Palmerston St Methodist Church: original 1861 church on left (now gone), the 1870 bluestone church on the right
Sermon delivered on 11 April 2010
by Rev. Alistair Macrae, President of the Uniting Church in Australia
Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 118:14-29
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31
On occasions like this we are aware of the communion of saints … and that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Many stories have already been told in the lead-up to this day of people who have been part of this extraordinary congregation these past 150 years. I remember doing lessons as a primary school student in rural Victoria learning about this Church in far off Melbourne where they did translations into different languages to accommodate the different migrant groups.
The presence of a worshipping community here all this time, the creation and sustaining of the mission early last century to serve the needs of the community here is an inspirational story. ‘The need is the call,’ said George Dyson. Presumably if God was asked why s/he chose to become incarnate in Jesus, God may well have replied: ‘Well, I can’t put it any better than George Dyson . . . the need was the call’!
We live in a very different time to George Dyson. Today’s Gospel offers a good opportunity to reflect on belief and doubt today in this deeply changed context. We’ll explore it through the lens of the story of Thomas who has been branded ‘doubting Thomas’ for eternity for a couple of days of scepticism! In church cultures that have a negative view of doubt, Thomas wears a black hat. In more liberal churches, Thomas is viewed with sympathy, if not given hero status!
This is timely. It’s not only outspoken atheists who are challenging religious people. The debates are alive within the household of faith. We have UC ministers announcing a new faith! Not fresh contemporary reflections and expressions of a very ancient faith – a new faith altogether, apparently.
In this time of change in church and society fundamental issues are being raised. What is the church for? What do Christians believe? How do we act in this new context?
Let’s look at Thomas. We should avoid ridiculing him, but also avoid making him into the modern romantic skeptic. Thomas is one type of believer. We can be thankful that his story is included.
There are different types of believers in John 20. Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb. But she didn’t believe that Christ had risen ‘til he appeared to her’ and spoke. She told the disciples what she’d seen, but they only believed when Jesus came and stood among them and showed them his wounds.
Like us, Thomas wasn’t out at the cemetery that morning with Mary. Nor was he with the disciples locked away licking their wounds. So when they told Thomas that they had seen the Lord he replied, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my hand in his side, I will not believe”. Fair enough.
Some of you are like Mary and the disciples. You have seen the Lord. You imbibed the faith as you were growing up, maybe at this very church, were given that wonderful gift; a sense of the presence of a gracious God. Others may struggle with faith, wonder about the existence of God, but for you that has never been a real issue.
Carl Jung
I remember seeing a recorded interview with Carl Jung: “Do you believe in God’s existence Dr Jung?”
“No, I do not believe God exists. I know it.”
Wow!
Others of you have had acute religious experiences in which God has seemed palpable. You felt you could reach out and touch God or that God had reached out and embraced you. Maybe it was in a time of solitude in God’s glorious creation. Or in a gathering of people in worship and praise and a presence outside of yourself, transported you into a new place, a new view of yourself.
Or maybe it was a time when you were so low, with no light shining, feeling you were in the bottom of a deep pit when you sensed the presence of the crucified Christ, keeping you company and leading back into life, to a resurrection. Such people like Mary and the disciples were there early. They feel they have met the risen Lord.
But Thomas was not there. Belief didn’t come naturally to him. Who knows, maybe he had studied Greek philosophy of the kind which starts with doubt. Test everything. Maybe he was just a very practical person. You’ve got to admit that the story was unlikely. Resurrection doesn’t happen every day. If there was going to be any divine intervention the disciples expected it a bit earlier. Like before Jesus died. But die he did. And the only cosmic response was the sun hiding its face from the horror.
No angels. No divine triumph. Over. It was all a delusion. When those others wanted to stay in denial, when they wanted to whip themselves up into believing that God had raised Jesus, not for Thomas. Time to get real. He’s building a bridge.
And Jesus respects Thomas’ doubt. ‘Fair enough. Look at my hands. Put your finger here in my side. Don’t be faithless, but believe’. Jesus gave Thomas what he needed.
‘My Lord and my God’.
And then Jesus says, “Blessed are you who have not seen and yet believe”. That’s for John’s readers who were not around when Jesus lived, died and rose again. And us. We weren’t there. ‘Blessings on you’, says Jesus, ‘who haven’t seen, but who walk the road of discipleship by faith not by sight’.
What does it mean to believe and to doubt? When we answer Jesus’ call to follow, what comes with the package? What are we supposed to believe? If you look at some of the old catechisms, you’ll realise that before you could be a member of a church you had to be able to recite a long list of doctrines about God and the purpose of life. The religious group that I was part of in my late teens had a big package of beliefs. If you doubted, questioned any of them, the rest of the group would be praying for your soul. Seven-day creation, personal Devil, male headship in relationships, literal truth of every word in the Bible.
The Pope a few years ago produced a book on what Catholics believe. It’s a few hundred pages long. Call me lazy, but give me the Basis of Union any day!
But the Catholics also have a concept called the ‘hierarchy of truths’ which I find very useful. That is, some religious claims are more important, more central than others. Some truths are truer than others? The Uniting Church is often accused of being so liberal and wishy-washy that there is no centre of belief. Anything goes. That is simply not the case at all.
But it would be fair to say that our church has a smaller cluster of claims at its centre than a lot of others. There is a strong centre, but more room around the edges to discuss, debate, doubt. What is at the heart of the faith? Most would include, for example, belief in the resurrection of Christ. Fair enough. But even here there are many ways of describing belief in the resurrection.
When I first went to theological college you can imagine my chagrin when I went to the first Christology lecture. It was entitled: “Is the virgin birth true?’ What do you mean, is it true? Part of me was shocked and part of me breathed huge sighs of relief. Do you mean I can question, probe, doubt some of these ancient affirmations of Christianity and still maintain my Christian faith?
The core of my beliefs is smaller than it used to be. Not because I’ve become more wishy-washy but because my beliefs have become more radicalised. The things at the heart, I believe stronger than ever because they have been tested by life experience and by the faith and community of the church. I sit lighter to a lot of things at the grey edges. My favourite prayer in the New Testament is, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” Or as one of my kids said to me once, ‘Dad, I half believe in God and half don’t’. I love the psalms because from within the faith the psalmist pours it all out to God. The anger, the doubt, the questions.
And in our tradition there would be an insistence that faith is not Christian faith if it is not grounded in the expression of kingdom values – justice-seeking, peace-making, community-building, service. That is a great gift to the whole church of this particular congregation: the holding together of worship and witness, prayer and pragmatism, piety and politics, sacraments and sacrificial service.
I want to be in a church where we don’t have to pretend to each other. Where all are welcome whatever our beliefs or lack of them. Where we have an environment in which we can engage the faith of the church and each other in dialogue. I want to be part of a church too, that will resist sneering at those whose faith is strong. It’s fashionable to be cynical. It’s easy to mock those who believe strongly. I hope we don’t do that.
We all come to faith through different paths. Let us celebrate those of us who seem to have grown up on God’s knee and while still working on what they believe, never seriously doubt that they believe.
Let us celebrate those of us seriously wrestling with belief, needing more evidence, more sense of God, more understanding of what Jesus calls us to before they take the road. May Jesus, as he did for Thomas, give us enough to dare to believe.
Let us celebrate those who are part of our community who don’t know what they believe, who perhaps used to believe stuff they no longer can and are looking for a faith upon which to build and out of which to live with purpose and love.
So don’t worry that you weren’t there on Easter morning. The same one who danced forth from the tomb comes to us, giving us what we need, as he has given life and light and hope to people for 150 years in this very community, so that believing we may have life in his name.
