A Team Supreme

Introduction

T’is the season to doubt

Last Sunday when the apostles are gathered behind locked doors out of fear of the Jewish authorities, the Lord appears to them, and they doubt that it is really Jesus risen from the dead. So he offers them proof. He shows them his hands pierced by nails and his side ripped open by a lance. With that, their doubt turns into belief, and they rejoice that it is truly the risen Lord standing before them (Jn 20:20).

The apostle Thomas is not present on that occasion. When the others tell him they have seen the risen Lord, he, too, shares his doubts and protests, “I ain’t believing until I can dip the tips of my fingers into his bloody hands and feet, and my hand into his bloody side.” A week later Jesus appears again to the apostles and this time Thomas is present. The Lord says to him, “Come, friend, and put your fingers into the wounds on my hands, and put your hand into my pierced side and believe.” With that, his doubt turns into belief, and Thomas falls to his knees exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20: 24-28).

In today’s gospel the Lord appears to the apostles again, and again they have their doubts that it’s the risen Lord standing before them. Again the he gives them proof. “Look at my hands and my feet and see that it is really I. Touch me and see that I am not a ghost. Ghosts don’t have flesh and bones as I have.” Then he offers them still more proof: he asks for something to eat, and they offer him fish which he swallows before them. Ghosts don’t eat (Lk 24:35-48).

Scolding doubt

The Easter season always likes to scold Thomas and you and me for doubting. It comes as a surprise and a relief to hear something said in praise of doubters and doubting.

If Jesus appears in the gospel to be scolding Thomas, perhaps he’s scolding him not because he has a doubt but because Thomas has an attitude: “I ain’t believing until I can dip the tips of my fingers into his bloody hands and feet.” Furthermore, if it is a scolding, scholars raise the question whose scolding is it in the first place? Is it that of Jesus himself, or is it really the scolding of the early church, put into the mouth of Jesus? After all, it’s the end of the first century. Nobody is seeing Jesus around anymore because he has ascended to the Father. So the early church would scold those who needed to see before they believed, and it would bless those who believed even though they had not seen. The early church then put its scolding into the mouth of Jesus to give it his authority and blessing.

Doubt: a demand of our intelligent nature

Though the Easter season likes to scold Thomas and you and me for doubting, at the end of the day, our intelligent nature calls us to doubt. It’s our birthright to doubt. It’s our birthright to ask questions and want proof.

Our intelligent nature calls us to doubt the whole mighty mass media which leads us like dummies by the nose. Unfortunately we don’t doubt it. Our intelligent nature calls us to doubt the cultural idea of greatness which we invest in superstars out there, and which blinds us to the great heroes around us. Unfortunately we don’t doubt it. Our intelligent nature calls us to doubt the whole fast food industry which weighs us down with health problems. Unfortunately we don’t doubt it. Our intelligent nature calls us to doubt our culture’s constant exposure to casual sex, disrobing it of meaning and mystery. Unfortunately we don’t doubt it. Our intelligent nature calls us to doubt the materialism which stuffs us with things while the human spirit goes hungry. Unfortunately we don’t doubt it. We sometimes scold ourselves and our children for doubting. The truth of the matter is we really don’t doubt much at all.

Even the faith

Our intelligent nature calls us to doubt even our faith, not in order to kill it but to call it to spirit and life and make it more faithful to Christ. Some are too lazy to doubt their faith. They don’t work hard at a good reason for believing; they just lie around and believe. They’re Catholics simply because they were born so. Some are too busy to doubt their faith. They have more important things to do than to take time to go in pursuit of an adult faith. Though in their daily business lives they might operate as very sharp adults, when it comes to the faith they’re basically children; they have infant faith in adult bodies. Some are too afraid to doubt their faith; they fear that faith can’t withstand being questioned. So they keep themselves locked up in prisons of certainty.

The call to doubt Brokeback Mountain

This past winter in Texas I stumbled upon faith that was either too lazy or too busy or too afraid to doubt—too afraid that faith can’t withstand being questioned. On the third Sunday of January, I started to help out in a church in Lake Jackson on the Gulf of Mexico. The first Sunday there, the theme was discipleship—the following of Jesus. In the homily I mentioned Brokeback Mountain, a movie about two gay cowboys in Wyoming in the 1960s. It won three Oscars. When it was released, a staunch voice of protest rose up from the religious right. A theatre in Salt Lake City swiftly cancelled it.

The point of mentioning the movie in the homily was that the same keen sense of morality which pursued Brokeback Mountain with such alacrity and speed should have pursued with even greater alacrity and speed the injustice which for centuries forced black folks to sit in the back of the bus. That justice was a very long time coming.

