What is Faith?
"Doxa Patri kai Yio ke Aghio Pnevmati. Christ is risen. Faith. Isn't it what it's all about on Thomas Sunday - faith? Now that's not the same thing ... Faith is not the same thing as believing in things, like "I believe in electricity; I don't necessarily understand it, but I believe in it," or "I believe in taxes; I don't particular understand it, but I believe," or "I believe that there was a man on the moon."
That's not what faith is about. It's not about believing things you can’t quite figure out, just close your eyes and "I believe." That's not what faith is.
In the old testament, the root word of faith is in reference to a mother, a nurse, or someone who looks after children. It is associated with caring, with protecting, with rendering secure or educating.
It is about trusting a relationship, a trusting relationship that is good and life-giving. That's where the word of faith comes from, and is understood in the old testament. St. Maximos the Confessor defines faith as a relational power, something that is able to unite, a force, an energy that unites the creature with the creator.
It's not just an intellectual "I believe in God," but it's something that actually brings us in relationship and unites us with God; that's faith. Oliver Clement, recently who died, a French Orthodox theologian said, "Faith is what happens between two persons." That's different; that's simply believing in things.
This Sunday, the Sunday of Thomas, you may have been surprised in hearing during Orthros, that we thank Thomas for his doubting. We can sing it. Isn't it wonderful that Thomas doubted? That sounds strange if you really, really feel that faith is about believing and upholding true.
If you waver either way, you're damned forever; you got to really, really hold tight. And here we're singing about Thomas, strange, isn't it? Unless we discover what the real meaning of what faith is about. Faithful people often experience doubt ... I should say I experience doubt in my self ... as a loss of an earlier faith.
"When I was young, going to church was really beautiful; it was so easy. There was a time when I could pray. It was just wonderful." "Now that the kids have grown up, I don't know anymore where I stand," or "When I first started to take catechism, everything seemed so wonderful and I felt so many things. Now I don't feel anything."
Doubt is often experienced as a loss of something that was there before. There is often a sense and an experience that one cannot just go back to that early faith. Often times people will try to go back to that early stage, whatever that past was, and find it that they cannot.
Regardless of how we get to that place of doubt ... sometimes it is our sinfulness, other times it is God ... regardless of how we get to that place, it is always an opportunity of grace. It's not the end of the world. It may be just the beginning of a real faith life or a deeper life.
The doubt of Thomas leads him to want to touch the Lord's flesh, to feel his bones, to put his hand to explore as we sing his life-giving side. He wanted to do that, to see it, to touch it, and not just to hear about it or read it in a book or see a video of it.
He had the courage to continue to stand in his doubt. To do that, it's uncomfortable, especially if you're a person of faith. If you want to believe, if you want to follow God, to stand in truth in your doubt takes courage; it's uncomfortable.
He had the courage to do that, all the while ... as you notice in the Gospel ... continuing to pray with the Apostles, and with the early witnesses of the resurrection. He stands with them that evening when Christ comes back. He stands with the church full of faith in the resurrection, with his doubt.
That must not have been an easy thing. He loved the Lord. His doubt pushes him to a deeper encounter with Christ. No longer as he is referred, even after the resurrection, as teacher, as the prophet, as the miracle worker, or the risen teacher ... but his doubt pushes him to encounter Jesus as his Lord and as his God. "My Lord and my God."
This is the same words that the priest at every liturgy, before taking communion, says, "Behold I approach my Lord and my God." What kills faith is not our doubts. What arrests or kills faith in us is acting, reading, talking, thinking, not according to our spiritual age.
You got the 12 hour convert who is now an authority on theosis. Someone like myself, I can't pray to Jesus for more than 5 minutes, but I read all the great mystical books. Now acting, not being truthful, and pretending that we have a belief in things that we yet are not ready for. We create in our minds what faith looks like, and we hold on to that castle until eventually, God in his mercy, makes it fall apart.
The second thing ... obstacle ... that keeps us from having genuine faith is the refusal to let go of images and an understanding of the faith that may have been appropriate when you were a 1-year-old or 2-year-old or 50-year-old, but that through God's mercy and through his wisdom, now no longer are there.
You can no longer hold on to them. They are no longer appropriate, and they are taken away. For example, a God of punishment that one may have grown up to, if at some point we don't cooperate with God and let go of that image, we will end up with the ultimate terrorist. What were the question I heard from a 40-year-old?
Does a pink pillowcase on my bed keep me from going to communion on Sunday? That may have been a really good question when you were 5, but fully this shows this sense again, that we hold on to certain images of faith and we get stuck on them. God tries so hard to take them away. We can't, because then what is there?
That's really when faith often begins in us. We understand faith as comfort, and in a way, it is. As security, and it is. Our trust is, our security is in another changing, unconditional, and ever-abiding merciful God. Our openness to this mercy must grow and deepen as time passes.
We have at times, in order to grow in our understanding of how merciful God is, in order to truly understand the resurrection as the true mercy, there may be times when we have to go through painful doubt like Thomas, and ask for more. He asked, "I want to touch him." The Lord said to him, "Come and touch me."
We want to, through our doubts and our crisises, hear the cry of our heart that wants to touch and see the wounds of love, the wounds of mercy. We want to see and touch the wounds of God. It is more than just the resurrection of Lazarus, or the resuscitation of a dead man.
Thomas wants to see the wounds of his beloved Jesus. He needs to touch and to see these wounds as the source of healing. The pierced heart, he needs to explore it as the fountain of mercy. Thomas by his doubt teaching us then what is means to believe and to see the resurrection.
To Him, to God who can do in us more than we can ever imagine, be all glory and honor. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen."
