April 11, 2010 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

More Than a Question, More Than an Answer

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 118:14–29
John 20:19–31

The difference between an object-based church and a relation-based church is the difference between a church that sells itself versus a church that brings people into a living, lifelong relationship with Christ and one another. A relation-based church is less a place where creeds are dispensed and adherents conscripted than a place where people can connect with God and with one another, and where their faith journeys can be encouraged and enabled.

Leonard Sweet
Out of the Question . . . Into the Mystery

This week a pub in Wrigleyville hosted an unusual event—unusual, at least, for that particular venue. It was an evening of talks by a provocative theologian and philosopher from Belfast, Northern Ireland, named Peter Rollins. His topic was the strange dynamics of belief and doubt and how these dynamics shape the life of faith. Indeed, believing and knowing, questioning and doubting, provide much of the terrain on our journey as people of faith.

In his book The Orthodox Heretic, Rollins tells the following parable:

Leon had never been interested in exploring religion. As a reasonable man, he considered faith to be irrational and damaging. However, one day a friend of Leon’s was walking past a small church in the heart of the city and happened to look in. To his amazement, he saw Leon kneeling before some candles and mumbling a prayer. Leon had recently fallen upon hard times, so his friend guessed that this must be the reason for his newfound religiosity. But something seemed amiss, so he entered the church and approached Leon.

The sanctuary was dark and almost empty. Sure enough, there was Leon, crouched on the floor, reciting a religious incantation at the foot of the altar. Upon getting closer, his friend realized that Leon was reciting an old folk prayer that was believed by many to bring wealth and health to those who would recite it daily.

His friend was amazed and interrupted Leon, saying, “I thought you didn’t believe in such superstitious nonsense. Do you really think that this prayer works?”

In reply, Leon looked up and angrily proclaimed, “Of course I don’t believe it works, what kind of idiot do you take me for?”

“Then why are you reciting it?” said his friend, in shock.

“Ah,” replied Leon, “it is because the priest informed me that this prayer works even if you don’t believe in it.” (“The Believer,” The Orthodox Heretic, pp. 120–121)

For Leon, faith was not believing. Faith was doing. We might even play with words and say that for Leon doing is believing.

Sometimes we say that seeing is believing. But sometimes it isn’t. Here is another parable, adapted from a story told by George Lucas.

Luke Skywalker had traveled to the remote world of Dagobah to train in the ways of the Force with the ancient Jedi Master Yoda. Under Yoda’s tutelage, Luke became acquainted with the power of the Force. He learned and honed many new skills. He developed incredible physical endurance. He could levitate objects with the sheer will of his mind. And his physical developments were matched only by his growth in wisdom and spiritual discipline.

One day, as he was training, Luke’s starship sank into the murky swamps of Dagobah. Despondent, he wondered what he would do.

Yoda challenged him to lift up the ship with the power of the Force. Skeptical of such a feat, Luke tried to move the ship and failed, claiming it was simply too large, that Yoda was asking for the impossible.

Then the diminutive Yoda did what Luke thought couldn’t be done. Harnessing the power of the Force, Master Yoda caused the ship to rise up from the swamp and settle down on dry ground.

“I don’t believe it,” exclaimed a bewildered Luke Skywalker, seeing his rescued ship right there before him.

A look of sadness swept over Yoda’s face as he said, “That is why you fail.” (Stars Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back)

A final parable, this one nearly 2,000 years old:

On the very day of his resurrection, the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples—all of them but Thomas, that is. When they told Thomas what they had seen, he would not believe it. “Unless I see Jesus for myself—unless I touch his scars—I won’t believe that he has been raised from the dead.”

A week later, though the doors to their house were shut tight, Jesus appeared among them. He looked Thomas square in the eye. There was a moment of silence as an incredulous look spread over Thomas’s face. Jesus broke the tense silence by inviting Thomas to touch his scars, to feel that they, and he, were quite real. “Do not doubt, my friend, but believe.”

Thomas, stunned, could not move. All he could do was smile and say, “My Lord and my God!”

So Jesus said, “Do you believe because you’ve seen me? Better are those that will believe even though they don’t see.”

