Confirmation & Pentecost 23

        November 12, 2006

     A defendant was on trial for murder.  There was strong evidence indicating guilt, but there was no body.  In the defense’s closing statement the lawyer, knowing that his client would probably be convicted, resorted to a trick: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you all,” the attorney said as he looked at his watch.  “Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom.”

     He looked toward the courtroom door.  The jurors, somewhat stunned, all looked on eagerly.  A minute passed.  Nothing happened.  Finally, the lawyer said, “Actually, I made up the previous statement.  But you all looked on with anticipation.  I therefore submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that there is reasonable doubt in this case as to whether anyone was killed and insist that you return a verdict of not guilty.”

     The jury, clearly confused, retired to deliberate.  In less than an hour, the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty.  Before the jury left the courtroom, the defense attorney said, “But how?  You must have had some doubt.  I saw all of you stare at the door.”

     The jury foreman said, “Oh, we looked, but your client didn’t.”

     Reasonable doubt can be a powerful force in issues other than determining the guilt or innocence of a person accused of committing a crime.  Reasonable doubt can be and, I would suggest, needs to be a part of the Christian life.  Accepting everything in blind faith or accepting the interpretation of another person can lead to spiritual laziness and can lead to intellectual bankruptcy.  The instructions from a rabbi named Jesus are that we “love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength.”  There is no room in those instructions for assumptions that someone can do that for us.  There is a cultural bias today that seems to indicate that doubt is a negative reality in the spiritual life and if one just believes a certain way all doubt will be removed.  It didn’t happen for the first disciples who stood watching, listening to, and learning from Rabbi Jesus; it probably won’t happen for us either.  Doubt is a part of life, just as it needs to be. 

     Some of those first followers had doubts.  They did not have any special advantage over those who would follow.  It wasn’t any easier for them to believe than it is for us.  Yes, they were eyewitnesses of some things as they unfolded in history, but that didn’t make it any easier to believe those things. 

     “Well, Peter, it could have been an optical illusion up there on Transfiguration Mountain.  You said yourself that exhaustion and sleep overcame all three of you.  Your brain was just playing tricks on you.”

     “Well, some people said that Bartimaeus could already see a little bit anyway and Jesus probably just knocked a few grains of sand from his eyes.  It wasn’t a big deal.”

     “My younger brother stood up on the bank of the lake and pointed out where the schools of fish were.  We caught more than the boat could hold.  What’s so special about him helping you all catch some fish?”

     “Rose from the dead my foot!  The soldiers I talked to said someone came in the night when they were playing cards and took the body away.  It’s a Passover plot I tell you.”

     So, they stand in front of a man who rose from the dead and they have some doubts.  There must be some logical explanation.  We wouldn’t want people to think we were crazy.  If you have a problem believing in the resurrection of Jesus, don’t be too upset, because some of his first disciples had a problem with it too.

     But, notice that Jesus didn’t pay much attention to their doubts.  Apparently, he knew it would be a natural thing.  He gave the Great Commission to all of them, even to those who had doubts.  Our doubts don’t really mean much to him, either.  We don’t have to know all the verses of the Bible by heart and we don’t have to have everything all figured out.  We don’t have a grasp on the “whole truth and nothing but the truth.”  There will always be loose ends, difficult scriptures, and issues on which we can’t agree.  Faith and knowledge are not the same.  Faith asks that we work toward loyalty and obedience, in spite of our doubts.  Knowledge makes us good at Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit.

     As I have said before, it is the Eucharist that binds us together.  Only at this table are those difference kept in check.  Here we stand unified; not because of anything we have done or can do, but because of what Jesus has done for us.  Artificial, man-made barriers are torn down in the obedience of this one called Jesus the Christ.  All people of all nations are invited and are to share in the communion of this church.  There are no divisions between the apostles and those who are converted to the faith.  The commandments and the precepts of the faith apply to all people.  There are no inside secrets, no super-Christians, no special knowledge, and no ranks of salvation.  In Christ we are all the same whether we like it or not; whether or not we acknowledge that oneness or continue to claim some privilege based on race, color, national origin, status, gender, or creed. 

     We have been given the Great Commission.  We have been made the inheritors of this task.  We are to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.  We are to baptize in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We are to teach all that we have been taught, leaving room for the idea that we still have much more to learn.  We are believers in the God of the “yet many things.” 

     We are never on our own.  We have the last part of the Great Commission on which to depend.  The one who sends us out in his name also says, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”  Of that fact there can be no reasonable doubt.  Amen.