Bad Faith

Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith. “Abraham!” God called.

“Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.”

“Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”

The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.” So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife.

As the two of them walked on together, Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

“God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.

***

Generally, the genres of stories haven’t changed much in four thousand years.  In the ancient world, they liked stories of superheroes and gods, buddy stories and romances with some fantasy. They liked epics with monsters and stories of con men.

The story of Abraham is different.  It is a story of a moral religious man who made mistakes, and who struggled with his wife to have a baby.  He was involved in one small skirmish, but otherwise no war. He lived a quiet life, an unassuming life, and even though great events were around him, his participation in them was often just prayer.  For the most part, his life is without great drama.

And yet his life is the basis of three major world religions. He is seen as an example to follow, an exemplar life.  And perhaps because his life is so quiet, it makes sense. But we also have more information about him than about almost any ancient figure of his time, passed on through oral tradition and ancient texts, carefully transcribed.

Why is his quiet story so important for so much of the world?  Perhaps because in his own quiet way, Abraham’s story is kind of crazy.  He was a family man that approached life… differently… but still succeeded in the long run, although he was on the brink of disaster again and again.   I guess we can all identify with that, a bit.

We hear that Abraham’s father moved his family from Ur in Mesopotamia in Iraq to Haran in Turkey,, and that he had quite a legacy to pass onto his sons. He originally wanted to go to Canaan, but ended up in Turkey instead, which was fine.   Then we move right away to Abraham. He is told by God to leave his family and his inheritance and his land and to go… just go. Don’t worry about where. God will tell you when to stop. And if Abraham does then God will make of Abraham an enormous nation, and the whole world will be blessed by him and his family.

We have no indication that Abraham considered it for a minute or if he weighed the pros and cons.  Pro-- great nation someday. Con-- leave everything I know to who knows where. Got it, let’s go!

So Abraham kept moving until he got to the land of Canaan and then God told him “Stop!”.  God told Abraham that someday he would have all of this land, but meanwhile he had to live homeless in it. So Abraham and his family lived in tents, increasing his sheep business.

One day, Abe sat down and had a talk with God.  “So God? You say that you’ll make me into nations?  Well, I don’t really see it happening as I don’t have a son.  Or any kid. And I’m really old, as is Sarah, my wife. How about if I adopt my head slave and you can make nations out of him?”

“No, Abe, you’re going to have a kid.  You. Not adopted. Out of your body.” “Okay, God, if you say so.”

See, Abe really trusted God.  He figured it would be okay if God said it was okay.  If God told him to do it, Abe did it. If God said it would happen, it would happen.

So did his wife Sarah.  But she was very particular about God’s words.  “Sure,” she said, “God said you would have a son, but not me.  Tell you what, my neighbors all have surrogate moms. Let’s use my slave, Hagar, as a surrogate mom.”  So they did. And she had a son, Ishmael. And Sarah adopted that son as her own. But Hagar kept acting like a mom.  And was kind of bossy. So Sarah got rid of Hagar. Abraham was worried about Hagar, but God promised that he would take care of Hagar and Abraham trusted God. God took care of Hagar

God made a a separate promise to Sarah that she would have a son, and she laughed to herself.  Because she was 89 and children weren’t a possibility. God said, “Did you laugh at me?” Sarah replied, “I didn’t laugh.” We always have this problem about lying to God, as if God doesn’t know.  God says, “You did laugh, but you will have a son.”

And… it did happen.  Abe had a son. . But Abe and Sarah had a kid named “Laughter” or in Hebrew, Isaac, and they were overjoyed and they raised their kid and they knew that nations would come from Isaac.

Then came the bad day.  The day Abraham’s trust turned bad.

The day that God said, “Abraham, I want you to take your son… your only son… the son whom you love  and go where I tell you to go and sacrifice him there.”

Again, Abraham didn’t argue with God.  He didn’t make a list of pros and cons.  If he had, it might have looked like this: Pro-- Do what God says to do.  Con-- Kill my son, give up on God’s promise of nations through him, do human sacrifice which is abominable, destroy that which I love most in the world.  Okay, here we go!

To be honest, I don’t understand this Abraham.  Maybe this is the same, naive Abraham who left his home and family just at God’s say-so.  But is this the Abraham who haggled with God about the lives of Sodom? Is this the Abraham who heard his nephew, Lot, was in trouble and he took three hundred servants to go and attack the huge raiding party to get him back?  Is this the “family first” Abraham?

This is an Abraham that had enough energy to do a three day walk, but not enough to tell God, “Can we think about this a minute?”  

He said to his son, “Let’s go on a trip.  Starting at three in the morning. And let’s not tell your mother.  Or anyone else. It’s a God-thing.” Isaac knew about his dad’s “God-things”.  So he got up and travelled with him. But Isaac figured it out eventually. He knew they were going for a sacrifice.  But there was no animal brought. And Abraham was being pretty coy when Isaac asked about it.

Both Jewish and Muslim traditions say that Abraham’s son was old enough to take his dad, to run away.  But he chose to stay, he chose to be with his father. He trusted his father, even when he was acting uncomfortably weird.

So when they got there, Abraham bound Isaac and was going to kill him.  And Isaac let his father do this to him. And in the last minute, God sends an angel and says, “Don’t do this!”

So why?  Why this drama, this exercise in futile obedience?  Why put Abraham and Isaac through this turmoil?

The first thought is, “This is the Bible.  This story is supposed to promote trust in God.”  So you have the author of Hebrews who says that Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead.  But we have no reason to believe that from this story than he thought that God would pull him back in the last second.

Many get the lesson that God was testing Abraham to see if he was really loyal to God first above everything else.  God’s statement seems to indicate that. But what God said is, “Now I know that you fear God…” Is this really a statement of praise or a statement of fact?  Yes, sure, now I know just how your trust goes over the line into insanity. I wasn’t sure before, but now I know for certain.”