When I returned the next week the Monsignor said, “Some of my people were unhappy. For one thing, the homily was too long. Secondly you mentioned Brokeback Mountain.” He continued, One of my parishioners, aghast at the mention of the movie, put his hands to his son’s ears. “

Listen to the positive reviews for Brokeback Mountain. “It’s not a gay movie. It’s a tragedy about the way life conspires to make us put our hearts on ice. “Another review says, “It is brilliantly crafted and acted. It’s emotionally wrenching and, ultimately, terribly sad. Brokeback Mountain is unforgettable, a film that stays with you long after the theatre and the drive home.”

Now listen to the negative reviews of the film. “I can’t think of a more effective way to annoy and alienate most movie-going Americans than to show two cowboys lusting after each other. It’s a mockery of the Western genre embodied by every movie cowboy from John Wayne to Gene Autry to Kevin Costner.”

There we have it—the pros and the cons in stark black and white. Now our intelligent natures invite us to doubt: to doubt those who say it’s a great movie. To doubt those who say it’s a terrible movie. And to doubt especially ourselves for staunchly believing the movie is great or staunchly believing it is terrible without ever having seen it ourselves, either because we are too lazy or too busy or, especially, too afraid to find out for ourselves.

Whatever it was at Lake Jackson, that (and the message of the next Sunday) did me in. In so many words I was told, “It’s our way or the highway,” and I knew it had to be the highway--a trek of forty miles back home to Alvin, never to return again to Lake Jackson.

The call to doubt the church

Fr. Hans Küng is a Swiss German Catholic theologian who has never been too lazy or too busy or too afraid to doubt. At one time he was a great buddy of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI). The two taught together in the University of Tübingen in Germany during the 1960s. There they had a standing weekly dinner appointment on Thursday evenings to discuss a journal they edited together. The two served as theological experts for the German bishops at the Second Vatican Council.

In 1979, Küng’s right to teach Catholic theology was revoked by Pope John Paul II because he had called into doubt Catholic teaching about papal infallibility. It was known that Ratizinger, as a member of the German Bishops’ conference, played an important role in that revocation. From that time on Küng became a staunch critic of Ratgzinger’s doctrinal positions and his methods of policing the church. From that time on he became his arch-enemy and nemesis.

Listen to Fr. Küng who’s not too lazy or too busy or too afraid to doubt his church, not in order to kill it but to call it to spirit and life and make it more faithful to Christ. In a little volume entitled Why I am Still a Christian, he writes that he doubts that the Lord, who warned the Pharisees against laying intolerable burdens on people’s shoulders, would today declare all artificial contraception to be a mortal sin.

He writes that he doubts that the Lord, who particularly invited failures to his table, would forbid all remarried divorced people ever to approach that table.

He writes that he doubts that the Lord, who was constantly accompanied by women (who provided for his keep), and whose apostles, except Paul, were married men and remained so, would today forbid marriage to ordained men and even ordination to women.

He writes that he doubts that the Lord who said “I have compassion upon the crowds,” would have increasingly deprived congregations of their pastors and allowed a system of pastoral care built up over a period of a thousand years to collapse. (Is he talking about the shortage of priests, which has given rise to such a funny creation as the”Church of the Three Holy Women?”)

He writes that he doubts that the Lord, who defended the adulteress and sinners, would pass harsh verdicts in delicate questions requiring discriminating and critical judgment, questions concerning pre-marital sex and homosexuality.

But after all that doubting, listen to what Fr. Küng writes: “I should nonetheless like to say this: that in this disoriented age I receive my essential values from Christianity, despite everything.” Now that’s a great doubter who, at the end of the day, is also a great believer.

With such a great doubter (this one-time buddy and archenemy of his), Pope Benedict graciously met on Sept. 24, 2005 in the Pope’s summer home in Castel Gandolfo. In a relaxed and friendly atmosphere this German pope (a great believer) met with this German Swiss theologian (a great doubter).

During a four-hour session that stretched over dinner, the two broke bread, listened to each other and essentially agreed to disagree. Back home in Germany, Küng said, “The things we have in common are more fundamental. We both are Christians, both priests in the service of the church, and we have personal respect for one another.” The meeting, he said, was “a step forward.”

Conclusion

A team supreme

Pope Benedict, the great believer, and Fr. Küng, the great doubter, sitting down together and breaking bread is powerful imagery of a team supreme. It is a winning combination. All faith and no doubt is immature and boring. All doubt and no faith is gloomy and depressing. But faith and doubt together, each respecting the other, each listening to the other, each enriching the other, and both conscious that what they have in common is more fundamental than anything else—that, indeed, is a team supreme and a winning combination whether at Lake Jackson or Castel Gandolfo or here at Old St. Mary’s or, especially, at home in the midst of your family.