Tag trust

Faith Without B.S. (Bogus Stuff)

Steve Beckham 1 Comment

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-4, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40

A pastor was just about to begin his sermon one Sunday when he was handed a note.  He unfolded the paper, looked at it a moment, then said to the congregation, “This says there will be no B.S. tomorrow.”  He paused for a long moment then said, “I’m pretty sure that means Bible Study, but I have to confess that for just a moment there I thought, ‘Oh, that would be nice.’”

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a day scheduled for no B.S.—no Bogus Stuff?  

In the alternate first reading for this morning from chapter one of Isaiah, Isaiah takes the people to task for their Bogus Stuff.  He tells the people quite plainly, “God doesn’t want your bull.”  Well, what he actually says is:  

10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom!

Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD;  I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. 

12   When you come to appear before me,  who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more.

13 Bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.

15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Somewhere along the way, the people had substituted the practice of their religion for the ethics of their faith.  They had fallen into the habit of thinking that as long as they performed the right rituals and offered the right sacrifices, as long as they celebrated certain festivals and observed certain holy days in the calendar, then everything would be okay between them and God.  

But Isaiah tells them in plain language, “No.  God thinks all of that is B.S.  Bogus Stuff.  God doesn’t want your bull…or your ram or your goat.”  So what does God want?

“Wash yourselves;” says Isaiah, “make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”[1]

The texts assigned for today are all about faith.  They tell us what faith is and what it is not.  

Isaiah makes it clear that faith is not simply worship.  It is not liturgical worship or praise worship or any other form of worship.  Faith may move you to worship God.  Worship is one way to express your faith.  But it is not a substitute for faith.  And worship without faith is meaningless.

Faith is not mere belief.  Faith does not mean you accept or give your intellectual assent to certain propositions or truths about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit.  Faith is not creeds or doctrine or dogma.  Those are tools that may help guide our faith in the same way a map can help you get somewhere you want to go.  But the map is not the journey.  It’s a depiction of the path others have traveled before you.   

So what is faith?

“Faith,” said Martin Luther, “is God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God… It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people.  It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith… Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.”[2]

Faith is trusting God.  That’s Martin Luther’s definition. And that’s not always as easy as it sounds because God’s ways are not our ways and God’s timetable is certainly not our timetable.

Abram trusted God, but that didn’t stop him from complaining.  He had left his home in Ur to find a new homeland that God had promised.   Everywhere he went in the new land he prospered.  He acquired vast parcels of property.  His flocks increased.  Local kings respected and feared him so much that they tried to recruit him as an ally in their territorial wars.  He could have built his own city, but Abram continued to live in a tent because God had told him to keep moving.  But when  long years had passed and he and Sarah had not been blessed with children, Abram complained.

So God took Abram outside to look up into the night sky.  “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can,” said God.  “If I can make that, do you really think giving you descendants will be a problem?”

Genesis tells us that Abram trusted God, and God regarded Abram as righteous because of his faith.

Faith is trust in God.  

When Jesus was on the road with his disciples announcing that the reign of God, the kin-dom of God is in reach, his followers started to worry about all the things one worries about in daily life.  Jesus turned to them and said, “A person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.  That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing.  Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to God than any birds!  Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?  And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?

    “Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.  And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

   “So don’t be afraid, little flock.  For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom.”[3]

Faith is trusting God as we follow the Spirit-driven yearning of our hearts toward the better world that Jesus described for us.  It is trust that carries us through this in-between life—living between what life and the world are now and what we hope and dream life and the world will be as we work to transform them.  Faith is a holy restlessness.  A longing.  A hunger.  A desire.  Faith is not a destination, it is the road, the journey.

“Faith,” wrote Debi Thomas, “is the audacity to undertake a perilous journey simply because God asks us to — not because we know ahead of time where we’re going.  Faith is the itch and the ache that turns our faces towards the distant stars even on the cloudiest of nights.  Faith is the willingness to stretch out our imaginations and see new birth, new life, new joy — even when we feel withered and dead inside.  Faith is the urgency of the homeless for a true and lasting home — a home whose architect and builder is God.”[4]

Faith is a holy dissatisfaction with the world as it is.   Faith wants to tear down walls and build bigger tables.  Faith wants to open the doors wider so more can come to the feast.  Faith trusts that there will always be enough for everyone.  Faith trusts that Love is not diminished but multiplied when it’s shared.  Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see except in our Spirit-inspired imaginations.

