An Open-ended Future, Alive!

Is our God big enough?

Before galaxies burned in empty night,

planets hurled through deepest space,

waves broke on primeval shores,

volcanoes roared with molten rock.

Before lightning split an angry sky,

glaciers cut through tortured earth,

flowers danced in the wind,

streams flowed through forest glade.

You were already God.

That was a prayer I wrote in 1988 at the beginning of my ministry and it reads I think like someone who is attempting to express this God who is bigger than we think.

One of the reasons St Andrews is important to me is that as a group of Jesus followers in 2026 I think it is still asking that question while negotiating its way through its 2026 culture, and one of the key points of its struggle is its battle with orthodoxies; with dogma and with ideologies that have taken root. By orthodoxy I mean those things that have taken on the state of righteous and correct opinion.This is not new but it is assuming global dimension, as the current manifestation of church declines in the face of monistrist ideology and questions of relevancy raised by post-modernism and by postmodernism I mean the state of anything goes.

The thing about orthodoxies is that they can lead to a sense of entitlement, privilege, and superiority, not to mention power over another person. Some reflections of church history show this. I also think our current political environment shows this too, They can foster communities that are insular, isolated, and exclusive. The corollary to this is that one of the most invigorating aspects of our life’s walk is in encountering so many different people with so many different stories. We are challenged and reminded again that we are often ‘closed’ to others. Thats what we remind ourselves of every Sunday in lighting our rainbow candle here at St Andrews. We resist the normalisation of exclusiveness and celebrate inclusiveness. And we stand with those who suffer the discrimination. Yehuda Amichai (1924–2000), Israel’s most celebrated poet, whose works have been translated into 40 languages, speaks to this aspect of orthodoxies:

From the place where we are right

Flowers will never grow

In the spring.

The place where we are right

Is hard and trampled

Like a yard.

But doubts and loves

Dig up the world

Like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place

Where the ruined

House once stood.

Compost for Worlds we cannot yet imagine.

Today’s gospel reading is that familiar story about Thomas known as doubting Thomas. I want to suggest he might just be a victim of an orthodoxy.

I looked up the meaning of the word doubt in ancient Hebrew and one source I found suggested that there is no formal, native word for “doubt” in ancient Hebrew because doubt is seen to be an action and thus not an intellectual hesitation.. Uncertainty was not a thought but rather a vital response for life. It just is. The concept of doubt was usually conveyed through contexts of fear, uncertainty, or testing, rather than isolated as an intellectual hesitation.

Modern Hebrew uses the word safek, and classical texts often present faith as an action (obedience) rather than a mental state, making doubt a part of life’s journey.  This suggests that doubt is more like trusting than an intellectual hesitation. This is quite significant because most common English use is as an intellectual hesitation. Stop thinking and don’t believe. Its not true or real.

I then looked up the words belief and believe and here I found that the primary ancient Hebrew word for “believe” is ‘aman  a verb rooted in the concept of being firm, stable, dependable, or supporting. Again like doubt it implies an active, relational trust or taking a firm stand, rather than just an intellectual agreement of an opinion. Thus being faithful is about believing not as an absence of doubt but including it as a requirement of it. Doubting equals faithfulness as does believing.

It was the German/American theologian Paul Tillich who blew the simplest approach right out of the water for many of us when in his book Dynamics of Faith, claimed that an authentic faith included doubt as well as affirmation. And that questions were not a sign of faithlessness, but a willingness to take faith seriously. And others have followed Tillich’s lead, such as Val Webb in her book: In Defence of Doubt.  An Invitation to Adventure. And latterly, the progressive study resource called ‘Living the Questions. You might recall here the Mission Statement of my last Parish, Honour The Mind, Live the questions and Explore the Adventure of Humanity that seeks to encapsulate the call to recognise our ability to make language say what we want, the inherent need to embrace a life of doubt as a positive and enlightening opportunity and that such a life is an adventure that brings the novel as safe, encouraging and life enhancing. Simply, life is change so love it.

So perhaps we can sense some of the dilemma we face each year as this story comes around in the lectionary. If we are true to following the Jesus Way we have to challenge the orthodoxy after all wasn’t that what he did?

The storyteller we call John sets his interpreted story within a particular community which was experiencing debates on mission strategy, leadership issues, and discipleship. And how often have we heard those words in the last few years as parishes face a new world driven by business models, do the same as we have always done just do it better. All we need is a successful growth programme?

This makes more sense when we can we hear that Thomas does not receive a blessing like the other disciples, despite his so-called faith statement? This is important for progressive theology.

Gregg Jenks an Australian Anglican Priest and a member of Faith-Futures Foundation suggests our storyteller John seems to be making it fairly clear that the faith which marks a true disciple relies on the witness of others rather than a personal experience of the Christ.  (Jenks FFF Web site, 2008) In other words, it is in the place of doubting that is the place where we can practice belonging, practice hospitality, practice respect, practice humility, practice conversation and disagreement. (Bessler-Northcutt 2004). This also suggests that doubt provides a safe place in the company of others, and that in doubting we can be shaped and reshaped by our questions and our search.

Greg Jenks says: “Faith depends on accepting the witness of others, not in securing a personal miracle that removes all opportunity for doubt.”  (Jenks FFF Web site, 2008) And the third thing we might have heard is what some claim is the underlying theme
running throughout the whole of John’s collection of stories. That we experience the creative, transforming power of God routinely, quietly moving through life, our life. As doubt is so much a part of our lives so is the transforming power of our God, our serendipitous creativity. Often subtle.  Unpredictable.  Evasive. “It is less like a hammer on the head than it is a gentle prod”, suggests Bruce Epperly of Process & Faith, “a tickle, sometimes as gentle as a feather, touching each moment into being.”  (Epperly/P&F Web site, 2008)

I like those images because they introduce both an alternative way of seeing things as well as a hint of humour as a vital component of life.

Returning to our text we come to the realisation that to know the reality of resurrection is to experience it. Not as some doctrine which involves belief in a supposedly empty tomb. Not as some event where we can feel the holes in the body of Jesus. Or an insistence on the literal historicity of the biblical stories. We all experience it “by simply being alive, and going through all the normal, routine transformations of human growth and love and  death”.   (Epperly, P&F Web site, 2008)

To finish then an excerpt from another poem.

Glorious are you, Mystery of Life,

essence of all creation.

You are the symphony of stars and planets.

You are the music of the atoms within us.

You are the dawn on mountain peaks,

the moonlight on evening seas.

Forest and farm, the rush of the city,

everything is embraced in your love.

We rejoice as we sing our gratitude.

The Easter message is Yes; the world will be different and while we might doubt our ability to recover, our doubting contains the possibility of remaking the world. Amen.

Notes:
Alves, R. 1990.  The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet. London. SCM Press/Trinity Press.
Bessler-Northcutt, J. 2004.  “Learning to See God: Prayer and Practice in the wake of the Jesus Seminar” in (ed) R. W. Hoover. The Historical Jesus Goes to Church. Santa Rosa. Polebridge Press
Webb, V. 1995.  In Defence of Doubt. An Invitation to Adventure. St Louis. Chalice Press.

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