Is seeing believing? Is doing believing? Is believing the same as having faith? Or can we have faith—or be faithful—even though we are full of doubt? Can we be faithful and not believe?

These are questions especially pertinent for this day, Confirmation Sunday. On this day, twenty-five young people, eighth-grade teenagers, have presented themselves to the Session of our church to be confirmed. They have been examined by me and by our elders. These same elders have voted them into membership and will soon endorse them before you. During the service of Confirmation, these youth will profess their faith before this gathered congregation, and in doing so, they will claim as their own the faith of their baptism, a faith they didn’t choose for themselves at that time, a faith they have grown to know and accept and follow.

The process of confirmation in the Presbyterian church is a peculiar one. Theologically and practically, confirmation is more at home in Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism, a means by which a bishop or priest confirms the anointing of the Holy Spirit promised in baptism. In Protestant churches like ours, it is a means by which young people of a certain age of understanding accept the faith of the community and are recognized as full members of the church. For many, it is viewed as one of many rites of passage that young people experience as they become adults. Even if it is never stated explicitly, many families erroneously treat it as a graduation from Sunday School. For young people influenced by this understanding, it is often the case that we never see them again until they return to the church as young adults to be married or have their own children baptized. But confirmation is much more than this.

Unlike our process of welcoming in adult new members, we ask confirmands to dedicate a considerable amount of precious time and energy to this. We meet with them on a weekly basis for seven months. We take them on retreats and field trips. We ask them to express their faith in both written form and through a creative art project. Ultimately, it is this written statement of faith that becomes the culmination and hallmark of the confirmation process.

Again, this is not something that we ask of adults who desire to join the church. In fact, the only other members of the church who encounter such a requirement are candidates for ordination as pastors. To both objective and subjective observers, these statements of faith are the most confounding aspect of the confirmation process—confounding because many, if not most, of these writings could more accurately be described as statements of doubt rather than statements of faith.

As the pastor charged with shepherding our youth through this process, I take full responsibility for this reality. I, along with our team of leaders, encourage these confirmands to honestly and faithfully question even the most fundamental aspects of our faith. And with all the brutal honesty of a young teenager establishing his or her own identity, they do exactly what we encourage them to do. And with the boldness of rebellious children testing the boundaries, they write down on paper what they truly believe, or don’t believe, just as I ask them to. And though many, if not most, of these statements are far from what we would consider orthodox Presbyterian theology, we confirm them anyway. Year after year, we confirm these doubters; we make a big production of it in worship; we give them gifts; we throw them a party and feed them cake.

The cynics among us may charge that this makes a mockery of confirmation. How can we confirm youth that have either failed to understand or have defiantly rejected the orthodox creeds and doctrines of our church?

If our practice of confirmation were like other types of confirmations, I might agree that this was in fact a mockery. In the news this weekend is the retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, an act that has set into motion one of the most scrutinized and contentious activities of our political process: the nomination and confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice. For at least a year already, the Obama administration has been vetting potential candidates in anticipation of this opportunity. Once they choose a final candidate, an even more rigorous and public vetting process will ensue. After this gauntlet of examinations and scrutiny, the successful candidate will be confirmed as a member of the Supreme Court.

Thankfully, our process of confirmation is nothing like this. It could be, though. We could demand doctrinal orthodoxy from our confirmands. We could reject those that don’t conform to the creeds of our church. And I’m sure that there are churches that do just that.

But our practice of confirmation has changed. It used to be the case—and in some communities still is—that confirmation is guided by the memorization of catechisms. These catechisms define faith by asking questions and providing answers, answers that are scripted and learned by catechumens or confirmands.

For hundreds of years, this practice made perfect sense to the church. It was an efficient and effective way to communicate the essential tenets of faith.

But somewhere along the way, the world changed. The triumphant certainty of modernity gave way to the ambiguity, uncertainty, and humility of postmodernity. In some cases, the church has reacted to this shift in a defensive, conservative, or fundamentalist way. In other cases, the church has tried to change and adapt along with the rest of the world, recognizing that these changes are not threatening or challenging but liberating and life-giving.

