Theological Truth: Faith is the ongoing process by which we trust God with our hearts, souls, minds, and strength
Come Holy Spirit and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.
Do you remember the “got milk?” ads from the 90’s? The first of the series showed a man getting a call from a radio trivia contest. The disc jockey asks him a question that he clearly knows the answer to, but because his mouth is full of a peanut butter sandwich, with no milk to wash it down, his answer is unintelligible. The agony of the missed opportunity is followed by the question, “got milk?”
It was a very effective campaign for the dairy producers, but it engendered panic in me. Imagine, driving home after a hard day at work, having survived thirty minutes of competitive interstate traffic, and then just as your house is coming into view you hear someone asking, “got milk?” DOH!!! Was I supposed to stop and get milk? I don’t know. Maybe? Do I risk going home without it, or turn around and go to the store? I hated that ad.
I wonder if asking, “got faith?” would evoke a similar response. Does that question invite a confident, “Yes!” or maybe a hesitant, “I think so.” Perhaps an embarrassed, “I’d like to.” Or, if we’re being honest, “Yes, I have faith, but I could use some more.”
Many thoughtful Christians live with a faith inferiority complex. We wonder how our faith stacks up against others. Do we have as much as they do? Do we have as much as we should? That’s the problem with seeing faith as a commodity – something that we can measure and contain, like money. We mistakenly think of having a “faith bank” and then worry about how much is in it. But maybe there’s another way — a more helpful and scriptural way — to think about faith. Frederick Buechner’s words provide a helpful corrective: “Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process [rather] than as a possession.” (https://www.frederickbuechner.com/quote-of-the-day/2016/10/6/faith)
The people from today’s two healing miracles in Mark’s gospel demonstrate this faithing process. They show that faith isn’t about what they believe, but what they do. Faith is Jairus falling at Jesus’ feet and begging him to help his ailing daughter. Faith is the desperate woman frantically grasping Jesus’ cloak. Faith is her then coming up to him, despite her fear, and falling down before him. Faith is Jairus, enduring the agonizing wait as Jesus talks to the woman, and still walking with him to his daughter’s bedside despite the news of death and the derision of the crowd. For both the hemorrhaging woman and the panicked father, faith is a verb, or a gerund. Faith is built by faithing.
Faith is also not a fully developed belief structure. New Testament scholar Matt Skinner points out, “Neither the woman … nor the synagogue leader … refer to
Jesus as “Messiah,” “Son of David,” “Lord,” or anything like that. They don’t recite
the Apostles’ Creed, explain the Trinity, or pledge money to Jesus’ movement. They simply come. If we want to know what they believe, we can say that they believe
Jesus can help them. Or they hope he might. It’s about trust. Maybe mere
desperation.” (https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-
lectionary/ordinary-13-2/commentary-on-mark-521-43-10)
For us, in this age of information and technological advancement, we may be mocked for trusting in things we can’t prove or fully understand. But let’s face it, how could we, the created, ever fully comprehend the Creator? How could the finite even begin to approach the infinite? Faith isn’t about full understanding or total comprehension; faith is about trust. Believing is important, but as Dallas Willard
puts it, “We don’t believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when
we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.”
(per Rachel Held Evans, Inspired, p. 186)
Take for example your television’s remote control. Not many of us understand how it works. We couldn’t explain it in detail or write a paper on how it functions. Yet my lack of understanding doesn’t stop me from picking it up and pointing it at the tv. Why? Because I trust that it works. It’s worked before. It will work again. Faith is acting like something is true.
That’s not to say we don’t continue striving to know God with our minds (along with our hearts and souls and strength). St. Anselm famously stated and lived by the motto of faith seeking understanding. We do too, reading the scriptures, attending Christian education classes, listing quietly in prayer for deeper understanding. But first, possibly driven merely by desperation, we act as if Jesus can save us.
That’s what the bleeding woman and the terrified Jairus did. They acted as if it were true that Jesus could help them. They trusted. Their desperation drove them to their
knees … directed them to the source of not only their healing, but their restoration.
Their faith wasn’t dependent on a full mastery and unwavering commitment to a set
of theological premises. Their faith wasn’t a noun. It was a verb, active and ongoing. Their “faithing” did more than make them well. Their faithing saved them, it brought them back to life. The woman wasn’t only cured, she was healed, called “daughter,” and returned to her community. Jairus’ daughter wasn’t only touched, she was grasped, and told to get up — a foreshadowing — the same word used for Jesus’ rising from the dead.
These miracles aren’t the exception, they’re the revelation of God’s intention for all humanity. As we heard from our first reading, “God did not make death, and God does not delight in the death of the living.” (Wisdom of Solomon 1:13).
Faith is a clinging to this truth. It isn’t a commodity we possess or a mental state we achieve. Faith is grabbing hold of the only thing that will save us. The theoretical physicist and Anglican priest, John Polkinghorne, used the following story to illustrate this type of “faithing” based on what we do, rather than what we know.
“A philosopher, a scientist, and a simple man — none of whom could swim — were trapped in a cove with sheer cliff faces. They split up, but the tide kept coming in. Rescuers lowered a rope with a safety harness. The philosopher said, “Ah, this looks like a rope, but I might be mistaken — it could be wishful thinking or an illusion.” So he didn’t attach himself, and he drowned. The scientist said, “Ah, this is an 11 mm polyester rope with a breaking strain of 2800 kg. It conforms to the MR 10-81 standard,” and then proceeded to give an exhaustive, and entirely correct, analysis of the rope’s physical and chemical properties. But he didn’t attach himself, and he drowned. The simple man said, “Ah, I’m not sure if it’s a rope or a python tail, but it’s my only chance, so I’m grabbing it and holding on with my whole life.” He was saved. (https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2011/september/7091911.html)
“Faithing” is what the simple man did: grabbing hold of the love of God made known in Jesus and holding on for dear life. If you’re feeling like your lack of understanding hinders your faith, that somehow your belief is imperfect or incomplete, remember that faith is more about what you do than what you can explain. It’s more of a process than a possession. And then, if someone asks you, “Got faith?”, humbly and confidently tell them, “I don’t have a “thing,” I have a God, whose powerful love revealed in Christ saves us all. I am trusting that each and every day. I am holding on to him for dear life. This is the faithing that saves us.
Sermon delivered by The Rev. AJ Heine at Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton, VA, on June 30, 2024, the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost.
