Words to a Skeptic (DS)

Nathanael (John 1:43-51) is an exemplary skeptic. He questions whether anything good (like a “Messiah”) could come from little Galilean Nazareth. Because he was probably from Judea – maybe even a Jew of rabbinic pedigree – his inquiry stings and is true doubt.

Philip, rather than engage his skeptical question, invites Nathanael to come and meet Jesus. And Jesus, revealing himself to be both God and human (John’s Gospel insists that the only way for us to encounter God as humans is through the ‘humanity’ of Jesus) confronts Nathanael with the ‘impossible.’

No matter what level of skepticism exists with any of us, the response Jesus seeks to evoke when we acknowledge our doubts is ‘worship.’ Worship is the chosen response of a skeptic, faced with the impossible. “Can God created a stone so big God could not lift it?” God is both marvelously creative and powerfully strong. The reconciliation of this impossible tension is NOT “understanding” but worship – wonder of the truth of both discovered realities.

Some doubts and ‘irreconcilable facts’ are not quite as simple as the “rock” puzzle. Some call into question God’s goodness or ability to provide, rescue or deliver on a promise. It is much more difficult to lay aside our ‘right to know and understand’ in these situations. But the response to be teased out is still the same.

Reflect on Wislawa Szymborska’s 1996 Nobel Prize winning poem. What place does she suggest doubt/certainty have in life? How does her poem inform our faith journey?

Utopia

Island where all becomes clear.

Solid ground beneath your feet.

The only roads are those that offer access.

Bushes bend beneath the weight of proofs.

The Tree of Valid Supposition grows here
with branches disentangled since time immemorial.

The Tree of Understanding, dazzlingly straight and simple,
sprouts by the spring called Now I Get It.

The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista:
the Valley of Obviously.

If any doubts arise, the wind dispels them instantly.

Echoes stir unsummoned
and eagerly explain all the secrets of the worlds.

On the right a cave where Meaning lies.

On the left the Lake of Deep Conviction.
Truth breaks from the bottom and bobs to the surface.

Unshakable Confidence towers over the valley.
Its peak offers an excellent view of the Essence of Things.

For all its charms, the island is uninhabited,
and the faint footprints scattered on its beaches
turn without exception to the sea.

As if all you can do here is leave
and plunge, never to return, into the depths.

Into unfathomable life.

By Wislawa Szymborska
From “A large number”, 1976
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

Faith is not absolute. It is not certainty. It is not mental assent to creeds.

Faith is relational. It is a journey from Doubt to Doubt. It is thoughtful.

Have you found it to be so? If not, I (we) have found purpose and meaning for life in Jesus . . . Come and see!