Sunday, August 11 - Between Blind Faith and Blind Fear

Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40

How’s your faith these days? If Abram, from our reading in Genesis, is the pinnacle of faith, trusting God’s promise to give him descendants as numerous as the stars even though he has no child of his own blood, how do you stack up? Do you have the assurance of things hoped for, do you carry the conviction of things not seen?

It’s a hard thing, I’ll give you that. This past week, with mass shootings, with the UN Report that climate change is being primarily driven by global agricultural practices, with farmers in Taber having their crops flattened by a storm––it’s hard to have faith that God is watching over us. Or maybe there’s something going on in your own personal life that makes it hard to have faith––someone you know has cancer, or is struggling with mental illness, or some untreatable progressive condition. The reality of living, the presence of suffering, makes faith difficult, if not impossible.

But maybe I need to back up a minute. What is it that we mean when we talk about faith? Well, for Abraham, faith was an action–it was a trust in God that enabled Abraham to carry on with his life as if what God had promised would actually happen. Faith is behaviour––it is acting without proof that our actions will be effective. We actually do things by faith all the time. When we see a green light and drive through the intersection, we are acting by faith. We have no evidence that the people waiting at the red will actually wait for us, we’ve probably never seen them before in our lives. And yet we drive, by faith, trusting that we won’t get hit. Faith is what we do.

For the author of Hebrews, faith is a belief. It’s the thoughts that undergird our actions. It is also illogical, irrational. The original greek text says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, which means faith is a foundation or building block made from things that don’t even exist yet. Faith is the conviction of things not seen, which means faith is being convinced of something without evidence. Conviction is a legal term––imagine going into court and saying to a judge and jury, I want you to convict this person without evidence! That’s what faith is. It is believing in something without any evidence for that belief.

And so it’s no wonder faith is hard! Faith is believing, and then acting on that belief, contrary to everything that we see and experience.

And so it’s no wonder we don’t do a good job of living by faith. At least, *I* don’t. I trust evidence. I trust experience. I am not so keen on “blind faith.” If God came to me and said, your descendants will be as numerous as the stars, I would probably say, “Are you sure that’s a good thing?” The church’s conviction that God will provide has supported, and even encouraged, our unrestricted growth and the accompanying consumption of the earth’s resources, including its renewable resources, leading us to the situation we’re currently in. Blind faith that God will step in and save us leads people to trust in “thoughts and prayers,” rather than acting to legislate stricter gun control. Blind faith leads people to turn their backs on modern medicine. People die because their faith tells them to pray rather than take prescription medicine. Acting as if God will indeed come down and save us from all our troubles has led us to some very short-sighted decisions that have devastating consequences. I don’t have a lot of faith in living by “faith.”

Except. Except that we are commanded to have faith, and the New Testament is pretty clear, “by faith you are saved.” And, I see what happens when we live without it. If faith is believing that God is committed to our well-being, and acting on that belief, then the absence of faith is not doubt, but fear. And I see a lot of people living by fear, rather than by faith. Fear causes us to put up walls (literally and around our hearts), to lock the doors, to insist on stability, to react rather than taking time to think things through, to try to predict and control every single variable and outcome. And it never turns out well. Abram acted in fear when he used Hagar, Sarai’s handmaid, to have a child, rather than trusting in God’s word, and that caused a whole mess of trouble. Every time we act in fear, we derail or delay God’s goodness intended for us. To put it in Lutheran language, every time we allow fear to drive us, we break the First Commandment, which is to “fear, love, and trust only God.” Whatever we fear ends up controlling us, and it leaves no room for trusting God. As much as I don’t like living by faith, I really don’t like living by fear. Blind fear is as devastating as blind faith.

So then how do we navigate between faith and fear? How do we acknowledge the reality of our situation without giving up because we see no hope? Really, what I’m talking about is having a mature faith; simple answers won’t do here. I’m talking about the kind of faith that Jesus had––a mature faith that recognized that the words he was preaching were going to lead to his death––he never denied that the consequences of his ministry would be fatal for him, and in fact rebuked Peter for Peter’s own denial. And yet Jesus never gave up preaching God’s love. He didn’t lose hope, he didn’t go back to Nazareth and his carpenter shop and live a life of passive acceptance of the inevitable. How do we get the faith of Jesus? How do we live in a mature faith that accepts the realities we are in and also moves us to live in hope? How do we act as if we are going to die and going to live at the same time?

Because this is what faith is: it is believing and acting as if today is the last day of our lives and, at the same time, the first day of the rest of our lives. Faith is, as we now know, a paradox. It is irrational. It makes no sense. It is trusting that God is going to take care of us while also believing that God is not going to swoop in and make everything better. How do we have that faith?

