I love Clarence Jordan’s translation of this verse from Hebrews: “Faith is the activation of our aspirations, the life based on unseen realities. It is conviction translated into deeds. In short, it is the word become flesh.”
Today, as we look at the concept of faith, we need to begin by looking at what faith is not, for this most vital biblical reality has suffered much abuse within our culture.
Faith is not assent to doctrines about God, Jesus, or creation. Now, that does not mean that what we believe is unimportant. Our intellectual beliefs do affect our lives and they do matter. A lot of harm can be done by believing the wrong things, and a lot of good can be done by believing the right things. It’s just that intellectual assent to doctrines is never what the Bible means by faith. In fact, the book of James says that the demons believe that God is one (the cardinal doctrine of both Judaism and Christianity). But it does them no good. Tragically, the history of the church is stained with blood shed by those in authority who were so concerned with correct doctrines. There was a time in Europe when Protestants burned Catholics, Catholics burned Protestants, and both groups took glee in burning Quakers and Anabaptists. The truth is that one can believe everything correctly as far as doctrines are concerned and still be of the devil – still have nothing in common with the Spirit seen in Jesus Christ. The equation of faith with doctrinal beliefs, so prevalent in our day among many fundamentalists, is not scriptural. And even worse, it can take on demonic proportions.
Second, faith is not accepting “on authority”, (whether it be the authority of the church, the tradition, the Bible, or our parents) what we cannot personally experience or feel to be true or what only the gullible can believe. Mark Twain said that for many, faith is “believing what you know ain’t so.” Now I will be the first to say that we cannot prove the Christian faith, any other faith, or any lack of faith such as atheism. But we can seek to make that faith credible. We can allow that faith to withstand the scrutiny of intellectual questioning and the challenge of personal experience. Clarence Jordan correctly said that faith is not belief in spite of the evidence. We are not required to check our brains at the door when we enter a sanctuary or when we meet God in prayer. The Christian faith cannot be proven, but it can be made credible. The approach many in the church have to faith (“believing what we know ain’t so”) brings no glory to God and does nothing to advance a faith which asks us to love our Maker with all our minds. Such an approach makes us look like ostriches with our heads in the sand while all thinking people take pot-shots at our rumps!
Third, faith is not a vague spirituality. Today, some forms of Christianity foster the notion that faith is primarily an emotion, a positive outlook, a readiness to believe. It doesn’t matter so much what you believe or what kind of behavior your beliefs lead to. What matters is that you be a believing person – that you believe in something. But the Bible does not equate faith with “believing in believing.” Christian faith is not a positive attitude about life. Christian faith is not an openness to whatever catches our fancy this year. Christian faith involves a commitment to a revelation of God brought about through Jesus Christ and a transformation resulting from such a commitment. Our American tendency toward individualism whereby anything goes and can pass as legitimate as long as it feels good and is an individual’s own thing has nothing to do with the faith of the Bible.
What, then, is faith? There are many aspects of faith, but today I want to center on the one aspect of faith which is most crucial in the Bible.
Faith is trust. The same word translated faith (or believe) in the Bible can just as easily be translated trust. In fact, in most cases, trust is the more primary meaning.
So, what is involved in trust? Like most of the primary concepts of biblical religion (like love, hope, compassion, grace, forgiveness and repentance) trust has to do with a relationship. What is involved in trusting a spouse, a parent, a child, or a friend? Risk and commitment. When we say to another, “I trust you,” we are confessing that we are willing to go beyond what we know for sure about the other person. We are willing to take risks in our commitments and decisions. And although trust may deepen over the years so that we feel the risk diminishes, the trust we offer must be renewed regularly.
So Christian faith is trusting God; being willing to take risks and to make commitments in our personal relationship with the God revealed in Jesus Christ. But when we say we trust God and when the New Testament asks us to trust the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, what is being said? Do we mean that we trust God to deliver us from whatever messes we find ourselves in? Do we mean that if we trust God enough, our illnesses and those of our family members and friends will be healed? Do we mean that if we just have enough faith, we may escape death( at least for the time being) or that we may be relieved of difficulties, problems, and sorrows? Occasionally – not too often, thank God – I meet people who say things like, “I had faith in God, and where did it get me? A dead husband, wife or child, a lost job, a spouse who left me, children who disappointed me, cancer.” When I hear such talk from someone, my heart goes out to them, because at times I have wondered the same thing. I think it’s only natural for some of these thoughts and feelings to come into our minds and hearts. And the God who made us and knows our frame understands those times when doubt and disappointment overwhelm us. But most of us don’t allow those feelings and thoughts to become the abiding response of our lives. In time, because of our ongoing relationship with God, we realize that our trust in God is not negated by the misfortunes which beset humanity.
