Faith and Doubt Sermon
I preached a version of this sermon at The Open Door, and two other churches over the past few months. These three very different church all responded with gratefulness for the honesty about doubt being a part of our faith. These are my notes, but they'll give you the idea.
Psalm 42 and 43
Intro:
In early May of this year a Christian writer and teacher and mother of young children died at the age of 37. Rachel Held Evans was an author and voice in the wilderness to many young Christian adults. Rachel helped people find a way to stay in the faith after they’d gone through deconstruction. As a southern girl who grew up in conservative evangelicalism, she related to many young adults who before finding her writing, may have thought they would have to leave Christianity all together, but with Rachel found a path forward in their faith.
Today we’re going to consider the counter-intuitive connection between faith and doubt in our lives.
Once, Rachel was asked if she ever had doubts about her faith. She said:
“Oh my goodness, where to start. A lot of this is really hard to believe. I think all this resurrection stuff, we made it up because we’re afraid of death, and this solves that problem. I have a lot of doubts, doubt when I see Christians not behaving like Christ. I doubt when I see science and I wonder about our place in the universe. I wonder where God fits into all of this. Doubt is a pretty consistent part of my faith. We can always be wrong, but the story of Jesus is a story I’m willing to be wrong about. Christ’s voice is so compelling to me that I’m willing to follow even if I might be wrong.”
I’ve heard the words “faith” and “doubt” juxtaposed so many times in the church, like they are two opposites. We either have faith or we have doubt. We even call our churches “communities of faith” assuming the doubters are on the outside of that community and those on the inside are the faithful or the ones who believe “without a doubt”. Rachel’s quote above is a great representation of how faith and doubt go hand in hand. Today I want to think about faith and doubt and try to bring the two together. I’d like to even suggest that we’re as much a community of doubts as we are a community of faith. And that that is not a bad thing.
Faith and doubt go hand in hand for all followers of Jesus. Our scriptures today from Psalm 42 and 43 demonstrate that faith and doubt go hand in hand. David was the man after God’s own heart, he was the brave, faithful leader and warrior for God and the people of God. David wrote some of the greatest Psalms celebrating the presence of God. David seemed to know God like no other man or woman. But David also felt lost, abandoned by God.
READ SCRIPTURES:
Psalm 42 and 43
42:1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
42:2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
42:3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
42:4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
42:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help
42:6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
42:7 Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
42:8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
42:9 I say to God, my rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?"
42:10 As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
Do you have a time in your life when God felt very present? Many of us have these pinnacle spiritual experiences that ground our faith in God. Like David in Psalm 42 our experience is tied to our memory of God and God’s presence in a certain physical place, during a particular event in our lives.
Many of the greatest people of the faith had very real mystical experiences early in their lives that set their path in God and serving God. Think about Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, Moses and the burning bush, Samuel as a child hearing God’s voice at night when under the care of Eli, the priest.
In our Psalms today David is looking back at God’s faithfulness in his life and trying to make sense of the present. David is being pursued by his adversaries, Davids life is in real danger. David is questioning where God is at the present, but looking back and seeing God’s plan that had led him to that point in his life. David is remembering a time in his life when God felt very present. Many of us have similar times we can remember in our own lives that help ground our faith.
David Remembers God in the places where God’s presence seemed most real. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Memory is such an important aspect of faith. Without an ability to look back at our lives and see God’s faithfulness I don’t think we could have faith in God without remembering God’s faithfulness to us we would be too caught up in the anxiety of the now and the anxiety of the future. But, like david, we remember God in the places where God’s presence seemed the closest.
But sometimes, when we think we need God the most, God doesn’t answer our prayers, God seems not to be present. I don’t have any answers or quick stories to solve the problem of God’s absence. I think Jesus is our partner in these times. Partly because of his lordship or his seat at the right hand of God, but because Jesus cried out on the cross, “my God, my God why have you forsaken me.” Just like David, just like you and I, Jesus cried out to God and no longer knew the presence of God.
In this Psalm David is begging God to make Godself known once again. But God seems to be silent. All David has to go off of is his memory of God’s faithfulness in another time.
42:9 I say to God, my rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?"
42:10 As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
Rachel, who taught many of us so much about faith and doubt passed away due to complications with antibiotics and the flu. Her book Searching for Sunday was a pivotal writing for many of us who needed to know that God could be found even in our doubting, even in our searching. And so, it was that much harder for so many of us who decided to take the risk and earnestly ask God to heal Rachel and those prayers went unanswered. I, like you, have prayed fervently that God would take action for the sake of God’s people, but it hasn’t happened. I’ve been like David, asking for salvation, asking for an answer to prayer, asking that God would be known, but those prayers have gone unanswered. Again, like David, I’m led to question.
One of the amazing things that Rachel Held-Evans accomplished in her short career was creating a sense of belonging and honest community for millions of Exvangelicals who thought their doubts about faith and God had excluded them from the Church. Rachel helped to welcome us back in and even recognize that God’s faithfulness remains not in spite of our doubts, but right here within our questions and doubts. She said that, “Doubt is a pretty consistent part of my faith.” Doubt is not he opposite of faith. Doubt is a normal and even good aspect of our faith. Our God is big enough for our questions, our struggles, our pain and our doubts. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. The opposite of faith just might be certainty. The nature of faith is that we live into a mystery of something bigger than ourselves that we cannot understand. Therefore, questions and doubts are a normal and good part of our faith.
