Reading: 1Cor 15:1-11 As I mentioned earlier I had a wonderful experience at the quarry the other night. The weather was perfect, the moon was full and the trees were covered in light. The music was terrific and one sensed all was right with the world, including my idea of God. These sorts of times, when God seems close at hand and everything seems to fit together are often rarities in our busy and less than perfect 21st century world. Instead we are surrounded by modern scientific discoveries and life experiences that make us wonder where and who God is. Doubt strangles us because our experience of God does not meet what we have grown to expect from God. Our faith then seems like a straw that is easily broken and difficult to mend.

So today I want to talk about this doubt. I am not the first person to do this, and won`t be the last. In fact much of what I present this morning comes from Val Webb, author of a book called `In Defence of doubt` and more recently `Like catching water in a net`.

Doubt about God arises in many of us for many reasons. It can be brought on by acknowledging the many scientific discoveries made since the 17th century, which we have mentioned on many occasions in this church and which make the idea of a literal reading of many parts of the bible impossible. Or we can suffer it when our experiences of the world and what happens in it lead us to doubt some of the church`s teachings, many that were written a long time ago in a different time and place and often for political rather than theological reasons. In this case what we experience in our life does not match our religious tradition.

Doubt can lead to a loss of commitment, often because we feel guilty about doubting. We have been taught that doubting is wrong, and shows a weak or weakening faith. It is often seen as the opposite of faith, that we must not be strong enough or have enough faith if we doubt and question, as though there is an amount that is required. This sort of attitude sees many abandon the church and the search for God altogether. Yet faith and belief are not the same thing. Faith is our response and trust in our experience of God while beliefs are human rules and ideas about God formalised in our traditions. One can have faith but still question and doubt some of the traditional beliefs. Val Webb would say that doubt emerges in that gap when belief systems do not line up with our own reason or experience.

It is, however, what we do with this doubt that matters. There are many people today who have not abandoned the idea of God - who are reworking Christianity to acknowledge the many new discoveries and insights that have occurred in the last 2000 years, trying to discover anew the wisdom and transforming power of God and Jesus. This does not mean they are not Christians. It does mean that they have chosen not to discard Christianity as a whole, but instead look at ways of matching their faith and experience with their belief. They have chosen to keep their faith, but rework their beliefs into a compatible whole.

This process involves many things, including exploring further the history behind the writing of the bible and particularly the gospels and the letters from Paul, reading scholars and lay people who also are on the journey and trying to incorporate new understandings from science. It is also talking to each other, in community about our questions openly and without judgement.

If you find you are on this path, because it is certainly me, don`t be shy, you are probably one of a vast number of people working towards a growing and dynamic Christian faith. And this does not mean we throw the baby out with the bath water: What is old and traditional is not necessarily outdated. Rather we should just not accept everything at face value. And we should not worry when we doubt the truth of some things.

So let`s get down to a specific example, for my reason for focussing on this topic was because of the Corinthians reading we heard today. Let me read it again (1Cor 15:1-11). It is this type of reading that sent me on my journey of discovery a long time ago, because I doubted the idea that is presented in it. And often I would ignore the reading and use another, but not today. So let`s explore it a little bit.

Here we have Paul talking about the resurrection of Jesus, but using the words, `Jesus died for our sins` as the backdrop of the passage. Now at face value that statement has huge connotations, mostly to do with the idea that Jesus was a substitute sacrifice for our sins. That he was perfect in nature, a perfect sacrifice so that God would forgive us our sins without payment and we could be justified or made right with God. In other words Jesus` death replaces the payment that God demands from us. The passage does not say that completely but that is how it is interpreted by many people.

Yet if we were to analyse the bible more fully looking for that type of idea, we won`t find it in many places. The gospels, particularly Mark, Matthew and Luke do not present that as the reason for Jesus dying on the cross, even though they were written after Paul`s letters. So where does it come from? The idea was really formulated in 1097 by Anselm of Canterbury in response to the question, `Why did God become human?` The divinity of Jesus had become so much more important than his humanity at this time. In the centuries after Anselm this understanding of the cross became part of common Christianity, meaning the most common view of the importance of Jesus, which it is even today.