In fact, the lessons from much of the rest of the Bible aren’t the lessons we would normally get from it.

Argue with God
If you think that you are hearing something from God that just doesn’t sound right, argue with God.  Don’t just accept it. No one just accepted what God told them after this. Moses argued God down when God wanted to destroy all the children of Israel after the Golden calf incident.  Ezekiel argued with God when God wanted him to cook his food over burnt human feces. Even Jesus argued with God about his sacrifice on the cross! Some say that true belief is, “God said it, I believe it and that settles it.”  But the whole of the Bible seems to say that trusting in God doesn’t mean just accepting what God says. Trust is a relationship and in a relationship either side could be wrong, even God. Sometimes we need to sit with God and have a discussion, not just be an obedient slave.

No Human Sacrifice
Abraham was asked to do human sacrifice.  From this point on, this act wasn’t even considered.  God is not the kind of God that asks for humans to die on behalf of others.  All three monotheistic religions are characterized by not forcing the innocent to die for others.  Jesus and the martyrs could die willingly, but if anyone forces them to die, then they are condemned and even the land on which they died is polluted.  The innocent who die in wars or famines are part of what we must stop in Jesus’ name.

We Beg God not to Tempt

Jesus taught us to plead with God to not put us in this kind of situation.  Where we have our faith in God on one side and our humanity on the other. Everyday someone has to make a Sophie’s choice between survival and God, between a love for their humanity or their faith.  Jesus tells us to ask God never to put us in such a spot.

Corrie Ten Boom tells a story about she and her sister, both of whom hid Jews from the Nazis in WWII.  In their minds they both determined what they would do if the Nazis showed up at their door, demanding where the Jews were.  When that day occurred, Corrie lied to the Nazis, who didn’t believe her and they ransacked her house, but didn’t find the Jews that were well-hidden there.  When the day occured for her sister, Betsie, her faith didn’t allow her to lie. So she told the Nazis that the Jews were hidden in the closet. They didn’t believe her, either, so they left.   Both acted according to their faith.

Trust in God can go very, very right, even if it seems crazy.  Perhaps this is part of God’s insurance for us. If we trust in God, God will protect us just enough.

Bad Faith
On the other hand, faith can go very, very bad.

The last couple weeks, laws have been passed in Alabama, Georgia and Ohio, in the name of God to end abortion.  These laws, of course, do not end abortion, just ends the ability to abort babies safely in an office. These laws harm innocent women, and it doesn’t matter which side of the abortion debate we are on.  One law targets women who go across state lines to seek an abortion, convicting them as a murderer. One law encourages the transplanting of an ectopic pregnancy into a surrogate. The latest denies abortions to victims of incest and rape.  These laws are not targeting abortion, but women. And it is done in the name of faith.

Someone asked me if I believed in heresy.  Yes. Yes I do.

I believe that when someone’s faith in God demands that people be harmed, that is heresy.

When someone says that war or terror must be committed in order to perpetuate one’s belief in God, that is heresy.

When someone harms innocent people in the name of God, that is heresy.

When slavery, rape, capital punishment, the destruction of other peoples or nations or hated is done in Jesus’ name, that is heresy.

When a faith community sees their protection or security over the support of the poor, outcast or marginalized, that is heresy.

And honestly, I see Abraham in this story as an actor of bad faith.  Just like he was an actor of bad faith when he threw out Hagar and Ishmael-- his co-wife and son-- to die in the wilderness at just the word of God.

Sure, it all worked out okay, but that doesn’t mean that Abraham was overly naive.  That his trust was misplaced.

Which God was he trusting himself in?  The God that encourages us to take chances?  No, I get that. Sometimes our trust in God causes us to take huge steps that might seem crazy to some.  But the God of love does not ask us to kill. The God of love does not ask us to sacrifice someone else. The God of love does not ask us to destroy our family.  To hear this from God and to blindly obey it is not just naive, not just foolish, but in opposition to the command of Jesus.

Jesus commands us to love God.  AND to love our neighbor. It is not either/or, but both at the same time.  To love God is to love our neighbor and to love our neighbor is to love God.  The God of love will never ask us to choose one or the other.

When politicians, police, the military, pastors or any other authority demand that we make a choice between God and our neighbor then they are asking us to put faith into the wrong God.  Some other God than that of love. Some other God than the God of Jesus. And I’m just not interested.

More Faith-ful Than Thou

i.

Arius was a teacher in Alexandria, Egypt in the third and fourth centuries.  The centuries of persecution of Christians just ended which gave him the opportunity to really focus on what  he really loved: He loved to really dig into Christian theology and work out the logical ideas. But he wasn’t too enamored of the influence of Greek philosophy in Christianity and he would warn his students about the creeping influence.  One of the issues he took on was the idea that Jesus was eternal and was of the same substance -- the same spiritual “stuff”-- as God the creator. While he agreed that Jesus assisted in creation, Jesus was completely submitted to the Father and some time in the ancient past was begotten from the Father.  

Unfortunately, Arius’ bishop, Alexander-- yeah, his name was Alexander of Alexandria-- strongly disagreed with him.  He said that Arius had to teach that Jesus was the same substance as the Father. Arius said, well, sir, I have to teach what I see as true.  This became a big issue. So big that people on the street of Alexandria-- and Rome and Constantinople-- argued about it. It was said that you couldn’t go down to the market without sellers arguing with buyers, “same substance!” “Different substance!”  “Eternal!” “Created!”

Alexander was miffed.  So was Emperor Constantine.  He didn’t like his newly supported religion brining division among the people.  He wanted a clean, pristine, pure religion to call his own. So he called a council of bishops from throughout the empire and said, “Decide this! Now!”  They took a vote and Alexander of Alexandria won. So the Emperor turned to Arius and said, “Now you and anyone who believes in your heretical teaching, leave the empire!  We want one pure belief, clean of heresy!” So Arius packed up his family, his disciples and left the Roman empire.

