Now that I’m settled (somewhat) in Georgia and have my books on the shelves, connected to the Internet, and my prayerbook where I can locate it, I’m finding that this Monday is a good time to reflect on yesterday’s Eucharist: the liturgy, the Scripture readings, the excellent sermon given by Pastor Katie Pasch at St. John Lutheran Church, and the continuing gifted presence of Jesus in Holy Communion. Last evening Pastor Luckey once again sent me his sermon from Faith Lutheran Church, Lexington, Kentucky, and after reading it, I’m convinced that you will want to read it too. It’s based on the second reading, Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16. Here it is:
I want to talk about faith this morning. What it is. And particularly what it isn’t. And I want to use a verse from the letter of Hebrews. Listen to this: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
You might get the idea from that verse that faith is a feeling. That it’s a matter of the heart. “Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” That idea of what faith is, drives people into my office occasionally. “I’ve lost my faith,” they say, by which they mean they’ve lost that feeling they once had. We have the idea—and I blame preachers for this— we have the idea that faith is something you feel. A confidence you have inside. No doubts. Complete certainty. You either have it or you don’t. And if you don’t, there must be something wrong with you.
But here’s the interesting thing. And this is so important. The word in this verse that we translate “assurance” doesn’t mean “to be sure.” It is not describing a feeling at all. It has more the sense of a verb, really. It means to behave as if you are sure, even when you may not be sure. Does that make sense? There are some times in your life when you are called upon to act “as if” something is true even when you have your doubts. When your daddy or your mama stood in the water beside the edge of the pool with their arms up and said to you: “Jump. I’ll catch you,” it probably didn’t feel safe. You didn’t KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’d catch you. But you behaved “as if” they could be trusted to catch you, and you jumped.
Sometimes I have someone say to me in a new members class or in a counseling session: “I can’t in good conscience say the Apostle’s Creed because I’m not sure I believe it.” And my advice to them is: “Say it anyway. Say the Apostles’ Creed as if you believe it trusting that there will come a day when God will bring you around and you will actually believe it.”
The Bible is not a book of psychology. There’s precious little in the Bible about feelings. Faith is not about what you feel. It’s wonderful when you feel all “spiritually” warm inside. But your faith should never be measured by how you feel. In the Bible faith is not a feeling. Faith is behaving “as if” the thing you hope is true, is in fact, true.
What I admire about some people is that there is an “as if-ness” about them. All hell may be breaking loose around them, but they behave “as if” God has them in the palm of his hand. And that makes all the difference in the world. It’s what distinguishes them from other people. That’s the faith the writer of Hebrews is talking about. He’s not talking about a feeling of assurance. He’s talking about a way of behaving. “Now faith is the ‘as if-ness’ of things hoped for.” Living “as if” God’s promises will come true.
Having given a definition of faith, the writer of Hebrews then uses the story of Abraham and Sarah to illustrate what faith looks like. In the book of Genesis Abraham is almost a hundred years old when we meet him the first time. He’s got Coke-bottle thick glasses and walks with a cane. His wife, Sarah is in her nineties. They’ve been married for decades and have never had a child.
God visits Abraham one evening. “Come outside with me for a moment,” God says to him. He takes Abraham out under the night sky and tells him to look up. “See those stars up there?” God says. “Can you count them? That’s how many grandchildren and great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren you and Sarah are going to have.”
And Abraham says: “Lord, with all due respect, have you checked my sperm count lately? Have you taken a good look at Sarah? There’s not a snowball’s chance [on a hot dessert day] that she and I are going to have a child.”
And God says: “I didn’t tell you to look down below your belt, Abraham. I told you to look up at the sky. Count the stars, Abraham.” Start behaving ‘as if’ what I promise is going to come true.”
And if you read the story in Genesis, Abraham starts behaving that way. He may be on a cane, but after that evening when God stops by there’s a certain spring in his step as he travels toward the land that God has said will be his. He behaves “as if” God can be trusted to make him the father of an entire nation. A little later on, Sarah gets her own chance to behave “as if” or not. Three visitors stop by one day with the news that Sarah will conceive soon. Not surprisingly, she laughs at the idea. Which gives one of the three visitors the bright idea that a good name for their future son would be Isaac, which means “laughter.”
So that forever thereafter, whenever they call their son to supper—“Isaac!”—they’ll remember how they were tempted once upon a time to second-guess God. To behave “as if” God couldn’t be trusted. Well, to make a long story short, nine months later Abraham and Sarah are getting up for Isaac’s two o’clock feeding. “Now faith is the assurance—the ‘as if-ness’—of things hoped for.”
That was Abraham’s faith. Not what he felt. But what he did in spite of what he might have felt. He behaved as if he were going to be the father of a nation, even if, by the way, he never got to see all those grandchildren and great grandchildren God said he’d have.
And that is the story of faith throughout the Bible. Not feelings. But behavior in spite of feelings. Behaving as if God can be trusted even when all the evidence points to the contrary. Refusing to act out of fear even when we feel afraid.
It’s the kind of faith Moses told the people of Israel to have at the Red Sea. Here they were with their backs against the wall. They turn to face the most powerful army on the face of the Planet—the Egyptians. The Hebrew people have no weapons. They have no boats to cross the Red Sea. They’ve never learned how to swim. They’re “done for.” They start bawling and wringing their hands. And what does Moses say to them? I’m quoting here.
“Don’t be afraid. Stand your ground and watch what God will do to save you today . . . . The Lord will fight for you, and all you have to do is keep still.” Keep still “as if” God can be trusted. And you know the story.
The Bible is filled with those kind of stories about a God who makes a way out of no way. And who asks only one of thing of us—“Trust me.” Behave as if what I say is true.
It’s one story after another. Culminating in the life of a man named Jesus—whom we call God’s son—whose last words on the cross were what? According to Luke it was: “Into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Abandoned by his closest friends and surely feeling that his mission was an absolute failure, he behaved on the cross “as if” God could be trusted to bring something good out of this “mell of a hess.” He was behaving “as if” Easter had already happened. That’s the kind of faith the Bible talks about.
And it is into this faith that we baptize. We Christians refuse to live our lives in fear. Regardless of what the voices from the right and left tell us on their talk shows about where our nation and this world is headed, we will have none of it! Because we are baptized. And that means we behave “as if” God holds the world in the palm of his hand and will stop at nothing until his will is done.
Shel Silverstein says in one of his poems:
Listen to the mustn’t, child.
Listen to the don’ts.
Listen to the never could bes.
Listen to the won’ts.
Listen to the never has beens.
Then listen to me.
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be.
In a world that constantly uses words like: “Can’t” and “won’t” and “never will” and “never could be,” we are baptized. And we live “as if” anything God says can be, can be because we’ve heard stories of what God did at the Red Sea and in a tomb outside of Jerusalem. And we’ve looked up and counted the stars. And we’ve seen an old couple rocking their baby boy and behaving “as if” this were only the beginning.
This morning Daniel B. Clendenin sent out his Monday morning announcement in Journey with Jesus about what to think about in preparation for next Sunday’s lectionary readings: Here’s what he says:
There’s a remarkable admission in the reading for this week, that many believers who have died “did NOT receive the promises of God” (Hebrews 11:13, 39). And so I call my essay “Believing Isn’t Seeing.” This is a great antidote to all the many forms of the prosperity gospel that we hear.
Huston Smith of UC Berkeley, now in his nineties, has a new autobiography that I review this week: “Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine” (2010).
For movies I review the Argentinian title The Secret in Their Eyes, which won the Academy Award for best foreign film in 2009. And for poetry we post a piece by the Spanish mystic and priest Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591), ” I Do Not Die.”