You may recognize these words, “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with her gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith.” Again, “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with her gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith.” These are Martin Luther’s words, in his explanation to the Apostles’ Creeds in the Small Catechism. They were the foundation of his faith, he who also struggled to live a mature faith, to acknowledge the reality of the world and yet also to trust that God had more.

We cannot believe, we cannot have this faith on our own. We cannot accept the irrationality of believing without evidence on our own. We cannot live as if we are both doomed and saved at the same time on our own. Abraham did not trust in God on his own. The author of Hebrews did not have assurance or conviction on his own. Jesus did not have faith on his own. This is the heart of our Lutheran beliefs, that we can not do it on our own. We simply can’t. We are human and this is beyond our capacity. Left to our own devices, we live by fear, whether that takes the shape of denying that there are any problems at all or accepting that there are problems and engaging in panic or giving up completely. “By our own understanding or strength we cannot believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to him.”

And yet, “the Holy Spirit has called us through the gospel, enlightened us with her gifts, made us holy and kept us in the true faith.” The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God that was present at Creation, the Spirit of God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, the Spirit that gave life to the dry bones, that blazed amongst the disciples at Pentecost, keeps us in a true and mature faith. The Holy Spirit empowers us with Jesus’ faith––to accept that death is coming, and yet to continue to believe in God’s promises. The Spirit of God gives us the faith to accept that death is inevitable and to live as if new life is just as inevitable. Through the Spirit, God gives us the courage to accept the evidence that there are good reasons to be fearful, and to continue to act in hope of God’s goodness. The Spirit gives us the faith to walk towards the cross and still hope in resurrection.

And it’s not up to you. It’s not up to me. It’s up to God. Often we have trouble walking that middle path between blind faith and blind fear. Sometimes, we spend too much time believing that God is going to save us all and we’re never going to die and carry on our merry, and fatal, way. Sometimes, we spend too much time believing that we’re all going to die no matter what and we give up hope and give in to despair. But the Holy Spirit comes among us to give the holy faith we need to avoid both extremes. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” It is God’s good pleasure to give you faith, to give you the assurance, to give you the conviction, to carry on in hope. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

August 4, 2019 - Build Relationships, not Barns

Luke 12:13-21

Money. There, I said it. Probably the most taboo word in church these days, but now it’s out there. Money. Wealth. Riches. Yup, this morning we’re going there.

I’ll tell you right off the bat, though, that wherever you think we’re going, we’re not. And I say that because the more I got into looking at what the Bible actually says about money and wealth and riches––about “possessions”––the more I realized how wrong my assumptions about what the Bible says have been. 

I was all ready to preach a sermon about the Bible condemning the rich, like we hear from the prophets and from Mary in her Magnificat, but it turns out there are rich people in the Bible that are clearly blessed by God. In the book of Ruth, we have the landowner Boaz who is so rich he owns multiple fields and can afford to hire labourers to help him harvest. In the Gospels we have Zacchaeus the tax-collector, who is never once condemned for his wealth, and we have Joseph of Arimathea, who took the body of Jesus down from the cross and laid it in his own personal tomb, a sign of wealth for sure. And in the book of Acts, we have Lydia, a merchant of purple cloth, which means she sold cloth to royalty––there’s no way she was poor––who becomes a Christian and helps Paul and the apostles through her wealth. To my great surprise, it turns out that the Bible as a whole is not anti-rich.

I also thought the Bible was pro-socialist, or pro-communist, or pro-communalist, however you want to take that word. After all, in the book of Acts, it says very clearly that the Christians of the very early church took everything they had and sold it, and kept the money in a common pot. Those who didn’t, who continued to hold private property, fell down dead. Pretty clear pro-socialist stance.

But it turns out that’s only in Acts. The Hebrew Bible assumes that people own property privately, without making it an issue, and in the New Testament, in Paul’s letters, it’s clear that he relates to various Christians, such as Dorcas and Cornelius, who have their own property and don’t sell it. Many of God’s people buy and sell things, and participate in the economy in ways we would describe as “capitalist.” Which, honestly, was a shock to me. The Bible’s position on wealth and possessions is diverse, to say the least.

So what are to make of today’s parable, then? What, exactly, is Jesus going on about with this rich man and his barns?

Well, there are two things we’re supposed to be paying attention to here. The first is the way this parable is introduced. “Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” That’s a weird statement. Why wouldn’t this man talk to his own brother himself? Why did he need Jesus to “tell” his brother what to do? Didn’t they have a good enough relationship? Or is it possible that the argument over family money had disrupted the relationship between this man and his brother? It wouldn’t the first, or last, time that an inheritance has done that to siblings. The first thing we’re supposed to notice is the set-up here that money can negatively impact our relationships.

The second thing we’re supposed to notice is the way the rich man in the parable talks. Did you notice how he always uses the first person singular? “I have no place to store my crops. I will build larger [barns], and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul.”