And from this point on, one of the essential ideas of Christianity was that the church would be endangered as a social entity unless everyone believed the same thing.  This is where people insist upon the idea that we need to have a single, unified vision of the church. Unless we agree upon the basics, no one will listen to what we have to say.  God forbid that we disagree-- in public even! The council of Nicea created a thing called a “creed” or a laundry list of beliefs, which was a tool for Christianity to use to clearly distinguish between who was in and who was out.  Of course, they had to update that about every century, but still, it’s official.

Of course, this isn’t a new idea.  Bishops were given authority in the mid-second century to quiet down heresy, whatever they thought that meant.  Paul said that there was “one faith” and he argued with other Christians about which faith that was, even desiring that his opponents be castrated (although that might have been a joke).  And in the text we were reading, we can see the disciples being pretty insistent about who is in and who is out.

ii.
The apostle John was kind of a hothead.  That’s why Jesus named John and his brother James, “sons of thunder” because they were always ready to zap people for not being a part of the right group.  Meaning their group. So John reported to Jesus their latest activity. They saw someone helping out a mentally ill person in the name of Jesus and they stopped them.  “Who gave you authority to use that name? Have you attended Jesus’ classes? Do you have a monogrammed sweatshirt? Where is your membership card? Yep. I thought not.  Sorry, until you belong to the right group, you don’t have the right teaching. If you don’t have the right teaching, you can’t use Jesus’ name.” So they shut this guy down.

Jesus’ response should have been, “Well, I totally understand that.  This guy could have been doing good works in the totally wrong way. What if he said the Lord’s Prayer with the wrong words?  What if he didn’t understand that I was the Messiah?” That’s what John was expecting.

Instead, Jesus got on John’s case.  “What are you doing? Wasn’t this guy doing an act of love?  Why did you stop him? Think of it this way: do you want the name of Jesus associated with sincerely someone helping someone out or being a self-righteous, judgmental jerk?  I think the former, eh?

“This guy was on our side.  We don’t know that because they took the right seminar, have the right degrees from the right college or belong to the right denomination.  We know that because he is doing an act of love. That’s the guy we want to keep doing that kind of stuff! Next time you see someone doing an act of love, don’t look at the basis of their authority, rather thank them!”

Jesus even went on to say, that this guy who belonged to the wrong group, probably had the wrong theology would receive the blessing of God.  He cannot be denied his reward. And anyone, Jesus said, who does good work in the name of Jesus-- no matter what their theology or outlook, no matter how heretical they are-- will receive God’s reward.   If we are going to take this seriously, than any work of love, no matter how small is God’s work, even if done by people who believe in the wrong things.

iii.
It’s easy to apply this to people like Franklin Graham who demands that Christian progressives are going to hell.  Or people like John MacArthur who insist that all pentecostals and Charismatics are part of a diabolical heresy. It’s a good thing that us progressives are so open-minded and accepting of all people.  

Of course, there is this guy that I’ve been reading lately, Bishop John Spong.  He insists that orthodox Christianity is “Unbelievable” and that “Christianity must Change or Die.”  His answer is to change the theology of Christianity, to recognize that Jesus resurrected in the spirit, not the body, to deny the virgin birth of Jesus, to deny the reality of the Exodus.  I am not here to argue that he is wrong in his assessment, although I do think that his theology tends to be pretty focused on scholarship in the 70s and 80s. I am saying that he, just like the orthodox teachers he is arguing with, are focused on the wrong issues.  Whether one does or does not believe in the virgin birth isn’t the issue at all. The issue is what foundation do you have to enact the love of Jesus.

If Jesus is bodily risen from the dead and so Jesus is the king of creation and so we must follow Jesus’ law of love and that is how you learn to love, God bless you.  If you find that Jesus’ bodily resurrection is on shaky ground, but you are inspired by the Sermon on the Mount to live a life of love, then God bless you. If you are a Muslim who believes that Jesus is a prophet, but finds his life to be guiding yours to act with greater mercy, then God bless you.

On the other hand, if we think that Muslims aren’t the right kind of religion because they don’t believe in the right things, even though they give more to charity per capita than the Christian church, then we aren’t listening to Jesus.  If we reject the good work of supporting women in pregnancies through poverty of the Pregnancy Crisis Centers, because they don’t agree with our politics, we have the same problem as those who reject Planned Parenthood and their good work.  If we reject all of conservative Christianity because of their doctrine, then we are also rejecting the hospitals, the shelters, the many, many cups of cold water throughout the world they have also delivered.

Am I saying that God is pleased with all the work of all churches?  Absolutely not. What I am saying is that God does not measure his people by words on a piece of paper.  That God does not judge any of us based on ideas of what the future has in store for us. That God does not judge us based on which party we vote for.  Rather, God blesses those who do acts of love.

Diane had a boss who owned a laundromat.  He was an avid watcher of Fox and he voted for Bush and he was always talking about people who need to help themselves and get out of poverty.  But when he saw someone in need, he was there for him. I have never liked Bill’s politics, nor did I care for his theology. But I cannot argue with his life.  With the fact that his faith wasn’t primarily about teaching, but about how he lived. And I saw how he sacrificed, sometimes his well-being, for people in need.  He may not be part of our group, but he is among the blessed of God because of his love. And it took me more than a minute to open my eyes and see that it isn’t about theology or posturing-- God’s blessing is about how we respond to someone in need.

I was a person opposed to the LGBTQ.  There are men and women and there is God’s commandment and that’s enough.  And then Vickie came into our lives. She would be classified as a transvestite by some, although her issues were more complicated than that.  She and I went into counseling, so I could give her spiritual guidance while she was living in our house. In the end, she is the one who taught me.  She taught me that the truest Christian may not have everything right according to the church, but is humble, serving and loving. In fact, the best Christian I know was thrown out of multiple churches because of issues that had nothing to do with love, but with the kinds of clothes she needed to wear.   I thank God for her to come into our lives. She, more than anyone I know, taught me that love is more important than doctrine. And I have never forgotten that lesson.