When we stand to recite the Creed on Sunday mornings, we begin with the words, “I believe, ” which is the common English translation of the Latin word Credo.  In his book The Heart of Christianity, the late Marcus Borg reminded us that Credo has a richer, deeper meaning than what we are typically thinking when we say, “I believe.” 

“Credo does not mean ‘I hereby agree to the literal-factual truth of the following statements.’  Rather, its Latin roots combine to mean ‘I give my heart to.’ . . .As the giving of one’s heart, credo means ‘I commit my loyalty to,’ ‘I commit my allegiance to.’

  “Thus, when we say credo at the beginning of the Creed, we are saying, ‘I give my heart to God.’  And who is that?  Who is the God to whom we commit our loyalty and allegiance?  The rest of the creed tells the story of the one to whom we give our hearts: God as the maker of heaven and earth, God as known in Jesus, God as present in the Spirit. . . 

  “Most simply, ‘to believe’ means ‘to love.’  Indeed, the English words ‘believe’ and ‘belove’ are related.  What we believe is what we belove.  Faith is about beloving God.”

Faith is about trusting God, but more than that, faith is about loving God.  “The only way I know how to love God,” said Richard Rohr, “is to love what God loves.”

Jesus tells us to trust God, to love God, and to travel light.  He tells us to free ourselves from excess everything and give to those in need.  Where your treasure is, he says, that’s where your heart will be.  So, let your heart go out to all those other children of God in the world around you.  Love God.  And love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Be dressed for service.  Keep your lamps burning.  And be ready.  The kin-dom of God is so close…and we don’t want to let Bogus Stuff keep us from getting there.

Have no fear, little flock.  It is your Father’s great pleasure to give you the Kingdom.

[1] Isaiah 1:16-17

[2] An excerpt from “An Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” Luther’s German Bible of 1522 by Martin Luther, 1483-1546

Translated by Rev. Robert E. Smith from DR. MARTIN LUTHER’S VERMISCHTE DEUTSCHE SCHRIFTEN. Johann K. Irmischer, ed. Vol. 63 Erlangen: Heyder and Zimmer, 1854), pp.124-125. [EA 63:124-125]

[3] Luke 12:22-32 (NLT)

[4] Debi Thomas, Called to Restlessness, Journey With Jesus, August 7, 2022

Faith Along the Way

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

John 14:1-14

I’ll never forget the way I felt on that long-ago Sunday when Pastor George Johnson announced that he was leaving us.  He had been our pastor, my pastor, at Christ Lutheran Church here in Long Beach for twelve years.  He had confirmed me.  He had performed our wedding.  He baptized our daughter, Brooke.  I still had so much I wanted to learn from him about what it means to be a Christian—and how to be a Christian.  And now suddenly he was telling us that he was going away, that God was leading him somewhere else.

When George told us he was leaving, I felt disheartened and disoriented.  I felt dismayed.  I felt anxious about the future of our congregation and my own future as a person of faith.  My heart was troubled.

I felt sad and discouraged when I learned that Pastor George was leaving, but what I felt that day was nothing compared to what the disciples must have felt when they heard Jesus say, “I am only going to be with you a little while longer. . . Where I’m going you cannot come.”  

That evening as they sat down to dinner, he had washed their feet and told them they must learn how to serve one another.  Hard on the heels of that teaching, he had told them that he was about to be betrayed.  But before they could really take in that troubling news, he gave them a new commandment:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

And that’s when he told them he was leaving. “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.”

So they were upset.  They were confused.  They were anxious.  Their hearts were in turmoil.

 “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” said Jesus.  “Believe in God; believe also in me.” 

That’s how it reads in most of our translations.  What it actually says in the Greek, though, is slightly different: 

Do not let your (plural) heart (singular) be troubled.  

It’s possible that this is just a quirk of the language, but it’s more likely that Jesus is reminding them to be unified in their love for one another and for him, to be so united in love and purpose that it would be as if they had one heart.  And he wants that singular communal heart to be at peace.

You, plural, do not let your singular heart be troubled.

“Believe in God; believe also in me.”   Again, that’s how many of our translations render it, but it really would be better translated and more to the point to hear him say, “Trust God.  And also trust me.”  The Greek word at work here, pisteuete, can be translated either way—believe or trust.  

Believe or trust?  They have similar meanings but they’re not exactly synonyms.  Believe is a head word, an intellect word.  Trust is a word with guts.  A word with heart.  A word with legs.  Belief is isolated and cerebral.  Trust is a relationship.  I may believe you’re strong enough to hold the rope that keeps me from plunging into the abyss, but it takes trust for me to actually put that rope in your hands. 

