Bend First Presbyterian Church

Doubters don’t have to quit the church. Here’s a link to read yesterday’s message on “Doubt.” http://www.bendfp.org/.docs/pg/10770 . 

Your thoughts and comments are always welcome.

In my soul I feel just terrible pain of loss – of God not wanting me. of God not being God – of God not really existing.”

These are words from Mother Teresa in 1959 from the book of her collected letters Come Be My Light.

She also wrote, “Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me?…I am told God loves me – and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.”

I don’t know about you but somehow these words are reassuring for those of us who share her doubts.

Mother Teresa who served the poor and dying of Calcutta and inspired millions of people around the globe struggled with her faith and had moments of profound spiritual emptiness. “If I ever become a saint,” she wrote, “I will surely be one of darkness.”

Doubt is part of the journey of faith. I am convinced that doubt is not the opposite of faith, certainty is. Jesus was tougher on the certain and self-righteous than he was on adulterers and prostitutes.

It is normal to have periods of doubt and struggle. In fact, spiritual writers suggest it is an inevitable part of the journey of faith.

Giving yourself permission to question and have doubts frees you to be honest and genuine in your faith. I happen to believe God doesn’t depend on the constancy of our beliefs. God doesn’t need us to defend God. I suspect God is bigger than that. Faith grows in wrestling with the questions more than defending your answers. Whether we believe in God or not, doesn’t actually affect whether God exists or not. God’s mysterious, unfathomable and boundless love does not depend on us feeling loved all the time.

Mother Teresa reminds us of the profound hope of placing our bets on sharing the love of God even and maybe  especially when we are struggling to experience that love ourselves.

“If there is one thing that we have learned to fear, it is surely questions. There are some things, we learn early, that are never to be challenged. They simply are. They are absolute. They come out of a fountain of eternal truth. And they are true because some one else said they are true. So we live with some one else’s truth for a long time. Until the answers run dry. I know that because I myself have been caught in a desert of doubt and found the answers to be worse than the questions ever could be… I began to trust the questions themselves to lead me beyond my understanding, to faith. I began to use my questions themselves to chart my way through the dark waters.”

Joan Chittister from Called To Questions: A Spiritual Memoir

 The spiritual path is the journey moving from secondhand religion to a personal faith you can claim as your own and that path is paved with doubt and questions. Doubt and questions are not the opposite of faith but an important part of the journey of faith. I believe faith grows through an honest wrestling with the questions rather than defending the answers. Wendell Berry in his essay The Way of Ignorance said that what we need theologically, religiously and politically is a little less certainty and a lot more healthy doubting and freedom to ask questions. How vital it is to create nonjudgmental environments of trust where we all can wrestle with our questions and doubts and encourage each other on the journey of faith.

Last Sunday’s message for the series Faith @ the Movies was based on Wall-E.  Here’s a link to my sermon in case you are interested, http://www.bendfp.org/.docs/pg/10770 .

The filmmaker, Andrew Stanton said he wanted to explore in this movie the idea that irrational love will always defeat the world’s programming.

I think of the irrational love of Jesus who, when nailed to the cross looked into the eyes of his executioners and spoke the irrational words of forgiveness and compassion. The scandal of the love of God revealed in Jesus is that we are loved with that kind of irrational love even and especially when we least deserve it. It is this irrational love that connects us to and summons forth our highest and best self. It is this irrational love Jesus commands us to offer the world. It is this irrational love that carries the hope that one day the world’s programming of hate, violence and revenge will be defeated.

It’s an interesting thought to consider we are called to love irrationally. What might that look like in your life?

I’m in the middle of a message series on Faith @ the Movies.

The first Movie in the series was Whale Rider. Here is a link to my sermon in case you are interested http://www.bendfp.org/.docs/pg/10770 .

Pai, the lead character in the movie, in spite of much tragedy, against all odds and much opposition, finds the courage and faith to live out the YES calling of her heart, and in doing so inspires the faith of others. One of the things I love in this movie is Pai’s grace, courage and faith. The YES was so strong in her heart that even though she continued to be told NO, punished, rebuked, she still would not accept “NO” as an answer. Pai’s faith gave her the capacity to hear “NO” as meaning “NOT YET.”

There are people who refuse to accept “NO” . . . who refuse to accept life as it is . . . who refuse to accept the inevitability of injustice, hate and violence . . . who believe life doesn’t have to be the way it is . . . WE CAN CHANGE IT! WE ARE CALLED TO CHANGE IT! WE MUST CHANGE IT TOGETHER!

There is a strong spirit of “YES” and love that cannot be ultimately denied, that seeks to be expressed through each person’s unique life. How is that “YES” seeking to be lived through you?