What
is faith?
Is
it a feeling? Can you measure it?
Can
you make it or lose it? How do you
get it?
How
do you know if you’ve got it? How
do you know if it is enough?
I
once knew a family, with a 12 year old boy who was horribly injured two years
before I met them in a freak sledding accident. When I met them, he was in a wheelchair, paralyzed from neck
down.
The
family called themselves people of faith.
They prayed every day for this boy to be healed. Faith meant that if they believed in it
strong enough, if they prayed hard enough, and if enough other people prayed
too, God would heal him. And the whole family and all their energy revolved
around the impending healing of the boy.
Every day that he woke up still paralyzed was just an illustration of
the weakness of their faith, and they applied themselves doubly hard the next day
to believing God would heal him.
In
the meantime the girl had become a teenager, disillusioned and confused, the
father had left, his faith too weak, unable to hold on any longer to this way
of life, but still the family prayed and believed. Any adjustment to life as it was was conceding that he would
not be healed, so every day they lived in holy resistance. This was great faith.
And
I wondered at this Jesus, who allowed their kid to be paralyzed and was
dangling healing like a taunting reward just out of reach until they could
produce the proper measure of faith, and I wanted to ask, but never did, about this
Jesus, Who then is this?
A very
old man is dying, surrounded by his family – daughters, grandchildren, great
grandchildren. He has been living
in and out of dementia’s fog for some time, sometimes recognizing their faces
or their voices, sometimes mistaking his eldest daughter for his wife of 60
years who preceded him in death a few years before.
He
had been an ordinary man, a little too dependent on the booze, a little too
stingy, sometimes funny, often quiet, a little racist, a little sexist, but by
in large a good and kind person, shaped in huge part by his difficult childhood
during the Depression in inner city Baltimore.
The
day comes when he is to breathe his last, and his youngest daughter sits at his
bedside and asks him if he has given his life to Christ, if he wants to spend
eternity in heaven. She takes his
hand and prays with him, and she has a sense that he really understands her in
that moment, and is filled with great peace that her father is now saved.
At
his funeral she shares this story – to the people he went to the Baptist church
on the corner with whole adult life, the friends who had weathered thick and
thin with him through decades, and his grandchildren in the front row. And she assures them that he has indeed
given his life to Jesus – on his very deathbed – and the faith he found in those
last few moments was enough to save him now from hell.
And
I look at the faces of those he loved around me, and at my grandpa in the
casket, and I think of this Jesus, who allowed him to squeak into heaven at
that last minute and overlooked his whole life before then, and whatever weaker
manifestations of faith he had exhibited until that moment, and I feel the
question burning inside me, about this Jesus, Who then is this?
I
walked into the room on the oncology floor, a brand new baby chaplain, and there
were his parents, standing next to the body of their teenaged son, taken by
cancer. They could not have been
more different. The father’s face twisted in grief, his body was hunched over
in a chair by the bed, he looked like he had just been sobbing.
The
mother erect, brisk, composed, she was saying to the father, “God wanted him; this is God’s
will. This is how it was meant to
be. It does no good to cry about it, we should be rejoicing! He is with God
now! Where’s your faith?”
He
stared at her like she was a stranger, this mother of his son. Something like
horror, disgust and despair filled his eyes, and I almost heard his question
aloud as he thought of this Jesus who would take their son from them and
require that they celebrate it, Who then
is this Jesus?
Why are you afraid? Jesus
asks the drenched and trembling disciples.
Have you still no faith?
If we had faith we could move
mountains. If we had faith we could calm storms. If we had faith we wouldn’t
feel afraid when we are faced with the very real possibility of perishing, or
grieve when someone we love dies. We wouldn’t worry so much, we wouldn’t doubt
so much, we’d feel sure, happy, confident. If we had faith we wouldn’t have
questions, or feelings that were not positive. We’d never feel overwhelmed or angry. If we had faith.
And I wonder, when I hear this
story, What is it about us, what is it about me, that when we hear this story,
when we see the storm and witness the disciples’ terror, and then watch Jesus speak
to nature, addressing the elements themselves, and observe that in an instant
and the wind and the waves obey him – why, when we hear this miraculous tale of
terror, dramatic salvation and amazement, do we fixate on one thing, the
question, Why are you still afraid, Don’t
you have any faith?
Like Jesus looks out from the pages
past the disciples, right at us and asks, What’s
wrong with you? Where’s your faith?
And we can barely stand disappointing Jesus, and so we nestle into the
comfortable Christian shame that we’re just not good enough and maybe hope to
try harder.
It
occurs to me that perhaps we’ve missed the point a little.
Because
if faith is loyalty to a monster who wants us to celebrate when our kids die,
then I don’t want it. If faith is suspending life waiting for some miracle, or
praying certain words so you don’t end up in hell, then, no thank you.
And
if Jesus is expecting me to ignore the storms around me or within me, or say
that a raging gale is just a light summer rain – that losing a job or a friend,
or gaining a diagnosis shouldn’t rattle me, or that tension between friends or
regretful words to my kids are nothing to fret about, then I can honestly say I can’t do it.
