Paul Tillich was a great Lutheran philosopher/theologian of the last century. Originally from Germany…he relocated here to the United States teaching Theology at Harvard Divinity School. I’m fond of his theology and in particular his take on doubt. Tillich says…Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith…Doubt is essential to faith.

Our gospel tells us our whole story…They were hiding behind locked doors afraid and filled with doubt…and then…in an instant…He shows himself to them and they rejoice. Is it really that much different for you and me 2000 years later…the more things change the more they stay the same. How often are we locked away in fear and anxiety ourselves…totally doubting that he is who he is and that he’ll do what he said he’d do? And then…as if on queue…he shows himself to us in some of the most indirect ways. A simple line from scripture on the very page we randomly open our bibles to (have you ever done that…just open the bible and see what God is saying to you…it can be startlingly profound) or when a loved one actually loves us and we think wow it’s nice to be treated nicely…or maybe even a moment at Mass where the priest says just the right thing in his homily or that one line in the Eucharistic Prayer finally makes perfect sense and you think there He is…Yes I can see Him now.

I don’t know about you…but for me…my relationship with God is just like this. Sometimes He is so clear…I can feel him…hear him him…touch him as I hold his body in my hand at mass. And other times…sometimes just an hour or so after touching him at mass…I don’t know where he is or if he’s even thinking about me. Think about your own life…don’t we all bounce back and forth between assurance and doubt in our jobs…our relationships…our life plans. Here we are Sunday morning in the very presence of the Holy One and yet…I’ll bet…it happens to me all the time…that at some point during this mass…each of us will lose our concentration and then we’ll catch ourselves and to re-engage. It’s quite natural actually. Our relationship with God is like an internet connection coming in and out of range…one minute blazing fast…the next…frustratingly slow…sometimes we can’t even seem to get a signal at all.

I wonder why this is…Why is doubt part of faith. Why were the Disciples afraid and then so quickly filled with joy…only to become afraid again when Jesus left them. Why was Thomas so filled with doubt? Why are you I so bi-polar with our own faith? Tillich understood this…listen to what he said as he further developed this idea that doubt is a natural part of faith…He wrote…Religious faith brings an awareness of the sacred and faith is certain, insofar as it is an experience of the sacred, but it is also uncertain, because it brings we finite beings into relation with an infinite reality. The element of uncertainty in faith cannot be avoided…it must accepted. In other words…when we’re engaging with God’s infinite being there’s simply no way that doubt won’t be part of the encounter. By God’s very nature…his very other-ness…there must be some unknown and thus some doubt. When we doubt we are reminded that we are Creatures…not the Creator. This…you could say…is the Good News of Doubt.

Mother Theresa is the great modern example. She talked specifically about her life long battle with faith and doubt. Over and over again she describes her spiritual life as dry…lonely…dark…devoid of all feeling. In the end it seems that throughout her life…this woman of profound faith was unable to feel God’s presence. Doubt was part of her faith.

So what does this tell us…the fact that the Apostles doubted…Mother Theresa Doubted…Me…your priest and the person who…for all intents and purposes is supposed to be a professional believer…has doubts? What can we possibly do when doubt is so real? What can we do when our doubt seems to fulfill just about everything that the modern world tells us? Because I can assure you that when we admit to doubt…when the Apostles admitted to doubt…when Mother Theresa admitted doubting…our world laughs at us in it’s assertion that all of this is a scam…that religion and God is some sort of con job. Modern America tells us that if it doesn’t feel good it must be bad. And so things like doubt…anxiety…fear…are all bad things…things that we should remove from our thoughts and feelings. But that couldn’t be further from the truth…because lying just beneath this faulty world view is the example of Jesus himself. Just over a week ago on Good Friday what did he say…My God, My God, why have you abandoned me…he was quoting psalm 22 up there on the cross. He didn’t just say that for entertaining effect either…he meant it. At that moment Jesus felt the very same doubt as the Apostles locked away in the upper room…the very same doubt that Mother Theresa felt throughout her life…the way you and I feel when no matter how hard we pray for a resolution to a particular situation God seems not to be there. And yet…have you ever gone on to read the entirety of psalm 22? Here’s how it ends…All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD; all the families of nations will bow low before him. The generations to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought. When Jesus laments…My God My God why have you abandoned me…he knows the end of the psalm…all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.

So today I want us to consider…moments of doubt…feelings of despair…thoughts of disconnection from God may actually be the very moments in our lives where God is present at the deepest…most foundational place of our souls. These are the moments when we must strive to hear The Word beneath the words…beneath our senses…beneath the frustration of doubt. Because doubt is actually the moment when we’ve reached the sacredness of our awareness of that which that can really never be described or proven…doubt is really the innate encounter with mystery. And so maybe the greatest gift we could ever give to God would be to believe that which is totally unbelievable. To have faith in the grips of doubt…if we could give that to God…he’d surely be pleased.
I’ve shared this profound perspective from St. Thomas More with you all before. He said…“God is my God and nothing else…but I find him rather subtle…I don’t always know where he is and I don’t always know what he wants.” Our lesson today...Don’t be afraid of doubt because it’s right in the midst of doubt where faith is rooted. And faith rooted in doubt is the greatest gift we could ever give God.