The Doubt and Uncertainty of Faith

Sermon or homily in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Proper 18B, Sunday, September 6, 2015. The Rev. Tom Weller. James 2:1-17. Mark 7:24-37.

SHEMA Yisrael, Adonai elehenu, Adonai echod. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the First and Great Commandment; and the Second is its equal in every way: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. 

A Christian, I confess: I am a believer without certainty. You may be seated.

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Just as I am, though tossed about 

with many a conflict, many a doubt, 

fightings and fears within, without, 

O Lamb of God, I come. 

I selected our Gospel Hymn because our collect for today uses two words, always and never, words that make me squirm uncomfortably with the doubts of uncertainty that are a vital element of my Christian faith: doubt and uncertainty, how, how has this happened to me?

On our last day of class at my Lutheran Seminary, theology professor Robert Jenson advised us, When you leave here you will be ordained into the busy daily life of parish ministry where your mind will wither and decay. Do not let that happen. Keep up your reading and study as part of your ministry the rest of your life.

I have tried to do that, I have been faithful to Jenson’s charge that morning some thirty-five years ago.

And also faithful to the proverb in the lintel over the library door at my other seminary, Virginia Episcopal: Seek The Truth, Come Whence It May, Cost What It Will.

And so, I seek, I do seek; but the cost is great, very costly indeed.

You see, there are problems, costs, with reading and study and learning — for me especially in that the more I read and study and learn, the less I know. The less I know, and I see that the less the church knows, because what we preach is faith, not knowledge. “The peace of God that passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his son Jesus Christ our Lord,” and a product of my years is the realization that while my love of God is great, my knowledge of God — I know nothing. I study, I seek, I feel, I believe, but I know nothing.

The Nicene Creed itself, faith statement that we stand and recite faithfully together in faith every Sunday morning, only says “We believe,” it never says “we know,” because we do not know, we believe, and it’s belief that relies on and trusts what others said and heard and repeated and wrote two-thousand years ago. In the early part of my adult life I was a sometime amateur astronomer, gazing out into the universe, "the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, planets and stars" gazing from — as Eucharistic Prayer C says —“this fragile earth our island home” — and my reading and study and gazing has only stirred my conflict, stirred my doubt, fightings and fears within without, as Charlotte Elliott wrote the testimony of her evangelical hymn that has called so many thousands upon thousands down the aisle to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but as I study and gaze I can hardly imagine that Kyrie Pantokrator, Lord Creator of All That Is, could love me, even me, speck on a speck, just as I am, the way I am. The prospect is wild, the promise incredible - me — just as I am? Oh my God.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved over churning chaos and God said … God said — LOGOS, the creating Word igniting the explosion of our universe into being: Genesis One.

And John One: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through the Word. ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Genesis and John, the Law and the Gospel, one and the same.

The immensity of LOGOS, the Creating Word of God, is incomprehensible until we behold the face of Jesus Christ, born from Infinite Eternity into our tiny speck of a world, the LOGOS himself here in Time walking from village to village with a gospel about the Love of God. Born not only (nor even especially) to save us from our fear of dying, but to bring forth in our lives the fruits of the Spirit: faith, hope and love, where the greatest is Love. That’s why the LOGOS came, to teach us to love.

My father, in response to anyone who asked him, “Are you saved? Are you sure for heaven?” — a lifelong Episcopalian, my father liked to say, “We don’t have a religion to die by, we have a faith to live by.” That’s where I am. And as I read the Bible and look beyond the stars of night — or out into the blue firmament of day — I stretch my imagination, credulity and hope, and take a leap of faith to stand on the promises of God. It does not seem possible that whoever or whatever created this expanse of universe could actually love me. And can it be? Died he for me? For me, who caused his pain? For me, who him to death pursued? Can it be?

If you struggle, I struggle with you. If you doubt, consider my experience that doubt is the cornerstone of faith, that uncertainty is the mortar of faith’s foundation. Ephemeral, fleeting, my faith is no more concrete than the straw and tar the ancients used to cement the tower of Babel that God came down and laughed at as they tried to build their way up to heaven and be equal with God. ~ ~ But doubt and uncertainty are right and good, for as Hebrews 11 says “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.” I seek the Truth, but I live on a promise — because as a thinking, intelligent being, I have no alternative, by faith, except to believe Jesus loves me, for the Bible tells me so. And anyway, as our gospel two Sundays back said, “Lord, to whom would I go? You have the words of eternal life.” So going away, walking away from Him, is not an option for me, though tossed about, with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without. I’m standing on the promises.

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I began with the advice of my theology professor to read and study all my life, and with wisdom from another seminary to Seek The Truth, Come Whence It May, Cost What It Will. In living into and through all that, I have become something of a theologian myself: it could not be helped, you see, and it will happen to you also if you read and study with Wisdom and Integrity, and do not go into theology and the Bible eisegetically with Folly and Simpleness to prove your certainties. The downside is that in seeking I have discovered the costly truth that the more I learn, the less I know. Unlike the lower animals, that’s a human cost of living in the divine image instead of in blissful, naive ignorance (in the image of God he created me; male and female he created us, with the power of self-contemplation). So, in faith I know that I know nothing. But I love the Bible and the stories and the songs and the liturgy and the prayers. As commanded, I love the Lord. I even love the Creed although I know too much about it. I love the Shema, Hear, O Israel, with which I began my walk to the pulpit this morning. I love the Bread and Wine that are offered to me as the substance, the essence, of God’s Word. 

Most of all I love you, just as you are, the way you are, and when all is heard and written and read — and studied and believed - that’s what my faith is about.

A Christian, I’m a believer, I believe. And what I believe is that Love is what God requires of me as I walk in the Way of His Cross — Lord, to delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name — 

Just as I am, though tossed about 

with many a conflict, many a doubt, 

fightings and fears within, without - - - 

This is me. I confess to you in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It bothers me not at all that the sermon may ramble and not hold together, or that references may be forgotten, or that any link to the Lectionary readings for the day may be an untenable stretch!! I publish these on my +Time blog not pridefully but only to keep a promise to a dear friend. TW+