Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. Rob Fisher

St. Dunstan’s, Carmel Valley

Readings: Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

There was once a child in Sunday school, and her teacher saw that she was working very hard on a drawing.

The teacher asked her, “What are you making?”

And she answered, “I’m drawing a picture of God.”

The teacher said to her, “Well, you know that no one actually knows what God looks like.”

And the girl responded, “Not yet, but wait until I’m finished!

***

We do not know what God looks like.

I suppose it has never been easy to believe in things that can’t be seen, but I know that it is harder now than ever.

There was once a time when we did not have access to all the information we have today.  During those old days, we had no choice but to take things on faith.  We had to trust those in authority, and those who had seen the primary evidence first-hand.  There was no evening news, and no CNN; there were no digital images flying around the world; and there was no Wikipedia.

Even during those days when there was less information in the ether, I am sure it was not easy to believe in things that were unseen, but surely it is harder for us in this day and age.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for” says the author of the Letter to the Hebrews.  “[Faith is] the conviction of things not seen.”

***

The nature of faith is often misunderstood.

Many people think of faith as being able to sign off on a list of beliefs.

For many, this idea of having faith is the notion that you’ve got God all figured out.

The people with the most faith, in this line of thinking, are those who can be heroically certain about those things that are most hard to believe.  The virgin birth, the walking on the water, the Garden of Eden.  Faith, then, is something that you have, or that you fail to have.

But faith is not something that we possess at all, because “faith” is a better verb than noun.

Faith is a response to a deeper knowing than mere logic and reason can hold.

Faith resides not in the head, but in the heart.

To understand this way of looking at faith, here is an image given by Rob Bell, a contemporary theologian and pastor.

Rob Bell speaks of two models for faith.

The first is like a brick wall.  Each brick is laid upon another.  It is meant to be strong like a fortress, but in spite of itself it is actually quite vulnerable.  If you remove one of the bricks.  Say, the creation story from Genesis, the entire wall is weakened.

Understanding this sheds light on why many Christians, whose focus should naturally be on the love and redeeming work of Christ, feel incredibly threatened when, for instance, Creationism is threatened.

In this model of faith, in brickworld, you can’t believe in Christ if Adam and Eve are proven to be something other than literally true.  When one brick is taken out, all the rest of the wall is at risk of collapsing.

But there is another model, which Rob Bell describes as being less like a brick wall and more like a trampoline.

A trampoline is made to move.  It flexes.  It is dynamic.

When you push on a brick wall, if you push hard enough it crumbles.  But when you push on a trampoline, it gives, but then it pushes back.

A trampoline is not there to be admired, but engaged.

As people of faith, rather than talking about jumping, we actually jump.  There’s a little risk involved, but it comes with the exhilaration of feeling our feet leave the ground.

If we are evangelists, we invite others to jump with us.

A wonderful thing about jumping on a trampoline is that we don’t have to know anything about the springs in order to do it well.

***

From the sidelines of faith, living a faithful life can look impossibly hard.

To jump on the trampoline takes us out of our comfort zone.  But as we do, we are lifted up.

***

We possess a belief, but we engage a faith.

And when we engage it, the result is our ministry.

Frederick Buechner writes about a dialogue with a woman who questioned him about his decision to go into ministry:

“I hear you are entering the ministry,” the woman said down the long table, meaning no real harm.  “Was it your own idea or were you poorly advised?”

And he goes on…

[T]he answer that she could not have heard even if I had given it was that it was not an idea at all, neither my own nor anyone else’s.  It was a lump in the throat.  It was an itching in the feet.  It was a stirring in the blood at the sound of rain.  It was a sickening of the heart at the sight of misery.  It was a clamoring of ghosts.  It was a name which, when I wrote it out in a dream, I knew was a name worth dying for even if I was not brave enough to do the dying myself and could not even name the name for sure.  Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you a high and driving peace.

Ministry begins with a lump in the throat.

Buechner is talking about his own call to ordained ministry specifically here, but ministry should never be thought of as something just for the ordained.  It is for all the people of God, lay and ordained, who respond to God’s call.

Our ministry is a response to something which is invisible to the naked eye.

Ministry is a response to something as close and as real as our next breath

And from an invisible call comes our visible response.

Perhaps then, we do get a glimpse of what God really looks like!

—Amen.

***

(final blessing at the end of the service)

Life is short,

and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts

of those who travel the way with us.

So be swift to love,

make haste to be kind.

And may God’s blessing, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

be with you and remain with you always.