Doubt as Descent

 Mark 15:33-39 (NRSV)

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

Last week we began to really start to dig into this idea of doubt or questions that exist within our faith.

I shared that the first stage of faith development is what Brian McLaren calls: Simplicity. 

In this first stage we master the skills of dualism --- learning to distinguish between this and that --- Good and bad --- right and wrong.

Important things that we all must learn to stay safe --- but simplicity can only take us so far on our journey.

What matters in this first stage is Simple trust

Simple obedience

Simple unquestioning loyalty

In this first stage --- God is up there --- setting the rules --- demanding trust --- requiring obedience and mandating punishment when rules are broken.

In this first stage God is like a parent to a small child

The parent knows best --- and the child follows the instructions --- no questions asked

The unfortunate reality is that for millions if not billions of people --- faith and religion are a strictly stage one phenomenon --- they live their lives wrapped in the blanket of simplicity.

The reason for that is because moving from this first stage to the next requires the doorway or passageway of doubt.

And doubt is anathema to simplistic faith

Doubt is what one is taught to avoid at all costs.

McLaren puts it this way:

Doubt, it turns out, is the passageway from each stage to the next.  Without doubt, there can be growth within a stage, but growth from one stage to another usually requires us to doubt the assumptions that give shape to our current stage.

McLaren uses the image of a tree and the various growth rings to illustrate growth stages.

In our Thursday discussion group, Jim Miller, recommended the image of a soup pot, because --- he suggested --- growth is not as linear as the rings imply.

I do think Jim is onto something

For our purposes --- lets stick with the tree rings.

If stage one can be characterized as SIMPLICITY stage two can be seen as defined by COMPLEXITY.

Stage one teaches the joy of being right

Stage two introduces us to the idea of being effective.

My first distinct remembrance of stage two thought occurred when I was in my first year at Divinity School.

I was in an Old Testament class being taught by a great Roman Catholic biblical scholar Roland Murphy --- (I could go on for a day or two the ways this giant of a man influenced my life)

Father Murphy was introducing us to some of the peculiarities of the Hebrew Bible and instead of TELLING us what we needed to believe --- he asked questions --- and let us wrestle with our answers. 

It was so freeing

I can’t remember ever experiencing anything like it before.

I am sure that Father Murphy had answers he wanted to steer us toward

But he listened to us and heard us and acknowledged that other good --- well-meaning Christians came up with different answers as well.

The bible was more complex than many believed and so too was our faith journey.

Learning and studying --- thinking for myself and reaching my own conclusions --- are a part of what it means to be a stage two Christian.

What motives one during this stage is the desire to achieve goals --- because at this stage one believes that everything is possible.

Rather than seeing the world as being divide into good and evil like in stage one, in this stage one tends to focus on winners and losers.

Where stage one helps us to understand the joy of being right

Stage two is all about being effective

The pragmatic nature of persons in stage two often makes them comfortable with church shopping.  

Stage one folk tend to leave a church only when the church becomes exposed as bad, incorrect, or wrong.

Stage two folk are pragmatic and thus have no problem asking: “What works best for me?”  and jumping to another church if thy seem to have the better solutions.

And instead of growing toward stage three --- many stage two people just shift from being a stage two United Methodist to a stage two Presbyterian, or even a stage two None.

They are still pragmatic --- seeking “what works best for me”

What happens is that some feel increasingly alienated from the dualism of stage one and the pragmatism of stage two.

They lose their faith in both the authoritarian leaders of simplicity ---

But also in the success coaches of complexity

Both groups make promises that they cannot deliver on --- and are often seen as being less than honest in their ability to face life’s deeper questions and challenges.

This desire for honesty and depth and the crisis of faith that stages one and two can create --- will often lead people into stage three which McLaren calls: PERPLEXITY.

McLaren writes: 

Life, folks in Stage Three feel, is more than simple and more than complex: it is downright mysterious, downright perplexing.  What physicists say about quantum mechanics is true for all of life: reality is not only stranger than we imagined, but stranger than we can imagine.  Looks deceive, appearances lie. Full truths are far less convenient than half-truths and lies.  Confident people are often con artists, and their simple rules and promises are often little more than tricks for controlling the gullible and making a profit at their expense.

When you are in that dynamic --- liminal --- space that McLaren calls perplexity --- doubt and deconstruction, --- suspicion and relativism are not an enemy that needs to be kept locked up --- instead they are doorways to insight and liberation.

Brian McLaren is often a teacher at Father Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico --- one of the core teachings at CAC is what they call “the path of descent”

It is the idea that at some point in our spiritual journey we will be required to descend into a dark tunnel --- to descend into the unknown and into doubt --- to descend into a loss of certainty --- into a process that will often feel like dying.

It is what Jesus did in the garden --- 

we find ourselves crying with him --- “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me;” 

--- and when Jesus was on the cross we too call out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Of course, resurrection is what comes from this descent --- but when you are in the midst of that dark night of the soul --- hearing that is not a comfort.

This is a challenging stage because it is often very uncomfortable as we descent often into deeper and deeper doubt that never seems to end.

Mother Teresa’s testimony about her doubt is a powerful reminder that doubt is a normal part of our spiritual growth  .

If you recall, after her death a collection of personal letters that she had written to her spiritual advisers was published. The book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, revealed that she was plagued by serious doubts about her faith. 

In one undated letter, Mother Teresa writes, my God, I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd my heart, afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy. If there be God, please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great, nothing touches my soul.

Charles W. Sidoti, coordinator of spiritual care at the Cleveland Clinic shows his understanding of the power of her message when he writes:

The revelations about Mother Teresa’s doubts do not alter my belief in God or my admiration of her virtuous, God-centered life. They confirm it. The simple truth is that faith must co-exist with doubt, or it cannot be called faith. Faith without doubt or at least the possibility for doubt, is something else — fanaticism or extremism possibly, but not faith. The God that Mother Teresa professed belief in is not an otherworldly pie-in-the-sky god but rather a God whose presence transcends and envelops, who comes to us from within creation yet can seem hidden and very difficult to perceive. This is the basis of our need for faith — real, doubt-containing faith.

It is in this stage of perplexity that we begin to understand that we really don’t understand.

This humility is the center of a mature faith

So, while I described perplexity as being deconstructive in nature it is not destructive!

Actually, it is a constructive passageway on our way to toward the fourth stage that McLaren calls HARMONY but I think a better word is love.

We spent the summer talking about Love --- I will conclude this series by helping us to see love as the culmination of doubt.

Because I am convinced that faith is all about love.

We just didn’t realize that was the case --- and for me --- it took doubt to help me see it.

As we prepare to invite Jesus to take our hands --- may we open our hearts and experience the power and love of Jesus.