Scholars have labeled this tectonic shift from modernity to postmodernity in various ways. Phyllis Tickle calls it the “Great Emergence,” the most recent in a series of cultural and ecclesiastical “rummage sales” that sift through the dead and dying elements of the past en route to a new expression of life and faith (Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why).

In his most recent study of the church, The Future of Faith, Harvard scholar Harvey Cox divides the historical development of the church into three stages. The first he calls the “Age of Faith,” the second the “Age of Belief,” and our current era the “Age of the Spirit.” As Cox describes it, the vibrant, creedless faith of Jesus and his first disciples was gradually supplanted by the need to codify belief and practice into rigid, orthodox creeds. But in our postmodern world, the supremacy of belief—where belief is understood as the acceptance of particular doctrines—is giving way to the immediacy of relationships and lived expressions of faith.

Leaders of this new, emerging form of Christianity have reversed the typical process of faith formation and community integration. Traditionally, the church has maintained a paradigm of Believe-Behave-Belong. This means that new Christians were first asked to believe in the doctrines of the church, then to take part in Christian practices, and only then are they accepted as members of the community, only then do they truly belong. But this emerging form of Christianity turns that paradigm upside down. In this new model of Belong-Behave-Believe, people are first accepted as members of the community, regardless of belief, and are invited to participate in Christian practices as they feel led. Along the way, as faith is lived out, beliefs develop in a natural and organic way (see Peter Rollins, The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church beyond Belief, pp. 153–155).

In a real sense, without being especially intentional about it, this is exactly what we have done through our process of confirmation. Perhaps confirmation is a practice that works even if you don’t believe in it. We accept these young people as they are, incorporate them into the faithful life and work of this community, and trust that the rest will follow.

But what is the rest? Is it still, ultimately, a rigid set of beliefs? I think not, because as the world changes around us, what we mean by faith is undergoing a radical change as well.

Already over a half century ago, Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin Buber contrasted two ways of understanding faith: trust and belief. Trust is about relationships while belief is about accepting propositions (Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith: A Study of the Interpenetration of Judaism and Christianity ). Among others in the church today, Peter Rollins argues persuasively that the truth of Christianity is not a description, but an event. And faith is not an object, but an experience (The Fidelity of Betrayal). And according to contemporary theologian Leonard Sweet, faith is not about right beliefs, it is about relationships—a relationship with God and relationships with each other (Leonard Sweet, Out of the Question . . . Into the Mystery: Getting Lost in the GodLife Relationship).

When we make faith an object, when we reduce it to a list of doctrines or propositions or creeds, we lose an essential element of what faith really is. Faith is neither seeing nor believing. Faith is more than questions and more than answers. Faith is relationships with God and with each other.

Biblical scholars, theologians, and preachers have made much of the distinction between the faith of Christ and faith in Christ. The former is the way Christ lived in relation to God and other people; the latter is a set of doctrines about Christ that one must believe in order to be a Christian. Do we preach the gospel of Christ—the good news of the kingdom of God that he himself proclaimed in word and deed—or do we preach a gospel about Christ—a list of things to believe about Jesus in order to be accepted? (see The Fidelity of Betrayal, pp. 134–137).

The story of Thomas—so-called “doubting” Thomas—brings us right to the moment at which the gospel of Jesus became the gospel about Jesus. It happened on the very day of his resurrection, and it is perfectly understandable how this transition took place. Jesus was no longer with them in the way he was before. When Thomas missed the appearance of Jesus, he had to be told about it. In that moment, the message became one about Jesus instead of the message of Jesus.

Now the writer of the Gospel of John is obsessed with belief. Time and again throughout this Gospel, way more so than in the other three, belief about Jesus is lifted up as the foundational principle of Christianity. Here at the end of John’s Gospel, we discover that the essential belief about Jesus is belief in his resurrection. And the way John tells the story of Thomas, it seems as if believing, especially believing without seeing, is the greatest act of faith for a follower of Christ.

But if I were so inclined as to deconstruct this story, I would suggest that the story itself argues against this perspective. If believing without seeing were really what Christianity is all about, Thomas should have been content to believe the report of his fellow disciples. He was perfectly poised to exemplify for all time believing without seeing. Jesus didn’t have to patronize Thomas by capitulating to his demand to see Jesus for himself. Jesus’ words about the superiority of believing without seeing only highlight the internal tension of this story. This story is not about seeing or believing.

