Doubt

A sermon about certainty and faith

“Do not doubt but believe.” These are the words Jesus speaks to the apostle Thomas, and they are read every year on the Sunday following the Resurrection: “Do not doubt but believe.”

Judging from the crowds still scooping up DVDs of Doubt starring Meryl Streep, skepticism remains our obsession. At the movie’s release in 2009, it was nominated in all major acting categories for both Oscars and Golden Globe Awards. Here was a bare bones, feature length film with no special effects, no gratuitous violence, no on-screen sex. All that Doubt used to rivet audiences and critics alike for 104 minutes was its intense focus on the paradoxical human experiences of belief and disbelief.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the plot, set in a working class Catholic parish in 1964. The priest, Fr. Flynn, is easy-going and affable, a real people-person. Sr. Aloysius, principal at the parish school, is stern and demanding. Sr. James, the new 8th grade teacher, is idealistic and earnest. She is eager to learn and do the right things. And that turns out to be easier said than done.

Especially the Sunday that Fr. Flynn preaches a comforting sermon on doubt as an experience everyone has from time to time. Sr. Aloysius simply cannot agree; she has grave doubts that there is any place for doubt in faith. She advises her fellow nuns that Fr. Flynn must have committed some sin that has caused him to doubt. She enlists her colleagues in watching him vigilantly, and she assures impressionable Sr. James that you can always tell when someone in deceiving you. As soon as you detect the lie, you take the matter to higher authorities and they will set things right.

This call to action sets fervent Sr. James in motion. One day Fr. Flynn calls Donald, a new student, down to the rectory. The boy is gone quite a while, and returns looking upset and smelling of alcohol. Sr. James dutifully reports the incident to Sr. Aloysius, who instantly suspects Flynn of abusing Donald. Sr. Aloysius launches a relentless crusade to force him from his position. Meanwhile Fr. Flynn tells quite a different story: Donald had been seen drinking the leftover Communion wine, and rather than discipline him openly he called the troubled boy to the rectory to have a heart-to-heart talk.

Sr. James is torn. What story should she doubt, and what story should she believe? Meanwhile Sr. Aloysius is on a tear. She summons Fr. Flynn to her office and tells him she has checked with nuns in his previous parish, and now knows the real story behind his departure. By this time Flynn has had his fill of being harassed, and he resigns. In the closing scene that follows, Sr. Aloysius admits to Sr. James that she never made that phone call. She justifies her own lying as a way of exposing Flynn’s—her deception worked to reveal his. She goes on to assert that removing all doubt comes at a cost. And then, just before the credits roll, she breaks down and sobs, “And I have such doubts…such doubts!”

The movie Doubt does a masterful job of dramatizing how zealous pursuit of truth often proves self-defeating. The more committed we become to eradicating doubt, the more reasons we give ourselves for doubting our own behavior. Absolute certainty is seldom given to us in this world, and we are far more faithful when we simply allow a certain amount of doubt to remain—like weeds growing among the wheat, as Jesus would say—rather than fighting to stamp it out. We best leave it to God, who in the end will sort everything out.

Today’s Gospel reminds us that following the Resurrection, many people frankly doubted. Certainly in that first chaotic week the disciples heard the rumors on the street. Some said that Jesus’ followers had stolen his body away, in order to remove all doubt that he had triumphed over his enemies. Others alleged that Jesus had never really died at all, but that at the last minute friends had helped him down from the cross, and nursed him back to health. The box office hit Last Temptation of Christ made millions by fanning this very suspicion. Today, 2000 years later, we still find ourselves fretting over doubt, as if faith could only survive under conditions of absolute certainty.

Yet pitting faith against doubt always turns into a trap, as Sr. Aloysius discovers. The harder we work to remove all doubt, the more doubtful things we find ourselves doing. We put innocence and truth at risk, we desecrate trust, and we become our own worst enemies.

“Do not doubt,” Jesus says, “but believe.” He is addressing himself here to the disciple Thomas, who right after the Resurrection misses the first visit Jesus makes to his friends. Thomas only hears about the eerie incident afterwards—as we do—from the others. He stubbornly holds out for Sr. Aloysius’ kind of certainty. “I have to have proof,” he insists in so many words, “or I will not believe.” So Thomas digs in his heels and makes himself the odd man out. Rather than tolerate the risk of being wrong, he forfeits his opportunity to have what the others have—a trusting relationship with the risen Jesus.

Now Jesus appears a second time, when Thomas is present. Jesus compassionately offers Thomas the kind of proof he insists he needs—“Here, reach out and touch me for yourself”—but it turns out that just being with Jesus, just restarting that personal and living relationship with Jesus, is what he really needs. Thomas’ probing hand drops to his side, his protesting jaw drops slack, and he gasps “My Lord and my God!”

Funny how that works. So long as we are set on removing all doubt first, and holding out for absolute certainty before we believe, we never will. But just open ourselves to a trusting relationship with Christ, and the doubts disappear. Faith is known to work like that, working far better things in us and for us than we can hope or imagine. Amen. Listen to the Sermon: