Late-Night Thoughts on Faith and Mystery

I had a pastor once who gave a sermon on the topic of Joy. He started the sermon with, of all things, a dictionary definition of the topic. While I love this pastor to death, this was one sermon that just flopped for me. I don’t think you can define Joy with mere words; you can’t try and explain joy to somebody simply by telling them what it is, they have to experience it.

In trying to describe how I feel right now, the word Faith comes to mind. Often times I will go for a definition as a starting point, but like Joy, how can one really know what faith is without seeing it, and experiencing it in their own lives. How can one grasp something that is really ungraspable without having had it touch their life in a deep meaningful and personal way? Even then, it’s something that can’t really be understood. In looking at a definition online though, one thing stood out to me that I can touch upon, and that word is trust. The primary idea behind faith is trust. In faith we have trust; in an idea or ideal; in an institution; in a person or loved one; in our God. We can believe that something is real, say the Loch Ness Monster, but without trust, do we have any faith in that belief. We can say we believe in God, but without trust in him, is there faith?

I have spent a great deal of time over the past year attempting to hear God’s voice in my life. I will spend a great deal of time over the next few years to continue to try and listen to his mighty voice; his whisper, in my life. By his grace, I will hopefully not stop then at the end of seminary, but will spend the rest of my life trusting in his voice, and trying to discern what that voice is saying to me. I think we all try and determine what it is God is telling us to do in our lives. It may be the single most vexing and frustrating thing for Christians. We live in a world of instant data, and endless information. We go online, and whatever we want to know, we have in the blink of an eye. When we want to communicate with somebody we just give them a ring on our cell phone, or if that isn’t convenient we text message them; all the communication without the hassle of a personal touch. When I e-mail somebody now, I often have a response within a few hours, but if I need it quicker, I can always see if they are online and IM them. We often want this in our prayer lives as well, but it doesn’t work that way. In our society we are taught to seek out hard solid facts, we are taught to evaluate things based on hard solid numbers. The idea of mystery is void in our culture.

In our human minds we try and explain God in numbers; and I have seen in many friends, their faith tattered and torn because of messages they have been given about God and prayer. I have seen the message of the “Gospel of Prosperity” torture friends; the message that if they only will believe strong enough, God WILL give it to them. I have seen friends struggle with messages from people saying they know God’s will. People who claim to represent God, but really teach a message that is very contrary to his teaching in scripture. I have had friends pray and pray and pray for something, only to lose faith when they decide that their prayers have not been answered. In all of these examples people lose faith because they put their faith, their trust, not in him but in their preconceived notions of him. In the end they are putting their faith in themselves and in their understanding of God. In the gospel of prosperity, we put our faith in and idea that God will provide for us, according to our desires of provision. With our listening to people who claim to know God’s word, we place our trust in their interpretation of what God say’s to them. God may be speaking to them, he may not, but like the Jews in the time of Christ, are their interpretations correct? The Jews were expecting a great king, and yet what they saw was nothing of the sort. In our example of those that pray for something only to lose faith when they don’t see it answered, again they put their faith in an idea that the answer must look like the image in their head.

I absolutely love this quote from the movie Evan Almighty because it reverbs with the thoughts and ponderings that I’ve been weighing for the past few weeks.

“If someone prays for patience, do you think that God gives them patience or does He give them the opportunity to be patient? If one prays for courage does God give them courage or the opportunity to be courageous? If someone prays for the family to be closer do you think God actually wants them to have warm fuzzy feelings or does He give them opportunities to love each other?" – Morgan Freeman in Evan Almighty

To embrace God is to embrace mystery. To love God, is to love the unknown, made known to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus in his teachings though didn’t often give black and white answers. He taught in parables, letting his students figure out what the meaning behind the story was. There was a meaning behind the teaching though as he showed the disciples as he explained the parable of the sower (Mt 13:18-23, Lk 8:11-15, Mk 4:13-20). Matthew, quoting Isaiah, says “You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive.” No matter how hard we try to explain God, we can’t forget that in the end he is still a mystery. As this movie quote points out, our understanding of what God “should do” and what he really does are often not perfectly aligned. In the end the greatest part about faith is that it is trust not in the fully know, but in the unknown. It’s a trust that in his infinite wisdom and infinite love, God will provide for us in a way that is best for us. It’s a belief that he knows better then we do what that is.

