Sermon 8/19/07
Faith and Consequences - Hebrews 11:29-12:2, Luke 12:49-56
(view lectionary notes for this text)
This week in our movie study we watched Beyond Borders, a film about a woman who hears an impassioned speech from a doctor who is working with the starving in Ethiopia, and finds herself so moved that she goes to Ethiopia herself, and ends up working for the United Nations with their refugee relief efforts. I think our group had some mixed feelings about the film as a whole, but we talked about what kind of faith, or courage, or commitment it would take to leave everything behind to go to someplace like Ethiopia. We talked about whether or not everyone is called to do such things – travel to the poorest parts of the world to serve – I don’t’ think so. I think we’re each uniquely created and so uniquely called. But I do believe we are called. And we are asked to respond to God’s call with faith, if we can, and if we dare.
If God doesn’t call all of us to Ethiopia, then where are we called? I told the movie study class that I suspect we always have to look to what makes us a bit uncomfortable, to the things we don’t really want to think about or confront. I suspect that often, in there, is where we will find where God is calling us, luring us, nudging us to respond. Think of Moses, called to be a leader and speaker and mouthpiece of God, even though he hated public speaking and claimed he was slow in speech. God called him to get over it and get on with it! But always, when we are called, we are asked to respond in faith. And to respond in faith usually means there is a gap between what we can see and where God wants us to be. Our faith and God’s grace are what we use to close that gap. Think of another movie, one many of you have probably seen – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In the movie, Indy seeks the Holy Grail and following clues and using his skills and knowledge to retrieve the cup. But eventually he comes across a great chasm, and the only way to get across is to step out on faith – to step out over the chasm and believe that he will find solid ground. Can the skeptic and man of science and logic do it? He can and he does. But it takes faith – the step into the void that closes the gap between what we can see and what God sees for us, where God calls us to stand.
Most of us struggle with faith questions. We have some faith. We strive for greater faith. We try to be faithful. We believe some things about God and the world and ourselves. This is the journey of our life with God. The tricky thing is that as soon as we have a little faith, as soon as we start finding a little faith to hold on to, we run up against the consequences of our faith, the things that happen to us through God because of our faith. I guess you could say that God is greedy – if we respond to God’s grace just a little, God always wants more. If you follow part of God’s plan, go with God a little way, God always will ask you to go farther. We respond in faith to God’s love, perhaps guessing that if we just do what God wants, perhaps God will finally leave us alone, only to discover that as soon as we do what God wants, God wants more from us. These are the consequences of having faith.
We turn our attention again this week to this passage from Hebrews on faith, this time reading sections we didn’t hear last week, but the passage continues in the same pattern, telling us more of what has happened in God’s story with the people Israel by the faith of the people God called. We hear about Rahab and Gideon, Barak and Samson, Jephthah, and David, Samuel and the prophets – and if you don’t even recognize all those names, then I guess you’ve got yourself a good Bible study project, right? But this passage also expands on what was just hinted at in the section we focused on last week – the consequences of faith. Last week we talked about seeing a promise from a distance – that sometimes God made promises to people that would be fulfilled outside of their own human lifetime, and God asked the people to still work for these promises by faith. But today we hear about the real consequences: “What more should I say?” our author asks. “Time would fail me to tell of [the ones] who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, part foreign armies to flight.” We know in this one sentence that faith has brought the people of God in contact with lions, raging fires, sword edges, and armies. But the consequences continue: “Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured . . . others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.” All these things are the consequences of faith that the Israelites experienced throughout their history as they responded to God’s call. God asked – they responded – and so God asked more – and they gave more – and God asked for everything – and they gave all – their very lives, because of their faith.
The author of Hebrews reminds us again, in case we forgot it from a few verses earlier, that these people never received the promises that God had made – at least, they never got to experience the complete fulfillment of what God had said God would do. But the author is not troubled by this. Instead he writes “God had provided something better.” To our author, all of these who have gone before surround us as a “great cloud of witnesses,” inspiring us to lay aside the weights and sins the cling to us so closely, preventing us from following God. We can follow the faith example of these witnesses, and of Jesus, who he calls the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” who endured the cross and its shame to bring about the joy of the promises of God. The people had faith, and they paid the consequences for their faith. But in the author’s eyes, the consequences aren’t the sufferings and trials they faced – the real consequence of their faith is the “something better” that God provides – the joy that was set before Christ – the perfection we have in God’s love.
In everything we experience in life there are consequences for our actions. That’s something we try to teach children as they grow up – actions have consequences, good and bad. Faith may sound like a noun to us – but faith is really all about action. Faith is not just a state of being, it is a way of living, a course of action that we choose with our lives. And like all our other choices and actions, choosing faith, acting out of faith always comes with consequences. And the consequences will virtually always involve even more being asked of us. But, the consequences also always involve God providing, God preparing for us good beyond our hoping.
Being here today, coming to worship, is one act of faith, and one act with consequences. Of course, we can always try to avoid the consequences of faith, as we can avoid consequences in the rest of life, or ignore the consequences, or shift the consequences to someone else. We can be weighed down with the consequences, letting our sins cling so closely to us that our faith can’t move us. But faith has consequences. God never has enough from us. If you give God your faith, God will ask more. If you, by faith, commit to discipleship, God will ask more, and ask you to commit more completely. If you, by faith, step up as a leader, God will ask more, and ask you to take more responsibilities. If you, by faith, give beyond your means, God will ask more, and ask you to give more. If you, by faith, step out of your comfort zones, God will ask more, and find other more uncomfortable places for you to be. Faith has consequences.
But if you, by faith, respond to God’s grace, God will give more too. If you commit to discipleship, God will shepherd you. If you step up to lead, God will equip you. If you give in faith, God gives in loving abundance. If you go out of your comfort zones, God comforts you in God’s own gentle hands. Faith has these consequences too – the joy that makes the cross worth everything.
Today we celebrate an awesome act of faith – three acts – as we celebrate the baptisms of Caleb, Kelsey, and Lew. Baptism is a symbol of God’s unconditional love for us, present in us before we are even born. Baptism is our response – our responding to God’s grace in an act of faith. Baptism is a chance to proclaim our faith publicly – as the parents, the families, and the congregation. We act in faith – we say out loud that we think there’s an important reason to tie these infants to a community of faith before they are even old enough to know what’s happening to them. We should expect consequences! By faith, through grace, we baptize. What will the consequences be? How will this act of faith today shape the lives of Caleb and Kelsey and Lew? We don’t even know yet. It’s a promise that isn’t fulfilled in us, even though we are the ones saying the words of the liturgy. It’s a promise that we make, knowing that God will fulfill the promise for them. It’s a promise of faith that we make because despite knowing that there will be pain and struggles, we can already see the joy.
Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. Look to Christ – the pioneer and perfecter of our faith – he, for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. Faith and consequences. Amen.