Warning - semi-nerdy linguistic discussion . . .
Do you think "faith" and "belief" mean different things?
To me, belief is more cognitive, almost scientific, a belief is one of many things one might profess. To believe someone or in something has a different texture to it to me than to have faith in that person or thing.
Faith, on the other hand, seems in meaning to me to be not cognitive but more emotive, instinctive, and central. Especially thinking in Lutheran theological terms of faith as trust, trust is something that you feel from the core and may do against logic or the odds.
The verb form of "faith" in Greek, pisteuw, is as far as I can find always translated in the NRSV and others as believe. But isn't the verb "believe" different in range of meaning than the verb "faith." We don't have a verb "faith" in English - to say "have faith" is a little different, and maybe it wasn't used for translation because it sounds passive. We don't even have a way to express this in English - to make "faith" an active verb, and what would that even mean? Would it mean more like "be faithful" or "have faith" or something else?
I am working on a sermon for this Sunday, the second after Easter, year C. The gospel text is John's (Doubting) Thomas story. I am troubled at finding this distinction and finding it to obscure the text. Another layer is added to this here in this pericope Jesus says in John 20:27, kai mn ginou apistos alla pistos, that is, "do not be unfaithful but faithful." Apistos, literally, not-faithful, should be translated as such. However, the NRSV translates this as "do not doubt but believe." What does all of this mean? What does this especially mean as we believe that faith is affected by the Holy Spirit, as is reflected elsewhere in the pericope? What does it mean that Jesus commands Thomas (and us?) to "be faithful?" Hmmm . . .
This sermon was given at my field ed congregation, Christ Lutheran Church in Kulpsville, PA, on Feb 20 and 21, 2010, the First Sunday in Lent, Year C. The text is Jesus being tested in the wilderness in Luke 4.
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It's test time . . . What do these words do to you? Do they evoke a sinking feeling of ineptitude, or memories of pop quizzes, medical tests, or being otherwise unprepared? Would you say you have testing anxiety?
But this week I've been thinking about how we all actually like to be tested. If you think about it, testing pervades our society – it's everywhere, in different forms – of course in schools, but also reality show competitions, personality tests, IQ tests, tests in magazines, surveys, even video games, and on the internet. We like to test ourselves. We want to know how we stack up, what will be said about us, even if it sometimes makes us a little anxious too. We like to be tested – in some ways, at least, because tests reveal what lies beneath. Tests can reveal our knowledge, but also our values, loyalties, and concept of ourselves. Tests are important because they show us a part who of we are.
So today we hear in the gospel the story of Jesus' testing. Essentially, this is Jesus' identity test. This story raises so many questions for me, not the least of which is, why test Jesus? We know who Jesus is! We know Jesus' answer will be no, and this story will turn out as it always has. But Jesus calls us to hear this story in a new way today, because Jesus was tested so that we might know who this one is that we are following to the cross. So what does this test reveal to us about him? Who is this Jesus?
So far in the gospel of Luke, really the only definite thing we have heard about Jesus is what immediately precedes this story – Jesus has been baptized, and the voice of God has descended and declared, “this is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Sounds great! I know who Jesus is – this is glorious – Jesus is God's son, baptized, filled with the Holy Spirit. But as soon as we revel in this baptism story, the Holy Spirit snatches Jesus away and he is tested and tortured in the wilderness for forty days.
Why? Why test Jesus?
Because Jesus has just been declared fully God, but Jesus is also fully human. To be human means to be tested. We live in a world that is constantly seeking to test us, define us, evaluate us, on its own terms. The devil in the story tests Jesus. In the fact alone that even Jesus was tested, there is so much comfort. We have a God who is all-powerful and created all that there is, and yet cares and knows us so intimately that God was humbled to even be tested in the wilderness. God knows what your hardest, hungriest, most tempting, tortuous days are like. Jesus was there. Jesus is not shielded from the brokenness of the world. We do not have a God who sits on high and watches us squirm from a distance. God is right here in the midst.