It’s
impossible. I am a rattleable person. Sometimes I am strong, but a lot of the
time I worry and I fear. I feel
weak and confused and I have a lot of questions. And if I have my whole life to perfect this thing and strive
every moment of every day, I will never reach the level of faith that keeps me
calm in a storm. My stomach still
drops in the turbulence on the plane, and my heart pounds at the word that
someone might be mad at me. So where
is my faith?
But
I think there’s another line in this story that shows faith. (And it’s not when they accuse Jesus of
not caring while they’re dying, by the way). It’s actually the disciple’s awe and fear-filled response to
the whole thing. Even the wind and the
seas obey him! Who then is this?
Who
then is this? Who is this God? The
story asks.
And
by asking, it invites us to notice:
Jesus
is the one who gets in the boat with them to lead them to the other side.
Jesus
is the one who calms the storm.
Jesus
hears their cries.
Jesus
looks on them with compassion.
Jesus
wishes they were not afraid.
Jesus
wishes they had more faith.
Jesus
can see what’s bigger than the storm and invites them to see that too.
This
story isn’t to tell us to buck up and have faith so we don’t fear.
It’s
a reminder that even when we fear, God is there.
That
whether what we fear comes to pass or not, we are not alone.
That
we can have an emotional outburst at God and it doesn’t chase God away.
And
faith is
that point- whether before it all
happens or after it’s all over, or ,God-willing, right in the very thick of it,
where the question is allowed to surface within us, Who then is this Jesus?
There’s
a little conversation that gets repeated now and then at my house. It’s when some squabble happens between
the kids and they’re fighting over something,
then
Maisy begins screaming and crying runs to tattle to Andy, “Daddy! He’s not
sharing! Don’t you even care that I’m not going to get my half?”
and
then Andy says, “Maisy! Honey! Don’t you trust me? I wont let you go without! It’s my job to take care of you and
make sure you have what you need, I’m your Daddy.” Basically, “Why are you
afraid? Don’t you trust me, my dear?”
And
the question of faith gets stirred in her, Who
then is this, my daddy? Will he let me go without? No. My daddy takes care
of me, and my brother too. He makes sure we both have what we need.
And
this exchange invites her to deeper faith, to perhaps next time, to say instead
the cry of great faith, Daddy, please
help me!
Why are you afraid?
Because
this storm is going to kill me.
Because
my arms and back are tired, and the wind is cold, and it’s loud and terrifying.
Because
you are asleep. You don’t seem to notice the utter peril I am in and it makes
me feel alone. And then comes the
reminder, I am here. I will take care of
you. Don’t you trust me? And with the question, Who is this Jesus? comes the faith.
Our
storms are not always something that happens to us. Sometimes they happen
within us – as the Psalmist prays, longing to trust God to act, frustrated
about the pain in the world and people who do not fear God seeming to get away
with evil on God’s watch.
Sometimes
our storms are wrestling to come to terms with what we’re experiencing, or an
addiction we can’t shake that threatens to overwhelm us, or feelings of
helplessness at what we see around us.
When
Faith asks, Who then is this God? It
gives us perspective. We see, in the observation of the Psalmist,
God
cares for the poor
God
made some promises
God
sees all people as valuable
God
hasn’t given up
God
is a stronghold for oppressed and a helper in need,
And
then the prayer becomes, Look God! I know you care. I know you can make
things right. And I hate what’s happening to me. And to people who seem not to
be seen at all. You see us. God,
please help now!”
And
sometimes storms happen between us. They breed mistrust and jealousy; they allow
us to stop seeing one another as human beings and instead as adversaries or
threats. And the accusations flash
like lightening and the arguments roll like thunder and we are overwhelmed in
the storm.
But
sometimes we have faith in the middle of a situation, and we can ask about God,
Who then is this? Who are you, God, in the midst of this?
When
we remember that God does real things in our life, even right now,
and
that God made all of us in God’s image,
God
wants us to be connected, in relationship,
God
loves me and loves them too
God
brings wholeness and healing,
And
then, like in the letter we heard tonight, perhaps we don’t need to run or give
up in fear, but can hang in there and seek to be reconciled, can be vulnerable
even in pain, and can reach out and seek to make things right, even if there is
no guarantee that it will succeed.
Life
is scary. Relationships are messy.
Being a person in the world is a scary, messy business. And instead of leaving us to sort it
all out on our own, Jesus joins the mess,
and
stands right next to our fear,
so that
in the storms around, between and within us,
and
in the times of calm and peace,
when
we feel strong and sure and full of confidence,
or
weak and scared and utterly confused,
when
life is ordinary and boring or extraordinarily meaningful,
in all
our moments, whether we know it just then or not, Jesus is present, and we are
invited to trust him,
and
to both delve into the answer
and
be drawn into the question, again and again,
Who then is this God?
And
THIS, my friends, is Faith. This
is the faith that holds us. The faith to which we’ve been called.
Amen.
For another exploration of faith that riffs on this theme, check out David Lose's thought-provoking article, What if faith is a question?
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