Faith

I was asked, some months ago, to do a sermon that was more evangelistic. That struck me as odd in a Unitarian Universalist Church, but after thinking about it for the past year, I see the point. So this is the first in a three part series called Faith, Hope, and Charity. But I really have to lay some groundwork before I launch into this sermon. And I can’t call it anything other than a sermon. I’m gonna preach, brother. And before I do, I want to tell you why.

I come from a long line of preachers. Some of you know that my mother was the first woman minister licensed and assigned a parish in the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Church back in 1965. I received my license to preach in the Methodist Church the weekend after I graduated from high school, in 1968 and was assigned my first church my sophomore year in college.

But I haven’t told you that this preaching heritage goes back not just to my mother, but for generations. My mother’s father and step-father were both Presbyterian ministers as was her grandfather. His grandfather and great-grandfather were congregational ministers. And as far back as the early 1700s, my ancestors were known by such names as “Deacon” Boyden. But ancestry doesn’t really determine what you are. I also come from an equally long line of butchers and blacksmiths, some of them doubling as ministers.

What this ancestry did give me was a lot of sermons to listen to, and there is something about an evangelical sermon that makes your heart race. The idea of saying “Amen” right out loud in church becomes not so extraordinary. When you listen to a good evangelical sermon, you want to shout out. You may even be inclined to say “Praise the Lord!” It is not just the words that speak to you. When you listen you hear a chord that resonates deep inside you. You feel inspired. You are moved to take action. You expect to be called to the altar to commit your life and your soul.

I’ve heard Unitarian Universalism referred to as a “thinking” religion. A religion of social values. Even a religion of humanism. Rev. Aikman went so far as to tell me on my second Sunday attending here that some say Unitarian Universalism is the half-way point on the slippery slope from Methodism to Golf. I have never heard Unitarian Universalism referred to as a “feeling” religion, or an emotional religion. And I want you to know there is nothing I want to do this morning to change that. But I’m going to give you permission, today, to feel, as well as to think. Permission to let words wash over you and cleanse you and inspire you. Permission to join your heart to your mind. And for my part, I promise not to abuse that trust.

You see, the problem that I have always had with sermons that preach to the heart is that I tend to leave my head behind. In my experience, people get caught up in things they didn’t intend to get caught up in. They profess things they didn’t know they believed. And they accept whatever the preacher says because it sounds so much like he speaks directly from the Word of God. And, disconnected from their heads, people mistake that emotional outpouring as faith. I want to say to you, “Have faith, but keep your head.”

What a strange word. Faith. For many, many years, I was taught that Faith meant the same thing as Belief; and, in fact, the Greek word in the New Testament is almost the same word translated two different ways: often “believe” as the verb and “faith” as the noun. The first Bible verse I ever learned—and if you went to any kind of Christian church that professed to teach from the Bible, you probably memorized this verse as well—came from the third chapter of the Gospel of John, verse 16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” I was taught for years and years that John 3:16 was the complete summation of the Christian Faith. Believe in Jesus and you will be saved.

I am saddened by the fact that millions of Christians around the world have never gotten past that verse; because, in my book, belief is not faith.

I’d like to start off this morning by reading the first of two Bible passages I use as my text. This passage from the Hebrew Scriptures in the Book of Joshua, chapter 3 verses 7-17.

And the LORD said unto Joshua, “This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, ‘When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan.’” And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, “come hither, and hear the words of the LORD your God.” And Joshua said, “Hereby ye shall know that the living GOD is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jubusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.” And it came to pass, when the People removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the People; And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,) That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the People passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the People were passed clean over Jordan.

You may say that there is no historical accuracy in the stories of the Old Testament. You may say that at best it is an allegory for the coming together of the Israelites as a nation, and at worst a fabrication meant to justify the occupation of the land across Jordan and the wholesale genocide of indigenous people. But I’d like you to suspend your disbelief just enough for a few minutes that we can consider what the story has to teach.

Imagine yourself, if you will, in the camp of the Israelites. You and your people have wandered in the desert for 40 years. Why? Because of the idolatry of the people at Paran. The Bible records that only two Israelites who came out of Egypt who were over 20 years of age at Paran still lived. All the others had perished in the 40 years of wandering, including the great prophet Moses. This was a new generation. Moses, the only leader they have ever known, has recently died. Now Joshua claims he can lead them into the promised land.

Can you imagine the turmoil when Joshua starts in with “God says we’ve stayed here long enough. Let’s break camp and cross the river.”

Yeah, right—at flood stage. We’ve lived in this wilderness all our lives, why would we change now? Hey, who put Joshua in charge? Did you vote for him? Who does he think he is?

This is emotion running rampant. These are people who hunger for more than they have, who have seen the bounty brought back by scouts from across Jordan, but who can only believe that it is better there. They have never crossed over Jordan before. I dare say there is hope mixed with the undercurrent of questioning. Could this really be the time when God fulfills his promise? It’s a tough question for the people of Israel.

But it is tougher still for the twelve chosen from the tribes to go first, and for the four priests who bear the ark of the covenant. They are the ones whose Faith will be tested. It is the bearers of the ark who must step out and put their feet in the raging floodwaters of the River Jordan. Think about it. Stand there with the ark on your shoulders and a river that is a mile across at flood stage. What does it take to walk into the water?

Now I want to tell you that, for better or worse, had those four priests stood at the overflowed banks of the Jordan with their eyes closed chanting “I believe, I believe,” the Israelites would still be camped in the wilderness today.
Faith is not standing on the shore believing. Faith is not professing your belief. Faith is not blindly following wherever your leaders tred.