However Marcus Borg in a new book, `The First Paul`, suggests it is a misunderstanding of what Paul was on about. It is a later conclusion that is superimposed on his writings which he and the gospels did not have. In the bible, sacrifice is most commonly associated with a gift and a meal. The giving of a gift and the sharing of a meal are the classic means of bringing about reconciliation when rupture has occurred, either with a person or God. The giving of a gift to God makes it sacred, therefore Jesus` death becomes sacred to us. We become one with God through Jesus. But as Borg and many others stress, sacrifice did not mean substitution. Jesus dying for us does not mean a substitution or a payment for sin and this is a misreading of scripture and of God.

So if the cross is not a sacrificial substitute by Jesus then what does it mean? Borg feels that Paul saw the cross and resurrection as a total package, reflecting his commitment to three ideas about Jesus that are also found in the gospels. From a personal aspect the cross represents the path of transformation - we are transformed by dying and rising with Christ, by undergoing an internal death and receiving a spirit transplant. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. As a political statement, it proclaims that Jesus was lord and Caesar was not, that God is saying yes to Jesus and no to the powers of domination through his resurrection. And finally that in Jesus and his actions, we see the love of God, that it reflected the depth of God`s love and radical grace which is never ending. I know, heavy stuff, but then exploring our faith further takes work.

So why it is there in this letter, stuck between all his talk on spiritual gifts? And the beautiful passage on love, the greatest spiritual gift. It is because Paul felt that the Corinthian church was misunderstanding the faith. The Corinthian letters appear to be composites of a more extensive correspondence perhaps reaching 4 or 5 letters. The community seemed to have some real problems and the nature of the letters we have is one of pastoral concern for them from Paul. The problem focussed on in today`s reading was that the Corinthians had developed a very individualistic faith, where personal salvation was the only thing that mattered. For them it was all about the soul and its immortality, such that the body was of no consequence and therefore any community concern was of no consequence. As Bill Loader says, this has become the norm for many Christians today, where notions of social justice or the state of the environment are of little concern. Paul was horrified as his vision was one of a transformed creation and new community. Hence in the reading he reminds them of Jesus, both his death and resurrection, and a hope that this transformation had begun. He was not advocating a personal individual or private faith, but a faith of community and responsibility and participation. For us today interpreting the death of Jesus as a substitutory sacrifice can also lead to a Corinthians-type faith, which is far removed from what Paul was actually saying.

The analysis of this passage highlights the dangers of not questioning what is written down 2,000 years ago. Without a historical understanding of the letter itself and aspects of the development of Christianity, together with an understanding of Paul`s other writings a false picture can emerge, and doubts can surface.

However I don`t present this sermon to dismiss people who hold to the traditional doctrines of the church, which have developed over many years. What I want to do is suggest that we sometimes need to delve deeper into what we hear and read to get the essence of the message, and that doubt can lead us along that path. Doubt can be the spark that leads to discovery and recommitment. It can be, as Val Webb puts it, the grain of sand irritating the oyster to produce a pearl, or the catalyst for new ideas. Doubt makes us explore the reasons why we believe certain things because the christian faith is not static, just as our world and humans aren`t. In the end there are many understandings of God, we have to find ones that match what we know of our world and our time, keeping what is timeless and leaving behind what are remnants of a different age.

There is a great deal more to say but perhaps I should let Val Webb finish up this sermon as she finishes the book -

`What is the promise? Not constant sunshine, instant success, unlimited wealth, immortal health or a personal genie of the lamp. Rather, it is the promise that, if we open the windows of our lives and allow fresh winds to blow through - and sometimes cyclones, tornadoes and thunderstorms - we may also feel a caress that lightly touches our face and may discover that we can call it God`.