The Conviction of Things Unseen
Genesis 15: 1-6
Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16
This week I had the pleasure of attending the book club meeting. We met at the Cotuit Dock and toured the Bay. Included in the tour was a thorough commentary courtesy of Marcia Dudley. This month’s selection was self-help books, yes we did talk about books albeit briefly, and I learned that Peter’s book on Dr. Phil’s Life Strategies included a list of life laws. First on the list was, “You either get it or you don’t.” When referring to peoples’ inability to make the decision to succeed in life, Dr. Phil writes, “Become one of those who get it. Break the code of human nature, and find out what makes people tick.” And while I wouldn’t turn to Dr. Phil for advice in the spiritual realm, I couldn’t help but wonder if such a mandate could possibly apply to faith. Is faith an either you get it or you don’t kind of thing? What is faith really and where does it come from?
Jesus comments quite a bit on faithfulness. Throughout the Gospels we read things like, “Oh ye of little faith” and “Your faith has made you well.” But we don’t hear from Jesus much about faith itself, like how we might acquire it or what happens when it diminishes somehow. We hear more about what it is to live a life filled with faith and what God does with those who remain steadfast in faith. In the Synoptic Gospels the disciples come to Jesus proclaiming, “Increase our faith!” And Jesus responds by telling them that they don’t need much faith at all to get started. In fact he says, “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” So maybe Jesus didn’t say much about faith itself because perhaps acting faithful is really the way we find, increase and nurture our faith.
Those of us who have spent a lot of time in churches can attest to the fact that for some people faith just seems to come easily. We learn from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and the Ephesians that faith comes as an unmerited gift from God’s spirit and not as a result of human efforts. Faith is a gift and so it is not possible for all of us to have the same amount or to have it all of the time. We learn from the Letter the Hebrews that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The first part of the verse refers to that which is not yet here- not yet realized but is anxiously awaited and the second part speaks of a present reality that we can only know through the eyes of faith - a world that only God can see.
Jesus is not alone in his tendency to spend more time speaking about faithfulness than faith itself. He is rooted in a tradition that celebrates faithfulness and the lives of those whom God uses because of their faithfulness. Our readings from this morning tell us the story of Abram whom God later renames Abraham. We learn that the word of the Lord came to him in a vision and that he would be rewarded for his faithfulness. We hear that he sets out in faith, for a place- a land; he was to receive as his inheritance from God. He doesn’t have a clue where he is going. And the land that God had promised him isn’t revealed to him right away. He lives in tents in strange places, all the while clinging to his conviction that God would be faithful. There isn’t really anything around him familiar except his family and his God. He is sustained by his deep conviction that God would indeed hold up the bargain, that the land that was promised would be provided. And we can imagine that he yearned for the familiar life he had known and longed for a time that had long passed, yet still he holds tightly to God’s promise. We aren’t told much about the level of Abraham’s faith during his wandering and waiting for God. We can guess that most likely he had times when he wondered what God was up to, when he wondered what would become of him and his family. But we are told of his faithfulness. We are told that Abraham was faithful, that despite all that he faced, he chose to stake his life on the fact that God loved him and that no matter what came to pass, he would live as if the life God imagined for him was on its way.
Abraham loses his home, struggles with infertility, wanders lost in a strange land and yet he remains open to his God- he is convicted about things he has not yet seen. Through pain and confusion, Abraham chooses God- he commits to see God through it all. The United Methodist Church proclaims that “faith is a commitment of our whole being- that it is both a gift we receive within the Christian community and a choice we make.” It is hoping for God’s future, leaning into the coming kingdom that God has promised. Faith-as-belief is active; it involves trusting, believing, following, and hoping. Faith it seems is more like a posture we choose. Maybe faith is daring to look for God when all we can see is rubble. Faith is stepping forward in boldness to a future we believe God holds tenderly. Perhaps faith is our commitment to proclaiming that God will always have the last word. When the world says that we are doomed, “We dare to say that God is the great redeemer, forgiving and restoring us in order that we might achieve a destiny beyond our failure.”
Maybe Jesus said more about faithfulness than faith because being faithful is where we begin. Maybe each of us are born with the mustard seed of faith, and in community we might walk with one another as we till the soil, plant it and nurture it to fullness together. Jesus tells us that we don’t need much faith to do great things or to follow our God. Perhaps all we need is courage to be faithful, to love God even when we cannot understand fully how God works- courage to be faithful, to look for God, for the light when there is darkness all around us- courage to be faithful, to be willing to stake our life on the fact that our God will always “make a way out of no way.”
Maybe just a tiny amount of faith is enough to lead us to our God and perhaps once we are there, God can do the rest. As a Christian community we can share our faith when those hurting among us feel like the supply is low. We can take turns leading each other in boldness when the dark seems too dark to bear. So maybe faith is a sort of yearning- a thirst that we know can only be quenched by our faithfulness to God. Whether we have much faith or long to have more- we have seen God through Jesus Christ and maybe daring to be open to God, to look for God in all circumstances, to believe that our God can create life out of even the deepest loss is enough to lead us onward in faith.
Phillip C. Ph.D. McGraw. Life Strategies: Doing What Works, Doing What Matters 23.
The Jerome Bible Commentary. Eds. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1968) 401.
http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.2310045/k.4A66/Reflecting_on_Our_Faith.htm The United Methodist Church, “Reflecting On Our Faith”
Marjorie Suchocki. God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology. (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001) 5.