MICHAEL SPENCER HERZOG
30 March 2008

I’M FROM MISSOURI

I have listened to a great many sermons over the years -- thousands of them, I suppose -- and one of the things that I like to do is to look at the sermon title and the scripture passages and then try to figure out ahead of time just where the preacher is going to run with it.

If you haven’t noticed it yet, the title of today’s sermon is, “I’m From Missouri.”  The scripture passage is about Doubting Thomas demanding to be shown Jesus’ wounds before he’ll believe in the resurrection.  So, we have Missouri, the Show Me state and Doubting Thomas demanding proof.  Bingo.  Makes perfect sense.   

And, by the way, I am from Missouri -- really.  I had always accepted that Show Me stuff as part of my heritage and, I guess, been proud of that plain-speaking Harry Truman man-from-Independence sort of attitude that was embodied in that saying.  But when I looked into it, I discovered there are several stories behind the state motto.  The one that most Missourians like involves a Congressman named Willard Duncan Vandiver who served in the House of Representatives at the turn of the 20th century.  He once made a speech to a room full of politicians and declared, “I come from a state that raises corn and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me.  I’m from Missouri.  You have got to show me.”  He sounds very straight-forward and tough-minded.  We Missourians like that image.

But there’s another story that could also be true.  This one concerns the mining town of Leadville, Colorado in the 1890s.  There was a miners’ strike and a number of lead miners from southwest Missouri had been imported to take the places of the strikers.  I think they call people like that scabs. The only trouble was that the Missouri miners were not familiar with Colorado mining methods and so they required frequent instruction.  The pit bosses began saying, “That man is from Missouri -- you’ll have to show him.”  In other words, they were scabs and too dumb to know which end a shovel to dig with.  We don’t like that story nearly so well.

But back to the issue of doubting.  Is expressing doubt a smart thing or a dumb thing?  Is it a good thing or a bad thing?  Is it a weak thing or a strong thing?   I think I can safely say that the answer to those questions is YES . . . or maybe NO.

As a congregation we are beginning to get involved with the program Faith Partners that deals with helping people who are afflicted with addictions of various kinds.  As I have read about addictions and listened to people talk about their experiences I have heard the expression, “Relapse is part of recovery.”   That is to say, that a relapse is not a failure but just a new base point in the path to recovery and freedom from addiction.  For example, a person struggling with an alcohol addiction resets his or her sobriety birthday after a relapse, but all the progress made and all the lessons learned up to that point are not lost but are retained as the building blocks of recovery.

I think that doubts and questions of belief can be seen the same way.  Doubts and questions are among the building blocks of faith.

I find it interesting that the framers of the lectionary of scripture passages that we follow seem to accept that doubt is a part of faith too.  The lectionary cycle is a three-year rotation of passages for every Sunday and holy day but the Easter gospel reading each and every year is always the same -- the resurrection story from John -- and the Sunday after Easter is always the story of Doubting Thomas.  The readings take us from joy and confidence to doubt and fear in one easy jump.

And remember, the disciples had plenty of reason for doubt and fear -- fear of the authorities -- fear of the temple police -- even of each other --  it had been one of their own after all who betrayed Jesus.

But, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty -- what was the nature of Thomas’s encounter with the risen Christ?   What did he experience in a locked room on that day a week after the empty tomb was discovered?   I really don’t know, but it was clearly a conversion experience, one shared in community with his disciple friends.    It turned the skeptic into a zealot.  There are at least two known Gospels of Thomas and the Book of the Acts of Thomas presents him later in life as a missionary and mystical preacher in India. 

He became an instant believer -- but that belief was supported by faith that he had built over the years as  a disciple of Jesus.

I think it’s important to draw a distinction between belief and faith.  This is my definition. I don’t think you’ll find it in any dictionary -- and I don’t think it’s biblical  -- but I don’t think I’m wildly off base either.  Belief tends to be  ready-made, pre-scribed, like a creed.  Faith, on the other hand, is built  piece by piece.  Faith is homemade -- assembled out of prayer and experience -- out of contact made in Holy moments with God.

