What does God do with doubters?

 

In today’s Bible readings we heard two accounts telling of how God calls and engages people into His ministry.  First we heard God call Samuel in the temple.  Then we heard Jesus call Nathaniel under the fig tree near Bethsaida.  In both of these “call stories” God speaks directly to Samuel and Nathaniel, so that there seems to be no ambiguity for them in discerning what He wants.  He calls the two messengers by name in fact so that they don’t even have to wonder who He is talking to. 

 

As a seminary student, I read these stories with a tinge of Jealousy.  Since I decided to go to seminary four years ago, I have been asked no less then 20 times to explain my personal “call story.”  Unlike Samuel, I cannot say that God spoke directly to me as I was sleeping in the temple of the Lord (I actually try to stay awake during church).  Unlike Nathaniel, Jesus did not walk up to me and tell me what a great guy I am and then ask me follow Him.  No, God did not call me in an absolutely irrefutable, direct, unambiguous way.  Which, honestly, is sometimes annoying. 

 

Seminary students are constantly asked how it is that they know that God has called them to ordained ministry.  The seminary asked me in my application process, my supervisor at my chaplaincy internship asked me during my interview, and my candidacy committee asks me in a yearly interview.  I am constantly required to defend my sense of call. 

 

So I hope you don’t fault me for feeling a little jealous of Samuel and Nathaniel once in a while.  If God called me in the same way that He called them I’d just have God send out a few holy letters of recommendation to my seminary, my chaplaincy supervisor, and my candidacy committee telling them that I am the right guy for the job, and I would have no reason to continually defend my call.

 

But I imagine that Nathaniel’s and Samuel’s encounters with God were probably not as simple and easy as they appear at first glance either.  In my experience, absolute certainty within our relationship with God is a rare, if not non-existent commodity. 

 

Take Nathaniel’s call, for instance.  During the first century, the land of Israel was chalk full of would be Messiahs.  In other words, Jesus was not the only preacher running around Israel claiming to be the One whom God sent to free the Jews.  In fact, He wasn’t even the only one walking around performing miracles.  Healing, preaching, holy men were found in every part of Israel during the first century!

 

With this context in mind, Nathaniel’s reaction to the apostles’ claim to have found “the one Moses wrote about… this Jesus of Nazareth” seems to be dripping with doubt.    Nathaniel says (say it skeptically), “Nazareth!  Can anything good come from Nazareth!”  I imagine that I would have the same reaction if Pastor Gary told me that the second coming of Christ has occurred in Eastern Montana.  I would say, Eastern Montana, can anything good come from Eastern Montana! 

 

Then when Nathaniel finally encounters Jesus, he does not believe immediately but instead asks Jesus to prove who he is so that he may rid himself of his skepticism and doubt.  Nathaniel tests Jesus.  He says to him (skeptically, confrontationally), “How do you know me…Prove yourself to me?”

 

In the same way Samuel hears a booming voice from heaven call him by name and his immediate thought is that Eli must be calling him from some other part of the temple.  God gave Samuel three opportunities to hear His call and three times Samuel absolutely missed it! 

 

On second glance, do these accounts still sound like encounters with God that leave no room for doubt and uncertainty?  Samuel and Nathaniel were in fact in the very presence of their God and all they had to offer initially to this God who called them by name was uncertainty and doubt. 

 

It took a miraculous look into Nathaniel’s past for him to finally believe that Jesus is God’s Messiah.  It took 4 booming calls from heaven and the guidance of an older spiritual leader for Samuel to finally answer God’s call.  If these two servants of the Lord experienced doubt in the midst of a direct, fact to face revelation, is it any wonder that we experience doubt and uncertainty when God reveals Himself to us? 

 

Have you ever experienced uncertainty or doubt in your relationship with God?  Probably so. 

 

If Nathaniel and Samuel have anything to teach us it is that doubt and uncertainty in our relationship with God is something that we will all experience at some point in our lives.  Tragedy will find us in the form of a family member’s death and we will wonder if God is distant rather than close.  The war in Iraq, and Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina cause us to wonder if our God is truly a God of love or of vengeance.  Questions about who God is, if God is, and who God is for us may pursue us all the days of our lives.        

 

But Nathaniel and Samuel teach us something else that is of even greater importance.  They teach us that God’s faithfulness is more persistent than our doubt.  Samuel missed God’s call three times, and so God called him a fourth.  Nathaniel wondered if anything good could truly come out of Nazareth, and so Jesus met him and showed him face to face the good that came out of Nazareth.    

 

From Samuel, to Nathaniel, to you and me worshipping in this church today, God has had over 7,000 years of experience with doubters.  He knows that His message of unconditional love and forgiveness oftentimes sounds too sweet to be true in a world where bitterness is constantly infiltrating our senses.  Yet He is patient, and His response to our doubt is the same as His response to our sin.  In the face of our doubt God comes after us and gives us Himself.  He says, “Do you doubt my closeness? Here, I will come as one of you.  I will live with you, I will touch you, and you will touch me.”  He says, “Do you doubt my love?  Here, I will give you my Son who will take away any sin that you believe keeps you from me.” 

 

Why is God so tenacious?  Why does God keep coming after us like (as one high school student puts it) the greatest of all stalkers?  In the words of missionary Eli Stanley, who served in India from 1884-1973, “We are inwardly fashioned for faith, not for doubt.  Doubt is not our native land; faith is. We are so made by God that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. We live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety.  In doubt, fear and anxiety,  we gasp for breath—these are not our native air. But in faith and confidence, we breathe freely—these are our native air.”  To put it very simply, God has built you for faith, not for doubt, and so Faith is not your holding on to God, which can waiver.  Instead, faith is God holding onto you. 

 

Will we continue to doubt regardless of the work God has done in Jesus Christ to convince us of his presence and love in our lives?  Yes, of course we will.  Life at some point will give us reason to doubt.  Will God allow that doubt to gain the victory?  Absolutely not.  Because He has made you for faith, God will pursue you in the midst of your doubt and uncertainty as He did Samuel and Nathaniel, and He will have faith, not doubt have the last word in your lives.  So what does God do with doubters?  The same thing he does with sinners, He holes onto them.    

 

Amen.