In this story—this parable—Thomas is the very first person to question the most difficult doctrine about Jesus. In this way, Thomas represents each one of us who struggles to accept this or any other belief or doctrine or creed about Jesus or anything else.

And in this story—this parable—Thomas doesn’t receive a theological or philosophical defense of this foundational belief. He isn’t confronted with either logical or biblical reasoning. He isn’t made to conform to the nascent creed of the early church.

Instead, Jesus himself appears. Jesus’ answer to Thomas’ question is not a theological treatise. It is a continuation of the relationship Jesus and Thomas shared. It was about trust, not belief. Jesus appeared, as a friend, and asked Thomas to touch him. If you strip away the clumsy attempts of the author of John to make this a story about belief, you see that it is ultimately a story about relationships.

Our confirmands have been bold with their questions, as bold as Thomas on the very day of Jesus’ resurrection. And as children of this new, emerging, postmodern world, I think they intuitively understand the answer Thomas received, rather than the answer the Gospel writer tried to force into this story. Faith is not about intellectually accepting a list of beliefs, even if their truth is staring you right in the face. Faith is about establishing a relationship with God and others. And when we are bold to “doubt,” when we are bold to ask questions, it is then that we encounter the living Christ.

For years, it had been commonplace to lift up Mother Teresa as perhaps the prime example of a life guided by faith. Now it is more common to talk about the great life she lived despite her profound doubt. Ten years after her death, it was revealed through her private journals that Mother Teresa struggled with deep doubts for the majority of her incredible ministry (Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta). She felt cut off and isolated from God. At times, she wasn’t sure she even believed in God. But can you look at her life of selfless service, all the lives she knew and transformed, and conclude that she didn’t know what faith was? Even if she didn’t always believe the words we use to describe it, do you think she didn’t encounter Christ in those she served, and they in her? Sometimes faith is doing something, even when you don’t believe in it. Sometime faith is more about relationships than beliefs.

I began this sermon with parables from Peter Rollins, George Lucas, and the Gospel of John. I’d like to conclude this morning with one of my own.

One day a young pastor was visited by Jesus, though he didn’t know it was Jesus because he was in the guise of a man in desperate need. According to the man, he had worked for years as a mob enforcer, doing many bad things, things he couldn’t talk about. That very day, according to the man’s story, he had finally decided to leave the mob, to start his life over. But in the process of making his break, he stole a car from his partner and left him stranded on the street. There was no doubt in his mind that the mob was after him, that his life was in imminent danger. He needed to get out of the city as soon as possible. He thought that perhaps this was his chance to reconnect with his long estranged son, a son that none of his mob associates even knew about.

The problem, of course, is that he didn’t have any money. Leaving as he did, en route to carry out one of his unspeakable assignments, he didn’t have anything on him. No cash, no credit cards, no identification. He wondered if this young pastor could help him out.

After listening to this man’s story for nearly an hour, the young pastor told him he needed some time to put some things together. If the man could come back in an hour, the young pastor could help him out, get him on his way out of the city, on the way to a new life.

During that hour, the young pastor consulted with some of his friends. How many times had each of them heard such stories, all told with the detail, passion, and conviction of legitimate truth? Commonsense told them that this man was a grifter, a con man who told a compelling story that would tug on the hearts of the naïve and compassionate. He probably just wanted some money for booze or drugs or who knows what. But what if? What if his story was true, and this was his only chance at redemption? The young pastor left his friends not entirely sure what he would do.

When the hour had passed, Jesus returned, right on schedule, still in the guise of the desperate man, looking for the young pastor. The young pastor gave him an envelope. In it was a little bit of money, a bus pass, and directions to the bus station. With a hug, the man left the young pastor and went on his way.

The next day, one of his friends asked the young pastor what he ended up doing, and the young pastor told her. “So you believed his story, huh?” asked the young pastor’s friend.

“No,” said the young pastor. “I didn’t believe a word of it.”

Amen.