Should we ignore theology?  I don’t think so. Our theology can help us determine how best to love.  But I think that we should take care not to judge someone who has a different theology or politic than we, because those things sometimes matter less than the practical details.

The other thing is something I wonder.  Bible studies and classes are usually about making sure that everyone in the group is on the same page theologically, on the right page of belief and doctrine.  Sometimes we have Bible studies to actually explore God’s will about something. But here is something I’ve considered. Perhaps instead of all this focus of studying doctrine and theology is the wrong step altogether, as enjoyable as it is.  Perhaps we need to have love studies. How to best love and care for people. What is love in one context or another. When we have limited resources, who should be loved, this person or that? How do we make that determination? What is the loving and unloving way to obtain resources?  What is the best approach to love, through things, presence or community? I wonder if we should have more love studies and fewer classes on what we believe. In so long as each session ends in action, and not just in thought.

On other thing I’ve been thinking about this.  It has to do with trusting God, like what we talked about last week.  If faith is really about trusting God, then we trust God to lead us in the Spirit, to get us to the right place, eventually.  If we can trust God that much, perhaps we should trust that God is also leading other people who seek her as much as we do. That we should trust God enough to bring other people to the place they are supposed to be, even if we are sure that their way is the wrong way.

If Faith were a Song, What Would It Sound Like (please, not George Michael)

A word does not have a meaning.            

I mean they do, but sometimes the meaning of a word is vague, fuzzy, or it hits many things.  Linguists do not usually speak of a “definition” of a word, but of a “range of meanings.” A word is like a nebula.    Sure, it is an entity, but what exactly is it?  It has a lot of parts to it, a lot of colors. And when you find out more, you discover that the colors were made up by scientists and don’t reflect the reality at all, but are there to show depth and beauty.   Even so, the meanings of words can be beautiful, but hard to pin down.

Like the word “bear”.  “Bear” of course has two meanings, one is a large animal with pointy bits or possibly our spouse who we say is being a “bear” this morning.  But the other, separate range of words, has a root source of “bearing” something on one’s shoulders, which often means something difficult and we can use it to mean that we can “bear” with someone who is being difficult, which means that we can say of our spouse that we are “bearing” with a “bear”, neither of which has to do with the literal meaning of either word “bear”.  This is why words don’t have a single meaning, but a range of meanings.

The tough word we will be talking about today is “faith”.  Comes from the Latin root “fides” which is a translation of the Greek word “pistis.”

For secular people, faith is spoken of a “leap”, an accepted conviction without evidence.  The idea that God exists is a “leap of faith” that some hold and others do not.  Jesus being raised from the dead is a “leap of faith” that Christians hold. Creationism is a “leap of faith” which stands in the face of science.  And some think that the sign of being a true, saved, believer is to take a leap of faith toward Jesus without evidence.

However, this idea of a belief without evidence is only as old as 150 years when Soren Kierkegaard created existentialism, where one creates one’s own life through belief or through a personal act of will.  Before then, faith goes beyond what one can see, but is still based on reality. We step on a plane, which is an act of faith that we won’t die when we go up in the air, but it is based on knowledge that planes rarely cause people to die.

So if someone holds their chair for me when I sit down, I am putting my faith in him.    I am putting my faith in him because he could, right now, pull the chair out from under me and then I break a bone.  Some might say that I am making a leap of faith by sitting on this chair. On the other hand, I have sat in others of these chairs and not fallen.  I have experienced, let's say, this person's character and have evidence that he is not the type of person to pull the chair out from under me. This is the kind of evidence that the Bible talks about.  Yes, we are putting our faith in an uncertain future, but it is dependent on our experiences in the past.

For many Christians, to have “faith” is to believe in one of the creeds, which comes from the Latin word “Credo” which means “I believe”.   A creed is basically a laundry list of basics that “true believers” should believe.  Others call creeds the “prolegomena to the gospel” or an introduction to some basic facts we need to hold before we can move ahead with the deeper aspects of the gospel.   However, this was not conceived as the foundation of faith until the mid to late 300s, which is long after Bible times.

The apostle Paul and the book of Acts speak about “the faith”.  This is a particular belief in Jesus, risen from the dead, king of the new kingdom of God that all Christians have.  So they almost never spoke of Christians, but spoke rather of a belief system. A belief system that causes one to change one’s authority from one source-- Jewish priests, for example-- to another-- Jesus, and the community that trusts in that authority.  For many, “faith” means to follow a certain authority.

The word “faith” in Greek is pistis and the word for “I believe” is pisteuo-- both are forms of the same word.  Sometimes this might hold to a “belief” or a “belief system”, but in the bible that meaning of the word is rare. The Bible has a range of meanings for that word, which includes “belief”, but also “confidence” and “perseverance” and “commitment”-- such as having a life-long commitment to a king, which we call “fealty” or a life-long commitment to a spouse which we call “fidelity” or a life-long commitment to a god, which we call belonging to a “faith”, all of which are English words that come from the Latin word fides which we would translate in modern English, “faith”.

But I think that if we were going to use one word that gets at the core of the significance of the Bible word pistis, I think that word would be “trust.”   The Bible already warns us that belief in facts don’t bring us one step closer to walking with God. As James says, “Even the demons believe, and the shudder.”  So there is a reliable pistis and an unreliable pistis. Demons have knowledge of many of the same facts as we, but take a remarkably different course of action.  Belief in a set of facts don’t mean much.

Nor does a commitment mean much if the object of the commitment is evil.  We might consider faithfulness to our word or to our commitment to an ideal to be great, until that commitment allows us to kill people in its name. Fealty to a king is evil if that king tells you to harm innocent people.  Faith in God is a detriment if our God is not a God of love.

Let’s try out this idea of “trust” in the Bible.
Abraham trusted in God and this was credited to him as righteousness.   Abraham didn’t just believe a promise, but lived a life of trust in the God of love.

Jesus said, “By your faith you are healed.”  This isn’t just belief in the fact that Jesus could heal, but that Jesus and God would do right by them, deliver them from their life of destruction.

Jesus said, “Trust in God, trust also in me.”

See if this makes more sense, “If you have trust as a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain be cast in the sea, and it will happen.”  Not belief or confidence that God CAN do such a thing, but trust that it is according to God’s loving desire and that God has the power to do this.

When it says in the bible not to doubt, it really means to set aside one’s distrust of God.  We sometimes believe that God has it in for us, that God doesn’t have our best interests in mind.  Like the children of the wilderness who didn’t have “faith” in God and so didn’t think that God would feed them. As if God didn’t know what they needed.

• To have trust, is to rely on God’s care for us.
• To have trust is to rely on God to guide us to live our best lives.
• To have trust is to act in God’s love, even if it is hard or asks a lot.
• To have trust is to be in a relationship for the long haul, not just an exciting moment.  Trust doesn’t look for the next spiritual thrill, but walks with God regularly, even in the boring or difficult times.
• To have trust is ultimately leaning on God to be one’s security.
• Trust is knowing that God will provide even if love requires that we take chances with our provision.
• To have trust is to rely on God as deliverer from all that oppresses us.
• To have trust is to hear things we don’t like, but we will listen anyway.
• To have trust is, almost more than anything, to wait for the good that we are impatient for.  To believe that God does have peace in store for us, even if we don’t see how we will obtain it.

Trust is when my family and I were praying for God to pay our utilities.  We had a number of people living with us and so our utility debt was three thousand dollars.  So we were praying that God would provide us with the funds. This was a faithful prayer because we had dedicated our house and our lives to taking in the poor.  And it was a desperate prayer because we knew that if we didn’t pay our water bill, especially, they would call Family Services on us because we were “endangering” our children.   So we prayed for God to pay our utility bills.

That morning at 1am Diane woke me up.  She said, “I’m sorry to have to wake you up, but the car is totalled.”  I am very groggy at 1am so it took me a while to register. I went out our door and instead of our car there was broken glass and a lot of flashing lights.  It turns out a drunk driver in a large truck hit our car on the street, pushed our vehicle two houses down into the neighbor’s yard. The police was concerned because brown fluid was dripping from our ceiling.  That was the gravy we had placed there left over from the meal that night. Yep, it was totaled.

In about a month, we received a check from an insurance company.  It was for six thousand dollars. Enough for us to purchase a used minivan for three thousand and to pay our utility bills.

In my experience, trust is messy.  Trust is chancy and causes us to take chances.  But trust in God means: if you follow the path of love, everything will work out in the end.  Even if in a weird way.

Testing Theology #1-- God's Practical Provision

Thesis:
Surrender for God’s purposes allows for our own needs to be met

Jesus’ principle: 

“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things (e.g. food and clothes) will be given to you.” 

The idea here is that if we are following God’s calling for us as a family, and if we surrender all we have and do for that calling and for the righteousness that God calls us to, then God will provide all our needs.  Although Jesus mentions only food and clothing, we also, as a family need housing, water and electricity so our children do not get taken away.

Test: 

In 1997 I was led by God to quit my job and to work with the homeless full time.  I asked others, including my wife and my church supporters to pray with me and to seek God’s will in the matter.  All of those involved affirmed this direction and supported us to do this.

 I quit my job in March of 1998.  I asked my parents to purchase plane tickets so Diane and our two kids could stay with her mother in Pennsylvania for four months.  I stayed on a friend’s couch and occasionally slept on the street, all the time eating at various soup kitchens throughout the Portland area, connecting with the homeless.   After four months, Diane and the children moved back and we slept part of the week in a room next to a garage at a friend’s house in Hillsboro part of the week and in an office converted from a house in Gresham  (forty miles away) for three days a week, where we served and counselled the homeless.  The day before we were supposed to leave our room in Hillsboro, a supporter of our ministry granted us enough money for us to rent a two bedroom apartment in Gresham.  The Mennonite denomination also provided us with some funds for living expenses.  During this time, I sold my plasma for some extra finances and Diane went to a gleaner to pick up extra food for us.   We never asked for food stamps or other government assistance.  Eventually, the IRS asked us to apply for Earned Income Credit, which we did, gladly, but we had already been living this way for a number of years.

Result: 

In all this time, to the present day, my children never went hungry, never had to sleep on the street, always had enough medicine to cover their medical needs, always had the clothes they needed and we homeschooled them successfully.  We often had to pray in money to pay our bills, and our bills are often paid late.  Our water was turned off once, and we collected water so the toilets and all worked.  The water company gave us a number of fines and threatened to call child services who would take our children away if they were in a place without running water.  But we were able to pay the bill before it came to that.

After 16 years of living out this experiment of feeding and housing the poor with no salary and no regular income, I can firmly say that God takes care of those who surrender all to serve Him.  God provided for us all these years, especially the early years when resources were very thin.  We still have trouble paying bills and we still live on less than what we can afford.  But in the leanest times, we are provided for and no one in our house has ever gone hungry.

Anecdote:  

We had a household of 12 people, five being my family and the rest being folks who used to be homeless but now live in our house.  One morning we were desperate for food.  There were some condiments and spices, but nothing of substance to eat.   I prayed that morning for God to provide for my children to have something to eat. 

In the midst of my prayer, Diver, who lived in a tent in our backyard, came in and said, “Bye! I’m going out on a bike ride!”  I wanted to ask him to help us get some food, but I decided to trust God and see what would happen.

Diver, meanwhile, got on his bike and trailer and rode South.  After heading that direction for a while, he felt that he was going the wrong way.  He needed to ride North.  “Okay,” he thought and turned around.  Along his ride, he looked in the occasional dumpster, just seeing what he could find.  Usually he’d find quite a bit, especially in apartment dumpsters.  Various odds and ends: CDs, old metal he could scrap, other items of interest.  Today he didn’t find anything.

