Genesis 15:1-18
February 24, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church, San Francisco, CA
Before we focus in on Abram and Genesis, let’s look back at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, in chapter 28. It is the account of the end of Jesus’ time with his disciples. The risen Christ has been with his disciples for an extended period of time immediately after his resurrection. In Luke, he has been traveling with some friends to Emmaus. In John, he appeared in front of Thomas and the other disciples in a house behind locked doors. Jesus showed up when the disciples were fishing and even made breakfast for them on the beach. The risen Christ instructed Peter to feed his sheep. After all of these revelations and teachings, Jesus is now getting ready to ascend to the Father and to leave them.
Matthew says that they worshipped him as the resurrected Lord. And it must have been a time of incredible glory with the risen Christ physically, visibly standing before them as irrefutable proof of God’s love, God’s power, and God’s defeat of death and sin. We would say, “Seeing is believing.”
But then Matthew adds, “But some doubted.” In Matthew 28:16-17, we read, “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”
Here they had the risen Christ standing before them, teaching them, and some doubted? What did they doubt about? How could they doubt? Jesus standing right in front of them, speaking directly with them and they doubted?
We normally think that we have doubts about Christ or scripture because there is so much time between us and the origins of these events that are being described. A 2000-year gap of history separates us from the original moments that are reported in scripture. Shouldn’t we doubt about the things recorded in the scriptures actually happened that way?
But here, when there was no historical gap, when the risen Christ is standing before them physically and visibly, “some doubted.”
Why did they doubt? I wonder if our deepest doubts about Christ are not related to a problem of a historical gap between Christ and us but rather to another kind of gap between Christ and us. Christ comes to us in all of his glory. But God comes to us as Jesus of Nazareth, as the crucified savior, is doubt-producing. We have doubts because God has come to us in a form quite different from the form that we expected.
I mentioned a few months ago that I love superhero movies when the saviors of humanity defeat the bad guys. While some of the superheroes had some weaknesses, they ultimately prevail and world peace is restored. We like that kind of story even if it’s fiction and Hollywood made.
In the words and deeds of Jesus Christ, God is revealed to us to be something other than our divine or superhero expectations. Therefore there is doubt. We might believe that Jesus really is Lord, but a crucified Lord? Lent can be a time when we doubt—not that we doubt that the events of Lent are true, but rather we doubt it is true that this is the way God really is.
I know that there are some of you in the congregation who hear this word, doubt, as a word of comfort. You too have doubted and perhaps still doubt. Recently, I was thinking about who in the 11:20 English congregation have yet accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And without naming names and making you all squirm in your seats again for a second week, I can see that there are many of you who may still be doubting! But today, I want to reassure you, doubters that you are, you are okay and you bring the gift of doubting to our church.
Abram
In today’s Old Testament lesson we have the story of God coming to Abram and telling this very old, childless man that God is going to make a great people out of him, a family as numerous as the stars in the sky. And what is Abram’s reaction? Doubt. Abram is dumbfounded that God really means to do this miraculous work through him. Abram who eventually is renamed, Abraham, the father of our faith, the man who is honored by three different world religions as a symbol of the faithful person, was also a person of doubt.
God comes to Abram and promises to make a great people out of him, beginning by giving him a son. Abram is now a resident alien in the land; one day his people will call this land home. God makes a covenant with his people, a promise in which God agrees to do something for Abram and his people. This initiative is all God’s. Curiously, the promise does not require an immediate response from Abram. All he has to do at this point is to hear and receive the promise that God gives.
And yet there’s a problem. In the first six verses that we read, we see that Abram resists God’s promise. Abram doubted God’s promise. But here is the point of the sermon for today. If Abram didn’t resist God’s promises, there would be no need for divine reassurance. For one thing, Abram and Sarai are childless, so even if God told them that they would be blessed with a son, it’s simply not a one-word event. Abram and Sarai will be wondering and questioning and doubting for at least 9 months until the miracle happens. It’s going to be a long journey.
Abram would have lots of opportunities to doubt and to believe as he lives out God’s covenant. Both before verse 2 and after verse 8 receiving the covenant that God was making with Abram, he expresses doubts.
Somehow doubt is being linked to covenant; doubt and faith appear to go together. The covenant is not given to Abraham because of his belief, but rather preceding his belief and despite his disbelief.
Our Doubts
Sometimes we in the church give doubt a bad name. The presumption is that if you were spiritually attuned, if you were spiritually perceptive, you wouldn’t have doubt. You would have firm faith.
Undoubtedly, some of you think that people like pastors have no doubt at all. Some of you see us pastors and expect to see unwavering faith. When your world might be all messed up or tilting on shaky grounds, you want your pastors to be strong and stable in the faith. You expect that from us. You pay us for that.
