Eastertide, and especially this Sunday’s gospel about Jesus’ encounter with the infamous ‘doubting’ Thomas (wouldn’t a better adjective be ‘believing’ Thomas?), brings up very personal questions regarding our understandings of faith.

John Westerhoff III describes our faith journeys in a way I’ve found helpful. Using four stages, through which we constantly move in and out as we grow older, see if you can see where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’d like to go:

1. Experienced faith – this is the faith of a child imitating prayers, like the ‘Our Father.’ There is very little or no understanding of what’s going on.
2. Affilliative faith – this is the faith of an older child or teen who, plays along with the crowd because, ‘that’s just what we do,’ like youth group affiliation, even church membership. It is still centered on imitation although there may be a little understanding of what’s happening.
3. Searching faith – this usually hits in late adolescence or early adulthood when the question is sincerely asked, ‘What do I believe?’
4. Owned faith – early or late adulthood, if at all. This is where Thomas ended up when he declared, ‘my Lord and my God.’ It is an adult articulation of one’s beliefs about human existence in relation to God and Creation.

If you see a little bit of yourself in each stage, relax, that’s normal. We all divide our faith between the four. However we are wise to recognize the progressive nature of these stages. We are to move toward an ‘owned faith’ where our journeys become more and more centered on plumbing the depths of what calling Jesus ‘Lord’ is really all about.

Eastertide asks us to ponder the breadth of Thomas’ confession and its ramifications. How much of our faith do we ‘own?’ Are we content simply affiliating, going along for the ride and avoiding the difficult questions of commitment, personal sacrifice and ownership? How does calling Jesus ‘Lord’ affect various aspects of our lives, for example; our personal finances, neighborhood and community involvement, job (vocation) and family relationships?

Resources
‘Will Our Children Have Faith? – John Westerhoff III
‘Stages of Faith’ – James Fowler