Virtue #7 – Ask Questions & Love Skeptics – 8 Short Verses
/Lectionary Readings for Feb. 20, 2022 7th Sunday After the Epiphany, Year C
Genesis 45:3-11, 15 v7 God sent me here ahead of you to make sure you and your families survive this terrible ordeal and have a remnant left on earth.
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40 v5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50 v40 Likewise there are bodies made for the heavens and bodies made for the earth. The heavenly bodies have a different kind of glory or luminescence compared to bodies below.
Luke 6:27-38 v27-28 “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” ~ Jesus
But this week, we’re looking at numerous verses from the Old and New Testaments as we continue an eight-part series looking at the virtues of flourishing churches.
Peace through Leadership Quotes
“Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“Coming to church should be less about simply sitting in a pew and more about sitting in one’s responsibility to be an agent of God’s grace, both as we gather … and also as we are dispersed into the community.” ~ Rev. Theon Johnson III
Mastering our faith means taking what we have been taught and what we believe (not always the same thing), and putting our faith into action by serving others in our community.
Mastering our faith means trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus, even when we’re not sure we’re getting it right. In the process, we will naturally have questions and doubts. God encourages us to ask questions (see Isaiah 1:18).
Mastering our faith means asking questions that help our relationship with God expand and strengthen, which enables us to work more effectively toward creating and sharing peace.
Any time I preach or lead a group, regardless of age, I start the same way. I’m going to say three short sentences. Please repeat each sentence, with enthusiasm.
God made me. God loves me. God has plans for me.
Preface to Today’s Scripture Reading
We’re now seven weeks into our eight-part series based on the book Eight Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches by Matt Miofsky and Jason Byassee. As I’ve mentioned, I prefer the term “flourishing” to “rapidly growing.”
To recap, flourishing churches share common virtues. First… they believe that God has worked and will continue working in the life of their church in miraculous ways. Second… they quickly integrate new people into the life of the church. Third… they love where they are and, more importantly, the people who live in their community. Fourth… they relentlessly work to connect with and welcome others into their church families. Fifth… they elevate the practice of giving generously. Sixth… they work as teams.
The seventh virtue is that flourishing churches connect well with skeptics. Often, church-going people almost instinctively define “skeptics” as atheists, agnostics, or even churchy people who don’t share their own beliefs. While those could be true, our Bible Study group this week agreed that all of us have been skeptical about aspects of our faith throughout our lives, and most of us remain skeptical about some nuances – or even some traditional core beliefs – of our faith. Susie pointed out that curiosity and skepticism are often two sides of the same coin; I really like that image / relationship.
Here’s the great news: God is fine with skepticism in the sense of genuine, sincere questioning. When Thomas doubted Jesus was really back from the dead, Jesus neither rejected nor berated Thomas. Instead, Jesus said intimately welcomed him, “Thomas, I understand why you have doubts. Put your hands in my wounds (wow!) so your experience with Me will transform your relationship with Me in a way that you can never doubt.” God welcomes our wonders and our worries and invites us into life-changing, faith-changing experiences.
Let’s open our ears, minds, and hearts as we hear verses and stories that remind us, it’s OK to have questions and doubts; those are important parts of our faith journey.
Read Isaiah 41:10; Proverbs 3:5-6; Matthew 11:2-6; Mark 9:20-24; Matthew 14:24-33; Matthew 28:16–17; Hebrews 11:1-2; and Jude 1:22.
What a great photo! The photographer’s caption reads, “A rite of passage as a young boy makes his first climb to the top of the slide on his own.” Despite seeing others survive the slide, despite his parents’ and friends’ encouragement, this boy has serious doubts about what he should do.
I love skeptics of all ages who are honest and think, because they ask good questions that push the rest of us to search for good answers. When we make incredible claims like… 1) we believe in an unseeable entity called God who 2) created everything that exists and 3) one day became human so He could 4) tell us how much He loves us… Wow! Those are some pretty incredible claims! Shouldn’t we have good reasons for holding those beliefs? Shouldn’t our reasons be good enough to withstand some basic questions? To our own spiritual detriment, I think Christians have enjoyed the comfort of being the dominant religion that can get away with ignoring or dismissing good questions and reasonable challenges. But the times… they are a changing. This is an opportunity for us to grow in our faith.
For decades, a story has been passed around of a young boy who told his pastor, “I don’t believe the Bible is true.” The surprised pastor asked why not. The skeptical boy confidently replied, “Because the Bible doesn’t talk about dinosaurs. But I’ve seen dinosaurs; I know they’re real.” As the story goes, the boy and the pastor spent weeks and years talking about what’s real, what’s not, and what we can or should believe. Through those conversations, by sharing their journey with each other, both of them grew in their faith.
Since I was a kid, I’ve been skeptical of nearly everything – much to the frustration of all my teachers and relatives. Like the disciple Thomas, I often reject an idea and demand proof before I’ll consider believing something. God has endured thousands of my questions and doubts. Fortunately, God’s patience is endless, and His love is relentless.
I grew up surrounded by Christians; we all accepted the basic package of beliefs. Challenging questions were either dismissed or criticized – as if sincerely asking a question would somehow offend God or cause God to reject me. Eeek! But then I went to college, and grad school, and later got a real job in the real world with a diverse collection of real people. Throughout that path, I discovered that the world was far bigger, more colorful, and more complicated than my largely homogenous hometown neighborhood.
Along the way, I made friends who came from different religious backgrounds or who had no religious connection at all. Wait, what?!? First of all, how can you not deeply care about religious issues? How can you just enjoy your day without constantly trying to understand your existential connection to the Creator of the Universe??? Turns out, a lot of people seem to be able to do that just fine. Weird… or… was I weird???
Secondly, if so many of my friends are intelligent, thoughtful, kindhearted, generous people and they have different understandings of God and religion than I do… Is one of us right and the rest of us are wrong? Are there eternal consequences to that answer? If my understanding is so great, why don’t more people share my beliefs? How can they be such great people and not be “best friends with Jesus?” After all, so many Christian preacher keep saying, “If you aren’t close with Jesus, you’ll never be happy.” But many of my non-Christian friends seem to be at more peace than I am. What’s up with that?!?
Over the years, as I asked God and people more questions and pushed for better answers, I began noticing that many of the voices in my conversations were atheists and agnostics, as well as people from various religious backgrounds who felt pushed aside because they too doubted and questioned their faith. They had questions and insights I had never considered. Like a new telescope, they expanded my view of the spiritual universe.
I also noticed that my own personal faith was growing deeper and stronger through these questions and conversations, not in spite of them. Rather than chipping away at my faith, this process of asking, discovering, debating, and adjusting made my faith both simpler and stronger than ever. Exploring our doubts can fuel our faith.
And then there are my personal experiences with God. I could tell you about those, but I can’t prove them. I have no evidence to offer you. This combination of intellectual wrestling and personal experiences are comparable to building a strong body – you need both quality nutrition and physical strain. Good food and exercise build a healthy body. Good beliefs and serving others build a healthy faith.
Jesus’ approach to nurturing people’s faith was similar. People, including skeptics, came from far and wide to hear Him teach, to hear Him share life-giving wisdom from the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament). AND He shared experiences with people – meals, foot washings, and outright miracles. These experiences interwove with what He taught in a way that was spiritually transformative for thousands of people. But not everyone. Many people doubted and rejected Jesus, His teachings, and His miracles.
When Jesus invited Peter to join Him on the water, Peter’s faith was immediately met by the fears of a dangerous world. His focus flipped from his faith to his fears. But Jesus was next to him the entire time, ready to lift him up, and get him into the boat where he felt safe. The other disciples watched and were awed. Peter got wet. Peter lived that experience and was forever transformed. In our Bible Study, Debbie commented, “Jesus always has His hand out, but will we take it? We may sink a bit from time to time, but that’s part of our earthly existence. Sometime slipping helps us grow our faith.”
Last Sunday, our Church Council discussed how we can welcome and nurture young kids. I love that, and I have questions and concerns about how to do it well. After much discussion, Dennis said, “Let’s find a way to say yes.” Two days later, Debbie commented, “That’s way of saying, Let’s find another way to believe it’s possible.” We’re growing through asking good questions.
When we follow Peter’s example and ask God to invite us to join Him – which is a good prayer! – we will need to answer God’s call by stepping out in faith. That leap of faith to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our community is often scary. We may stumble or sink, and that’s OK. God is always beside us to pick us up. We will have doubts and questions. And we will learn and grow along the way. This is all part of our individual and collective faith journeys.
Amen? Amen!