OK, I admit it, I'm like everyone else who, in sermon prep, looks at the Gospel reading today and shudders. But thanks to the help of William Barclay, Hugh Hollowell, and Chuck Graham, I think it turned out OK.
What do you think? Comments and constructive criticism is always welcome!
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: "Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?" ("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?") "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!
1 Timothy 2:1-7
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all-this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
Luke 16:1-13
Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
This is the Word of the Lord.
And it is the Word of the Lord, even when it’s confusing and difficult to interpret or understand. I’ve heard several preachers say that this Sunday’s Gospel reading makes them wish they’d scheduled a guest preacher. I understand where they’re coming from: it was later than usual when I looked at the Lectionary this week, and I’d been distracted with a trip to Dallas that I’m making tomorrow, and, frankly, when I read it, and knew that the Gospel reading was the one I needed to address, my heart kind of sank. It’s a daunting passage, because Jesus appears to be commending the unjust manager, the man who, like so many on Wall Street who saw trouble looming a couple of years back, busied himself making sure that when he lost his job, he had a “golden parachute” to fall back on.
But it’s a fact that if we run from the parts of Scripture that are difficult to understand, and which seem hard to preach about or teach on, in the end we’ll run from all of Scripture, because there is no part of Scripture which is not intended to challenge us, educate us, make us grow and progress in our faith journey.
Among the things I am grateful for every week as I start to write the sermon are the scholars and commentators who have grappled with Scriptures throughout the years. One of those scholars and commentators is the late William Barclay, Church of Scotland minister and Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow. He is best known to American Christians as the author of the Daily Study Bible, a set of 17 commentaries on the New Testament.
It was Barclay’s work which helped to clarify this parable. You see, in Looking at this parable from the Gospel of Luke, Barclay saw four different lessons. Not the single simple lesson that most of the parables offer, but four unique points. Funny thing is, as I began putting the pieces together, I found that each point Barclay sees points back to a central theme… and each point speaks, in one way or another, to every area of the Christian life, and to every facet of our faith journey.
In verse 8 the lesson is that the children of this world are wiser than the children of light. I had a conversation this week with someone about political donations – they were expressing horror at how labor unions were donating millions to various political campaigns, and I pointed out that corporations did the same thing, though usually to the opposing political campaigns. Both seek to have their own agendas, their own self-interests, their own greed addressed through favorable legislation, tax breaks, and preferential treatment when bidding contracts.
We were both, from our perspectives, speaking about how the children of the world act. They are ingenious, careful to grease just the right wheel at just the right time. I mentioned earlier the Wall Street executives who feathered their nests just before the housing bubble burst and the sub-prime mortgage industry became a national crisis. They might well have been the dishonest manager in Jesus’ parable, acting shrewdly to protect their assets and distance themselves from harm when the time came.
What would it be like if the Christian was as eager and ingenious in his attempt to attain goodness as child of the world is in his attempt to attain money, comfort, and power?
In verse 9, Barclay sees the lesson as one that says material possessions should be used to cement the friendship. The point is, of course, meant personally, but if we carry over the thread from the last point, about Christians being as eager to attain goodness as Corporate and Organized America are to attain their agendas, can we not apply the point corporately? To all Christian churches, denominations, and believers?
Here’s what I mean: We live, right now, today, in a country where fully twenty percent of our fellow citizens live in poverty. Last year in this country, where one in three people are obese and we throw away something like forty percent of the food we buy, seventeen million children went to bed hungry. Imagine what would happen to this statistic if Christians as a body acted with the eagerness, single-mindedness, and ingenuity of Wall Street, or of the large corporations, or the massive labor unions, in addressing the injustice of hunger and poverty – not looking to whichever administration is in power in Washington for the cure, because we of all people should know the cure doesn’t lie there, but looking to ourselves and our Creator and Redeemer for the answers. We would at once become an unstoppable force for positive and permanent change!
There’s an environmentalist catchphrase that goes, “think globally, act locally.” Barclay says that the lesson of verses 10 and 11 is that a person's way of fulfilling a small task is the best proof of his or her fitness or unfitness for a larger task. If I had hoped that calling on the church to act as a body to address poverty and hunger would get individual Christians, like me, off the hook for acting on our own to attack issues like this, verses ten and eleven dash that hope on the rocks of reality. We can’t leave it to the folks at the Presbytery level or even the General Assembly level. When the Scriptures say to love our neighbor, they mean it actively and personally. We have to do the loving ourselves.
My friend Hugh Hollowell runs an organization called simply “Love Wins,” which ministers to the poor and homeless in Raleigh, North Carolina. I love Hugh, but I don’t like what he says on this subject, because it hits way too close to home for me. He says, “Loving your neighbor presupposes a relationship. It means knowing your neighbor is going through a divorce, that the lady who cleans your office has a mother that is dying, that the man at the end of the street holding a cardboard sign has been outside for three years now, and his name is Brian. In the story we call the Good Samaritan, it meant getting in the ditch to bind the man’s wounds yourself.”
