Faith
A Sermon for the
Third Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis
6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19 | Psalm 46 | Romans
1:16-17; 3:22b-28 | Matthew 7:21-29 |
About
today’s readings
In today’s readings we begin a romp through the Pentateuch – the first five
books of the Hebrew Bible, also known in Hebrew as Torah. Over the weeks ahead, we will be introduced to the various
“heroes” of our faith, beginning today with Noah. The reading in Genesis is linked to the Gospel reading
with the theme of rainstorms! And the reading from Romans ties them together with one of Paul’s many discourses
on the importance of faith for all believers. Psalm 46 is a reflection on all these readings in the way that it points
to God as being our “stronghold” and the reason for our faith.
A Prayer before Preaching:
Lord Jesus, stay with us… be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you
as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen.
(Adapted
from A Collect for the Presence of Christ, The Book of Common Prayer, Evening Prayer, page 124.)
This morning’s readings
have provided for us three different entrees into the same topic – faith. And faith is what I would like to explore
with you this morning.
Our first reading tells parts of the story of Noah – a story that may or may not have
happened, but one which contains much truth. It is by no means a stretch to say that it took faith for the likes of
Noah to build an ark, fill it with animals, put his family on it with him, and to stay there until rains and floods
came and went, and then to safely put the animals and his family back on dry ground. His doing what he did in that story
would require taking what we would call several leaps of faith – that this structure would hold the requisite number
of animals, that it would float, that it would rain enough to destroy life, and that the story would have a good ending for
all concerned.
In our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Church in Rome, we find one of several discourses on faith that
Paul wrote to this Church. In some regards, the entire Letter to the Romans could be seen as a small dissertation on
Christian faith. The passages which we read this morning were focused on how we are saved not by works – that
is, through obedience to the Law – but rather by our faith and by God’s grace, two things that in Paul’s
theology function in tandem with each other, and are a part of the same thing.
And then in our reading from Matthew, we hear
the final two portions of the so-called Sermon on the Mount (Chapters 5 – 7). In the one, Jesus talks about how
only those who do the will of his Father in Heaven will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And in the other, Jesus explains
that hearing his words and heeding them will lead to a secure and stable future; but hearing and not heeding his words will
bring about utter destruction. He makes his point by talking about the difference between building on rock and building
on sand. In short, he is saying that you need to have faith in what he is saying, and that the faith needs to be built
on something solid, not something shifty. And it’s not good enough to just hear what he has to say, we have to
live our faith. Faith isn’t something that is kept or had; faith is something that is built – built on a
solid foundation, and capable of weathering the storms of life.
Now the topic of faith has become a rough subject
over the last several decades. Faith has, to some degree, become a dirty word in the way that Christianity has interfaced
with the rest of the world. We have – God forgive us! – smugly asserted that we have the corner on faith,
and that other religions (or even denominations) don’t have enough of it, or don’t have it at all. And over
the years, faith has been equated with the word “belief” in the way that it gets used. But I think that
it would be pretty safe to say that people can believe – or believe in – very different things, and still have
faith. The one does not rule out (or depend on) the other.
So what is this thing called faith? Webster’s
Dictionary categorizes faith as a noun with three possible meanings: confidence, religious belief, or loyalty. In the
Bible, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews defines faith as being “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction
of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, NRSV). Faith is often understood to as a trust that is placed in something
that won’t be achieved in this life.
But our readings today indicate to us that faith has more to do with the way in
which we live life than the way we approach death, and hope for what may be beyond the grave. Kathleen Norris wrote
a beautiful essay on the word faith in her book Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. In it she gives a few examples
of what others have said about faith before telling her own story about how her faith came into bloom. One example was provided
by Doris Betts, a novelist, who wrote that faith is “not synonymous with certainty… [but] is the decision to
keep your eyes open.” Other examples came from the early Church desert Fathers; one of them, Abba Poemen, said
that “faith is to live humbly and give alms.”
(Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary
of Faith, Copyright © 1998, (New York: Riverhead Books), pages 169 & 170.)
Both of these examples that
Norris gives in her essay on faith point toward a quality or process of life, more than to a belief system. Faith is
that quality; faith is that process. It is by faith that we are able to live our lives in a way that points to something
– or someone – greater than ourselves. Faith is the process whereby we connect that inner quality and assurance
to the ways in which we interact with each other, our families, our neighbors, our communities, the world, and creation itself.
For Noah, for Paul, and for Jesus, faith is about both knowing and doing the will of God with the confidence that God’s
grace is already at work in our world and in our lives. It is faith that helps us to mindful and attentive to the world
around us – to “keep our eyes open” (as Doris Betts would say). It is faith that leads us to
not think too highly of ourselves in order for us to see the needs of those around us – “to live humbly and give
alms” (as Abba Poemen would say).
Sometimes, in trying to explore a concept, it is helpful to talk about what it
is not, in order to better understand what it is. Again, faith is not about belief. In fact, a very wise preacher
once asserted that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt; rather, the opposite of faith is certainty. It doesn’t
take much faith to be certain of too many things. But it does take faith to empower us for a struggle – whether
it is to struggle with some of the difficulties of life, or a struggle with some of the things that our faith points to.
Wrestling with faith is what makes us and our faith stronger, and wrestling with our faith in no way discounts or lessens
our faith, let alone those things that we may or may not believe or believe in.
We need to build our faith on strong foundations.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is encouraging us to be wise, by hearing his words and putting them into practice (Matthew
7:24). The words to which he is referring are not simply the paragraph or two that we heard read today – he’s
referring to all his teachings in general, and to the Sermon on the Mount in particular. Today’s reading is actually
the punch line of a whole sermon or discourse on how to be his disciple. Chapters 5 through 7 in the Gospel of Matthew
outline what Jesus has to say about living life. He teaches us how know that we are blessed by God, how to understand
the Law and the Prophets, how to manage anger, his thoughts on adultery and divorce, how to have love for our enemies, how
to go about almsgiving – the practice of giving gifts to the poor, how to pray, how to view property and wealth, how
to avoid worrying, how to avoid passing judgment on others, as well as a few other topics. In short, today’s reading
is saying that in order for our faith to be sure, secure, well-grounded and long-lasting, we need to put all this into practice,
because this is what God’s will is for us all to do.
Now, how is it that we can build our faith? What will keep it strong, fresh
and growing? What will keep it from being destroyed in the storms of life? Of course, the staples of our faith
as Christians are grounded in the community of faith – the Church. We come together for regular worship and fellowship.
And, as individuals, we build our faith through the regular disciplines of prayer, study and devotion. But like Noah,
we also need to learn to take chances. Like Paul, we also need to live into God’s grace, rather than relying on
our own merits (because, frankly, our own merits are few and far between more often than not). And like Jesus taught
us in his life and ministry, we need to live life as if the Kingdom of God has already come to earth; that’s because
it’s our job to make the Kingdom of God become a reality in our own day, in our own lives, and in the lives of those
all around us. And as we live life with that kind of certainty and conviction, we are living a life of faith; and our
lives – as well as the lives of those around us – will be transformed because of it. Not because of anything
that we have done, but because we are living in the confidence that God’s grace is already at work in us, in the lives
of those we encounter, and in the world around us. Amen.
The Rev. David Grant Smith
1 June 2008
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Reference
Matthew 7:21-29 (NRSV)
Jesus said to the crowds, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord,
Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’
Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’
“Everyone
then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And
everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The
rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell – and great was its fall!”
Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them
as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
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