I’m sorry to say that your pastor doubted and still have doubts today. I have questions about religion and science and wonder about how to integrate the two. While I believe in God’s miracle of healing, I doubt at times when healing doesn’t take place according to my expectations and timetable. I preach a lot about peace and justice and that Christ is the Prince of Peace. But when I continue to see how people are at war with each other or that violence permeates our society with such human atrocities or that our culture seems to be addicted to selfishness, I doubt if peace and justice would ever come. When I am honest, really honest with you, I have doubts.
But then the Gospels present a quite different picture. Jesus didn’t seem to have great difficulty with people who had doubts. For instance, in the Gospel of John, when the risen Christ appears to his disciples, Thomas shamelessly doubts. Jesus responds to Thomas, not so much with rebuke, but with a gracious offer. “Touch my side. Touch my wounds. You need visible proof? Here it is. Don’t be thankless but believing.”
In other words, Jesus ministers to Thomas’ doubts. Jesus graciously offers Thomas what he needs to move from doubt to faith. Jesus ministers to my doubts too.
In all the Gospels, Jesus had big problems, not with people who had honest doubts about who he was, where he was from, what he was doing; the problems Jesus had were people who were so cocksure about what they believed and what they knew for sure. These people said not only, “We doubt that this one is the Messiah, the one sent from God,” but also said, “We know for sure that he can’t be God. We know for sure who God is, and what God is like. And we know for sure that Jesus isn’t it.” These were the people that Jesus had problems with.
As we shall be reminded later in this season of Lent, Jesus was put on the cross not by people full of doubts, but by people full of certitude.
All human thought, particularly human thought in the modern world; are driven by the engine of doubt. When we approach something unfamiliar, we don’t say, “I know,” but rather, we ask, “What is that?”
How do we know anything for sure? Usually, the questions “What is that?” or “What is this?” set in motion the process whereby we are moved from questions to greater certainty and a richer understanding. Our view of the world is that it’s not fixed and self-evident. The world must be thought through. Reality must be doubted, discussed, in order for us to understand.
Some people think that this is exactly what is wrong with life in the modern world. People doubt everything. People refuse to take anything on face value. The staff last week studied an article about the “disillusioned generation” that exists in our society and in the church who often feel marginalized. The point of the article is that this worldview or view of the church is exactly what we need to renew our churches. We need people who may be disillusioned about everything, challenges and doubts what is happening in order for us to restore the church for today.
Doubt Leads to Faith
God comes to Abram, late in life, and promises him a future. Old Abraham and Sarah shall be the founders of a great nation, a nation that will be a blessing to all the nations. Abraham responds with consternation and doubt: How can this be? What sort of God would make a promise like this to someone like me? What does this mean for my life?
I expect that there are many in our congregation who can identify with Abraham and his doubts. In a sense, all of us are children of Abraham, all of us are not completely understanding what God is doing with us, how God intends to use us, what tomorrow might bring in our walk with God as we doubt and question.
I can tell you that as a preacher what a preacher asks of a congregation is an open teachable spirit. A preacher’s greatest fear is that the congregation’s response to a sermon will be: “I’m sure about that.” or “I’m absolutely certain about that.” or “I heard that before many times.”
What we preachers crave is a congregation full of people who listen to a sermon with reactions like, “How can that be?” “Wow, I guess I didn’t know God as well as I previously thought.” These are the stuff of good, biblical, even faithful doubt.
The Christian writer, Frederick Beuchner says, “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep faith alive and moving.”
The poet Tennyson said, “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”
In a way, these short pithy statements sum up what I am trying to say today. Doubt is often a necessary step toward mature and firmer faith. Jesus can work with our doubts; he has a greater challenge with our certainties.
When confronted with honest doubt, Jesus’ typical move is not rejection but rather ministry to our doubt. When Matthew says that some who were in the presence of the risen Christ “doubted,” notice that Jesus continued to minister to them in their doubts. He continued to speak with them, to command them, to say things like, “All authority on heaven and on earth was given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
Believe me, I pray and want all of you who still have doubt to come to the point in your journey to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior by being baptized and join the church. I get paid for that.
But honestly, I hope that you see that doubt as good news and a gift that you bring to this congregation. If we had a whole congregation of “friends” rather than members because you still have doubts, that would still be good news because you are here seeking and being open to God’s transforming Spirit. By not fully understanding, you help all of us to recognize that we are on a journey of faith. God calls people, even those like us who do not fully understand or who have not come to fully believe with our questions and our doubts. This too is good news.
Let us pray.
Almighty and all-loving God, sometimes it is difficult for us to believe your promises and to accept the gifts you offer us. Sometimes, when you reach toward us, we respond with our doubts. It is difficult not to doubt that you would so graciously reach out to us, in our shortcomings and sin, promising to use us in the advancement of your kingdom. Help us, Lord, not to doubt that you know what you are doing in loving and calling us. Amen.