Jesus is baptized and then tested. You see, the order is important because you and I know from first hand experience that after you are baptized, you are still in this world, still tempted, still sinning. We are claimed and named to be God's children in baptism, but the sacrament doesn't mean that the devil or sin doesn't still have your number and tempt you each day. Jesus is God and is tested but resists all temptation. We start lent by learning who Jesus is through Jesus' “no” - no tricks of power, no human kingdoms, no foolish self-reliance will define Jesus.
We are baptized and tested like Jesus, but it doesn't mean that we have all that strength to resist and say no each time we should. We do say “yes.” We say “yes” to the labels that tests put on us – to being what the tests define us as, to classify ourselves and others by stereotypes and labels of race, power, bias, class, and gender, as enemies, as the other. . . I know if I were offered even a piece of what Jesus was offered in the wilderness, I'm not sure I could refuse.
But there is something else here that we cannot refuse. Jesus, in all strength passes the wilderness test for us, and we are united with him in our baptism. We are not required to pass any test. The world will test us all of our lives, and we are freed by God's actions in Jesus to simply live in this love and do our best. The devil went after Jesus' identity. Our identities are tested also – the world is constantly asking us to define ourselves – who are you, who will you be today? But Jesus' identity, as yours and mine, had already been marked forever in his baptism, where God declared the final word. We are baptized in the name of the God who created us, the Spirit that is with us even in the wilderness tests of our lives, and Jesus who endured and said no. The world calls us to think of our whole lives as an on-going test – nagging us with questions that leave us wondering – am I making the right choice? If only I were smarter, if only I was stronger, if only I was more disciplined, if only I was more loving. Say no to these doubts – because the test is over, God has spoken once and for all. Say yes – the Holy Spirit will answer for you – saying yes to the voice in the wilderness Jesus trusted, the one that declared the same at your baptism and mine - “you are my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
This sermon was written for homiletics class last fall. It was from a given prompt, so not delivered at a real funeral, but I found out afterward that the prompt was one our professor had written about a dear friend of hers that had passed away. The sermon utilizes a poem, previously posted here. I wasn't sure how it'd work, but felt like it fit.
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We are gathered here for Evelyn. We are also gathered here for each other – for Sandra, her daughter. For her dear friend Walt and all her friends, family, and neighbor.
We are not here just to offer platitudes and flattering words. You can imagine the sarcastic face Evelyn would make at us for this and the way she would wave her hand in mock dismissal. We are here to be honest. . . As Evelyn was honest. And today that includes crying out to God for the loss of our dear mother, friend, and sister in Christ.
Perhaps you, like me, will miss warm, honest conversations with her over a cup of coffee. When visiting with her, I always liked to watch Evelyn's hands. Did you ever notice them? They have a lot to say. Evelyn's hands were rough, strong. From her years working on her property and in the kitchen they seemed resistant to any temperature as she ran the hot water and held the coffeepot. When she would take your hands in hers, there was a warmth about her, just like in her voice. Her grasp was always firm and her words matched. As she talked with you and me and sipped her coffee, she would turn her rings on her fingers – and would often tell me about them. Her wedding ring she often caressed when she talked about her dear Peter. This one a gift from her daughter, this one she bought herself after saving up secretly on her own. Evelyn's hands were honest hands.
Evelyn believed in the certainty of a firm grasp of our hands. We knew her well and loved her. Much more than what I could say about her today, as her hands told us and her life told us through each one of us.
Evelyn's hands were a reflection of her.
We will miss her hands and all that she meant to us.
This is a hard day. My hands are not Evelyn's hands. Your hands are not. We will never hold her hands again in this way. Today is a day where we breathe with the words of the Romans text and know what it is to suffer, to not know why, and to cry out.