My faith foundation has been assembled over many years.  It includes the knee-shaking experience of my baptism at the age of twelve -- my God in nature pantheism phase -- the community-building of the Experiment in Practical Christianity right here thirty years ago -- the mystical experiences shared in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius -- and the revelations that came from being a Companion in Christ.

There are lines from hymns and passages of scripture in my faith foundation.  There are bits and pieces of things I’ve read over the years in there too.  When I was in engineering school I used to seek refuge from the complexities of  thermodynamics by reading classical fiction.  In W Somerset  Maugham’s novel,  “The Razor’s Edge,”  he has one of the characters say, “Any God you can explain is no God at all.”  That has stuck with me longer and been more useful to me than the principles of the Carnot cycle, Boyle’s Law, or Newton’s Laws of Motion.

Some can believe that every word in the Bible is the literal truth, but my faith foundation won’t support that belief.   

Belief is the basis of religion.  Faith is the basis of our relationship with God.  Belief can carry with it an element of fear -- especially as presented in a religious context.  Believe the right way or suffer the consequences.  Faith is fearless.

In the words to meditate upon today, I included a quote from R Buckminster Fuller that I think makes the distinction very well: “Faith is much better than belief,”  Bucky says.  “Belief is when someone else does the thinking.”  That’s a glib answer to a serious question, but I like it -- and it is full of truth.

We sometimes hear of a person “losing his faith.”  I think faith would be a hard thing to lose.  I love it when the  Old Testament prophets rail at God -- shaking their bony fists at the heavens expressing anger and disappointment.  And even Jesus on the Cross asks -- “Why have you forsaken me?”   Those are not instances of loss of faith but rather expressions of faith.  Loss of faith would be shown in silent resignation.  Turning to God in anger and disappointment is not loss of faith -- or even an indication of doubt.

There is a form of construction known as “rubble” where rock fragments of various shapes and sizes used to build walls and foundations.  The structure gains strength from the variety of shapes and sizes.  A faith foundation contains whole dressed stones but also the broken bits and pieces.

In our travels to the UK, Mary and I have seen great cathedrals that were built a thousand years ago on the ruins of Roman temples.  Just as in relapse and recovery, nothing is lost, all experience is useful.

Belief -- by my definition -- requires proof.  Thomas demanded proof and he got it.  Faith, on the other hand, requires no proof.  Faith requires trust.  Faith isn’t believing without proof.  Faith is trusting without reservation.

Now, I am the very model of a modern the-o-log-i-an.  When faced with questions of faith I did what I do with any question -- went to Google.  I typed in “Proof of the existence of God.” It took Google less than a third of a second to offer me 462,000 entries.  And it made for fascinating reading -- for a few minutes, anyway.  Everyone has had a crack at it -- mathematicians and philosophers as diverse as  Albert  Schweitzer and Albert Einstein.  Blaise Pascal made some very logical arguments.  But, prayer and meditation have brought me closer to God than reading someone else's philosophy.

The church universal and we Wesleyans in particular feel called to support the social gospel of justice and equal opportunity for all people.  That is of course a faithful response to the love of God we have experienced ourselves.   I feel the church is also charged with consciously fostering faith formation and providing opportunities and raw materials for individuals to lay down their own firm foundation.

I said that I enjoyed trying to figure out where the preacher was going to go with a topic based on the sermon title.  I must admit I had no idea myself where this message was going to wind up and I can’t claim to have followed any logical path to get here.  My faith has taught me however to trust the urgings of the Holy Spirit and to follow. 

If I set out on any sort of a course when I selected that Missouri title and started writing this sermon, I’m afraid I may have drifted off a bit.  I can see the end in sight so I think I’d better make a course correction here so that there actually is a conclusion to all this . . . blather. I know I’m at risk of losing my Missouri citizenship -- may even have my hillbilly passport revoked -- because I don’t seem to need to be shown after all.   The really important things don’t need to be proven -- can’t be proven.   God is the great I AM.  Period.  God is.  It’s like the New Covenant that we’ve entered into with God -- the important things are just written on our hearts and form that firm and stable faith foundation that sustains our lives.

AMEN