Faith is stepping out and putting your feet in the waters of the flood. And when the priests bearing the ark of the covenant put their feet in the water, the waters were dammed up all the way back to the Sea of Gallilee and water was gone all the way to the Dead Sea and the people of Israel crossed Jordan on dry land.

Faith is not what you believe. Faith is what you do.

We could have a world filled with believers and it would still be faithless if we refused to set our feet on the path of doing.

I have a co-worker for whom I have a great deal of respect and some admiration. We share a lot in common, like our politics and our love of writing, and have a strong office friendship even though we don’t socialize much outside of work. His on-line journal is titled “Getting Involved” and is often filled with information about the causes he supports, calls for voter registration, donations to worthy causes, petitions to congress, most recently a call for Al Gore to run for president.

Two years ago I announced to my office that I was writing a novel in November and challenged other writers to come forward and join me. Jason approached me and said that he thought it would be fun to write a novel, but couldn’t we do it for some good cause. Let’s use it to raise funds for a charity or something like that. I said sure, that would be fine.

Ultimately Jason succeeded in getting three of us who had completed novels to publish our book in an anthology and front half the money (with a matching grant from an executive) to print it. We gave it away to people who contributed to our “build a library” fund during Microsoft’s Giving Campaign. He got Chris Baty, the president of NaNoWriMo to come for a talk at Microsoft; and, due largely to his efforts, we succeeded in raising enough money to endow a Reading Room in Viet Nam and contribute to the continued operations of NaNoWriMo and its Young Writers program. That project also encouraged more writers at Microsoft to join the fray and fifteen completed novels in November of 2006. Three winners of an internal competition have been bound into a second edition of After Hours and we are well on our way to increasing our contribution this year. If you want to contribute to that effort, you can see me after the service and I have books and donation information.

I believe in literacy. I believe in the benefits of educating children around the world. I believe in the work of Room to Read, through which we make our donation. I believe my writing is good and worth being published. But I would never have had the faith to lay it on the line to actually build a library. When Jason came to me this year and said we raised $2000 last year and built a reading room, this year we should set $5000 as our goal and build a free-standing library, I thought he was dreaming. But we are well on our way to meeting that goal because Jason has faith.

It’s not what you believe, it is what you do.

I want to move forward a millennium and a half from Joshua and turn to the Christian letter of the Apostle James. I don’t want suggest that any one book of the canon is more important than another. I spent many years believing that Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians was the greatest and most liberating book of the Bible because it took salvation from the Jews and gave it to the Gentiles. But the letter of James was written to those twelve tribes of Israel. And if there were such a thing as the Gospel of Unitarian Universalism, I think it would be found within this letter. Specifically, I’d like to read from the second chapter verses 14-20.

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, “Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled;” notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, “Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

In this passage, “faith” or Greek pistis is the noun form of pisteuo, or to believe. James redefines the meaning here to say that belief without works is dead. Faith means doing.

That is why I am so saddened that so many Christians stop at John 3:16. That so many Muslims stop at “There is one God and He is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” That so many Jews stop at Shema Yisrael: “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” That so many Unitarian Universalists stop at “There are seven principles which Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote.”

It is never enough to believe these things. We may affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Do we cross the street to avoid a person of different race or economic class? We may affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations. Do we blindly punish our children, neglect our spouses, or cheat our friends (or enemies)? We may affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations. Do we groan when some members stand to speak, wish certain people would not subject us to their joys and sorrows, or give freely only on days when our special causes are promoted? We may affirm and promote free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Do we hold to a conviction that we are right and others are wrong? That Democrats are good and Republicans are bad? That we should decide what others should do to make the world into the image we want to see? We may affirm and promote the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; but do we vote in general elections and make our voices heard on the committees and councils of the church? We may affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; but do we seek to impose our cultural and national standards on peoples of other religions, cultures, and nations? We may affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part; but do we exploit our natural resources? Drive gas-guzzling cargo vans to the grocery store? Litter? If we don’t act on it, our faith is dead.

Faith is not the prerogative of evangelical Christians, of fundamentalist Muslims, or Orthodox Jews. For that matter, it is not exclusive to Buddhists, Hindus, Zorastrians, Taoists, Confucianists, or Pagans. It is not the province of Democrats, Replublicans, Libertarians, Communists, Socialists, or Nationalists. Faith is what takes our beliefs and puts them into action. Faith is stepping out and putting our feet in the water, knowing that the floods will be dammed at the source and we will cross on dry land, and with our eyes open to the consequences if they aren’t.

I asked you at the beginning of this sermon to listen with your hearts, but not to disengage your heads. There is a reason for this, and I’m simply going to put it as bluntly as it deserves. If you strap a bomb to your body and blow up yourself, your enemies, innocent children, and bystanders; if you fly an airplane into the side of a building; if you drink the Koolaid; if you offer your child as a sacrifice on the altar; if you follow your national leaders into illegal and unnecessary war; if you shoot doctors who perform abortions; if you wipe out entire populations in the name of ethnic purity; you may be acting in great faith, but it is Faith with its brains removed. If you believe that to advance your Faith you must kill, injure, slaughter, sacrifice others, and butcher, then your Faith is better left dead.

I put to you today that at its most basic level, Faith is what separates humanity from the animals: That we are able to overcome instinct and training and act on our convictions. That we are able to sacrifice ourselves for nothing short of love. That we are able to discern what benefits humanity from what benefits the preacher, priest, rabbi, imam, or president.

Mahatma Gandhi has been quoted as saying “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Think, say, and do. As it happens, that is my definition of Faith, as well.

Blessed be.