I think that’s why there are so many Psalms of mourning, fear, doubt and longing for God? Because doubt is universal for people who are honest with themselves.
Psalm 42 is a psalm of longing for God. The Psalmist, maybe David, remembers a time when God felt so close. But we never want to remain in the past. God’s silence, when we calm our hearts, is often all we need. Even in the silence we begin to calm our hearts and experience God is ways that are not possible when things are good and easy.
Doubt, struggle and the silence with God can expand our idea of God. Can our questions and doubts create within us a bigger understanding of God?
I think there are three ways forward when we’re in times of doubt, or when doubt is just an ongoing reality of our faith.
#1 practicing following in the way of the Jesus… Jesus is not a theological construct that we must ascend to and believe. Instead, Christianity is built on people living their lives in the way of Jesus. It’s as simple as that, can we practice the immense forgiveness, hospitality, generosity and love that Jesus demonstrated?
#2 Live into the mystery… the Eucharist…
Have you ever noticed that the types of churches that are very sure of what they believe and why what they believe is right, don’t know what to do with the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper? The Eucharist is one of the most ancient and mysterious practices of the church. It’s inexplicable. The popular American church no longer needs the Eucharist because it doesn’t contain enough certainty for them. But for me, for us, the Lord’s Supper is ever more important and beautiful. The mystery of it is what allows us to practice it, we don’t need to have it figured out, we practice and partake with hope. The practice of the way of Jesus is what grounds our religion but the mystery of the eucharist is what connects us spiritually as a community to God.
#3 practice silence, solitude and meditation. These three are the countercultural practices that develop within us the ability to slow our anxiety and focus on the Divine in the here and now while we rest in the faithfulness of God’s presence also in our past. These intentional pauses in our lives give space for God to speak, give space for the Divine within us to be known.
Conclusion:
Today we may be in pain, we may be in mourning, we may feel more like doubters than the faithful. But, today we can remember Rachel’s words: Doubt is a pretty consistent part of my faith. We can always be wrong, but the story of Jesus is a story I’m willing to be wrong about. Christ’s voice is so compelling to me that I’m willing to follow even if I might be wrong.
Today I’m willing to say that the story of Jesus is a story I’m willing to be wrong about. Christ’s voice is still so compelling to me that I’m willing to follow. Like David, this gives me great hope. Because of God’s faithfulness in the past, I have hope for the future, even during those times when we struggle to see God in the present.
Psalm 42 and 43
Intro:
In early May of this year a Christian writer and teacher and mother of young children died at the age of 37. Rachel Held Evans was an author and voice in the wilderness to many young Christian adults. Rachel helped people find a way to stay in the faith after they’d gone through deconstruction. As a southern girl who grew up in conservative evangelicalism, she related to many young adults who before finding her writing, may have thought they would have to leave Christianity all together, but with Rachel found a path forward in their faith.
Today we’re going to consider the counter-intuitive connection between faith and doubt in our lives.
Once, Rachel was asked if she ever had doubts about her faith. She said:
“Oh my goodness, where to start. A lot of this is really hard to believe. I think all this resurrection stuff, we made it up because we’re afraid of death, and this solves that problem. I have a lot of doubts, doubt when I see Christians not behaving like Christ. I doubt when I see science and I wonder about our place in the universe. I wonder where God fits into all of this. Doubt is a pretty consistent part of my faith. We can always be wrong, but the story of Jesus is a story I’m willing to be wrong about. Christ’s voice is so compelling to me that I’m willing to follow even if I might be wrong.”
I’ve heard the words “faith” and “doubt” juxtaposed so many times in the church, like they are two opposites. We either have faith or we have doubt. We even call our churches “communities of faith” assuming the doubters are on the outside of that community and those on the inside are the faithful or the ones who believe “without a doubt”. Rachel’s quote above is a great representation of how faith and doubt go hand in hand. Today I want to think about faith and doubt and try to bring the two together. I’d like to even suggest that we’re as much a community of doubts as we are a community of faith. And that that is not a bad thing.
Faith and doubt go hand in hand for all followers of Jesus. Our scriptures today from Psalm 42 and 43 demonstrate that faith and doubt go hand in hand. David was the man after God’s own heart, he was the brave, faithful leader and warrior for God and the people of God. David wrote some of the greatest Psalms celebrating the presence of God. David seemed to know God like no other man or woman. But David also felt lost, abandoned by God.
READ SCRIPTURES:
Psalm 42 and 43
42:1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
42:2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
42:3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
42:4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
42:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help
42:6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
42:7 Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
42:8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
42:9 I say to God, my rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?"
42:10 As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
Do you have a time in your life when God felt very present? Many of us have these pinnacle spiritual experiences that ground our faith in God. Like David in Psalm 42 our experience is tied to our memory of God and God’s presence in a certain physical place, during a particular event in our lives.
Many of the greatest people of the faith had very real mystical experiences early in their lives that set their path in God and serving God. Think about Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, Moses and the burning bush, Samuel as a child hearing God’s voice at night when under the care of Eli, the priest.
In our Psalms today David is looking back at God’s faithfulness in his life and trying to make sense of the present. David is being pursued by his adversaries, Davids life is in real danger. David is questioning where God is at the present, but looking back and seeing God’s plan that had led him to that point in his life. David is remembering a time in his life when God felt very present. Many of us have similar times we can remember in our own lives that help ground our faith.
David Remembers God in the places where God’s presence seemed most real. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Memory is such an important aspect of faith. Without an ability to look back at our lives and see God’s faithfulness I don’t think we could have faith in God without remembering God’s faithfulness to us we would be too caught up in the anxiety of the now and the anxiety of the future. But, like david, we remember God in the places where God’s presence seemed the closest.
But sometimes, when we think we need God the most, God doesn’t answer our prayers, God seems not to be present. I don’t have any answers or quick stories to solve the problem of God’s absence. I think Jesus is our partner in these times. Partly because of his lordship or his seat at the right hand of God, but because Jesus cried out on the cross, “my God, my God why have you forsaken me.” Just like David, just like you and I, Jesus cried out to God and no longer knew the presence of God.
In this Psalm David is begging God to make Godself known once again. But God seems to be silent. All David has to go off of is his memory of God’s faithfulness in another time.
42:9 I say to God, my rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?"
42:10 As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
Rachel, who taught many of us so much about faith and doubt passed away due to complications with antibiotics and the flu. Her book Searching for Sunday was a pivotal writing for many of us who needed to know that God could be found even in our doubting, even in our searching. And so, it was that much harder for so many of us who decided to take the risk and earnestly ask God to heal Rachel and those prayers went unanswered. I, like you, have prayed fervently that God would take action for the sake of God’s people, but it hasn’t happened. I’ve been like David, asking for salvation, asking for an answer to prayer, asking that God would be known, but those prayers have gone unanswered. Again, like David, I’m led to question.
One of the amazing things that Rachel Held-Evans accomplished in her short career was creating a sense of belonging and honest community for millions of Exvangelicals who thought their doubts about faith and God had excluded them from the Church. Rachel helped to welcome us back in and even recognize that God’s faithfulness remains not in spite of our doubts, but right here within our questions and doubts. She said that, “Doubt is a pretty consistent part of my faith.” Doubt is not he opposite of faith. Doubt is a normal and even good aspect of our faith. Our God is big enough for our questions, our struggles, our pain and our doubts. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. The opposite of faith just might be certainty. The nature of faith is that we live into a mystery of something bigger than ourselves that we cannot understand. Therefore, questions and doubts are a normal and good part of our faith.
I think that’s why there are so many Psalms of mourning, fear, doubt and longing for God? Because doubt is universal for people who are honest with themselves.
Psalm 42 is a psalm of longing for God. The Psalmist, maybe David, remembers a time when God felt so close. But we never want to remain in the past. God’s silence, when we calm our hearts, is often all we need. Even in the silence we begin to calm our hearts and experience God is ways that are not possible when things are good and easy.
Doubt, struggle and the silence with God can expand our idea of God. Can our questions and doubts create within us a bigger understanding of God?
I think there are three ways forward when we’re in times of doubt, or when doubt is just an ongoing reality of our faith.
#1 practicing following in the way of the Jesus… Jesus is not a theological construct that we must ascend to and believe. Instead, Christianity is built on people living their lives in the way of Jesus. It’s as simple as that, can we practice the immense forgiveness, hospitality, generosity and love that Jesus demonstrated?
#2 Live into the mystery… the Eucharist…
Have you ever noticed that the types of churches that are very sure of what they believe and why what they believe is right, don’t know what to do with the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper? The Eucharist is one of the most ancient and mysterious practices of the church. It’s inexplicable. The popular American church no longer needs the Eucharist because it doesn’t contain enough certainty for them. But for me, for us, the Lord’s Supper is ever more important and beautiful. The mystery of it is what allows us to practice it, we don’t need to have it figured out, we practice and partake with hope. The practice of the way of Jesus is what grounds our religion but the mystery of the eucharist is what connects us spiritually as a community to God.
#3 practice silence, solitude and meditation. These three are the countercultural practices that develop within us the ability to slow our anxiety and focus on the Divine in the here and now while we rest in the faithfulness of God’s presence also in our past. These intentional pauses in our lives give space for God to speak, give space for the Divine within us to be known.
Conclusion:
Today we may be in pain, we may be in mourning, we may feel more like doubters than the faithful. But, today we can remember Rachel’s words: Doubt is a pretty consistent part of my faith. We can always be wrong, but the story of Jesus is a story I’m willing to be wrong about. Christ’s voice is so compelling to me that I’m willing to follow even if I might be wrong.
Today I’m willing to say that the story of Jesus is a story I’m willing to be wrong about. Christ’s voice is still so compelling to me that I’m willing to follow. Like David, this gives me great hope. Because of God’s faithfulness in the past, I have hope for the future, even during those times when we struggle to see God in the present.
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