We live in a society that is progressively becoming post modern in its beliefs. It’s becoming more and more taught that truth is in our experiences. Just like with Joy and Faith, it’s our experience with then that convince us of that truth; that experience that gives us trust. I embrace this, but struggle with the second part of this ideal that says that since everybody has different experiences, everybody has different truths. I can’t express a belief that in Christ there are different truths. What I can express a belief in is that in our experiences we try and interpret what the truth is, sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly. Just as in the early days of the church we don’t always understand the message of Christ, and therefore we need to work together, in mutual respect to find the truth on many of the issues we face. I know that I am pretty opinionated on many issues, and I can’t say that this is bad, it’s important to have beliefs, and to know why you belief what you do. Faith can’t exist if there is no trust in certain ideals. If somebody is to say they trust all ideals, is that really trust in anything? What I lament, though is seeing people who have differing beliefs based on what they have seen in their lives and in their reading of scripture attack each other openly in the name of religion. I have my beliefs, and I will defend these beliefs, but not at the expense of another human being.

I have been more encouraged over the past year that I am not the only one who feels this way. Working with a church pastor here who is often on the other side of issues, but seeing in him a faithful man of God is encouraging to me. Going to school with people who stand on all sides of the political and theological scale, and being able to call all of the friend is one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. I will continue to have the beliefs that I do, and will continue to explain why I believe them; but I will do so in knowledge that my understanding of God is limited. I will do so with a faith and trust that in his wisdom and love, he will continue to guide me. I don’t know what the final answer will be for the church in it’s battles on the issues of our day. What I do know is that I have faith in the mystery of God, in the mystery of his solution given in the mystery of his own timing.

A walk through history

I think often times in our traditional mainline denominational churches worship becomes very routine and stale. People come to church knowing what to expect, and unless something unexpected happens, such as the pastor dropping the bread during communion, they don't remember much. Worship is so much more then that though, and sometimes worship, even in the stalest environment, becomes something special and serves to remind us that whenever two or more are gathered in Christ's name, he is present. Today served as that reminder for me, and I hope for many people in our congregation. While I don't know that I did anything different, and I hope I didn't, there was a noticeably different feel to worship today. There was a buzz in the air, and you could sense the presence of God. It makes me confident of the path I am on in my life.
I went for a nice hike yesterday in the Galesville cemetery. While I think that many people are a little freaked out by these places, I have always found them to be a great source of peace and serenity. Pine Cliff Cemetery is situated on a hill right in the middle of town. From the top of the hill, the cemetery overlooks the city with a spectacular view. Looking the other way from the cemetery, it overlooks some great farm land and a small apple orchard. It is one of the most beautiful places I have found this summer. I had wanted to go in order to take a couple photos. I wanted to be able to remember my first funeral the week before, and the beauty of the short internment ceremony. I took so much more with me from this walk though. I was able to spend some time reflecting on my sermon for today. I didn't write it until late last night, and the thoughts I worked over during this walk were very helpful to me. I was also able to get a bit of a neat perspective on the history of the town somewhat. It was neat to see the cemetery laid out with large monuments spaced out with the last name of a family on it. Surrounding these stones, were smaller stones with individuals names and dates. Basically the cemetery was laid out in the 1800's with each family having an area of the cemetery that they were buried in. As time went on, this began to break down a little bit, and now it's a wonderful sight to see a stone dated in the late 1890's situated right next to a stone dated in 2003. I saw many family names that I know, and it was neat to take a small piece of history with me in my photos.
I have tomorrow off, and I'm hoping to do a little hiking up some bluffs here in town so I can grab a few more photos. It has been a beautiful week, and I'm looking forward to a fun Independence Day.