This is also a weird way to speak. You see, this individualistic way of thinking did not actually exist in Biblical times. Throughout the more than two thousand years of culture that the Bible covers, there was no such thing as individual existence. Society was entirely communal. The family was the central unit, not the individual. There was no such thing as a rich individual. There were certainly rich households, but they included other family members, particularly children, and parents, and also the servants and the labourers. 

And so we are supposed to notice that the rich man is speaking as an individual. His sin, if you want to call it that, is not that he’s rich, but that he isn’t thinking communally. He isn’t planning for the future of his children, he isn’t consulting his neighbours to see if they are in need, he isn’t even talking about paying his labourers bonuses for their work. Storing grain isn’t even the problem. Joseph, from the book of Genesis, stored grain for seven years, but this man is no Joseph. Joseph did it for the good of the people of Egypt. The rich man is doing it only for himself. He doesn’t care about the people around him, he doesn’t give them a single thought.

And so God says, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Whose? Nobody’s. The implication is that this man has no one in his life, no family, no friends, no neighbours. No relationships with any else. He has been so obsessed with his grain, and his barns, and his riches that he hasn’t worked to cultivate the “us” in his life. He has nobody to share his possessions with, because his relationship with his possessions have, in the end, possessed him.

And so this is what the Bible is saying to us, and it is actually pretty consistent in this respect––money, wealth, riches, possessions––they have power, and particularly, they have power over us––over our lives and over our relationships.

Maybe this is something you’ve experienced. Maybe money keeps you awake at night worrying about it. Maybe your credit card bill makes you afraid to look at it. Maybe you have mortgage payments, or car loans, or both, that keep you in a job that makes you miserable because you need to make those payments. Maybe you have so many possessions that the thought of moving fills you with dread whenever you contemplate packing it all up. (I know that feeling well...) Maybe you’ve gotten in an argument with someone about money––whether it was because someone owed you money or because they tried to use money to control you––and your relationship has never been the same.

And so this is what the Bible tells us, and this is what our experiences tell us. Our possessions have the power to possess us. And it makes us ashamed. Nobody likes to say, “I’m bad with money.” Or “my spending is out of control.” Nobody likes to admit that we are incompetent about this fundamental part of our lives. We feel ashamed. Maybe that’s why we never talk about money in church.

We have to, though. We have to talk about money in church because, for one thing, it’s killing us. It’s not about being rich or being poor. Worries over money are correlated to increasing suicide rates amongst Baby Boomers and the middle-class. Financial instability is serious. Wealth and riches can become a god in our lives, one that demands that we sacrifice everything to it, especially our well-being and our relationships. And unlike our true God, it offers no mercy.

We also have to talk about the power of money in church because there is hope. God offers us hope. That’s not to say that God can reduce our debt––honestly, if you’re in that kind of situation, you need to talk to a financial professional who can help you pay off your debt, and to a therapist who can help you untangle your relationship with money. But God does offer us a way of reframing how we can think about money and wealth, about possessions, in a way that can be life-giving, to us and to those around us. Money and wealth and riches do not have to cause us regret or to think of ourselves as fools on our deathbed. Instead, God offers us hope through a different way of relating to riches. Which is to share it. To spread it around.

That’s what we do with power. We spread it around so that lots of people can have it, so that no one person becomes obsessed with it. And that’s what God calls us to do with whatever makes us feel powerful, whether that’s material goods, or knowledge, or influence. We spread it around, for the good of the community. Whether you are rich in money, or in education, or in relationships, or in time, God calls you to freely share that with those you see in need. Doesn’t matter who it is––it can be people close to you or people on the other side of the world. God just calls you to share it. In truth, that’s why God gave you these things in the first place. For the good of the community.

God does this, and encourages us to do this, because this is how we have control over our possessions and our riches. This is how God frees us from being possessed by our possessions. This is why Christ calls the rich young man in Matthew to sell all he has and give to the poor––not because wealth is bad, but because this man’s wealth had taken him over. This is why Jesus warned today’s man, whose relationship with his brother was suffering because of their inheritance, not to build barns for just himself. Because even if he got the inheritance, he would die alone and a fool. Jesus is telling the man to let the argument over the inheritance go. To build his relationship with his brother, not build another barn. The point of what we have––our selves, our time, and our possessions, signs of God’s gracious love––is to use it for others, so that it does not use us.

Now this may not sound immediately like Good News. But if you have ever felt trapped by your things and have wondered how to escape, if you have ever felt guilty about what you have and worried what, as a Christian, you should be doing about it, if you have ever thought about your wealth, or lack thereof, and felt despair, know that God offers a new way of thinking. God does not cast the rich aside simply because they are rich. Instead, God offers new life to all, a life without regret, when we share the riches we have with others, as God has shared them with us. In this way, we are rich towards God, who is rich towards us. And this is Good News. Thanks be to God. Amen.