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“Faith In
Spite of the Evidence”
Hebrews
11:1-3, 8-19
A sermon
preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley
The
writer of Hebrew says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the
conviction of things not seen.” (11:1). Jim Wallis from the Sojourner’s
community paraphrased this verse in the following manner: “Faith is believing
in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change.” He then encourages us to be the ones who dare
to hope in spite of the evidence. When
we stubbornly and audaciously hope, then the evidence can and does change. That’s what we need.
But how
do you have faith when the world crashes down around you?
How do
you have hope when try as you might, you can’t land that decent job you have
been longing for?
How do
you have faith and hope when despite all of your best upbringing, your child
still goes awry?
How do
you have hope when you have your job shipped overseas, or you reach the
ever-present glass ceiling.
How do
you have hope when those who speak for Christ say some of the most God-awful
things?
How do
you have hope when you fall victim to addiction again and again?
How do
you have faith when our leaders lie to us and we are easy prey to their whims?
It’s
hard to maintain that hope and that faith when the evidence is so great that
it’s no use. “Resistance is futile, you
will be assimilated.”
This
despair and immobilization is exactly what the powers and principalities of
this world are counting on from us.
This is
precisely why the church is so important.
When it
is at its best, the church is the antidote to pessimism. The church is the group of people who spit at
the evidence and declare that it is not reality. Oh, it might hold sway for a time, but in the
long run, it is doomed. What we are
called to do is have faith in spite of the evidence and then watch the evidence
change.
How do
we have faith in spite of the evidence?
Well,
that requires three things: belief, hope and action. All three of these things are aspects of
faith.
Let’s
look at them. Belief is that we are
watched over by God. Machiavelli said
that in order to win a war, you have to convince the people you are fighting
for God, but you must never believe in God, for that would mean that you were
accountable to God. We are accountable
to God.
We need to believe that there is a
higher power that can restore us to sanity.
We have to believe that the ways of
this world are not the final answers.
We have to believe that God will
deliver us, even when people cannot.
We have to have a belief that the
long arc of history bends toward justice.
We have to believe that we are not
alone.
The writer of Hebrews revealed
something about faith. He said that all
of the people who had such great faith had to wait a long time and some of them
never saw the result of their faithfulness in their lifetime. But faithfulness is not measured in immediate
results. It’s measured by a higher
standard, a higher ethic where love and compassion and mercy reign supreme with
justice.
Faith does not rest on results. That’s hopefulness. Faith is grafting yourself to a higher,
better reality. It’s believing that
things can be better and then working to make them so.
Closely
tied to belief is the concept of hope.
You might remember the movie The Shawshank Redemption and the exchange between Red and
Andy. Andy had just spent 30 days in the
hole and Red asked him how he did it.
“Hope”, said Andy. Red berated
him and told him that hope is a dangerous thing in prison. It will drive a person mad. And yet, Andy’s hope was contagious. He started a library and got his buddies a
few beers, ingratiated himself with the higher
authorities. And soon, the whole cell
block started thinking that life could actually be better.
Jim Lowder writes
in the most recent issue of Baptist
Peacemaker (Summer 2004):
“Faith is not
denying the reality of monsters. The
monsters will not go away—whether they be the monsters
of empire who take innocent lives or the monsters of disease for whom we have
no explanation. Faith is the choice to
listen to the angels in the mist of death and violence…Walter Brueggemann says that the practice of “hopeful imagination”
is the most powerful and subversive and redemptive act a community of faith can
do in the midst of violence. Such work
declares the reality of God’s reign in the midst of death and suffering. Without denying the presence of the pain and
loss around us, we affirm that there is another reality breaking through.”
When we
have hope even in spite of the evidence, then we have tapped onto a power that
no one can take away. For this hope
comes from God. It does not depend upon
winning some fight or some election, or getting the right job or currying the
right kind of favor. It is the hope and
the belief that we are loved by God as we are and that no one’s actions can
separate us from the love of God. That’s power.
And it
leads to action. Belief and hope leads
to action. Yes this is the stuff of
faith. When we are convicted by our
belief in God and our hope for ourselves and our world, then we find ways to
make things like that happen. We do
redemptive work. We do a lot of that
here at UBC. And when we do work like
this, we see the evidence change.
We see people’s lives being pulled
back together.
We see people find meaning in their
lives and work.
We see people convicted to live
better to love better, to be better.
And it can’t help but inspire us to
be better, too.
Faith
is living in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change.
Faith
is Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat in 1955 and then watching the buses
get integrated a year later.
Faith
is sitting in at a lunch counter in
Faith
is people walking across a bridge in
Faith
is Vietnam Veteran Brian Wilson standing on the tacks in
Faith
is a young man standing up to a tank in
Faith is standing up to those who
wish to tell people that they are less human or less Christian because of who
they love.
Faith
is opening this church building to the homeless poor, the religiously outcast,
the striking worker, the bruised, the broken, the recovering and the
theological misfit among us.
Faith
is a Burmese family coming to the
Faith
is asking a question when it is unpopular and standing up for what is right
even though it may cost you.
Faith is being audacious in the face
of bigotry, so that we might help make plain the breakthrough of God to a world
and a people in need.
Sisters
and brothers, we need a people of faith.
I’m not only talking about the faith that gets trumpeted from
loudspeakers at the Capital and surrounds itself with a flag. I’m talking about a faith that has
sustainability. That’s the only kind of
faith that can move the mountains out there.
We need
a faith with some staying power.
So how
do you do that?
Where do you find it?
I don’t know about you, but I start
right here. I start right here in this room,
knowing that there is a community of faith that is nudging me and encouraging
me to be the most faithful I can be.
And there are times when I am deep in
despair or when I don’t feel I have the strength to face another denominational
battle or answer another letter from someone with a form of Christianity that I
cannot even stomach.
That’s when I remember you.
That’s when I remember that we are
not alone.
That’s when I remember that when one
of us is feeling down, the others are there to remind us of our higher
purpose.
When one of us is too week or too
depressed or too sick or too poor, there are dozens of others who are there to
step in and hold us up in the midst of our own sense of worthlessness.
When I have a crisis of faith because
of the evidence, I need to remember a different kind of evidence.
It’s the evidence I see here.
It’s the evidence that God does
continue to work miracles.
It is the evidence that hope does
exist.
It is the evidence that we shall
overcome some day.
It is the evidence that what we
thought was impossible twenty years ago is coming to pass.
It is the evidence that people who
believe, hope and take action live out their faith every day.
Wendell Berry said in the Mad
Farmer’s Lament, “Be Joyful even when you have considered all the facts.”
Too often, I consider only the
evidence of despair. But then I realize
I have been looking in the wrong place.
And the new evidence of resurrection I see makes me renew my
belief. It restores my hope. And it makes me want to take some action so
that more evidence will change.
If faith is believing
in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change, may we be the
changing evidence today and every day.
Amen.