After riding a number of miles, he came to a Fred Meyers, a local supermarket.  He saw a huge dumpster, the dumpster of his dreams.  He’d never seen it before, so he figured he’d see what he could find.  Climbing the ladder and peering over the side, he noticed that the whole bottom of the dumpster was filled with frozen food.  “Score!” he cries.  As he picks some up, he discovers that all the food is still in the package, and still frozen. 

He fills up his trailer with frozen food and rides back to our house, proud to be able to fill our empty freezers.  That night, and the next two, we ate very well. 

Community of Dependence (Poverty of Spirit 6)

The community of God is begun by a woman or man, alone in faith, committed to the burden and shame of poverty, in complete dependence on God.  They have desperately sought God and are given from the mouth of God a work to do.  Their work is not professional, but an act of love for love, for God’s work is always founded on love.

It may be working for the poor, it may be raising children through difficult circumstances, it may be assisting the disabled or elderly, it may be offering compassion and a listening ear to those who are lonely, it may be healing the sick, it may be supporting the dying... there are unlimited lifestyles of love.  But it is always among those who have been rejected and so have an empty hole which only love can fill.

This work doesn’t pay well.  They may not gain much personal reward at all, but are sometimes mocked or hated because of the work of love.  Their bodies deteriorate, they can’t pay their bills, they struggle with depression.  Many people look at the cost of the work and honestly say, “You need to find a different line of work.”

They work not for reward but because they are called.  They work because it is an honor to work for the King of the universe, and because love is the most noble of all tasks.  At times the work is head, but they trust that it is worth it for the sake of the world and they trust that it will be worth it for them.  Eventually.

This is the life of faith.

These are among the most lonely of people, and they surround themselves with the lonely, the outcasts of society.  Yet this ragtag group have something that the society around them doesn’t value—they have dependence. 

At first they depend on the central figure of faith who seems to have such abundance of love that it stretches the boundary of humanity.  Around this saint there is healing.  The hungry are fed.  The depressed find joy. The grieving find encouragement.

As the central personage enters deeper into their personal poverty, being eaten by sickness or depression, love flowers in the Spirit of the community.  It isn’t just one Lover, but a group and finally a multitude of lovers, all dependent on each other for support, for food, for housing, for relief, for restoration, for welcome.

Poverty together is not poverty.  To be truly poor is to be in community with the poor and in that community poverty melts away like butter in a campfire. To be poor is to see the poorer, and to share what little one has with the needy. It is the poor who see the hungry and give their food.  It is the poor who see the naked and give them an extra coat.  It is the poor who see the homeless and give them their last inch of space in their tent.  For the foundational moral truth of poverty is to be the one who sees, and the one who shares. 

Poverty of spirit embraces the poverty of one’s community and gives what little one has into that poverty in the hopes that there is enough for all.  Individual poverty is lessened by sharing with community.  A single stick is too poor to carry the weight of a human being.  But a multitude of sticks can carry a fully grown human over a river.  Even so, an individual poor person is helpless.  A group of poor people can withstand a great burden.

This is the community of God.  It is the community of mercy, the community of sacrifice, the community of fellowship.  The community of God is the community that takes joy in depending on one another, as well as depending on the God who gives them all.

A wealthy person may also enter into this community and take part in the joy, but only if they give all.  For no one is really a part of this community unless they are dependent on each other and dependent on God.  And that can only happen when the crutches of power, of riches, of income, of importance is all cast aside into that black hole of deep poverty.

This is the community of Jesus who cast aside all his riches, becoming poor, so that we might all participate in His wealth.  His dependence becomes our participation in the fulfilling, joyful community of dependence. 

What Do You REALLY Believe?

Who Am I, Really?
It is often quoted, “You are what you eat.” But I am not a tuna sandwich or a quesadilla. Perhaps what we eat gives us the energy to be who we are, but it is not who we are.

Rather, it is our thoughts and beliefs that make us who we are. We do not name ourselves according to our culinary preference, but we proudly tell others the names that display what we believe. Our church group (what we believe about God), our political leanings (what we believe about how to help our country), our sports team (what we believe about that team—namely, they are great)—these are the things we talk about to indicate who we are (as well as other things, like occupation)

However, our beliefs are as complex as our thinking, and at times we say we believe something that contradicts what we believe about something else. And we also will say that we believe one thing and do another. I can say that I believe that people should be nice to one another, but if I found out my neighbor took my television without my permission then I might not be so nice to him. My wife would then point out the contradiction between what I say and what I did, and I will explain it to her: “You see, I think that we should generally be nice to each other, but if someone takes something from me, then I don’t have to be nice.” The reasoning may or may not be valid, but I only came up with the reason to excuse what I did. The reality is, what I said I believed originally—“People should be nice to each other,”— is different from what I really believed— “I will be nice to others as long as they are nice to me.”

Given that what we say we believe is so often contradicted by what we do, how do we know what we really believe. I say I believe in Jesus—but do I really? And how do I know? I think that if I make statements of belief—“I believe that Jesus is Lord”, that will be enough. If I know something, “Jesus rose from the dead” or “Airplanes are safe,” does that mean I believe in it?

Evaluating What We Really Believe In

Jesus recognized that often what we say and what we believe are two different things. This is why he gave us a test to find the true character of a person—what they really believe in, whether they are really good and bad. Jesus said, “We know a tree by its fruit. We know that a tree is an apple tree because it bears apples. And we know that a fig tree can’t produce pears. Even so, we know what a person is really like by their actions and careless speech.” (Matthew 7:16-20 and 12:33-36). Thus, we know what people really believe by how they behave in certain areas in life.

Below are six areas that, according to Jesus, indicate what we really believe. If we follow God in these areas, then we can say we believe in God. But if we do not, then we must believe in something else—for our actions are a mirror of our hearts.