He goes on, “When the average person in the pews can tell you the names of all the Judges on American Idol, or can name all the Glee cast members, but does not know a soul that makes 1/4th their income, I think it is fair to say we have lost our sense of mission as co-creators of the Kingdom of God.
“Jesus told us the poor would always be with us – but we don’t really want the poor among us – we want someone else to handle that.”
I don’t want that to be true. But I know that, of the seventeen million children that went to bed hungry last year, I am personally acquainted with exactly none. I know this, because if I had known a child who was hungry, I would do everything in my power to feed that child, and I know you would, too.
The idea of fulfilling small tasks in this context means that in order to see the great changes which must take place, we must act in small ways, individual ways. We must love our neighbor, and only then can we expect the rest of the Body to love and act in the same way.
Finally, William Barclay sees the fourth lesson, in verse 13, is that no slave can serve two masters, God and wealth. We know this, we’ve heard it all of our lives. Yet isn’t it easy to believe that what we have is ours, and that the only real way to measure success is by how big our bank account is, how expensive the stuff we own is? Isn’t it easy to get caught up in the race to earn, to buy, to own, to consume?
Another friend, Chuck Graham of Ciloa Ministries, puts it this way: “…I've found the more things change, the more they stay the same. So many [people] run after the things of this world, believing they will bring them happiness.
“They work hard—many hours each day—to get the object of their desire. They sacrifice—often family and friends—to reach a goal that only points them to another. They seek, they study, they plan, they worry—each in his and her own way—to gain fulfillment that is neither full nor filling. They are in such a hurry to have life, they don't notice they're actually missing it.”
Someone once said, “It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you have.” In the context of today’s reading, it’s wanting what you have, and understanding for what purpose we have it. A couple of weeks back, when we were discussing Paul’s letter to Philemon, I said that “no matter what name is on the bill of sale, whoever signs the deed, no matter which name is on the checking account, we really own none of it. It belongs to God, and we are merely caretakers.” We are managers, if I may use that word from today’s Gospel reading.
I’ve applied all of Barclay’s points to a single issue today, it’s true, but when you think of it, the lessons of this difficult parable apply across the board, in ways which affect society, which I’ve concentrated on today, but also in personal ways, and in ways which speak to our individual faith journeys: Be as eager and ingenious as the most savvy of businessmen in addressing whatever issue or need is before us; use the gifts and possessions God has given us to bless one another, to sustain one another and to solidify our relationships, both with each another, and with those who are outside our family or the established church culture; be attentive to everyday responsibilities, including those in the realm of spiritual growth (like Bible study and prayer); and keep our focus on serving the right Master – the One that died for us.
Thanks be to God.
Showing posts with label William Barclay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Barclay. Show all posts
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Faith Lived as a Verb
I've done some "_______ is a verb" sermons before. I might even have said "faith is a verb." No matter; some things bear repeating, and the concept of our beliefs being more than a set of doctrinal statements is one that needs to be engraved upon our hearts.
Some housekeeping notes: I'm moderating comments now; certain individuals have taken to using the comments section of my blog as opportunities to take pot-shots at my (admittedly Progressive/Liberal) stated beliefs. While I welcome the opportunity to discuss, openly and at length, matters of faith, I insist on a level playing field for these discussions. Catch me on Twitter, or throw me a FaceBook message. Better yet, join me for a cup of coffee at the Huddle House.
As days progress, this blog will hopefully become more of a place where i not only post sermons, but actually do blog-like things: commentary and essay. I don't imagine I will be as good at it as Matthew Paul Turner or Roger Ebert, but it might end up being fun.
Anyway, here's the sermon. Feel free to comment, constructively criticize, or post your favorite recipe for pie.
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! 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. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; 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. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. 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. Wash yourselves; 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.
Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-and Sarah herself was barren-because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.
Luke 12:32-40
"Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
This is the Word of the Lord.
I'm going to ask a kind of dangerous question this morning: What is “faith?”
It's a dangerous question for a few reasons: first, it's broad. My Uncle John was a professor of drama at the University of Alabama before he retired, and directed countless plays, both for the students and for the Tuscaloosa community theater. He tells of the time he went on a local television show to give an interview about an upcoming play. The camera came on, and the interviewer leaned in, fixed John with a sincere, intense stare, and asked him, “what do you think of art?” Just like any opinion of the nature of the universe of artistic expression will fall short, any answers we find this morning concerning faith are bound to be incomplete.
