So here we are in easter, and we are stepping through the stages of Jesus story .  When the previously dead Jesus appeared to many people until he ascends to heaven where he lives and is alive today.

Wait

Did you hear what  just said?

Sounds so normal to us Christians doesn’t it, 

or does it? Because truth  be told, we have all looked at that at some point, wondered, and thought that is mad.

On some levels it of course is by our mundane levels of normality. dead people don’t walk around showing off the wounds that killed them to prove who they are.

We kind of all go, well Thomas that’s you sorted. 

But we also have days when we see just how mad it is.

Miracles of course are by their definition mad, because they have to break rules of nature , maths, sanity and normality to be miracles. 

However

We also know that the world is more than you can measure, add up, see or touch.  Our senses are not all the world, they are just the tools we are given.

But this story butts up against that what we see as totality 

It’s extending Thomas idea of possible , but today 

Todays sermon is about the days when we can’t see past normal and find it hard to accept and doubt.

What do we do about that?

How do we react to doubt ?

In Christmas we are careful to ensure all the people who may be unhappy are included.

On Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, we ensure those without parents or recently bereaved are supported.

Easter, when we are asked to have faith that Jesus rose from the dead, what do we do with the doubters?

The fact that they don’t get a mention says a lot.

They are disregarded almost as party poopers.

However

I think Christian’s need to work on how we react to our and 

others doubt 

What should we do, think and act when we find people who doubt, and when we ourselves doubt.

That’s all of us at some point by the way.

I would say we can be unkind to ourselves and others when we doubt 

The reverse of loving others and ourselves.

As a whole 

We all want and portray an Instagram-perfect relationship with God,. Every Christian hymn and song on the radio is this soaring love affair with a God we are certain about.
They all sound like the first flush of love, when we first come to God, but as with all relationships when humans are involved long term  it isn’t like that

We all have doubts at times, I’m here to say it’s ok even good!

doubt and the reality of it is writ large all through the bible.

Abraham doubted when God told him that an aged Sarai would become pregnant, and God was offended when he heard her snicker behind the curtain?

The psalms are full of doubt, Jesus asked why he was forsaken.

Julian of Norwich noted when God said I shall make all things well, and all things shall be well etc.

What’s less noted is that god 

Was responding to her doubts and questions

Julian, also describes four kinds of fear, the third of which is doubt. Doubt as a fear may describe why we talk so little about it.
Why we feel uncomfortable when we speak of it.
Why we try to hide it and portray certainty?

Today I wonder 

I wonder 
Why whenever anyone does or is brave enough to show it. We do what we do in very few other circumstances,
We sort of speak over it, tell them to get over it, offer cures like its an illness, and try and pull them along.
Secretly of course feeling our own doubt rise and hoping they stop speaking soon.

I think some of the great preachers are thus because for a little while they can make us certain, more certain than usual.
We have gone past asking depressed people to cheer up!

But we blithely tell people who doubt, pray about it.

Doubt can make it hard to pray of course, because doubt can make us wonder to whom we are praying too.

That difficulty of prayer when we doubt can be made worse by expecting deep formal prayer at those times.

True routine can be the ladder back, a way to keep going.
Hopefully anyone who went on our lent course has seen the lie that God needs formal prayer.
Or seen the diversity of prayer, or wondered what God see’s as “good” prayer.

In the same way that we see good and bad prayer, I think we sometimes put faith and doubt in good/bad boxes.

I have no doubt, that the enemy likes doubt better said  really likes how we react to doubt and that has to change.
We have to stop putting doubt in bad box.

Why 
I have no doubt that doubt and moving through the phases of it is how we become stronger in faith.
Even extended, crippling periods 
I had 15 years of doubt and testing of Jesus before I wrote a very long email to Jane and came here.
Resolving those doubts are now the foundation of my faith, the very basis of my evangelism.
Because I can now state that he overcame my doubts with persistence, his patience, and logic.
but it wouldn’t matter if  I hadn’t yet. Because his timing is perfect.

however to enable that timing, to be his enabler  we have to change

I think that how we speak to each other about our doubts in church or worse still how we don’t has to change.
Its almost a taboo subject, and its slowing us down.

Fear of doubt stops us doing evangelism in case someone makes us doubt.

It stops us reaching out to those that doubt in case its infectious?

Jesus however just goes, have a look here you are, see the proof?

He understands its normal, just like some of those bodily functions we don’t talk about.

Normal , but covered up and made something to be ashamed or guilty of as a result.

I am here to say Jesus never reacted to Thomas doubt with shock or shame.
Never told him to shut up, never made him feel abnormal, lesser etc.
Never thought of his doubt as bad…
Have a look at my wounds.

Alas not many of us have the risen Jesus to sort of poke our fingers in, but he’s up for any other sort of inquiry. 

I have no doubt, that doubt is just part of the journey of faith. 
We as a church must find new and better ways of helping each other through these periods, not searching for a cure, not seeking solutions but being present.

Worst of all sort of slipping away, or making the space awkward when people doubt.
Not even hoping they come through it really, because they will or wont in God’s time.
But knowing we love them just the same and are happy to be around doubt, and lean on our faith to pray for all.
Jesus met many doubters and prayed for them all.

We need to seek out those who doubt in our community, those inside and outside these walls.

the evangelical. And catholic church overcomes this by replacing places of doubt with a certain theology.~

Don’t doubt here are the answers….

But when questions arise this certainty that approach leaves no room to explore. I have also seen many fall by the wayside as they cannot reconcile the received wisdom with their own experience.

I don’t think certainty about everything on a God who is more than we can ever imagine is ever the way to faith 
I think we only grow through doubt, and we will only truly do that when we lose our fear of it, and lose our desire to stay away from it.
To love and Not cure those who have it. To understand they have dared to grow, as opposed to seen or  shown assome sort of betrayal or weakness 
They will take the journey our lord has for them, and for us?
We can pray
To bring God in when we can.

That I think it when we and our church begin to grow.

Doubt is normal, doubt is growing, and doubt is how we find out more about our God and us together 

Jesus is quite happy to let us just stick our fingers into him, and find out however we need to have faith in him.
Sometimes he just lets us learn through doubt

Ask Thomas, Ask Sarah or Abraham.
If your able
Ask Jesus.