Doubt as productive

16 April 2023 (Easter 2): Acts 2:14, 22-32, 1 Peter 1:3-9 and John 20:19-end

As human beings, we often seek certainty but also find ourselves living with doubts. 

There may be times in our lives when guidance and direction are important; or there might be moments when we need space to weigh the questions, trust our instincts. 

Some of us might be predisposed to ways of thinking and acting rooted in confidence and clarity; others of us may experience decision-paralysis or imposter-syndrome, being all too familiar with doubt.  

Perhaps we say to ourselves ‘I’m not sure’ or ‘I don’t know’ - on the threshold of changes in work or relationships, circumstances. It is rare to hear such phrases in public though.

Someone seeking to change that is Nicola Reindorp, the CEO of Crisis Action. In reflecting on the impact of her own doubtfulness on her career, she decided to explore it in conversation with neuroscientists, counsellors, economists and leaders. 

In doing so, she writes [here] that she ‘discovered another side to doubt that is productive and powerful, not the destructive doubt of paralysis and pain, but a productive form of questioning and discovery.’

In a way, her “rebranding” of doubt makes sense: she puts it at the heart of self-awareness and humility, seeing it as a prompt for curiosity and learning. Doubts enable us to interrogate our own biases driving not only innovation but also inclusion and diversity. 

Does it help us understand Thomas better? He was someone who elsewhere in John’s gospel speaks openly and directly about his thoughts. Questions don’t seem to phase him. So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that his faith and belief was also mediated openly, directly and indeed relationally. 

St Thomas - Diego Velázquez

As Rowan Williams puts it: ‘doubting Thomas is often thought of as demanding hard evidence - unless I touch the wounds - and yet it was his encounter with the person of Christ that sparked faith.’

Thomas's doubt leads to a desire for touch; but what he sees inspires his belief, his trust. His testimony opens up space for others to find new purpose, new life. 

A better nickname might be ‘inspiring Thomas’ after all!

Does such a rebranding sit alongside what we hear in our text?

The tomb was empty. The doors were locked. 

Rumours of resurrection were circulating as fears were pressing in.

Into that place of grief-stricken hearts and troubled minds the risen Lord breathes peace.

To the exhausted, troubled and anxious: peace.

To the fearful, questioning and grieving: peace.

To the curious, hopeful and courageous: peace.

The marks of the nails and the pierced  side are visible: the continuity of scars witnessing to the continued presence of the self-giving love of God. 

The one breathing peace was of the Father’s love begotten; breathing peace having been betrayed, denied and beaten.  

Those wounded hands took the sting out of death and now reach out to places of mistrust, pain, disappointment and guilt.

Those wounded hands also reach out with the balm of love to forgive and heal rather than condemn.

But Thomas was not there. 

His doubtfulness means the confidence or charism of the words of others was not enough. He needed to see, to touch, to feel the breath of peace.

Those are productive signs of questioning and discovery rather than a painful paralysis. 

He had to take that doubtfulness into the week of waiting, of talking, eating, praying. 

Did their joy give space for his questions? Did his curiosity deepen their joy? Did their peace soothe his hurt? Did his interrogation prompt deeper fellowship?

The tomb was empty. The doors were locked. 

Stories of resurrection filled the room, fears being dispelled.

Into that place of hearts warmed by conversation, fellowship and prayer another word of peace is spoken. 

There is no rebuke or condemnation - simply an invitation for Thomas to reach out, to touch, to see, to trust.

Doubt becomes worship: my Lord and my God!

Evidence and observation becomes unconditional acceptance.

That is not the end of the matter: all this is for our sake - the words, the stories, the testimony, the breath of peace.

All this is written to assure us that we are healed by the same words; that we might put our trust in the promise of renewed life; that we might know ourselves to be loved, forgiven, restored, made whole and blessed. 

More than that, in the power of the Spirit, the risen Jesus sends us to transmit that love and forgiveness. 

In problem broken bread and outpoured wine, our fragile and fallible bodies are nourished as we are called from penitence to restoration; as we allow love to seep into those locked places of fear. 