Second, the concept of “faith” has been so often miscast, misused and misinterpreted that, like the three blind men who attempted to describe an elephant by feeling only the part of the animal in front of them, we can't always be sure we're talking about the same thing. Is faith a thing which assures us we will never lack? Does faith manifest itself in perfect health? Is faith something acquired through believing certain doctrines, or mentally assenting to a given theological ideal? Is faith a vague, indefinable state of eternal hopefulness, or else an unattainable ideal, with such stringent requirements that no one since Abraham has ever really “had” faith?
And let's be honest, the writer of Hebrews doesn't give us a whole lot of help. I mean, as a definition, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” well, it doesn't top the list of definitive phrases in the New testament, does it?
It doesn't help that the original Greek for what's translated as “assurance,” hupostasis, only appears in one place in the entire New Testament. It appears in Christian theology in arguments over the nature of Christ in the fourth and fifth centuries, something that fascinates me but has no real relevance to the discussion today. Here the word hupostasis refers to the essence of faith. What faith is made of.
I wonder if you've heard this verse used in as many different settings as I have, as everything from a kind indeterminate of motivational quote to a justification for believing that if you aren't rich, healthy, and popular you aren't “Christian” enough? It's no wonder that faith is such a wide and confusing subject.
The word “faith” occurs in Hebrews more times than in any other book of the New Testament, and twenty-four times in the eleventh chapter alone. But what is faith? Is it quantitative (a matter of degrees), where you can have measurably more faith than I, or someone else have more than either of us? Is it qualitative, where his faith is “better” than her faith, or the faith practiced at that church is better than the faith practiced at another? Is it a spiritual gift from God? Is it a natural human characteristic?
Well, for the book of Hebrews, Frances Taylor Gench contends that the way the writer of Hebrews uses faith “is closer to the meaning of faithfulness. It speaks of faith as active obedience.” (Italics added)
In other words, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, far from simply mentally agreeing to the concept of God's promises, responded actively to that promise. They lived in that promise. Their faith was not a thought process or a subject of study and discussion. Their faith was something lived. Something that was done, performed, acted upon. Their faith was a verb.
To the prophet Isaiah, to live faith as a verb meant not simply performing the rites, attending to the details and going through the motions of worship. When a person's heart is turned against the needs of the poor, the orphans, those suffering injustice and oppression, the act of worship is, if I may use Isaiah's exact word, an abomination. To put it more precisely, worship is not an event, but a lifestyle. Professor R. B. Y. Scott wrote that worship must be “the expression and symbol of reverence for the moral character of God and the corresponding moral standards which should characterize his people.” Human conduct must be a reflection and imitation of God’s justice, goodness, truth, kindness and mercy. Worship, like faith, is a verb.
Our passage from the Gospel of Luke paints faith-as-a-verb in terms of what, and Who, we hope for. Jesus had just finished telling his disciples to consider how God cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, comparing it to the foolish man who had built larger barns to store his goods, relying on his own accomplishments.
Faith as a verb understands that our possessions are tools for the Kingdom of God, and nothing less. Faith as a verb understands that the Kingdom of God is here, now, and in the future, that the same Christ who rose from the dead and ascended to heaven will be returning. Faith as a verb understands that being ready means being active. Worshiping in our actions toward all God has created.
William Barclay, in his commentary on the Book of Hebrews, wrote that “faith is a hope that is absolutely certain that what it believes is true, and that what it expects will come. It is not hope which looks forward with wistful longing; it is hope which looks forward with utter certainty. It is not hope which takes refuge in a perhaps; it is hope which is founded on a conviction.”
Faith is our attitude, conviction or trust that there is an invisible, spiritual realm or energy which not only influences but actually created and determines what happens in the visible, external environment in which we live from day to day.
That's the faith that treats worship as something we do every day, with our hands as well as our hearts, with our pocketbooks as well as with our voices, with our talents as well as with our presence.
That's the faith that depends upon God, that understands the Kingdom of God as the reign of God, “where abundance flows out of God’s own sufficiency and generosity.”*
That's the faith that is a verb.
*Quoted from Sharon H. Ringe
Some housekeeping notes: I'm moderating comments now; certain individuals have taken to using the comments section of my blog as opportunities to take pot-shots at my (admittedly Progressive/Liberal) stated beliefs. While I welcome the opportunity to discuss, openly and at length, matters of faith, I insist on a level playing field for these discussions. Catch me on Twitter, or throw me a FaceBook message. Better yet, join me for a cup of coffee at the Huddle House.
As days progress, this blog will hopefully become more of a place where i not only post sermons, but actually do blog-like things: commentary and essay. I don't imagine I will be as good at it as Matthew Paul Turner or Roger Ebert, but it might end up being fun.
Anyway, here's the sermon. Feel free to comment, constructively criticize, or post your favorite recipe for pie.
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! 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. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; 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. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. 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. Wash yourselves; 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.
Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-and Sarah herself was barren-because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.
Luke 12:32-40
"Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
This is the Word of the Lord.
I'm going to ask a kind of dangerous question this morning: What is “faith?”
It's a dangerous question for a few reasons: first, it's broad. My Uncle John was a professor of drama at the University of Alabama before he retired, and directed countless plays, both for the students and for the Tuscaloosa community theater. He tells of the time he went on a local television show to give an interview about an upcoming play. The camera came on, and the interviewer leaned in, fixed John with a sincere, intense stare, and asked him, “what do you think of art?” Just like any opinion of the nature of the universe of artistic expression will fall short, any answers we find this morning concerning faith are bound to be incomplete.
Second, the concept of “faith” has been so often miscast, misused and misinterpreted that, like the three blind men who attempted to describe an elephant by feeling only the part of the animal in front of them, we can't always be sure we're talking about the same thing. Is faith a thing which assures us we will never lack? Does faith manifest itself in perfect health? Is faith something acquired through believing certain doctrines, or mentally assenting to a given theological ideal? Is faith a vague, indefinable state of eternal hopefulness, or else an unattainable ideal, with such stringent requirements that no one since Abraham has ever really “had” faith?
And let's be honest, the writer of Hebrews doesn't give us a whole lot of help. I mean, as a definition, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” well, it doesn't top the list of definitive phrases in the New testament, does it?
It doesn't help that the original Greek for what's translated as “assurance,” hupostasis, only appears in one place in the entire New Testament. It appears in Christian theology in arguments over the nature of Christ in the fourth and fifth centuries, something that fascinates me but has no real relevance to the discussion today. Here the word hupostasis refers to the essence of faith. What faith is made of.
I wonder if you've heard this verse used in as many different settings as I have, as everything from a kind indeterminate of motivational quote to a justification for believing that if you aren't rich, healthy, and popular you aren't “Christian” enough? It's no wonder that faith is such a wide and confusing subject.
The word “faith” occurs in Hebrews more times than in any other book of the New Testament, and twenty-four times in the eleventh chapter alone. But what is faith? Is it quantitative (a matter of degrees), where you can have measurably more faith than I, or someone else have more than either of us? Is it qualitative, where his faith is “better” than her faith, or the faith practiced at that church is better than the faith practiced at another? Is it a spiritual gift from God? Is it a natural human characteristic?
Well, for the book of Hebrews, Frances Taylor Gench contends that the way the writer of Hebrews uses faith “is closer to the meaning of faithfulness. It speaks of faith as active obedience.” (Italics added)
In other words, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, far from simply mentally agreeing to the concept of God's promises, responded actively to that promise. They lived in that promise. Their faith was not a thought process or a subject of study and discussion. Their faith was something lived. Something that was done, performed, acted upon. Their faith was a verb.
To the prophet Isaiah, to live faith as a verb meant not simply performing the rites, attending to the details and going through the motions of worship. When a person's heart is turned against the needs of the poor, the orphans, those suffering injustice and oppression, the act of worship is, if I may use Isaiah's exact word, an abomination. To put it more precisely, worship is not an event, but a lifestyle. Professor R. B. Y. Scott wrote that worship must be “the expression and symbol of reverence for the moral character of God and the corresponding moral standards which should characterize his people.” Human conduct must be a reflection and imitation of God’s justice, goodness, truth, kindness and mercy. Worship, like faith, is a verb.
Our passage from the Gospel of Luke paints faith-as-a-verb in terms of what, and Who, we hope for. Jesus had just finished telling his disciples to consider how God cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, comparing it to the foolish man who had built larger barns to store his goods, relying on his own accomplishments.
Faith as a verb understands that our possessions are tools for the Kingdom of God, and nothing less. Faith as a verb understands that the Kingdom of God is here, now, and in the future, that the same Christ who rose from the dead and ascended to heaven will be returning. Faith as a verb understands that being ready means being active. Worshiping in our actions toward all God has created.
William Barclay, in his commentary on the Book of Hebrews, wrote that “faith is a hope that is absolutely certain that what it believes is true, and that what it expects will come. It is not hope which looks forward with wistful longing; it is hope which looks forward with utter certainty. It is not hope which takes refuge in a perhaps; it is hope which is founded on a conviction.”
Faith is our attitude, conviction or trust that there is an invisible, spiritual realm or energy which not only influences but actually created and determines what happens in the visible, external environment in which we live from day to day.
That's the faith that treats worship as something we do every day, with our hands as well as our hearts, with our pocketbooks as well as with our voices, with our talents as well as with our presence.
That's the faith that depends upon God, that understands the Kingdom of God as the reign of God, “where abundance flows out of God’s own sufficiency and generosity.”*
That's the faith that is a verb.
*Quoted from Sharon H. Ringe
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