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Psalm 104:1-2, 27-35 They are happy whose life is blameless, who follow God's law! They are happy who do God's will, seeking the Lord with all their hearts, who never do anything evil but rather live God's way of life….Help me, O God, to grasp the way of your teachings and I will be in awe of your wonders. My soul pines away with grief; by your word raise me up. Keep me from the way of error and teach me your law. I have chosen the way of truth with your decrees before me. I bind myself to your purpose and will; Lord, do not disappoint me. I will run the way of your commands; you give freedom to my heart.
Matthew 14:22-32– [Immediately after feeding the 5,000] Jesus insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, Jesus climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night. Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up and they were battered by the waves. At about four in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared out of their wits. “A ghost!” they said, crying out in terror. But Jesus was quick to comfort them. “Courage, it's me. Don't be afraid.” Peter, suddenly bold, said, “Master, if it is really you, call me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come ahead.”
Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, “Master, save me!” Jesus didn't hesitate, reached down and grabbed his hand. Then he said, “Faint-heart, what got into you?” The two of them climbed into the boat, and the wind died down. The disciples in the boat, having watched the whole thing, worshipped Jesus saying, “This is it! You are God's child for sure!”
It was a dark and stormy night when Jesus walked on the waters of the Sea of Galilee and St. Peter-The- Impulsive asked Jesus to let him walk on water, too. He got about 10 feet from the boat and began to sink. Doubting Thomas leaned over to Andrew and whispered, “Peter doesn't know what Jesus knows.” “What do you mean?” “Jesus knows where the rocks are.”
For D. H. Lawrence, doubt was central in his short story, The Man Who Died.” Jesus regained consciousness in the grave, escaped, and lived a more or less normal life in a distant land. His followers were left to discover an empty grave and marvel at their hallucinations.
A father brought an epileptic son to Jesus to be cured. He asked, “If you can do anything, have pity and help us.” Jesus answered, “If you can! All things are possible to those who believe.” The father cried out, “I do have faith, but not enough. Help my unbelief!” Most of us have walked in that guy's shoes one or a hundred times, no!
The current epidemic of cultured despisers of religion prosecutes their critiques with an unmistakable animus. Most of their observations are not new though some ring true, yet their works lack the grace, style, and integrity of a Nikos Kazantzakis, Jose Saramago, Reynolds Price, Albert Camus, Andre Malraux, or poets like Rilke, Oliver, or Milosz.
Humor, indifference, literary inquiry, argumentation, philosophy, poetry, and Scripture are all ways that people can struggle with religion or undertake a quest to find a place on which to stand with integrity in matters of faith, religion, or belief. Often, circumstances more than intellectual effort or spiritual pursuit, frame our questions and doubts. A tragic death, a troubling encounter, a grave illness, a harsh betrayal, or unrealistic and untested expectations can shake one's faith, religious commitments, and the teachings on which a life is grounded.
Rabbi David Wolpe, whose book frames this Lenten Teaching Series and discussions, describes the impact on the certainties of his faith, religion, and rituals after viewing Night and Fog, a disturbing documentary on the Holocaust: “My journey to faith was first a journey from faith. Having been raised with belief, I soon came to doubt everything I had been taught. At the age of eleven, certain that God was in His heaven and all was right with the world, nothing seemed to threaten a settled world view. By the time I was twelve, and for a decade after, I had lost that faith, and everything that was once certain seemed foolish and empty.” Suffering and death rob some people of their faith while others find their faith. For still others circumstances launch often haunting and troubled life-long dialogues with God, faith, and humanity.
In 1955 Rabbi Abraham Heschel noted, in the opening lines of his book, God in Search of Man, how absolutes are the worst enemy of hierarchical institutional religions and religious absolutes, “It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its message becomes meaningless. ”
Last Sunday I stated an important distinction: hierarchical institutional religions are largely based on denominational absolutes, dogma, doctrine, and creed. Today, multitudes seeking authentic spiritual experiences depart institutional religion because their questions and doubts have been judged, leaving them feeling guilty, alone and yearning for spiritual recovery. ‘Faith,' on the other hand, is a personal collection of trusted tenants and affirming rituals that inform life, guide values, direct spiritual practices, and create beloved church communities. Unlike institutional religion, faith does not rely on propositions nor is it composed of unexamined absolutes, creeds, dogma, and doctrine. Faith finds its greatest trustworthiness in experiences and practices that encourage and support the exploration of the nature of God, Self, and world, in the uninhibited welcome and inclusion of others, and the journey to meaning, principles, purpose, and tranquility.
Another distinction: personally, pastorally, and theologically, I wholeheartedly embrace the third quote on the bulletin cover, “Faith Needs doubt like children need love.” Faith becomes lived, real, and trustworthy when it is encouraged and free to hold doubts and work questions that may have no answers. To doubt and question, not for mere intellectual argumentation or from the place of hostility or indifference, but rather from genuine interest and curiosity, is to be inside a relationship with faith and religion!
Questions and doubts draw us into the great spiritual dialogues of life, becoming key pieces to the puzzle of existence. When I come to some element of faith that is beyond proof but is constructive and affirming I will often choose to live as if it is true, to test it in my experience and then add it to my personal collection of trusted tenants. Questions and doubts are as essential to human existence as breathing and loving. For doubts and questions to forge the intellect is one thing, but when they infiltrate the soul they transform faith into a creative life force. Doubts and questions have never moved me against or away from faith, but rather consistently nourish my bond with Christ and deepen my spirituality.
Where does this leave us? How do we hold the cultured critiques of religion and faith? How shall we liberate ourselves from low level anxieties and the multi-layered guilt that derive from institutional prohibitions against thinking for ourselves, trusting and refining our questions, and respectfully holding our doubts?
For the cultured critiques, I hold the truth of Milosz's poem, “If there is no God, / Not everything is permitted to man. / He is still his brother's keeper / And he is not permitted to sadden his brother, / By saying that there is no God.”
For freeing those low level anxieties and the multi-layered guilt Rabbi Wolpe wisely counsels, “Increasingly I was less concerned with what God might be than what faith in God might make of me.”
To be true to both God and Self we must exercise and care for our doubt and questions with arguably the single greatest tool of human intellect and conscience: curiosity. To be curious is to be full of wonderment, innocent interest, mindfulness, and adventure. We best come to curiosity without fear, judgment, or hostility; we come with unprotected compassion and openness to meet, to witness, to be present to, and, perhaps, to understand something new for the first time.
With a gently and gingerly held faith, we shall live in awe and wonder before unfolding mysteries, we shall flourish in all manner of relationships, and the essential nature of our faith is a well-cultivated attention to the holiness in us and all around us – After all, Hodgson, in the first quote on the bulletin cover, sounds right, “Some things have to be believed to be seen.”
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