, doubt is a mark of sin, the work of the devil. Indeed, both the secular mind and the conventionally religious mind - the two nearly being one - assume that doubt fights against faith, that doubt and faith are oil and water. But before we make any conclusions, let us consider: does the Taliban doubt? Does any kind of fundamentalist, religious or secular, allow for doubt? Of course not. For once doubt is admitted so is reason, and reason often challenges, and even undermines, certainties. The fundamentalist temperament can not bear doubt and reason; its marks are cowardice and fear. Most of us would not associate the Taliban, or any kind of fundamentalism, with light and faith.
Yet, we ought to be sympathetic with fundamentalists. Fundamentalism rebels against the uncertainty, ambiguity, anxiety, and alienation of the modern world. These are legitimate concerns. The issue for modern man is: how can we have peace, belonging, and knowledge of the eternal? It is certain that we can not retain our humanity and be rigid and fundamentalist. We can not go back to the peace and harmony of medieval faith. When we go backwards, we degrade our humanity. But peace, belonging, and some certainty is available to modern man.
The Church chose 21 December for the Feast of S. Thomas because at the winter equinox light begins to return to the world. Even centuries ago, the Church knew that light may come through doubt; or put another way, that doubt may serve faith. Robert Browning put it this way:
You call for faith:
I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.
The more of doubt, the stronger the faith, I say,
If faith o'ercomes doubt. (1)
Only a strong faith can will tolerate the potential and reality of doubt. A confident faith looks into the darkness and shadow, rather than repeating rote. "He that never doubted, scarce ever well-believed." (2) Treating doubt with sincerity and respect will lead to certainty. Francis Bacon wrote, "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." (3) Faith, unlike knowledge, is accompanied by doubt; there is no faith without doubt; the two are distinguishable, but not separate. For Christ, whose faith was perfect, did he not doubt? When he cried out on the cross, "My Lord, my Lord, why hast thou forsaken me," is that not a cry of doubt? Faith begins in uncertainty. And as our faith increases, we become aware of far more questions than we can answer. Faith, like greater knowledge, humbles us. Faith shows us how little we know and understand. Faith makes us aware of mystery.
The acceptance of religious doubt was one of the distinguishing marks of the ancient Jews. Their neighbors did not embrace doubt. Throughout the wisdom writings of the Old Testament - Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job, Proverbs, the authors are struggling with doubt, and sometimes doubt even appears to get the upperhand. Many of the Old Testament prophets are wracked with uncertainty and regret. The history of Israel is her history of distrust of God, of playing the whore while God remains true and faithful. Part of the horror of human existence is our distrust of God. The resurrection story had to have a doubter, and a doubter that we all admire and honour. We are the doubter.
Most of us generally assume that S. Thomas' doubts vanished when he thrust his hand into our Lord's wounds. However, if we read the story more carefully, we may doubt whether Thomas ever even handled our Lord's wounds. Jesus invited him to touch the wounds, but S. John does not report that Thomas did so, but that Thomas responded, saying "My Lord and my God." Thomas's doubts vanished, and he came to faith because he saw and heard the Lord. Jesus said, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." That is each of us. We have not seen our Lord, but we believe, and we believe because we have heard about him, because others have told us about him.
Today's gospel contains two main sections. The second part is about Thomas' doubt. The first part is our Lord's commissioning of his disciples. The conventional view is that doubt is an obstacle to mission. How can others have faith if the Church has doubt? Doubt may serve to test whether the Church is preaching Christ, or another faith. The Church exists to serve the will of Christ, but her discernment is not perfect. It is doubt that helps us discern God's will. We need to test that the message we proclaim is Christ, and not our own. Our Lord says that the supreme test is that we must go out into the world, just as he went out into the world to bring all people to God. Our relationship to Christ must be as his relationship to the Father. The Father sent Jesus, and Jesus sends us. In this way, Christ needs us, each one of us. He needs his Church to speak for him, to declare his Word, to build up his body.
For this mission, our Lord has given his disciples, each one of us, the Holy Ghost. We received it at baptism, and we are strengthened through it at confirmation. In today's gospel, Jesus breathed on his disciples just as in Genesis when "the Lord God formed man from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Our Lord gave the disciples new life. At our baptism we receive this new life, and it renews us; and at every mass we receive this new life, this resurrected life, and it renews us. It is our bounden duty, and privilege, then to give this new life to the world. If we want to get a life, then we have to be part of the Church where we get the Holy Ghost, and help others to get it.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
1. Robert Browning, Bishop Blougram's Apology (1855), l. 601.
2. William Austin (d. 1634), quoted by Alistair Mason, The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, OUP, p. 181.
3. Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626), The Advancement of Learning, Bk. I, Ch. 5, 1605.
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