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St.
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recent sermon
8th August 2010,
Trinity 10, St Stephen’s Stanley
‘The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward will be very great….. Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to….. So shall your descendants be.” And Abram believed the Lord; and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ (Genesis 15. 1,5,6)
Abraham is acknowledged by Jews and Moslems as well as Christians as our ancestor in faith. (By the way, if you’re wondering about his name change, from Abram to Abraham, it’s explained in Genesis chapter 17. ‘Abram’ means ‘exalted ancestor’, and God says ‘No longer shall you be called Abram, but Abraham’. Abraham means ‘ancestor of a multitude’. And so Abram becomes Abraham).
If there’s one quality we associate with Abraham, it is his faith. This is clearly shown in the Letter to the Hebrews: ‘By faith Abraham obeyed…. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised…… By faith he received powers of procreation……’ (Hebrews 11.8,9,11)
So this morning let’s think about faith. And especially religious faith.
I suspect that many people looking in at religion from the outside, think of religious faith as a belief in something unbelievable. We believe in God, but God is invisible. We believe that God created the world, and the universe. We believe that Jesus was the Son of God. We believe that he did miracles, and that he rose from the dead – these things are, to many people, unbelievable. We believe in the resurrection not only of Jesus, but of all people - or at least of all Christians. Thus in the popular secular or atheist mind, faith is tied to a set of unrealistic beliefs. Sometimes we poor Christians must look like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, who often believed six impossible things before breakfast! And one of the dictionary definitions of faith confirms this: ‘Faith: firm belief, especially without logical proof.’
Is this what we see when we look at Abraham, our ancestor in faith?
It all looks so easy for Abraham. By faith he did this, by faith he did that, by faith he obeyed, by faith he believed. All so straightforward. It all looks like firm belief without logical proof. But when we explore the story of Abraham more deeply, a different picture emerges. Far from having a firm and unshakable belief, time and again Abraham doubts the promise God has given. One of those times was in the bible reading we heard this morning, and there are others. God’s promises, the promise to give Abraham the land and the promise of innumerable offspring, seem to take an awful long time in coming. Karen Armstrong, a writer I can highly recommend, says:
‘Abraham lived in a violent, dangerous society. He had to wait in the dark, contending with peril, doubt and loss…. Blessing was neither effortlessly bestowed not effortlessly received…. The Promise seemed an enigma: it referred only to the future, leaving the present insecure and unproductive. Faith was a struggle….. Abraham’s constant anxiety about God’s promise demonstrates the difficulty of achieving blessing and living productively in God’s presence, in a flawed and tragic world.’
When we look at Abraham in this light, he seems to come down from the pedestal we’ve put him on as our great ancestor in faith. He’s rather closer to our own messy world, and the doubts and uncertainties that we may experience in our faith. In fact, we find ourselves looking at faith in a different way. Instead of faith being about belief (believing six impossible things before breakfast), faith is more like a way of life, based on trust. And I think ‘trust’ is the key word, rather than ‘belief’. In spite of all his doubts and anxiety, Abraham trusted in God. It’s not easy. Abraham’s life is a continuing story of upheavals, family divisions, danger and conflict. And yet through it all he trusted.
Now we’re getting closer to home. The real question is not ‘Do you believe a whole lot of things without any logical proof?’, but, ‘Are you willing to live a life of trust, in spite of all the obstacles?’ This, I think, is the real life of faith.
In a moment we’ll be saying the Creed together. ‘I believe in God…. I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son’ and so on. That word believe has been handed down to us from the Fathers of the Church in the 4th century. But as we say the Creed, we might think to ourselves not only ‘I believe’, but ‘I trust’. Not just ‘I believe in God’, but more importantly, ‘I trust in God’.
And let me encourage you to read the story of Abraham. The Book of Genesis is very easy to read, it’s not like ploughing through deep theology. The story of Abraham starts at Chapter 12, and ends in Chapter 25 if you want to go right to the end. You can read it all in half an hour. And look out for books by Karen Armstrong.