This new life is a gift but also a process. The Spirit is at work in us - confronting us those things we hide from and cultivating in us new hope and dignity.

This process is held within our community - the accountability we have to one another before God.  If doubts are about curiosity, self-awareness and humility - if it prompts our learning and the safe space to interrogate our own biases, questions and weakness - then they have their place. 

Together, faith and doubt can be productive: bearing those first fruits of healing, generosity, conviction; rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep.

Hand in hand it staves off those things that paralyse us or hidden growth and change; finding a deeper stability and ways forward that do not coerce, demand or control. 

This kind of questioning and discovery drives the processes of forgiveness: being honest with ourselves and knowing what sets others free; the changes that bring hope and liberation; letting go of habits which cause harm.

For the one who breathed peace was the one who endured the worst of humanity - shame, failure, selfishness and betrayal - and burnt it away in the refining fire of a crucible of love.

Perhaps Thomas and Peter strengthened each other in their faith and witness through the way they tested, challenged and encouraged one another. Certainly Peter’s words - in Acts and in his letter - speak of a liberating hope and new life, which is full of gladness, mercy and love. 

It is a message, as Willie Jennings puts it, that is ‘far more powerful than its messengers’; it is a remarkable message which draws our life from fear to peace. 

Faith and doubt, peace and forgiveness: worked out in prayer, fellowship and breaking of bread for the sake of the world.

As Rowan says: ‘Faith is not just ideas in your head, faith is not just feelings in your heart - faith is the whole of a new life, making a difference to your lives, to your neighbours, to your community, by the grace and the Spirit of God.’

© Julie Gittoes 2023

Do not be afraid

Ash Wednesday Sermon

South Wind Come
Catherine Clancy 2015

"Do not be afraid is" a striking statement in bold lettering facing all who come to the cathedral this Lent.

Is it an invitation, a message of consolation, an imperative or a challenge?

The artist Catherine Clancy took this phrase as the basis of her exhibition because the poet Seamus Heaney poignantly uttered those words to his wife as he died: a last gift; an offer of reassurance.  It was a phrase marking the beginning of a journey: a transition for her into the sorrow and disruption of widowhood; a transition for him from life, through death into the hope of new life.

Clancy interprets this in paintings which are steeped in prayer. Hers is a spiritual journey: facing the cries of our hearts; the dark nights of our souls; the storms that batter us physically and emotionally. Perhaps some of those paintings will resonate with our fears, our losses, our isolation and our frailty.

The prophet Joel also speaks of darkness and disruption: a trumpet sounds, the land trembles, think blackness and clouds overwhelm the land. The people gather - the newly weds and nursing babes are caught up in the pleading to God; crying out that they might be spared.

We hear words of mourning and the hope of mercy.  Thee call to repentance is announced; hearts turn in response to God's steadfast love.   The people are gathered.  A time of fasting is sanctified.  They are recalled to holiness that they may witness to God's grace and mercy.   Woven into Clancy's paintings  too is a luminous thread of mercy and renewal.  There's the movement of the wind and the breaking in of light.  Our longing for safety, clarity and peace, for renewed hope and awakened love are met in a dazzling brightness that overwhelms us as we journey along the south aisle.   The Holy Spirit is at work in all this: in stillness, in safe harbours, in the wind and the light - in the whisper or the roar of 'do not be afraid.'

We will be pondering that single phrase 'do not be afraid' during the course of our Lent lectures: thinking about faith and courage, renewed vision and love, our need for rest and longing for hope. But tonight we are confronted with a deep fear: the inescapable reality of our mortality. Whereas once society had euphemisms for the taboo of sex, now death has become 'passing', 'slipping away', 'sleeping', 'crossing over' as if it was something we could outwit; as if we were merely making a polite excite from life's party.