Actions

As shown above, what we do with our lives—our work, our response to stressful situations—that’s what really shows who we are. We can say that we love God, but the question is, how do we show it? Sometimes the best way to determine our character is to imagine that a stranger who has never seen us before is presented with a videotape of our whole lives, with the sound off, so they can’t hear our own explanations of our lives. How would that stranger evaluate us? What would characterize us? If we stole, we would certainly be characterized as a thief. But we more often than not excuse ourselves, not wanting our actions to determine who we are—“Sure, I get drunk occasionally, but that doesn’t make me an alcoholic.” “Yes, I have hit my child in anger, but that doesn’t make me a child abuser.” Yet Jesus said that a person shows truly whether they believe in him as to whether they do what he says (Luke 6:46-49)

Wealth

Jesus says that what we do with our money and possessions indicates where our heart is, thus who we are (Luke 12:34). A person can say, “I believe that God will heal me,” but then why does he spend so much money on medicine? A person can say, “My comfort will be in heaven,” but then why does she surround herself with comforts on earth? If we want to see what a person really believes in, we can look at how they spend their money—that will indicate what they think to be most important in life. Jesus said that if we want to show that we believe we will get to heaven, then we need to take a substantial amount of our wealth and give it to the poor—not necessarily the church, unless they are serving the poor (Luke 12:33; Acts 4:34-35)

Words

As we said above, a person can say one thing and do another. But Jesus said that we should pay attention to people’s careless words—the statements they make when they didn’t have time to plan it out. Often that’s when people’s pride and anger and selfishness flare up. If we are planning a statement, that can be one thing we say, but the statements we use when we are being thoughtless and carefree—those are the words by which we will be judged, for those are the words that show what we really believe and so who we really are.  (Matthew 12:35-36)

Security
At times we all feel insecure. We are often struck by anxiety and we don’t know where to turn. Where we do turn in those moments of crisis indicates what we trust in or who we think will pull us out of our fear. Perhaps we will turn to a family member—especially if they are wealthy—or a friend. Perhaps we have a habit or addiction that we think will make us feel better. Perhaps we have nothing we can rely on but our anxiety, but we say, “How I wish I had this or that”. That is what we really rely on, the person or object we truly believe in. But Jesus tells us that in our time of crisis, the one we can always count on, the dependable one who we can trust in is God. (John 14:1; Luke 12:30-32). To “believe in” God doesn’t mean to have the correct doctrine, it means that you will count on him in a time of crisis. So whatever we turn to in crisis, that is our real god.

Attitude

God makes it clear that he wants us to treat everyone according to their well-being. He wants us to do what is good for everyone we meet—whether that person is an evil person or a good one (Luke 6:27-36; Galatians 6:10). We can make a list of who we actually show care for and who we do not. “Yes, I try to help this person whenever I can. This person, though, is a dolt and so I avoid then when possible. I like to assist this kind of person, but this kind I detest and wouldn’t even give them the time of day.” By this test, then, we can often see what limits we place on our belief in God. We believe in God and in his ways when we are around certain people or situations, but in other ones we do not. If people respect us, that’s fine, we can believe in God in that situation. But if someone cusses us out, then we find it difficult to believe in God. For we know that we will be rewarded according to our love, not our doctrinal beliefs.

Promises

We often make promises and commitments, from appointments to projects we agreed to work on. Sometimes we do not even have a promise to do something, but we have a “social contract” with our family, in which our behavior is determined. And there are many things that we “believe in” that we commit to do, whether it be prayer or a favor for someone at church or visiting a sick person in the hospital. But what we believe in is not found in the promises we make, but in the promises we actually keep. We may “believe in” prayer and make a schedule for us to wake up a bit early to do it. But, when the time comes, we find that we actually believe in sleep more than prayer because the snooze button is hit until the prayer time has vanished. We may “believe in” visiting the sick, and so promise to do it, but when the time comes we find the television too alluring, showing that we believe in our comfort and rest more. Jesus said that we must fulfill our promises and so display our faithfulness, for what we do shows what we believe. This doesn’t mean that we are able to keep all our promises. Sometimes emergencies come up. But we must remember this, whatever we chose to do, that is what we really believe in. (Matthew 21:28-31)

Repentance

One last thing to note—Jesus is a firm believer in changing one’s ways. We know he believes in change because he forgives people their sin. He displays his belief of changed behavior by accepting those who have repented. Even so, if you evaluate your true beliefs and determine that you haven’t really believed in Jesus, it is not too late to change! To change one's ways is the surest indication in what you really believe in.  You may have believed one thing before, but you really believe something new when you leap and make a difference in your own life.


Pray for God’s grace and you will begin to truly believe in Jesus, not just in words, but in your whole life. In that way you will be a new creation, created by God to do actions in light of Jesus!

What Do You REALLY Believe?

Who Am I, Really?
It is often quoted, “You are what you eat.” But I am not a tuna sandwich or a quesadilla. Perhaps what we eat gives us the energy to be who we are, but it is not who we are. Rather, it is our thoughts and beliefs that make us who we are. We do not name ourselves according to our culinary preference, but we proudly tell others the names that display what we believe. Our church group (what we believe about God), our political leanings (what we believe about how to help our country), our sports team (what we believe about that team—namely, they are great)—these are the things we talk about to indicate who we are (as well as other things, like occupation)

However, our beliefs are as complex as our thinking, and at times we say we believe something that contradicts what we believe about something else. And we also will say that we believe one thing and do another. I can say that I believe that people should be nice to one another, but if I found out my neighbor took my television without my permission then I might not be so nice to him. My wife would then point out the contradiction between what I say and what I did, and I will explain it to her: “You see, I think that we should generally be nice to each other, but if someone takes something from me, then I don’t have to be nice.” The reasoning may or may not be valid, but I only came up with the reason to excuse what I did. The reality is, what I said I believed originally—“People should be nice to each other,”— is different from what I really believed— “I will be nice to others as long as they are nice to me.”

