Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Believing without Seeing"

Text: John 20:19-31 and 1 Peter 1:3-9

Neither you nor I.

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by."

Did you ever hear that poem as a child?

It’s true, you know.

I’ve never seen the wind.

I’ve seen it bend the trees,

and break them, sometimes.

I’ve seen it blowing Oklahoma’s dust into Texas.

I’ve seen what it does to my hair!

But I’ve never seen the wind.

Well, that got me to thinking:

What are some other things I know about,

but I can’t see?

Gravity is one.

I can’t see gravity.

It doesn’t appear as little wavy lines,

or downward-pointing arrows

in between the earth, and something that I’m about to drop.

But I am quite certain that if I drop this,

it will not hover in mid-air,

and it will not shoot up toward the ceiling.

It will fall toward the earth’s center until something stops it …

in this case, the floor.

I can see what gravity does, but I can’t see gravity.

Yet I am quite certain that I can trust it

to act consistently.

(See?)

Or, how about electrons?

I’ve never seen one of those.

But scientists tell me my body has billions of them,

all zinging around in a cloudlike space

around the nucleus of atoms –

and come to think of it, I’ve never seen an atom, either.

But, when we understand creation

as being constructed in this way,

it makes sense out of all kinds of things.

I’ve never seen an electron.

But I believe they exist.

Now of course,

none of those things is quite the same as faith.

Faith is even less tangible than wind or gravity.

And in a sense, less universal.

I mean, gravity affects you

whether you believe in it or not!

Yet there are some parallels.

Because, I think, the question of seeing

is so often what gets raised

when we are dealing with doubters, or skeptics,

or even doubts and fears within our own selves.

How do we know?

We’re kind of in the same position

as those folks Peter was writing to

at the end of the first century A.D.

"Although you have not seen him, you love him;

and even though you do not see him now,

you believe in him and rejoice," etc.

They had been born too late, in a sense,

and/or in the wrong geographical location,

to have seen Jesus in the flesh,

either before or after his resurrection.

Same thing with us.

How did they know?

How do we know?

How do we believe in something we have not seen,

and, indeed, cannot see?

If anything, it’s even harder for us,

because we live in an age which has

made an idol of the scientific mindset and worldview.

Truth has become

whatever you can prove by experiment.

More accurately, according to the scientists,

truth is whatever you cannot disprove

even when you design experiments to do so.

You must get the same result over and over and over again,

in order to begin to understand your theory as true,

or as an accurate representation of how things are.

And you must be able to measure it.

So, for example,

how does prayer stack up

if we apply the scientific method?

How many of us here, at least once in our lives,

have gotten something that we prayed for?

have had our prayer answered with the answer we wanted?

But how many of us have always

received just what we asked for?

In a scientific world view, prayer can’t be "true,"

because it doesn’t produce consistent results.

Now from our perspective, we might say it is consistent,

because God always answers with

whatever is best for us over the long haul.

But that’s a matter of opinion;

it’s not measurable or quantifiable,

so science won’t touch it.

Prayer is something you can’t even begin to

talk about or experience,

if you’re limited to a scientific mindset.

Which many people in today’s world are.

Perhaps even some in our own families.

Science and its methodology have become idols:

and if they don’t prove something is true,

we’re not obligated to believe it.

Now, most of us who are people of faith

aren’t that rigid and stuck!

At least, not on that topic!

But we are affected by the spirit of our times,

just as surely as folks outside the church are.

Even pastors get trapped by it.

Several years ago, when I was living in San Angelo,

one of my good friends who was a campus minister at Angelo State University

asked me to come and take part in a series of talks.

Tuesday nights after Easter,

she had different clergy coming in to talk to students

on the topic, "Why I Believe."

In other words, we were to talk with the students

about our own personal faith.

Not our denomination’s party line,

or what our favorite theologian has to say on any subject,

but why I believe.

About a week ahead of time I saw my friend Sonya at lunch,

and I said to her, You’re going to have to cancel me.

I’ve discovered that I know what I believe,

but not why.

Well, we had a good laugh about that,

and she confessed to having some of the same kind of trouble

getting her presentation ready.

And the more I puzzled about that,

the more I came to realize that I was guilty of

just exactly the same kind of thing I’ve been talking about.

I had brainwashed myself into believing that

unless I could come up with

a scientifically logical, mathematically precise

proof of why I believe,

that I couldn’t claim any truth for it.

Something that sounded like,

A, therefore B; B, therefore C,

therefore God exists.

That’s what the world wants from us.

But it can’t be done.

Some things,

we simply have to believe without seeing.

Which is why I started out by talking about

things like wind, and gravity, and electrons.

Even though it’s not exactly the same thing,

it’s a way to begin.
I haven’t seen wind, or gravity …

But I have seen the effect they have

on people and things,

and so I know they are real.

Likewise, I have not seen God, or faith, or the Holy Spirit.

But I have seen the effect they have in people’s lives,

and so I know they are real.

I cannot demonstrate to you or to anyone else

that electrons exist;

I can’t even see them.

And yet, I accept that they must exist

because a whole lot of other things

make sense and fall into place

when we understand that this is how things are put together.

Similarly, I can’t demonstrate that God exists,

or that God is good.

I can’t prove in any measurable way that

it’s better to be kind than nasty;

or to be generous than selfish,

or humble than prideful.

But I have seen that life falls into place much better

when we accept that God is, and that God is good,

and that we too are to be good.

It can’t be documented or measured or proven …

but it makes sense of a whole lot of other things

that don’t make sense otherwise.

Peter’s audience never met Jesus;

they never heard him speak or teach;

they didn’t witness his miracles,

or see the nail holes in his hands and feet.

But Peter had,

and they trusted Peter to tell them the truth.

Because Peter had seen,

and because Peter told what he had seen,

his people were able to believe without seeing.

And that much, at least, we can do.

We haven’t seen God …

we don’t know if God is a he or a she …

we don’t if God speaks English or Hebrew or everything all at once…

we don’t know if God sits on a throne

or drives around in a Cadillac.

But we have seen

what God has done in our lives.

We can believe,

without directly seeing.

And we can spread the word to others,

who also have not seen,

but who may come to believe

because they trust us,

and what we say we have seen.

Peter is right:

our faith is more precious than gold.

Such a gift needs to be treasured,

even when it can’t be seen …

and it cries out to be shared.

May God grant us faith to share,

and joy in spreading it around.

Amen.

© 2005 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)