“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for….” Heb. 11:1

The above is the biblical “definition” of faith, the verse that comes to mind when we start to ponder what faith is, anyway. Being sure of what we hope for. Being certain of what we can’t see. Stepping out on a bridge that is invisible, certain that it must be underneath us. (Remember that scene in the Indiana Jones movie?)
In other words, crazy. No, wait....
The writer of the chapter goes on to praise individuals like Noah and Abraham and many more, who all did nutty stuff like build arks because they believed God wanted them to. And time bore out their faith – Noah needed that boat. Abraham did have that many descendants. Hebrews 11 is the “honor roll” of faith, the listing of those whose example can spur us on to more faith ourselves, to add a few more nutty things into our lives because we believe God wants us to.
This morning I see, though, that we miss an important step when we read too quickly over v. 2 – “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was NOT made out of what was VISIBLE.”
This seems to me to be a necessary logical piece that undergirds faith: we believe God because we believe that He essentially made everything that is visible (and rational and provable) out of what was not visible. We usually consider that He creates from nothing, but this verse makes the point that He also created an invisible realm, a whole way of being that exists outside of our senses.
When we struggle with faith, perhaps it’s important to realize that we have a tendency to trust what we sense as being “real” – but that’s faulty. God certainly exists outside of our five senses, and He has the right to create much that we do not sense. We are arrogant if we really think that only what we can discover on our own is what exists.
That understanding makes the actions of the Honor Roll of Faith not so crazy; in fact, they are rational! Having accepted that there is more than meets the eye (or ear or nose – you get the picture), they are better prepared to put their faith in God’s call and direction.
“Without faith,” the author of Hebrews continues, “it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (v. 6)
Perhaps the first step of such faith is to gain humility, considering that what is seen was made by One who is not seen, who lives in a realm we do not see, and that there is so much more we do not yet know. When we are in that frame of mind, we are ready to hear God.

How to Pray for Our Troops

Every time it is my turn to offer the pastoral prayer, I pray for our leaders (1 Tim. 2:1-2 "...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....") and for our troops overseas. I pray for our troops because some of them are my friends' children, and so I am more acutely aware of my friends' prayers for their safety than I was before I had children, and especially children of military-service-age.
But in recent months my prayers for our soldiers have become more layered than they began. In the beginning I prayed for their safety and for their soon return home, as I imagined young people in the circumstances of war and put my kids' faces on them. But now as this war grinds on and I realize the circumstances they are indeed in, I have begun to pray that they will be agents of righteousness, justice and peace...and that they would know how to proceed in that manner in circumstances where "what to do" is not always clear.
As we always pray for our kids, I've begun to think of each soldier as an individual who is presented, moment by moment, with an opportunity to do right or wrong. I pray for them to know God, and to be able to put their actions and motives before God and be vindicated. Warfare doesn't really have pure choices, and I know that soldiers often have to choose a "bad" in order to avoid an "evil." What soldiers are called upon to do, in the best of cases, still changes them forever.
But as I read the paper today, that it is charged that members of an American platoon saw an Iraqi woman, took note of her, came back and raped her, then murdered her and her family and burned the body to cover up the crime, I am shaken to know that people wearing "our" uniform have behaved in this manner because we have given them the power. They carry weapons and have ultimate authority over the people in another country, and if indeed these people did this, we are all charged with it. This strikes me as not the same thing as the crime charged against a group of soldeirs who, it is said, wiped out a couple of families in a rage after one of their buddies was killed. While that is not excusable, rage is perhaps an explanation. But what is this crime but lust and hatred given expression because the criminals were given the power to do it?
For those of us who thought Americans were "better" it is a wake-up call. The Bible tells us we all have a "sin nature," the propensity to do evil because it serves our own vision of ourselves as God. We often don't like to believe that. But the Bible tells us it is there in all of us. And yet God loves us still and rescues us from it.
So now I pray for our soldiers that God would keep them from harm and from harming. That they would be the hands and feet of justice, and not crime. That in each of their hard decisions, and I do not minimize how hard those decisions might be, they would choose the righteous thing. And that those who do not would be brought to justice quickly so that justice would not be lost in the midst in this war.
And that they be kept safe, and brought home soon.

May God bless America, and Iraq, and all the nations of the world as people who seek God's face pray in His Spirit.

Too Preoccupied

Jesus said: “Be careful or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:34-46

What a downer. Why can’t Jesus be more positive and encouraging??

I think it’s interesting that this whole passage starts at the temple, with the disciples gawking at how gorgeous it is, with the inlaid gems and all the beautiful things supplied by the wealthy to adorn their house of worship. This is the place and time when Jesus notes the poor widow, who gives her two pennies and earns Jesus’ respect, because she trusted God enough to offer all she had.

In counterpoint to that, Jesus notes the preoccupation of the wealthy and established, which was, to show off how wealthy and established they were. It brings to mind the beautiful cathedrals of Europe, where you can’t take a step without seeing or stepping on the name of someone buried there, usually with a monument to their honor. While the cathedral is beautiful and I am humbled by the evidence before me of the communion of saints, I can’t help wonder if the Lord’s honor was completely what was on the mind of the monument-builders and –spenders.

So then Jesus begins to talk about the day coming when the temple itself will be destroyed. So much for a monument to the future glory of the wealthy who adorned it! And I think the whole thing put Jesus in a bad mood, if you can accept for a moment that Jesus had human emotions. He knew what was coming; and beyond that, he knew what already was, what misery humans lived in, how hard it was for people to find God for the obstacles that got put in their way. And I think it bummed him out to see the beautiful temple and the processions of the wealthy making a big deal out of their gifts when they were missing the whole point.

So in Luke 21, he tells them about the future destruction of Jerusalem (which happened in 70 A.D.), and then segues into the end of the world. It’s gruesome, and yet not all bad, because for those who are waiting for him, they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

So is that enough? It is for those who don’t get preoccupied, who don’t get “weighed down” as he says with this life. For those who keep their eye on God and His perspective, we can’t ever totally enjoy the temples of humanity with their gems and honor rolls, because we can still see the injustices left unaddressed, the lost girls and boys who can’t find love in the right or wrong places, and all the brokenness of the world. If I can number myself among them (and I don’t feel like I always can!), we feel more like medics on the battlefield without time to admire the monuments that have become field hospitals.

It’s not as much fun to see things that way. I guess that’s what had Jesus bummed, too. But our redemption draws near, and it’s forever.

Should Desire Rule?

“Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
…. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:19-23

Bob Dylan used to sing a song called, “Gotta Serve Somebody.” The idea of it was that whenever we think of “freedom” we are missing the point: even when we do what we think we want, we miss the fact that we are obeying our appetites, our desires…and we never wind up getting what we were aiming for when we started out on that road. St. Paul’s message is that we were created for something else, for a life lived freely in love with God, which is where we find real freedom. He calls it “slavery to righteousness,” but it feels no more like slavery than forward motion does to a car: it is what we were made for.

It seems to me that in public life it has gone out of fashion to say that a desire should not necessarily be satisfied (unless of course it is the desire for high-carb bread!). We act as though a desire is a natural and good thing that has no other end but our long life and prosperity. We forget the evidence all around us that desire can spring from selfishness, ambition, hatred and rage, just to name a few natural but not-good sources. Lining ourselves up with God puts us in a better place to know what desires should be acted upon, and which need to be separated from.