Tonight we cannot side step that reality: remember oh woman, oh man, oh young and old, oh newly wed and busy employee... you are dust. And to dust you shall return. This is a moment of truth and of liberation. As we hear the words said over and over again, as we feel the mark of ash being traced on our foreheads, we are reminded of our beginning and our end. Denise Inge in her book "A Tour of Bones" describes this day as an annual open invitation to get in touch with reality... to gather to be quiet, to reflect, to get into the queue with everyone else. It doesn't just make our frailty real, as she puts it the physical nature of this event - queuing, waiting letting dirt be smeared on your skin, resisting the urge to rub it off - takes the idea of humility and makes it real.

Learning humility is at the heart of responding to the call to discipleship. Confronting our mortality forces us to make decisions about how we live.  Dying well, as Denise often writes in her book, means living well.   Learning to live more lightly and more intensely; knowing when to let go and knowing what to put centre stage; knowing that where our treasure is, our heart will be also. Lent is an invitation to see our earthly reality through the lens of our ultimate hope in Christ.  Do not be afraid.

The pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes the sense of losing oneself as following Jesus as fixing our gaze on him as he walks before us, rather than looking at ourselves and fretting about our own goodness.  Following by responding to what we have received; turning our lives around and redirecting our desires.  Twitter and Facebook are full today of comments or announcements about what people have 'given up' for Lent.  Sometimes in can feel like a high stakes game - I'll take your coffee and chocolate and raise you meat and alcohol. One Tweeter wearily posted: I'm giving up for Lent.

Bonhoeffer also wrote that the genuine deed of love is always a deed hidden to myself. Jesus is teaching his followers to live in that way - to pray, fast and give without recognition or acclaim.  We do this, because we are looking to Jesus himself. The one who embodies the Father's love for us, who draws us back to the Father's heart by challenging, accepting and forgiving us; by equipping us and sustaining us in the power of the Spirit as we seek to be free of the habits that tempt us.

We know within ourselves the things that pull us away from his way from our first love of God; we instead endeavour to secure our survival by what we can possess or find ourselves unable to live without. Prayer is our starting point - grounding ourselves in deep attention to God's love and purposes; fasting is not to lose a few pounds or to despise our embodiment; rather it as a joyful liberation of discovering what we can live without and the gifts that enrich our lives.  Prayer and fasting enables us to refocus amidst the storms, fears and all that threatens to overwhelm; those disciplines cultivate in us the capacity to give out of the abundance that we have.

Tonight as we are signed with the cross in ash, we are reminded not just of our mortality but of our identity in Christ. In him we are a new creation; brought out of death into life; drawn from darkness and storm clouds the dazzling brightness.  Denise Inge saw invitations to humility in the majesty of nature - reflected in Catherine's waves; she nudges us to see such invitations in the presence of others - reflected in those with whom we reflect and wait and queue tonight.  Yet she says, humility by its very nature is a tricky thing; the moment you sense it with you it is gone. Dynamic rather than static, it visits like a breeze.

Humility visits like a breeze; it visits as Spirit - brooding over us, refining us, rushing through us and drawing us on.  Do not be afraid.  Face the frailty of our human nature; in our mortality respond to an invitation to turn, to follow to set our Christ, setting our eyes on him.  Do not be afraid.  Learning to die well, learning to let go, extends our horizon so that we might live well.  Living out of God's steadfast love and mercy.

I end with a passage from Denise's book, a passage all the more poignant as these are words written as she let go of life. They are her life-enriching invitation to live without being afraid. She writes:

Are the broken parts of your deep self being healed? Get rid of the bitterness. Mend the bridges. Seek and receive forgiveness. Let yourself be loved.

Have you found a lasting hope? Anchor yourself in the eternal abiding (for me this is God). Feed yourself with something stronger than optimism. You are in a constant state of growth and transition, so let change transform you.

What are the things for which you will be remembered? Cut the crap in your life. Do things that matter. Find and exercise your gifts.

Are you on a path of true humility? Submit to a truth that is bigger than yourself. Become part of it. Let it be your story. What I have been surprised to discover, as these questions chase and wash over me, is that preparing to live and preparing to die are in the end the same thing.


© 2015 Julie Gittoes