Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
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Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
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A man has fallen half way down a cliff and is hanging on by a vine. “Save me, God!” he calls out for God. God says, “Just let go, my son. I will catch you.” The man thinks about this for a minute and then yells out, “Is there anyone else up there?”
It is easier to have faith in theory but living out that faith is not an easy task. We often experience a tremendous gap between having faith and being faithful. There seems to be an immense disconnect between the faith one has – believing in creeds or doctrines of one’s belief – and being faithful – living out that belief in day to day life.
The author of The Letter to the Hebrews writes, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The author then proceeds to remind the readers of how Abraham was obedient to God’s call to journey to the unseen, and how he was provided with the Promised Land for his descendants. The author reminds them of how Sarah laughed at God’s promise, and how her “good deed” resulted in having descendants “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
What I wanted most as a teenager, experiencing uncertainties, was the kind of faith of Abraham and Sarah had in God. I sought after a faith that could move mountains.
At first I was part of a conservative Christian congregation which believed that God would solve all the problems and difficulties in life if we had firm faith in God. I went to revival meetings to hear preachers on fire who spoke of the sinful nature of humanity and how our repentance would lead us to the salvation Jesus Christ offers. I fasted during Lent for a week to cleanse me from all the sins I have committed. I prayed for the ability to speak in tongues.
Regardless of what I did to seek a firm faith in God, there was always these nagging questions and doubts about God – who God is and what God was all about. I had too many questions about the kind of things that were in the Bible. There were too many things I could not believe no matter how hard I tried. There were too many rules and regulations – both written and unwritten – in the congregation as well.
It seemed to me that Christians were arguing over too many petty things – such as whether or not it is sin to drink alcohol and whether or not it is sin to play volleyball on Sundays while so many things were happening outside the church. In the end, I left the church when I went to university. Any Christian faith I knew and experienced until then was not real, logical or rational enough. I left the church to look for something more real, logical and rational.
William Sloane Coffin, a renowned Christian pacifist was one of the leading opponents of Vietnam War. As Chaplain at Yale University in the 1960s he said that his realization that “for Jesus, from the outer periphery to his inner core, creed and deed were one” was part of his conversion into Christianity.[i] In his book Letters to a Young Doubter Coffin talks about “loving the questions and living into the answers,” a quote from Rilke as he reflects on life.
It took many twists and upheavals in life for me to return to church. When I think back on my disappointment with the Christian church of my teenage years, I realize that I was not able to distinguish faith – sets of creeds and rules – from being faithful – a process of living out the faith. I learned that loving the questions and living into the answers is about being faithful.
As I look back, I realise that I was so focused on the doctrinal aspect of my conservative Christian religion that I was not aware of living faithfully even if it meant struggle and falling short of what the rules said. I agree that when we are being faithful to God we are engaged in making creed and deed become one and the same.
I hear echoes of my own teenage disappointments and disenchantments at the rules and regulations of the church when I talk to those who are returning to the Christian faith after a long journey away from church. I hear how unreal they felt about faith and church when they were much younger. I hear the uneasiness and apprehension about faith when parents come to meet me to talk about their children’s baptism. People who are returning to church seem to have the same struggles as those of us who have been in the church: struggles of disconnectedness between having faith and being faithful.
Abraham and Sarah, two ancestors of faith for Judaism, Islam and Christianity were the archetype of the ones who loved the questions and lived into answers. Abraham accepted God’s Call to the journey into the unseen but promised land. Sarah laughed at God’s promise of a child and was blessed with decedents “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews knew the struggles of the early Christians, and encouraged them that God would be faithful to them as God was faithful to Sarah and Abraham. The author stressed that one person’s faithfulness made a tremendous difference in the history of many people.
How do we live out our faith? In what ways could we be faithful in our neighbourhood? What can one person do in the face of tremendous challenges from the Empires of our time?
I recently came across a book entitled 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen. 28 people are profiled in the book to represent the 28 million people in sub-Saharan Africa estimated to be infected with HIV. The numbers are staggering. It is like almost all of the Canadian population infected with HIV.
Nolen’s trip to Malawi in 2002 opened her eyes to the impacts of AIDS in Africa. Malawei is located in South Western part of Africa – East of Zambia, South of Zambia, and North of Mozambique. One in six adults in Malawi was infected with HIV in 2002. In the village of Nkothakota, hundreds of people were either sick themselves, caring for the sick, or sheltering their relatives’ orphaned children. One way or another, everyone in the village was being affected by AIDS.[ii]
In 2003, Stephanie Nolen persuaded her editors at The Globe and Mail to send her to Johannesburg to travel through the heart of the epidemic. Her book approaches the difficult questions by telling the stories of various people affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. Nolen says in the introduction of her book,
“I knew people in North America who had been living with HIV for years, taking anti-retroviral medication that does not cure aIDs but will keep a person with HIV healthy for decades. But no one in Africa had the drugs. … AIDS was a fully preventable illness at home. But in Africa, it was a plague. … The relentless spread of this one virus raises difficult questions about why we do the things we do, why we believe what we believe – about who we are and what we value [as human beings.][iii]
One person’s willingness to be faithful to the victims of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa helped share 28 people’s stories representing the 28 million victims of HIV in Africa to show how the disease works, how it spreads, and how it kills. Their stories explain how AIDS is tied to conflict and to famine and to the collapse of the Nations. They explain how the treatment works, when people can get it, and how the people who can’t get it fight to stay alive with virtually no help and no support.[iv]
I believe that being faithful to our neighbours is a way of being faithful to God. Being faithful to God is to struggle to make our beliefs practiced in our day to day living. One person can affect changes.
I would like to share a poem by Joan Murray which tells us about being faithful. The poem reminds me of countless and nameless mothers and grandmothers working to care for the victims of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
They know what it means to live into the answers.
Her Head
by Joan Murray
Near Ekuvukeni,
in Natal, South Africa,
a woman carries water on her head.
After a year of drought,
when one child in three is at risk of death,
she returns from a distant well,
carrying water on her head.
The pumpkins are gone,
the tomatoes withered,
yet the woman carries water on her head.
The cattle kraals are empty,
the goats gaunt –
no milk now for children,
but she is carrying water on her head.
The engineers have reversed the river:
those with power can keep their power,
but one woman is carrying water on her head.
In the homelands, where the dusty crowds
watch the empty roads for water trucks,
one woman trusts herself with treasure,
and carries the water on her head.
The sun does not dissuade her,
not the dried earth that blows against her,
as she carries the water on her head.
In a huge and dirty pail,
with an idle handle,
resting on a narrow can,
this woman is carrying water on her head.
This woman, who girds her neck
with safety pins, this one
who carries water on her head,
trusts her own head to bring to her people
what they need now
between life and death.
She is carrying them water on her head.[v]
May we be faithful in our living. May we be faithful in our loving. May we live into the answers in our life.
Amen.
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[i] William Sloane Coffin, Letter to a Young Doubter (Westminster Knox Press: Louisville, 2005), 41.
[ii] Stephanie Nolen, 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa, (Alfred A. Knopf Canada: Toronto, 2007), 28.
[iii] Ibid., 1.
[iv] Ibid., 16.
[v] Joan Murray, Her Head, Poems to Live By: In Troubling Times, edited by Joan Murray, (Beacon Press: Boston, 2006), 64-65.
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