Faith

A young couple ask me to perform their wedding which was to be in June outside in the Prayer Garden at Oral Roberts University. I asked them if they had any contingency plans in case it rained since June is the prime time for thunderstorms in Oklahoma. They immediately informed, me that they had prayed about it and God would not allow it to rain on their wedding. I said, “You realize that every farmer in the state is praying for it to rain and that puts God in sort of a dilemma don’t you think?” They again informed me that God would not let it rain on their wedding because of their prayers of faith.

I saw the clouds building on the horizon as we gathered for the ceremony. The wind hit just as the bride arrived at the alter and her father gave her away. I had to hold on to the archway to keep it from blowing over. The couple had very elaborate plans for such things as a unity candle and the father of the bride was to make a speech. I cut everything to a bare minimum, the father’s speech was missed there was no way to light a unity candle with wind that would blow out a blow torch. The vows were almost “do you?” and done. The rain hit just as the last words were spoken and we all ran for the nearby building. The rain came in buckets and there was not a dry spot on anyone’s clothes. When I entered the building, the couple came up to me beaming and said, “See God did not let it rain on our wedding.” I bit my tongue and longed to say, “Well It’s not like He didn’t try.”

Since I pastored a church up the street from Oral Roberts University and was almost bombarded with the word faith. I started trying to find a definition of what it is and how it works that made sense to me.

To me faith has to be more than just wishing hard enough for something to happen that God becomes obligated to let us have it. That makes God become some celestial “make a wish foundation”.

Faith has to be more than just accepting a package of truths taught by some group without even considering an honest look or the possibility of doubt, with the result being our tickets are punched and we are going to heaven when we die.

Faith must demand more from us than a check made out to some group preaching the prosperity gospel so God can give us a jet airplane; hope He includes instructions on how to fly the thing through the eye of a needle.

Making faith simply believing a package of “truths” has turned the Christian faith into a battleground between groups, most of whom developed a system of theology based on one text or sometimes one word and defending that theology becomes the sole reason for them to exist. I sometimes wonder if the second coming doesn’t happen exactly like some groups say it will, if some of them might refuse to go.

It seemed to me that the more intensely I believed my package of truth the more I began to judge those whose beliefs differed from mine. I even defended my concepts by debunking how others saw the gospel. The more set in concrete my view of this God of love was the less people I ended up loving. That is when I became a happy heretic looking for a new view of the faith.

FOR WANT OF A MISSING VERB
In my search for meaning I bumped into a missing verb that made sense to me and helped me discover a new concept of faith.

I was raised thinking that Jesus spoke in King James English and therefore each jot and tittle we read was straight from His mouth.

I discovered that He most likely spoke Aramaic, which was the language most used in Palestine at the time. Most of the New Testament was written in the form of Greek prevalent in that day. The result is that the translations went from Arabic to Greek and then to English before we had the chance to read it for ourselves. As one would expect there were some words that did not translate easily from these languages to English and in those cases, there had to be transliteration done which is the practice of using other words to describe the meaning. That happened with a very key word in our Bible. The Greek language has a verb form for the word faith. English has no verb for faith, so the translators chose the word believe instead. That may have fit at that time, but word meanings change over time. Today a better word would be the verb commit. So, the text in John would read whosoever commits themselves to Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

That made a profound difference in how I saw my basic relationship with God. Faith became a word of action not just passive acceptance of some facts or doctrines. The difference is like the old preacher illustration of a high wire artist walking across a deep canyon. He even pushed a wheelbarrow across it while he was blindfolded. Then he asked a person in the audience if that person believed that he could push the wheelbarrow across the canyon. The person said of course he believed it he had just seen him do so. Then the high wire artist said, “Then get in the wheelbarrow.” There is a difference in believing something and believing IN something.

A NEW DEFINITION
So, I began to seek a new way of defining my faith. Since it is a word of action, I needed a way that covered not only what I believed but what that belief led or even compelled me to do. I cannot speak for anyone else, but this is how it now looks to me.

I love the experience of Peter meeting Jesus, for the first time, after the resurrection. I cannot imagine how Peter must have dreaded that experience and how fearful he must have been at how he would be received. There is a play on words in the text that describes this encounter. Jesus asked if he loved Him and Peter, feeling so shamed, answered that he was a friend. Jesus asked again and then a third time He used the “friend word.” Each time Jesus said, “If you love me feed my sheep.” The third time seems to say, even if you just like me, feed My sheep.

Jesus never once asked us to build buildings nor organize a religion. The only thing He asked us to do was feed His sheep. Then He added, “In as much as you have done it to one of the least of these my children you have done it unto me.” The only way to give anything to Him is to give it to one of His children.

It seems to me that my faith should be defined by how many sheep are in my personal fold? How many do I prepare a table for in the presence of their enemies or provide still water to drink? What kind of sheep do I love and care for? How many different colors are there? How many had to be rescued from the rejection of others? My faith should be known, not by my declarations but by the presence of the halt, the lame, the rejected, and the despised being loved by me and eating at my table. To me the call of Jesus is, “Don’t tell me how much you love me, show me your sheep.”

I am convinced that the reason the fastest growing segment of the United States’ population is a group called the “Nones” who claim no affiliation with any organized religion, is that we have done far too much proclaiming and far too little shepherding. Nothing sounds quite as sad as the hollow sound of our proclamations echoing and bouncing off the walls of our empty sheep folds.