04/27/2025 ~ Second Sunday of Easter ~ * Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 118:14-29 or Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31 ~ YOUTUBE VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSBxsmcT0Ek
VIDEO OF FULL SERVICE: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7960701/video/1080532869

Doubt

“…the other disciples kept telling Thomas, ‘We have seen Jesus.’ But Thomas answered them, ‘I will never believe it without putting my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand into the wound of the spear.’” — John 20:25.

I have mentioned I’m a lyricist, a member of A.S.C.A.P., the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers. One of the people with whom I’ve collaborated is the composer Tom Rasely, also an A.S.C.A.P. member. The choir sang an anthem by the two of us at Christmastide.

Tom and I started collaborating when I was a pastor in Upstate New York. We still work together but at long distance over the web. Back in New York Tom would come to my office and for ten or fifteen minutes and we would just shoot the breeze, hang out. One day our discussion turned to the topic of music literacy and, by extension, literacy in general.

Now Tom teaches, gives lessons, on how to play the guitar. But needless to say, it’s hard to offer lessons on how to play guitar without also offering some overall information about music— to address music literacy.

Tom put it this way, “I can teach someone to play something on the guitar. That does not mean they will know anything other than that one thing. They will not be able to go beyond it, integrate it with anything else unless there is an eagerness to see more, see the big picture, have some basic information which extends beyond the narrow.”

Indeed, with music in general an obvious question is do you know something about the field, the literature? Hence, if you want to be a composer or even just be literate about music but do not know what Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Duke Ellington, John Lennon, Stephen Sondheim, Paul McCartney or Taylor Swift wrote or are writing, the place you start in terms of knowing about music is behind the proverbial eight ball.

Equally, if you want to be a playwright or just be literate about theater arts, some prerequisite knowledge is necessary. If you know nothing about the works of William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, August Wilson, Neil Simon, Tom Stoppard to name just a few writers, you would not know enough about the history and the art of writing for theater. It’s these kinds of things you need to know in order to be literate about theater or even make play writing your art.

But that premise presents us with a paradox: an individual needs to know enough about a field so that they can begin to know what they don’t know. Knowing what you don’t know is when someone actually becomes both literate and grounded.

This is true of music, medicine, theater, banking, any field. You need to get to the point where you know what you don’t know. Everyone, even experts, need to strive to learn and strive to grow. (Slight pause.)

These words are from the work commonly referred to as the Gospel of John: “…the other disciples kept telling Thomas, ‘We have seen Jesus.’ But Thomas answered them, ‘I will never believe it without putting my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand into the wound of the spear.’” (Slight pause.)

Question: is doubt a necessary part of faith? (Slight pause.) What follows are a series of quotes from several writers and theologians on the topic. I shall name the author after I’ve offered each quote.

“A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it’s a superstition.” — José Bergamin. “Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond a doubt they are right.” — Laurens van der Post.

“If you would be a real seeker after truth it’s necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” — René Descartes. “Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.” — André Gide.

“Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.” — Miguel de Unamuno. “There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.” — Alfred Korzybski

“Faith requires something more than comfortable self knowledge. It requires difficult, uncomfortable things— doubt, repentance, observance— these are perplexing in our world of going with the flow and doing your own thing, a world of comfortable, personal space.” — Winifred Gallagher. “Doubt is as crucial to faith as darkness is to light… faith is, by definition, uncertainty.” — Carter Heywood. [1] (Slight pause.)

There are a number of passages in Scripture where faithful people express doubt. Here’s an example. In a post resurrection story in Matthew, Jesus appears to a crowd of disciples. And with the resurrected Christ in their midst the Gospel says (quote:) “When the disciples saw Jesus, they worshiped; but some doubted.” (Slight pause.)

This is what I think: if you do not know the literature, the Scriptures, you might not realize how central doubt is to faith. Indeed, the passage read today says these signs (quote): “…have been recorded so that you may come to believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Only Begotten,…”

The most important idea in that phrase is that you may come— come to believe. Coming to believe is a process. Further, belief does not happen without doubt acting both as a part of that process and as a continuing factor. And, as is clearly outlined in the passage, belief does not come without some doubt being a part of belief. (Slight pause.)

Well, I have just insisted that doubt is and needs to be a part of faith. But where does that place any of us on our life journey, on our faith journey? (Slight pause.) I said this— this is like knowing the literature in music or theater. Once doubt is realized as being a part of faith one begins to understand there are things we don’t know. When this happens, we can get to the point where we know we don’t know everything.

And, indeed faith is defined not by what we know. Unquestionably, a definition of faith, perhaps the central one, is we need to believe what cannot be fully known, what we cannot fully see nor fully understand. Faith, in short, is not about what we understand, see, prove. So, what is faith? Could it be that faith has something to do with what we feel?

So what is it that cannot be seen but felt? Well, let’s start with this list as examples of what cannot be seen but can be felt: love, trust, hope, joy. These can be experienced. These can be felt.

Here’s another way to put it: love, trust, hope and joy can be thought of as foundational. But, paradoxically, love, trust, hope, joy are not concrete [the pastor hits a hand on the pulpit], are they? So do love, trust, hope, joy really exist? I think so. (Slight pause.)

Having said that, how do we get on or rather continue on our life journey, our faith journey, our path toward faith? I would the first to suggest we need to learn and know the literature.

Here’s an example of not knowing the literature. Many insist Thomas does put his hands in the wounds. But read this passage carefully. Thomas does not do that. Proof is not a part of this passage. Proof is not a part of the life journey, the faith journey of this disciple. Thomas just believes. (Slight pause.)

As I said, belief, real belief, starts by knowing what we do not know. Faith is not about proof. Faith is not about a destination. Faith is a journey, a life journey. Here’s a key question for us. Are we willing to be on the life journey called faith? Amen.

04/27/2025
Elijah Kellogg Church, Harpswell, Maine

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “The real issue in literacy, especially literacy when it come to faith, is making it one’s own. Personally, if my car breaks, I go to a mechanic. I take my taxes to an accountant. I don’t care, particularly, if I am illiterate about fixing cars or doing taxes. But faith deals with my soul. I don’t think I want to trust that to someone else. So, when it comes to my faith I need to be as literate as I can possibly be.”

BENEDICTION: Go out in the compassion and love God provides. Praise the deeds of God by the way you live. And may the steadfast love of God and the peace of Christ, which surpasses understanding, keep our minds and hearts in the companionship and will of the Holy Spirit, this day and forever more. Amen.

[1] . José Bergamín Gutiérrez (1895-1983), was a Spanish writer, essayist, poet, and playwright.

Sir Laurens Jan van der Post (1906-1996), CBE was a South African Afrikaner writer, farmer, soldier, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer and conservationist.

René Descartes (1596-1650), was a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher who is considered a key figure in the development of modern science and philosophy.

André Paul Guillaume Gide (1869-1951), a Nobel Laureate, was a French writer and author whose writings spanned a wide variety of styles and topics.

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca.

Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (1879-1950) was a Polish-American independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of semantics.

Winifred Gallagher (1950) is a science writer who thought she had left religion has traced her generation’s complex relationship with faith.

Carter Heyward (1945) is an American feminist theologian and priest in the Episcopal Church.

Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970), 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual.