Speaking of Faith with Bishop DeDe

The Role of Doubt in Faith

• The Episcopal Diocese of Central New York • Season 2 • Episode 7

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Summary
In this episode, Bishop DeDe and RomComm discuss the story of Thomas' encounter with the risen Christ in the Gospel of John. They explore the concept of doubt in faith and how doubt can actually deepen our engagement with our faith. They highlight Thomas' absence when the disciples were gathered in fear and his insistence on physical proof of Jesus' resurrection. They emphasize how the desire for certitude can hinder our spiritual growth. They also discuss the transformative power of doubt and the invitation it offers to explore and experience the mystery of God.

Keywords
faith, doubt, Gospel of John, Thomas, resurrection, certitude, certainty, relationship, transformation, healing, wholeness


Takeaways

  • Doubt is not a sign of weak faith, but rather an invitation to engage more deeply with our faith.
  • The desire for certitude can hinder our spiritual growth and prevent us from fully experiencing the mystery of God.
  • Doubt is a doorway to healing and transformation, as it allows us to question, explore, and be open to new understandings of God.
  • Resurrection is not just an end-of-life reality, but something we can experience in our lives today.
  • Speaking about our faith is an invitation to encounter the mystery of God and share our own transformative experiences.

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

You're listening to Speaking of Faith with Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York. I'm Rachel Ravellette, or RomComm, and we're glad you're here. Hey, friends! Welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. And today we're going to be speaking of faith by talking about the Thomas in the Gospel and the 20th chapter of the Gospel of John. Often we referred to him as Doubting Thomas. We're going to talk about that a bit. What does that mean in our faith and how when we are speaking of our faith, is that an invitation to more deeply engage with our faith? Today, I'm joined by Rachel Ravellette, our Director of Communications in the Diocese of Central New York. I am DeDe Duncan-Probe, the diocesan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York. If you're wondering where that is, it's Canada to Pennsylvania, Utica, Elmira and all the beautiful places and people in between. So let's get into it, John 20. So here we have it starts off I love how this gospel begins because it starts off with the disciples were gathered in a room. The doors were locked for fear of the Jews. I mean, those days and which is not that dissimilar actually, from today when there's an insurrectionist, then the people who were following the insurrectionists are often gathered up and rounded up and imprisoned or also executed. So they're there. They're locked away. But Thomas is not with them. And I've always found that to be an interesting moment in this passage where it's like: Well, where is he? Why is he not afraid? So he's not getting - did he go out for groceries? You know, missed the memo? He got there late. Trains are not running on time. His alarm didn’t go off? I mean, I'm just wondering, you know, there's a lot for fear of the Jews, but Thomas was not with them. And this is the same Thomas that several chapters earlier has said,“Let us go with Jesus to Jerusalem, that we may die with him.” There is certainly this is not a shrinking violet type person. This is somebody who is a zealot, somebody who's committed and somebody who is not gathered in fear. And that right away is an indication of this relationship between Thomas and the other disciples. But also, maybe it implies something else. So then we move on. And so then the other disciples have an encounter with the risen Jesus. And then when Thomas does get there, they're like, “We have seen the Lord; we saw Jesus!” and Thomas, his response is, “Well, unless I see Jesus and touch His hands and his side, I will not believe.” And the thing that really strikes me about this is Thomas knows who he's looking for. And I wonder when we talk about Jesus or we talk about God or we're talking about faith. I wonder if we know exactly what it is we're looking to find. Thomas has a very realized understanding that he is looking for his rabbi, his Lord, his teacher, the person he's been traveling with. He's looking for this guy that he has seen die on a cross and he wants to touch the physical feet and side. He wants physical proof. And I don't know about you, but I hear people often say, “Well, if only I could have seen it. If only I could have been there.”“Well, the disciples are so lucky because they got to meet Jesus and really could believe because they're sitting with him.” And I wonder for us in what ways that desire for certitude gets in the way of our faith. Because what we're looking for, I think, often is facts and not faith or assurances or something else. Because faith, as the Apostle Paul will tell us, is, you know, the things that are not seen, the evidence of things not seen. That faith is something we believe. We know it to be true. Maybe especially when it cannot be proven, when it is something that is true for us, where there's verifiable evidence of its impact on our life. But we can't exactly touch it or see it. So for all of us, as we're speaking of our faith, this desire for certitude can really get in the way. And I don't know about you, but I hear lots of folks saying, “Well, I just don't know enough to talk about God,” or “I don't know enough to share my faith because I need to know more.” And that is probably true. I think we're all growing in our faith. But I also wonder if it isn't sort of a way of saying,“I need more facts, I need more proof, I need more verifiable evidence so I can make an argument for God,” rather than proclaim the love of Jesus and be a witness to God. And those are kind of different motivations. When we speak of our faith. We're proclaiming something we have encountered that has transformed our own lives. So here with Thomas, knowing what he's asked, he's asked to see. Well, then there's another gathering, Thomas, with them. This time. And Jesus appears again and, and then says to Thomas, “Hey, I hear you weren't believing. Here's my hands and my side. You know, you want to, you know, touch them. I mean, you know, are you ready to believe in the reality of this resurrection?” And Tom's- Thomas's response is, “My Lord and my God,” he sees now with new eyes that the person he's looking for is not a human being. His walking in and doing necessarily the the things of a human being. Although in the gospel narratives Jesus says eats with the disciples, you know, does spend time with them. He also apparates and walks through doors. So, you know, there are a lot of variants in the post-resurrection narratives“Apparates!” There’s your Harry Potter connection for the day. And so, you know, but in this case, the reality of the resurrection to Jesus is before Thomas. And he believes and then Jesus says,“You know, you doubted. Blessed are those who've not seen and yet believed in the gospel reality.” But also it's more than that, I think, is what I hear you saying, Bishop, that Thomas is looking for just the physical and and in meeting Jesus in that way realizes that his certainty of what he was looking for, it's so much more than he could have imagined. So much deeper and so much more beautiful than that. That's right. And I think this is where you're kind of there's kind of a bit of an inclusio in a way, an an inclusio is a is a literary structure that's used throughout the gospel of John. It's a literary structure where two stories kind of mirror each other and there's a whole - I could spend a whole episode on describing inclusio, but just look it up. It's a really interesting literary device that this gospel uses, but you can kind of see with the woman at the well and with this this place here with Thomas, this understanding that you were expecting one thing, but Jesus comes to you with another that's so much more abundant. With the woman, it's water that's just physical water as we would see out of a spigot. With Jesus, it's overflowing, river of life, eternal water of an eternal source. Here you have Thomas looking for this human, and he encounters the risen Lord of all. And so this this understanding that in seeing is believing, but also for the gospel of John to believe, is to see, is to understand. And it ends - I love the fact that this this section of the passage(or if you want another big word “pericope”) this the end of it is that this gospel is written that you may believe, dear reader. So this gospeler is writing into the text a way of understanding the resurrection of Jesus that includes you and I, that invites us to see incarnation only through the eyes of Thomas, our own doubts and fears, our own wonderings, our own suspicions, our own wrestling with what resurrection can mean. And then to encounter Jesus through Thomas's first certainty and then transformation of belief that what we may be looking for is a God who's answering our prayers. But what we may encounter is a God who's Lord of all and who is beyond all. And so for our own understanding and processing of the resurrection of Jesus, speaking about it is also to invite in the mystery of it. We can't fully know what resurrection means. We don't fully know what to make of this story. Even biblical scholars or theologians down through the ages have talked about resurrection and and how do we understand it and how does it invite us to deeper meaning. But in this passage, we have an opportunity to see in Thomas the ways in which our own lives are transformed. When we finally see and understand that God has come to meet us in the person of Jesus, that we are invited into a deep relationship that goes beyond this mortal realm that transcends all, and that God's love is inviting us to a much deeper understanding in our own hearts and lives than we may have first thought. And those are some of the things about this passage that really stick out to me as we're reading it today and looking and talking about resurrection. I appreciate, Bishop, how you've framed this in terms of doubt. I've heard a lot of people over the years talk about, “Well, yeah, Thomas was doubting, and that's not good. But sometimes you doubt too, so don't be so hard on him.” But what you've really done here is shown how doubt in a lot of ways is a move of faith. And last summer I had the tremendous honor to get to serve as a lay chaplain to the staff at an Episcopal camp here in the diocese of Eastern Michigan. Camp Chickagami. And so it's a group of, you know, barely 20 somethings. And that's just my favorite age and stage to work with because they question everything. And when they found out why I was there, I mean, some of them were raised in the Episcopal Church. Some of them were raised in no church, anything and everything. And when they found out why I was there, they were really suspicious of me. And like, “You know, I don't I don't know if I believe. I'm - I'm full of doubts. And so if you're here to get rid of my doubts, then then I don't think you and I have anything to talk about.” And I became kind of famous for saying,“No, I’m - I'm here to help you, like, get used to doubts and encourage the doubts.” And by the end of the summer, they were calling me their “Doubt Doula.” But it's this - there was real beauty in it because having that certainty, like you talked about it, that certitude that I know what it should look like and therefore if I don't see it, it's not real. And you know, you can't take a logical syllogism to this. Certainty - doubt leaves room to if you embrace it, to be surprised and to have experiences of resurrection which are all around us, I mean, most notably in the story of Jesus. But resurrection is a part of life on Earth. Father Richard Rohr talks about this. A lot of how resurrection, he says, isn't something to believe in as much as it is something to observe and be taught by. You can even look in natural processes in nature of transformation and metamorphosis. And so I love that you've framed doubt here really as a gift. And and a word that we use a lot, an invitation to experience the way that God is working in, around, and among you. Well, and I think, you know, I Yes, absolutely. And that is also reality because, you know, we don't know at all. And we don't know all about God. And so one of the things about doubt is it it automatically not only moves us toward curiosity and humility, because to doubt something is to recognize not knowing, but it also allows space for a a reality of of being. And so we can never fully know anything. And we're so used to being in a world especially right now, that is pretty certain that we can know everything. And all of us, I think, are acquainted with the people we might refer to as “Know it Alls.” But we also are acquainted with our own desire to never be wrong, to be embarrassed when we're wrong, and our own movement toward, well,“I need to know more so I can feel good” instead of being into those- Yeah, it really is. And it comes out of a sinfulness of wanting to replace God, I think, with our own superiority. You know, if I if I'm the expert, then I no longer have any vulnerability. I have encased myself in my “expert-ness.” But here with Thomas, he is not encased in “expert-ness.” He is driven by passion and desire.“If I don't see that Jesus, I know, I can't touch his hands and side.” I mean, this is somebody that consistently throughout these passages where he's talked about really comes from a place of sort of full, you know, emotional presence. You know, he's he's kind of at it, you know, coming at it and but with a willingness to yield and be wrong. And, “My Lord and my God.” you know, and and and and the ability to be wrong within with that invitation is very powerful. And I think we you know, I think resurrection is something we experience. We all have had those moments where we felt that we would never survive the next moment or where just seems like everything is closing in around us. And then this, you know, this this moment of transformation, whatever may shift the narrative and suddenly we find ourselves gaining new life, you know, the joy coming in the morning, the the it starts to turn and then then we find ourselves out emotionally, kind of in a broad plane, if you will, quoting the Psalms, where we've been restored and renewed. And we're there's new life and new opportunity. And so we've moved with Jesus through the passion, through the death and now through the resurrection. It's something that isn't just an end-of-life-reality. We're not waiting for the“the sweet by and by.” Resurrection is something we experience today. It was something we experience tomorrow, something that in our own lives draws us to healing and wholeness, which is where I would say that doubt is actually the doorway to healing. Because, you know, the things we're certain about, we don't question. And that often means we also ignore, disregard or overlook because - we have blinders on. We just think we know. You know, it's like that. There's just no other way. But doubt is what causes us to say, “Wait a minute, maybe I need to explore this. Why am I feeling this way?” And then when we walk through our doubt, trusting, God will meet us there. We come out on the other side being transformed by our doubt. And so I think that to faith is an essential ingredient. In fact, I don't think you can have faith without it. If you've never doubted your faith, if you've never doubted or wondered, “Can this really be true? How can we know that it's true?” Because it becomes an assent to an ideal, or it becomes something that's not faith at all, but is rather an ideological belief. And so a truism that we just hold on to desperately because, you know, at the core of our faith, as I say all the time, is “relationship, relationship, relationship.” And part of relationship is being wrong, seeking forgiveness, making an amendment of life, starting again. You