But if the expectation of some magical deliverance from life’s challenges and sorrows is not what the Bible means by trusting God, then what does it mean by trust? Here, I think we all have some growing up to do in the faith, especially within our selfish and shallow culture. Our old friend Clarence Jordan hit the nail on the head in his definition of biblical faith: “Faith is not belief in spite of evidence, but a life lived in scorn of the consequences.” You see, what we are asked to do in our trust of the Almighty is to bet our lives that God is as Jesus claimed and revealed. New Testament faith has to do with risking our lives for the sake of the God of Jesus Christ. If Jesus was correct in his teachings about God and if his actions, death, and resurrection tell us something precious and redemptive about this One he called Abba, then faith is living as though Jesus is the clue to the mystery of life and the universe.
And what does Jesus reveal about God? On this question, New Testament scholars are virtually unanimous. Jesus taught and gave his life under the conviction that the chief characteristic of God is compassion. He believed that God was love and was unique in that he gave the love and forgiveness of enemies the primary place in his teachings. He was the leader of a peace movement within Israel because he believed God was a peacemaker. He understood that the principal idol tempting humanity was the pursuit and accumulation of wealth, so he insisted that his followers share their wealth and live as a sharing community. He saw God’s love and compassion reaching out for the outcasts, marginals, and disenfranchised of his society. He reserved his sternest words of condemnation for the sins of pride, greed and hypocrisy. And he required that all of life – the personal and the communal, the religious and the political, the familial and the economic – be lived under the inbreaking of the Upside Down, Inside Out Kingdom of God, that Compassionate Realm where conventional wisdom is turned on its head.
Now, do I have to tell you that those who believe all of that (those who are willing to bet their lives in this kind of world that God is really as Jesus said and revealed) are in for quite a struggle? What would it be like if we, the church, took Jesus’ teachings on compassion seriously? Or his words and example of loving enemies? Or his demand that we share our wealth with the poor? Or his insistence that we include those that society would ostracize? Would all that be easy? Do you think we would receive kudos and praise from our culture? No, and that is why Jordan said that faith is a life lived in scorn of the consequences. Come what may, we decide in our personal relationship with the God of Jesus Christ that we are going to live as a part of God’s New Creation – God’s blessed community of peace and sharing, love and compassion, truth and justice. And we are willing to pay the price, bear the scars, and endure the cross of that decision.
I have always been fascinated by the background of words (etymology). Two words associated with faith in the Christian tradition are “creed” and “belief.” Those words over the centuries have lost their original impact. In fact, for many today the word creed has become a brittle, confining word. But “creed” comes from the Latin “credo” which means “I give my heart to.” Our faith is to be found in what or whom we give our hearts to in this world. And “belief” comes from two old Anglo-Saxon words: “be” which meant “by” and “liev” which meant “life.” So, one’s belief is what one lives by.
During the dark days of the Nazi occupation of France, Cardinal Suhard, archbishop of Paris, described faith as “living in such a way that one’s whole life would be inexplicable if God did not exist.” In recent years a simple uneducated woman understood the truth of that statement. She attended the memorial service for the six Jesuits and their housekeeper and her daughter who were shot to death by the death squads of San Salvador. This simple woman said to her brothers and sisters, “Do not mourn their deaths. Imitate their lives.” In other words, let us risk our lives that they and Jesus were correct about this God we worship and adore.
So, what is faith? Faith is the trust that comes from a personal relationship with the God of Jesus Christ. Faith is betting our lives that God is as Jesus claimed and revealed. Faith, in the words of Cardinal Suhard, is living in such a way that one’s whole life would be inexplicable if God did not exist. I don’t know about you, but I think I need to do some serious praying about what I am calling my faith.