Jesus is telling them that, come what may, they can trust him.  Trust God, he says, and trust me.  Trust me to the end.  Trust me to beyond what looks like the end.  Things are about to get more horrible than you can imagine.  There will be betrayal and painful, ugly, humiliating death.  There will be astonishing, joyful, unexpected resurrection.  There will be mysterious and baffling ascension.  Those are just stops along the Way.  Keep following me.  Keep going.  Trust God.  Trust me.

“In my Father’s house,” says Jesus, “there are many dwelling places.”  

I feel a lot of sympathy for the translators here because the “dwelling places” are not really places at all.  The Greek word translated as “dwelling places,” monai, comes from the same root as the word for “abide.”  Meno, to abide, is the Gospel of John’s favorite and most frequently used word to describe being in a relationship with Jesus.  It’s the word Jesus uses when he tells Philip, “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me—abides in me—is doing his works.”

When Jesus tells us that there are many dwelling places in God’s house, he is not giving us a tableau of heaven;  he’s not painting us a picture of the great reward at the finish line.  He’s giving us a travelogue.  Jesus is telling us that faith in him is, in fact, a journey with him.  He’s telling us that as we follow him through God’s house in this world and into what comes next, there is no end of places to stop and catch our holy breath.  He’s telling us that there are a lot of places to pitch our tent along the Way, a lot of places to enjoy our companionship, to tell stories and sing songs and make s’mores on the pleasant evenings or to huddle together for warmth and comfort when things are cold and dismal. 

All along the Way there are places to abide.

“If it were not so,” said Jesus, “would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”  Good old Thomas.  He speaks for us, doesn’t he?  Throughout the Gospel of John whenever Jesus sounds like an esoteric Zen Master, Thomas is the one who speaks up to say, “I don’t get it.  Explain it to me like I’m five.”  

“You know the way,” said Jesus.  “You know me.  I am the way. And the truth.  And the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Too many Christians have pulled this statement out of its context and turned it into a proof text to claim that believing in Jesus is the one and only way to get to heaven.  Not only does this reduce faith in Christ to nothing more than a ticket to paradise, it is completely contrary to the spirit and intention of the other “I AM” statements in John.  

In the seven “I AM” statements in John, Jesus is telling us that he is the ultimate source of abundant life and grace.  When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life” or “I am the light of the world ” or “I am the gate” or “I am the Good Shepherd” or “I am the true vine,” these statements signify the very presence of God.  Jesus, himself, makes that clear when he says, “If you know me, you will know my Father also.  In fact, you already know him and have seen him.”  

This is an echo of what he has already said to them at the end of chapter 12 when he said: 

“Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”

“I am the Way the Truth and the Life,” says Jesus.  “No one comes to the Father except—through  me/because of me/with me—those are all legitimate ways to translate that versatile little Greek preposition dia that indicates Jesus is the conduit into God’s presence.  Jesus isn’t saying that you have to make some formal statement of spiritual allegiance to him or accept certain doctrinal principles about him.  Whether you do these things or not, he is the one who brings you into the presence of God because he is the presence of God.

Frederick Buechner put it this way:

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” He didn’t say that any particular ethic, doctrine, or religion was the way, the truth, and the life. He said that he was. He didn’t say that it was by believing or doing anything in particular that you could “come to the Father.” He said that it was only by him—by living, participating in, being caught up by the way of life that he embodied, that was his way. 

“Thus it is possible to be on Christ’s way and with his mark upon you without ever having heard of Christ, and for that reason to be on your way to God though maybe you don’t even believe in God.”

It is possible to be on Christ’s way without ever having heard of Christ.  It’s possible to be on Christ’s way if you are a Muslim or a Jew or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Taoist.  It’s possible to be living in the Way of Jesus even if you are agnostic or an atheist.  

If your life is centered in love for God’s people and for God’s creation, if Truth is your highest value and it pains you to see truth devalued, if you believe that Life is a gift to be entered into deeply, a gift to be treasured and enjoyed and shared, then whether you know it or not, you are walking in the Way of Jesus, a Way that leads directly to God’s presence…even if you don’t recognize it.

“I’m going on ahead of you,” said Jesus, “and I know that right now it feels just devastating.  But trust God.  Trust me.  Keep walking in my Way.  Keep speaking Truth.  Keep empowering and sustaining Life and immersing yourself in it.  Our pilgrimage into the heart of God is endless and there will be no end of places for us to meet up along the Way.” 

Image © AinVaresArt, http://www.ainvaresart.com