know, sharing good times, being surprised, being willing to make space for transformation and with the resurrection of Jesus and with these disciples cloistered away in a separate room out of fear, which the disciples gathered in fear. Here you have Thomas being unafraid and then being confronted with God and then repenting and receiving. So for each of us, there's this beautiful opportunity to see our own movement toward healing and wholeness. Restoration and the experience of resurrection in this day and in this time. It it reminds me, Bishop of of Jesus lifting up children as exemplars. My my own kiddo is 11, and she's still in that phase of she'll hear a phrase and not - especially idioms - and not really know how it works. Right. And she'll just try it out somewhere. And sometimes it works. And sometimes it's, you know, it has this unintended funny moments. But she she talked about that the other day of, “You know, I think I'm still trying to figure out language,” and, you know, it makes me think of in a lot of our Episcopal churches and churches in the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. One formation tool they use is Godly Play, right? This wonder-based, Montessori-modeled approach to children's formation. And it comes with this underlying assumption that children don't need us to teach them about God. They have inherent dignity and personhood and experience God and see God at work in the world around us. They just don't have the same language as us. And so when I hear people say, “Well, I just don't know enough to talk about my faith,” or I wonder if some of it is, we're being grown ups and we think we need to have that control, that having the right answers gives us. And so we're not open to, again, experiences and trusting our own experiences of God and of the Spirit at work within us. And so like you talked about those blinders are on and we only see what we see. We're missing out where we're. Thomas looking for somebody who looks like Jesus and sort of the wholeness of Jesus. That's right. Because you can really hear, at least I do with Thomas, the sorrow that he has felt and even being outside the doors and not locked up with the disciples in fear, there's almost a wondering if he's out looking for “What do I do now? You know, and I'm kind of a stranger and and seeking, you know, trying to seeking to understand in all ways.” And so I think we've misnamed Thomas. I think doubt is very powerful and good. I totally understand people wanting to embrace a disciple who's doubting. I just don't think he's doubting Jesus. I think he's doubting Peter and the disciples because he's like, unless, you know, because you have to we have to not forget that in between the crucifixion and this moment has been Peter's refutation of Jesus, the disciples running away, at least. I mean, Peter actually hung in there a little bit longer. Thomas himself may have run away. We you know, there's the you know, kind of we don't have the facts of who was where when, but we do know that that Peter has refuted even knowing Jesus ever even hearing. And here he's saying, “I saw the Lord.” And Thomas's response is, “You didn't even know him, you know, and you refuted him. And so how am I going to believe you? Because you haven't been telling the truth about him at all.” And so the doubting piece, you know, I think we've I think he's kind of “Zealot Thomas” or “Thomas who’s confined to this mortal reality.”[RomComm] or “Seeking” or “Longing Thomas” Yeah. And so he's, he's, he's on a mission and he's but he also represents us because he's outside of the disciples gathering. He's a he's an outsider in this, in this passage about where he's he's not in the in-group. And we're not either. We're not there with the disciples. We are we're looking into this moment. And I think it's very profound that this gospel writer has written us into the narrative in this way, where we can see through Thomas, where Thomas is saying what we say still about Jesus, and where the gospel writer has written this that we too may believe, that we may know. I find it very profound that we have this exemplar in Thomas. So dear friend, wherever you are on your life's journey, and whatever your belief is in resurrection and in Jesus, speak about your faith with one another and with those you love. Speak about the faith in a searching way and know that this is not about knowing, but being known by God. It's not about having all the right answers, but having a seeking, seeking heart that is longing for God and relationship. May you be blessed and be a blessing. And I look forward to seeing you at the next podcast. Take good care. Thanks for joining us. Speaking of faith with Bishop DeDe is a production of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York. Our theme music is by Felice Mob, and it's called, “A Bird in Hand.” We use it with permission. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast through your favorite podcasting app so that you can be the first to know when new episodes are available. If you like what you've heard here, please leave us a rating and review. If you don't like what you've heard here, we're sure you're still a wonderful person, but maybe don't leave us a review? Just kidding. We love honest feedback and questions. You can connect with us online between episodes at cnyepiscopal.org/podcast Blessings to you, friends.