Marilu Thomas, “No Doubt?”
I experienced a new version of the Cold War this month. I’ve heard it called the Charlottesville Crud or the scourge of May. I had it for 2 weeks- or “a heck of a long time” in cold years. Hacking cough, bad mood, whiny self-pity, laryngitis and what my grandson calls “Grandma’s Shake the House Dragon-sneezing.” You may have had it, too. Minus the Dragon part. The quill twins, NyQuil and Dayquil, tagged team me back to life again. But there was a point when I really doubted if I would ever get better—that I would be coughing my way into older age. Have you ever felt like that? Doubtful of a solution? Maybe doubting things will ever change? Doubting you’re doing whatever it is that will make it change? Doubting God cares about your terrible, awful, why-won’t this-go-away situation?
Doubt shows up often in our lives. In a courtroom, the jury is asked to decide the case ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ allowing that doubt can be reasonable. We can give someone the ‘benefit of the doubt’ when they act out of character. We can have considerable doubts lingering doubts or grave doubts. Then again, one of my favorite bands is, No Doubt. You know, ‘Cause I’m just a girl. It’s impossible to have no doubts because we are human.
This moment of doubt while I was sick, had me considering all the things I have doubted in my life. A very long spate of doubting I am good enough or have anything of worth to say lasted decades. I have doubted if people loved me…ranging from my parents, to friends, to my husband and children. When my husband Stuart and I were separated for three years, I doubted if I had enough courage to get back together. I can doubt if I have made a good decision or not. I can doubt the forgiveness of others or the sincerity of my own heart.
When I read Stephen King’s book Salem’s Lot as a 17-year-old, I doubted our neighbors were human. I had evidence. They only came out at night, had slightly pointy canine teeth and swore I couldn’t see them in my rearview mirror. In hindsight, they may have just partied a bit too much. Lately, I have been watching The Burroughs, by the creators of Stranger Things. It will make you doubt the humanity of the workers in any retirement community you’ll ever visit. Really good writers can make you doubt reality.
I hope you get the chance to read the novel, Theo of Golden. It is an absolute gem of a book about a 92-year-old from Portugal who relocates to a small town in south Georgia. He shows interest in and shares items of beauty with the townspeople. They have a hard time trusting him, though, doubting that his care is without motive. We often doubt we are worthy of free gifts, especially love.
Christian writers have wrestled with the idea of doubt in terms of the constancy or depth of faith. The reformer John Calvin recognized that “doubt was a part of the faith experience, because human nature itself finds ideas about God and His goodness so outside of what we can understand…We cannot imagine any certainty that is not tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety.”
One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, wrote, “My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way, I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.” Dr. Brené Brown defines doubt as “fear dressed up as logic, a sign that we are uncomfortable.”
Imagine my surprise, then, to find doubt in the gospel of the Great Commission on Holy Trinity Sunday. The scripture is from the very last verses in the Gospel of Matthew, after the women encountered the angels and the Risen Christ. Let me reread the text for you.
“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came to them and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
So, to recap. The disciples are talking to the resurrected Christ. These are the eleven disciples, minus Judas, who were called by Jesus at the Galilee three years before and have eyewitness experience and first-hand evidence of hearing the voice of God speak from the sky at Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan, miracles of the loaves and fishes, healing the deaf, blind and lame, raising Lazarus and the crucifixion of Christ according to scripture—and some doubted. What do you think? What is the definition of ‘some’? Three? Four? Five of the disciples? 40%? They had all the physical and historical evidence of witnessing the life and death and resurrection of the Messiah—and they doubted. They are just like we are.
The important thing here is not what the disciples did or thought or believed, but what Jesus did and does.
The Message translation of this passage says, “Some though held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally. Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge.”
Jesus was undeterred. Fearless and resolute. Not discouraged when facing difficulties. The disciples, like us, find themselves ‘deterred’- doubting, fearful, and anxious about the all-out-ness of belief. But Jesus is undeterred by their doubts and anxieties. The Great Commission was never about the faithfulness of the disciples but of the authority and power of Jesus Christ, the crucified. The doubters and the worshippers alike have no power or faith without Christ, the fearless. It’s not about us—it’s about Jesus.
So, let’s get back to your doubts. Most of our doubts are self-doubts – I can’t do it, it’s too hard, I don’t know how, I’ll fail, I can’t do it like that him or her. All based on our power, our knowledge, our strength or ability to understand the world. Doubt is the appropriate response when we are imagining ourselves managing life alone, facing the world with our paltry human understanding of the cosmos. But Jesus is undeterred by our myopic way of keeping our lives small. He knows that doubts plague us because we are going it alone, captains of our own rowboats in the high seas of life. As a friend of mine says, “Your ego is not your amigo!” It is edging God out and giving you false evidence of your own god-like powers.
Christ’s last words in the Gospel of Matthew are: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” In other words, you are never alone, no matter how you feel or what you think. You, however, may feel alone and wonder where is God in your times of doubt. Why can’t you hear Christ’s voice? Feel God’s care?
Father Lundy, the Episcopal priest in the book, Theo of Golden, gave a sermon that touched me, and maybe is the reason why the book is so popular.
“Along the way there are questions, there is news, there are concerns and fears and uncertainties that furrow our brows trouble our souls and break our hearts. Death terrifies us. But God, in his sublime goodness, has always sent others, mysterious others, to walk with us- prophets, preachers, friends, teachers, artists, storytellers, wives and husbands, children, songbirds and rivers, even hardship and loss—to help us see clearly.”
Jesus with skin on. Jesus’s undeterred grace in and through your neighbors to walk with you, love you, if even for a moment. In your mind’s eye, you can name yours. You’ll discover in your times of doubt, and even those of profound worship, Christ’s promise to be with you to the end of the age is true. Can you let His care for you and loving presence just be true? Can you take that in, even just a little bit?
The Episcopal theologian, Fleming Rutledge, wrote in her profound volume on the Crucifixion, “Salvation comes not through human effort, least of all religious effort, but by the power of God in us at work through the ‘implanted word.’ And the Spirit that pours the love of God into our hearts.”
This is the good news of Trinity Sunday for all of us today.
Amen.
