My Lord and My God
Looking up a quote for this blog I notice that it is attributed to two people. At the top of the Google search is Anne Lamott, a contemporary American political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher who writes mostly from an autobiographical perspective about alcoholism, single-motherhood, depression, and Christianity.
A little further down the list, the quote is attributed to the twentieth century German-American Christian existentialist philosopher and Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich.
It's only when I scrolled even further down the page that I came across a link to a Tweet on X that was posted by Anne Lamott in 2014. It read: "Paul Tillich said that the opposite of faith is not doubt - it's certainty. Some of most profound spiritual words ever. Score one for mystery."
If this proves anything of any importance, it suggests that finding our truths may take a little more effort that we first imagined. And that is without either the potential impact of artificial intelligence and fake news, or one of you telling me that it wasn't Tillich that said it first!
Sunday's gospel reading tells us that Thomas is on the same search for a truth: "Unless I place my finger in the hole in his hand, I will not believe".
Often when we are thinking about this passage we focus on Jesus appearing despite the doors being locked; Jesus doing that again a week later and knowing what Thomas needed of him; and Thomas' extraordinary reply - My Lord and My God.
Don't get me wrong, each of those three moments in the narrative are worthy of deep exploration and imaginative contemplation. Particularly those five words - My Lord and My God - in which Thomas declares that his relationship with Jesus of Nazareth is located within both this temporal world (My Lord) and the eternal order (My God).
However, ever since being introduced to (let's call it) Tillich's line - the opposite of faith is not doubt, it's certainty - about twenty years ago by a colleague in Reading, I have been increasingly drawn to Jesus' comment that immediately precedes Thomas' affirmation of faith.
Not so much the well-known bit: "Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.'" Rather the bit in between Jesus’ invitation to touch his hand and his side, and Thomas declaration of faith in Jesus as Lord and God.
In between, Jesus says "Do not doubt, but believe."
Here is Jesus pre-empting Tillich by a couple of thousand years and affirming the relationship between having doubt and moving beyond doubt. It's not a journey from doubt to certainty; it is a journey from doubt to belief, from doubt to faith.
Contemporary society increasingly demands that we are certain of what is the right thing to do, the right way to behave, the right thing to say, the right manner or culture or values. However, I suspect that I am not alone in often finding it hard to know what is the right thing to do, to say, to align myself with.
In an increasingly fractious world - and one that will become ever more fractious as we go through 2024 with more people than ever before going to the polls in any one year, with wars and insurrections in multiple places, with artificial intelligence and fake news on the rise - I fear the demand for certainty will only be matched by increasing scepticism, cynicism and suspicion of all those who hold, and those who seek to hold, power and authority.
Thankfully, the one in whom we find our truest self, who calls us to be no less than we already are, who loves us enough to walk towards us bearing the scars of crucifixion - isn't looking for certainty, for he has enough certainty for us all.
Thankfully, the one who calls us to himself, simply says:
"Do not doubt, but believe."
Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Alleluia.