"Doxa Patri kai Yio ke Aghio Pnevmati. Christ is risen. Faith. Isn't it what it's all about on Thomas Sunday - faith? Now that's not the same thing ... Faith is not the same thing as believing in things, like "I believe in electricity; I don't necessarily understand it, but I believe in it," or "I believe in taxes; I don't particular understand it, but I believe," or "I believe that there was a man on the moon."
That's not what faith is about. It's not about believing things you can’t quite figure out, just close your eyes and "I believe." That's not what faith is.
In the old testament, the root word of faith is in reference to a mother, a nurse, or someone who looks after children. It is associated with caring, with protecting, with rendering secure or educating.
It is about trusting a relationship, a trusting relationship that is good and life-giving. That's where the word of faith comes from, and is understood in the old testament. St. Maximos the Confessor defines faith as a relational power, something that is able to unite, a force, an energy that unites the creature with the creator.
It's not just an intellectual "I believe in God," but it's something that actually brings us in relationship and unites us with God; that's faith. Oliver Clement, recently who died, a French Orthodox theologian said, "Faith is what happens between two persons." That's different; that's simply believing in things.
This Sunday, the Sunday of Thomas, you may have been surprised in hearing during Orthros, that we thank Thomas for his doubting. We can sing it. Isn't it wonderful that Thomas doubted? That sounds strange if you really, really feel that faith is about believing and upholding true.If you waver either way, you're damned forever; you got to really, really hold tight. And here we're singing about Thomas, strange, isn't it? Unless we discover what the real meaning of what faith is about. Faithful people often experience doubt ... I should say I experience doubt in my self ... as a loss of an earlier faith.
"When I was young, going to church was really beautiful; it was so easy. There was a time when I could pray. It was just wonderful." "Now that the kids have grown up, I don't know anymore where I stand," or "When I first started to take catechism, everything seemed so wonderful and I felt so many things. Now I don't feel anything."
Doubt is often experienced as a loss of something that was there before. There is often a sense and an experience that one cannot just go back to that early faith. Often times people will try to go back to that early stage, whatever that past was, and find it that they cannot.
Regardless of how we get to that place of doubt ... sometimes it is our sinfulness, other times it is God ... regardless of how we get to that place, it is always an opportunity of grace. It's not the end of the world. It may be just the beginning of a real faith life or a deeper life.
The doubt of Thomas leads him to want to touch the Lord's flesh, to feel his bones, to put his hand to explore as we sing his life-giving side. He wanted to do that, to see it, to touch it, and not just to hear about it or read it in a book or see a video of it.
He had the courage to continue to stand in his doubt. To do that, it's uncomfortable, especially if you're a person of faith. If you want to believe, if you want to follow God, to stand in truth in your doubt takes courage; it's uncomfortable.
He had the courage to do that, all the while ... as you notice in the Gospel ... continuing to pray with the Apostles, and with the early witnesses of the resurrection. He stands with them that evening when Christ comes back. He stands with the church full of faith in the resurrection, with his doubt.
That must not have been an easy thing. He loved the Lord. His doubt pushes him to a deeper encounter with Christ. No longer as he is referred, even after the resurrection, as teacher, as the prophet, as the miracle worker, or the risen teacher ... but his doubt pushes him to encounter Jesus as his Lord and as his God. "My Lord and my God."
This is the same words that the priest at every liturgy, before taking communion, says, "Behold I approach my Lord and my God." What kills faith is not our doubts. What arrests or kills faith in us is acting, reading, talking, thinking, not according to our spiritual age.
You got the 12 hour convert who is now an authority on theosis. Someone like myself, I can't pray to Jesus for more than 5 minutes, but I read all the great mystical books. Now acting, not being truthful, and pretending that we have a belief in things that we yet are not ready for. We create in our minds what faith looks like, and we hold on to that castle until eventually, God in his mercy, makes it fall apart.
The second thing ... obstacle ... that keeps us from having genuine faith is the refusal to let go of images and an understanding of the faith that may have been appropriate when you were a 1-year-old or 2-year-old or 50-year-old, but that through God's mercy and through his wisdom, now no longer are there.
You can no longer hold on to them. They are no longer appropriate, and they are taken away. For example, a God of punishment that one may have grown up to, if at some point we don't cooperate with God and let go of that image, we will end up with the ultimate terrorist. What were the question I heard from a 40-year-old?
Does a pink pillowcase on my bed keep me from going to communion on Sunday? That may have been a really good question when you were 5, but fully this shows this sense again, that we hold on to certain images of faith and we get stuck on them. God tries so hard to take them away. We can't, because then what is there?
That's really when faith often begins in us. We understand faith as comfort, and in a way, it is. As security, and it is. Our trust is, our security is in another changing, unconditional, and ever-abiding merciful God. Our openness to this mercy must grow and deepen as time passes.
We have at times, in order to grow in our understanding of how merciful God is, in order to truly understand the resurrection as the true mercy, there may be times when we have to go through painful doubt like Thomas, and ask for more. He asked, "I want to touch him." The Lord said to him, "Come and touch me."We want to, through our doubts and our crisises, hear the cry of our heart that wants to touch and see the wounds of love, the wounds of mercy. We want to see and touch the wounds of God. It is more than just the resurrection of Lazarus, or the resuscitation of a dead man.
Thomas wants to see the wounds of his beloved Jesus. He needs to touch and to see these wounds as the source of healing. The pierced heart, he needs to explore it as the fountain of mercy. Thomas by his doubt teaching us then what is means to believe and to see the resurrection.
To Him, to God who can do in us more than we can ever imagine, be all glory and honor. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen."
+ P.R. Orthodox Priest in Toronto, Thomas Sunday 2013