In our crying out, God works. In our crying out, and in this scripture proclaimed to us today, God shows us a little of God's hand . . . literally. When we do not know what to do other than to feel lost, confused, grieved, or fearful, it is by the grace of God that the Holy Spirit speaks our pain in crying out to God. The Holy Spirit cries out to God! For us! In us! God who called us from before we were born, knit us together in our mothers' wombs, hears our crying of the Spirit as a sign of our witness as God's children.
And as a child knows her mother's hands so well, so we get to know and remember God's hands acting here today and every day.
Sometimes I struggle with the image of God having a body, but somehow God having hands makes a lot of sense. It was God's hands that baptized Evelyn as a baby, and so it is God's hands which have spread this baptismal pall over her as a sign of her eternal life in God.
God's hands baptized her and held her from there - a certain promise. A sign once and for all that Evelyn's eternal life is decided – held in God's hand forever.
In her baptism, God inscribes her (and our and all the names of the baptized) name on God's hands – a certain promise to never forget Evelyn or you or I, or anyone.
Today is the completion of her baptism, God who called Evelyn before she was born, God who kept her in God's hands, and God holds and supports her now in the clearest of promises – that (John) God gives eternal life, in which she never dies to God. No thing, no one can snatch Evelyn or you or I out of God's hands. We are inscribed there and even as people may forget, as Isaiah reminds us, God will not forget you. Evelyn believed in honest, plain words. In certainty. This is certain. God's hands do not forget.
God's hands which hold our names, our days, and our eternal promises, are also hands of immeasurable comfort. When our cries are heard, it's the Holy Spirit crying out to God for us. When our hands act in comfort, embrace, or holding, these are God's hands.
The poet John Shea – has something to say about God's hands in his poem The God who fell from heaven, addressing God:
If you had stayed
Tightfisted in the sky
And watched us thrash
With all the patience of a pipe smoker,
I would pray
Like a golden bullet
Aimed at your heart.
But the story says
You cried
And so heavy was the tear
You fell with it to earth
Where like a baritone in a bar
It is never time to go home.
So you move among us
Twisting every straight line into Picasso,
Stealing kisses from pinched lips,
Holding our hand in the dark.
So now when I pray
I sit and turn my mind
Like a television knob
Till you are there
With your large, open hands
Spreading my life before me
Like a Sunday table cloth
And pulling up a chair yourself
For by now
The secret is out.
You are home.
Happy Easter!
Holy Week and Easter Sunday were an exhausting, wonderful, prayerful time. I loved celebrating Holy Week and Easter at my field ed congregation, Christ Lutheran in Kulpsville, PA. I also celebrated the Easter Vigil at University Lutheran downtown in Philly (in addition to the one at CLC), which was a great worship experience and a wonderful way to break into Easter.
More in general . . .
It is amazing how life can change in a year, or just a few months. Now I am getting ready to wrap up my second year of seminary and start internship, at Christ Lutheran in Lancaster, PA. I am really looking forward to internship, for the challenges and many gifts it will bring. I am so ready to be back in the "real" world again, living on my own and feeling more of my own person than this seminary bubble sometime allows. Christ Lutheran, my internship site, is a small-ish congregation in downtown Lancaster, a huge old church now in a very different neighborhood than it originally grew up in. I have worshiped with them once and look forward to worshiping there again in June as we prepare for the transition and my starting there July 1.
Also, I am engaged to be married (next summer '11) to E
van! He makes me happier than I've ever been, and I am more sure of this than just about anything I've ever known (excepting only perhaps my sense of call). I never thought I would date anyone who was also in seminary and preparing to be a pastor, but then there's that old saying about God laughing when you make plans . . . God is laughing quite heartily. God has blessed us quite a lot with this, and I am very thankful. If anyone reads this, please pray with us for continued discernment and future life serving the church.
Other random thoughts . . .
I miss Virginia, and CTK, my home church, especially on not celebrating Holy Week and Easter at home.
Perhaps because of the harsh winter, but this is the first time I've been really excited for spring.
I am dreading moving, but looking forward to living alone again. And actually looking forward to the organizing and cleaning moving will require. I just need to finish this semester first! One thing at a time.