Given that what we say we believe is so often contradicted by what we do, how do we know what we really believe. I say I believe in Jesus—but do I really? And how do I know? I think that if I make statements of belief—“I believe that Jesus is Lord”, that will be enough. If I know something, “Jesus rose from the dead” or “Airplanes are safe,” does that mean I believe in it?

Evaluating What We Really Believe In
Jesus recognized that often what we say and what we believe are two different things. This is why he gave us a test to find the true character of a person—what they really believe in, whether they are really good and bad. Jesus said, “We know a tree by its fruit. We know that a tree is an apple tree because it bears apples. And we know that a fig tree can’t produce pears. Even so, we know what a person is really like by their actions and careless speech.” (Matthew 7:16-20 and 12:33-36). Thus, we know what people really believe by how they behave in certain areas in life.

Below are six areas that, according to Jesus, indicate what we really believe. If we follow God in these areas, then we can say we believe in God. But if we do not, then we must believe in something else—for our actions are a mirror of our hearts.

Actions
As shown above, what we do with our lives—our work, our response to stressful situations—that’s what really shows who we are. We can say that we love God, but the question is, how do we show it? Sometimes the best way to determine our character is to imagine that a stranger who has never seen us before is presented with a videotape of our whole lives, with the sound off, so they can’t hear our own explanations of our lives. How would that stranger evaluate us? What would characterize us? If we stole, we would certainly be characterized as a thief. But we more often than not excuse ourselves, not wanting our actions to determine who we are—“Sure, I get drunk occasionally, but that doesn’t make me an alcoholic.” “Yes, I have hit my child in anger, but that doesn’t make me a child abuser.” Yet Jesus said that a person shows truly whether they believe in him as to whether they do what he says (Luke 6:46-49)

Wealth
Jesus says that what we do with our money and possessions indicates where our heart is, thus who we are (Luke 12:34). A person can say, “I believe that God will heal me,” but then why does he spend so much money on medicine? A person can say, “My comfort will be in heaven,” but then why does she surround herself with comforts on earth? If we want to see what a person really believes in, we can look at how they spend their money—that will indicate what they think to be most important in life. Jesus said that if we want to show that we believe we will get to heaven, then we need to take a substantial amount of our wealth and give it to the poor—not necessarily the church, unless they are serving the poor (Luke 12:33; Acts 4:34-35)

Words
As we said above, a person can say one thing and do another. But Jesus said that we should pay attention to people’s careless words—the statements they make when they didn’t have time to plan it out. Often that’s when people’s pride and anger and selfishness flare up. If we are planning a statement, that can be one thing we say, but the statements we use when we are being thoughtless and carefree—those are the words by which we will be judged, for those are the words that show what we really believe and so who we really are. (Matthew 12:35-36)

Security
At times we all feel insecure. We are often struck by anxiety and we don’t know where to turn. Where we do turn in those moments of crisis indicates what we trust in or who we think will pull us out of our fear. Perhaps we will turn to a family member—especially if they are wealthy—or a friend. Perhaps we have a habit or addiction that we think will make us feel better. Perhaps we have nothing we can rely on but our anxiety, but we say, “How I wish I had this or that”. That is what we really rely on, the person or object we truly believe in. But Jesus tells us that in our time of crisis, the one we can always count on, the dependable one who we can trust in is God. (John 14:1; Luke 12:30-32). To “believe in” God doesn’t mean to have the correct doctrine, it means that you will count on him in a time of crisis. So whatever we turn to in crisis, that is our real god.

Attitude
God makes it clear that he wants us to treat everyone according to their well-being. He wants us to do what is good for everyone we meet—whether that person is an evil person or a good one (Luke 6:27-36; Galatians 6:10). We can make a list of who we actually show care for and who we do not. “Yes, I try to help this person whenever I can. This person, though, is a dolt and so I avoid then when possible. I like to assist this kind of person, but this kind I detest and wouldn’t even give them the time of day.” By this test, then, we can often see what limits we place on our belief in God. We believe in God and in his ways when we are around certain people or situations, but in other ones we do not. If people respect us, that’s fine, we can believe in God in that situation. But if someone cusses us out, then we find it difficult to believe in God. For we know that we will be rewarded according to our love, not our doctrinal beliefs.

Promises
We often make promises and commitments, from appointments to projects we agreed to work on. Sometimes we do not even have a promise to do something, but we have a “social contract” with our family, in which our behavior is determined. And there are many things that we “believe in” that we commit to do, whether it be prayer or a favor for someone at church or visiting a sick person in the hospital. But what we believe in is not found in the promises we make, but in the promises we actually keep. We may “believe in” prayer and make a schedule for us to wake up a bit early to do it. But, when the time comes, we find that we actually believe in sleep more than prayer because the snooze button is hit until the prayer time has vanished. We may “believe in” visiting the sick, and so promise to do it, but when the time comes we find the television too alluring, showing that we believe in our comfort and rest more. Jesus said that we must fulfill our promises and so display our faithfulness, for what we do shows what we believe. This doesn’t mean that we are able to keep all our promises. Sometimes emergencies come up. But we must remember this, whatever we chose to do, that is what we really believe in. (Matthew 21:28-31)

Repentance
One last thing to note—Jesus is a firm believer in changing one’s ways. We know he believes in change because he forgives people their sin. He displays his belief of changed behavior by accepting those who have repented. Even so, if you evaluate your true beliefs and determine that you haven’t really believed in Jesus, it is not too late to change! Jesus said he will give you his Spirit and he will help you repent from your old life and begin to believe in Him anew! Pray for God’s grace and you will begin to truly believe in Jesus, not just in words, but in your whole life. In that way you will be a new creation, created by God to do actions in light of Jesus!

Evaluate your actions, and determine
what you really believe!