Reading for Easter
2B: John 20:19-31
April 27, 2003
The Rev. Karen Siegfriedt
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino,
CA
Today we read the gospel story about "doubting" Thomas. Thomas had not been with the other disciples when the risen Christ appeared to them. Being a pragmatic man, Thomas thought that the disciples' report about Jesus' appearance after his death was a bunch of blarney. After all, the concept of resurrection does not make much sense to the practical mind. Instead of responding to this event with faith (as one would expect a good disciple to do), Thomas responded by saying: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." Thus, Thomas has become the patron saint of those who won't believe unless they see it first hand. He is also the patron saint of those who adhere only to the scientific method of discerning truth. Today I am going to continue my sermon series on the subject of agnosticism and doubt.
Imagine walking through a tropical paradise; the sun shining brightly through the trees and the smell of exquisite flowers filling the air. Imagine hearing the songs of beautiful birds and feeling the coolness of the soil under your feet. In this grace filled moment you feel the reality of God. There are no doubts in your mind and you feel "one" with the Creator. Now imagine a different scenario. You have lost your job, your child is having major problems in school, and you wake up one night overwhelmed by chaos, by feelings of emptiness, by doubt. You no longer feel the presence of God nor can you even imagine God's existence. Your heart and mind tell you that the existence of God is simply a psychological ploy to protect people from the reality of a meaningless universe.
Does this mean that one day your faith is strong and that on the other day it is weak? Is faith a matter of being able to imagine or somehow feel the existence of God? Not necessarily. It might mean that one day you had a strong imagination, an openness to the power and presence of God. It might mean that during the darker time, the strain and preoccupations of life have reduced or muddied your perception of the holy. The mind is not always up to the task of imagining God's existence and the heart is often inept in giving us any feeling of God's existence. But God does not cease to exist for that reason, nor is faith dead just because the imagination and the heart have run dry. God exists independent of our perception. Faith is something much deeper than imagination and feeling.
It is important to understand this because we live in a culture that, for the most part, no longer imagines the existence of God. Our culture has basically concluded that God does not exist. This notion is present everywhere. Who among us does not have a friend or relative who is convinced that God does not exist because he or she can no longer conjure up God at the level of imagination or feeling?
I suspect that this is also true for many of us who are church goers. We live lives of quiet agnosticism (agnosticism meaning uncertainty about the existence of God). Our faith often feels like doubt. While we may have some vague notion of God while sitting in the pews, our everyday consciousness contains little of no awareness of God. Our choices in life are often made from a place of personal desire rather than from a place of love. We have icons in our church but not in our hearts. As a result, our religion has become compartmentalize and dogmatic. The joy, the hope, and the love of God in creation becomes a "wished for" commodity rather than a personal experience.
The reason for this agnosticism is not because we are bad or stupid or hedonistic. It is because we "live and move and breathe in a cultural software that no longer gives us the tools to experience God" in our daily lives. The natural air that we breathe here in Silicon Valley is agnostic, even atheistic. This is why it is such a struggle to imagine and feel God's presence in the 21st century. In his book, The Shattered Lantern*, Ronald Rolheiser claims that we have lost our natural ability to experience wonder, mystery, and the power and presence of God. Narcissism, pragmatism, and restlessness are the culprits that have muddied and reduced our perception of God. In order to clear the cobwebs from our eyes, we first need to address the issues of narcissism, pragmatism, and restlessness, and then learn how to walk the path that Jesus has shown to us. This week, I will speak to the issue of pragmatism but first let me review the issue of narcissism which I spoke about last week.
Narcissism is an excessive preoccupation with the self. Someone, somewhere, sometime, has given us the message that we should be healthy, happy, wealthy, and wise all of the time. And if for some reason we should experience pain and disappointment, we have been taught to stop the world and focus only on ourselves. When this happens, we (rather than God) become the center of the universe. As we draw ourselves away from the love of God and from showing love to others, society suffers and agnosticism is the result.
Pragmatism is another culprit in the faith journey. Pragmatism is a way of understanding the meaning of life in practical terms: What is true is what works! Worth lies in achievement. Things are good if they work and what works is considered good. The ideals of pragmatism lie at the very heart of the Western mind. Pragmatic thinking undergirds our technological society, controls our educational systems, and causes us to be impatient with anything (or anybody) that is not immediately practical, useful, and efficient.
On the one hand, there are many benefits to being practical or pragmatic. Medicine, travel, and technology, are largely the result of pragmatism and we all enjoy their benefits. Pragmatism enhances order and achievement. The problem that arises however, is when pragmatism (rather than love) becomes the central operating principle. If the pragmatic principle is "what is good is what works", then the reverse can become true: "You are only as good as the work you do." This wreaks havoc within our lives, especially if we become unemployed, disabled, retired, or sick or if we want to walk to a different drummer.
In a pragmatic society, we feel good about ourselves only when we do things that society values as good and important. We feel bad about ourselves when society does not view our contribution as being valuable. Professional goals take precedence over family life, personal virtue, leisure, and prayer. We pass this philosophy onto our children. At a very early age, we enlist our children into the rat race of life, making sure their time is filled up with dance lessens, violin lessons, soccer lessons, and reading lessons. Before long, their natural ability to wonder and experience the mystery of God is worked out of them. They become human doings rather than human beings.
In a pragmatic society, the scientific method takes center stage and is viewed as the only trustworthy method for discerning truth. Science alone is given the right to establish the facts. Other disciplines (with a different method of knowing) such as philosophy, mysticism, poetry, metaphysics, or theology are considered to be purely subjective and thus are viewed less important. No one has ever seen an atom. Yet we all believe in its existence. No one has ever seen God, yet we doubt God's existence because God has failed our sense of seeing. Adhering only to the scientific method of discerning the truth, reduces our ability to perceive God. We are impoverished because of this and agnosticism is the price we pay.
When a sense of self worth depends only upon personal achievement, very few people are going to spend much time in prayer and contemplation. Prayer and contemplation are by definition non-utilitarian, pragmatically useless, a waste of time, a time when nothing is accomplished. But if we do not take the time to be more contemplative or to smell the roses, our perception of God will be reduced and the quality of our lives is diminished. Physical burnout, depression, restlessness, impatience and the inability to feel joy and peace, is the price we will pay.
Faith is something much deeper than only imagination and feeling. Faith is an orientation of the mind, the heart, the soul, and body, toward God, even in our dark and doubting moments. Jesus said: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." This is my prayer for all of the people at St. Jude's.
Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
* Much of the material in this sermon was gleaned from: The Shattered Lantern, by Ronald Rolheiser, Crossroad Publishing, NY, 2001.
| Updated 4/28/03 |
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