It’s good to be with you again. It’s been a long time, and so much has happened for me and for all of you. We find ourselves at a different place than when we last met. And that’s a good thing. God is always doing new things, always creating, and if we are stuck in place then we run the risk of missing what God is up to now. Change can be unsettling, but that’s good. We’re not supposed to settle. We are a people on the way.
Today is the only day in the calendar when we celebrate a theological idea rather than a time in the life of Jesus or his disciples. And yet, even here there is evidence of God’s creation. The Trinity is not a static triangle, like an axiom in geometry. The Trinity is a dance between the different aspects of God, a constantly moving relationship within the heart of God. Remembering that can remind us that we too are meant to be moving in this dance with God and one another. Again, God is always moving, and so are we.
Now, I want to spend some time on the Gospel reading. The people who assign texts have to work to find texts for Trinity Sunday, because the doctrine of the Trinity wasn’t really worked out in biblical times. So we have some texts that refer to the three persons, without a full doctrine spelled out.
Our text for today is one of those. It is a central text in our tradition, and one I think most of us feel guilty or confused about. It’s about the movement of disciples as part of the dance of God. And I think there’s hope in here for all of us.
This is the very end of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus has suffered and has risen from the dead. He’s appeared to the women, who told the men to go to Galilee. Now the eleven are there, and Jesus appears to them.
They worshipped him, but some doubted.
This is such an important verse!
How many times in your life have you been told that doubt is bad? Every year, the Sunday after Easter tells the story of Thomas. We are told that we are blessed if we believe, and we call him “Doubting Thomas,” as though he’s unique and bad.
But that’s not the message of the Gospel here. Here, worship and doubt go together. This is an honest picture of faith in the dance of God.
In the Jewish tradition, doubt is not a sin or a problem. The sin is in turning away from relationship with God. But doubting God, even doubting God’s existence, is just part of using our intellects. Our reason cannot make sense of, cannot justify the reality of God. So our reason is stuck between worship and doubt.
And we can worship even when we doubt.
When I first started praying, years ago, I didn’t know who or what I was praying to. I prayed because other people who were happy and fulfilled told me to try it. So I said, “Whatever you are, help.” And one day I felt that help come. Now, I could have argued. I could have doubted that feeling. Reason can’t prove it’s God, whatever God is. But I felt that strength, so I kept praying.
We can go through the motions of worshipping, and our doubts will not be erased. But if we truly worship, even in our doubts, I believe we will find the One we worship. Or, that One will find us!
We see from the Gospel that Jesus is not offended by doubt. Jesus addresses all of the disciples, and tells them to go make more disciples. He doesn’t tell them to take care of their doubt before they go. He doesn’t give them intellectual arguments. He tells them to teach the commandments that Jesus has given them. He sends them out.
And here’s the tricky part. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s doubt that keeps me from doing what I’ve been told. I think more often it’s the belief that I need to be perfect to do this. I need to be eloquent, and educated, and full of proofs. I need to know I’ll be safe, and not laughed at.
The problem is that if we don’t share our faith, we remain trapped on the mountain where Jesus left us. We’ve had a powerful experience, or maybe we just doubted, but we don’t have anywhere to go after the service. And, lacking a mission, we stay behind while others go out. Soon we find ourselves alone on the mountain. And all the doubts flood in. Was that really God, or just indigestion? What happens to my belief if no one shares it?
Maybe the reason Jesus sends them out is because we need others to support us. We all have doubts and struggles in our faith journeys. We need others to hold us up when we’re tired or confused, and we are strengthened in turn when we support others. We can’t worship well alone. We can’t serve alone for very long. We have to give away the good news if we are to keep it.
Jesus knows this is a daunting task. He promises to be with the disciples, then and now. We don’t have to be perfect - that’s not our job. We don’t have to have all the answers, we don’t need a theological education. We need to be able to tell what’s happening in our lives and hearts as a result of knowing the God who keeps creating.
Let’s practice. Turn to your neighbor. You have one minute each to say what God has done for you, or to confess your doubt. There’s no wrong answer. There’s just the need to get down off this mountain and out in the streets.
(I let them talk, and then called them back.)
Tennyson wrote,
There lives more faith
in honest doubt,
believe me,
than in half the creeds.
Doubt is not the enemy of faith. The enemies of faith are pride, sloth, fear in all their forms. Freed from these, doubt becomes part of the dance by which God is revealed. We are free to be surprised, again and again, by what God is up to. Spread the news - God is still speaking!
