Faith 

A message given by guest speaker Ross Lambert

Mathew 15 21-28

May the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sight now and forever.

This morning I would like to take a few minutes and talk about a topic that is bigger than any of the readings we have heard this morning although the Gospel account from Mathew plays specifically into what I want to say.  My comments this morning deal with something that all biblical readings relate to in some fashion - one way or another.  It is a topic that we here are all extremely familiar with and I would suggest – or at least hope - practise - dare I say it - religiously.  The topic is a simple one and yet extremely complex, obvious but at the same time intensely private.  It is quite simply the issue of faith.

It has been said that faith is something that deals with the spiritual heart, not the head.  The reason for this is because the head is too analytical, whereas the spiritual heart is open without question to what we hear.  A bishop told me a while ago that a synonym of faith might be trust.  I have also heard it said the opposite of the word hopelessness isn’t hope but rather faith because hope is too casual and broad a word, whereas faith is much more specific.  You hear people say things like ‘I hope you are feeling better.  Faith is much deeper, much more germane to what people like us feel and know.

So, what about faith then, this trust, this thing that appeals to our spiritual heart, – we all have it but probably not to the same degree or level as the person sitting next to you.  Perhaps you have more, perhaps less.  In fact, your faith is probably not even consistent within yourself on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.  Faith seems to be something that has a bit of an ebb or flow to it – like the tide.

(Now as a former Naval Officer you had to know I would put some kind of nautical twist on what I was going to say.)  In that way I see myself in the mold of a former rector I know who was a former chemistry professor and who often seemed to work chemistry into his sermons.  I told him when he left that particular church that I learned a lot of chemistry in his sermons.  He looked at me with a straight face and said – well that’s more than many people learned.

But the ebb and flow of faith is not something you can measure. There is no such thing as a faith meter.  It is what it is – as they say.

I’m always surprised to discover that people who we consider great Christians, people we probably want to emulate, saints of the church, have all struggled with their faith at one time or another.  Some examples of this are CS Lewis and Mother Teresa.  CS Lewis spent most of his life at Oxford University as a man without faith or at least not much of it.  For Lewis, faith was a gradual thing a bit like a sine curve with ups and downs but always for him with a slight upward trajectory.  It was a learning process until finally one day he could say “I am a Christian; I am a man of faith.”

I find the case with Mother Teresa even more compelling.  For Mother Teresa faith was a constant challenge - daily, weekly, monthly – she struggled mightily with her faith and was not afraid or ashamed to admit it, even when she was being touted as one of the great Christians of our times.  Her solution to her periods of doubt was her work with the destitute of Calcutta, which she did daily, it helped restore her faith - not the other way around as most people think.  Doing God’s work restored her faith.  Faith was the result of her work - not the cause of it.

What about for you?  What about for me?  Well for me faith is not a constant challenge but there are times when I question what this Christianity thing all about, what I am doing in my life before God, things I’m sure most of you have also experienced.  So, while I have never experienced what might be called a crisis of faith I have experienced repeated tests of faith.

But there are secrets for helping to ensure that faith remains strong.  Well they aren’t really secrets – more like tricks – well not really tricks – more like steps.  Yes let’s call them steps.

One we practice every Sunday.  We worship together – collectively – we immerse ourselves amongst other people of Christian faith.  We support one another and by doing so we gain strength from each other and it helps our faith remains strong.   

And maybe like Mother Teresa when our faith starts to fail a bit we need to engage in God’s work with the poor, the destitute, the lonely, the ill, those in any type of need as a means to strengthening our own faith.

Prayer is another step to help ensure strong and robust faith.  There are countless books and sermons about prayer – the importance of it, why we pray, how we pray, when to pray, different kinds of prayers.  I know someone who prays while they are cutting the grass on a riding lawnmower.  I pray when cutting the grass too but I’m normally praying that the lawn be made smaller – it’s never answered.

Another step for keeping faith strong is music.  On a Sunday morning – facing a service where I have additional responsibilities, I sometimes think please let this morning be over with.  And then we sing some uplifting hymn or gospel tune and I am totally revived and I’m like – please don’t let this end and I find myself humming the tune for the rest of the day.  Music can be important to faith.

Of course, the other one is the Bible.  Reading and knowing the bible is an absolute sure step to ensuring that your faith remains strong.  But it can be even simpler than that.  I want to relate a story to you that my daughter –in-law told me about.  I told you this story last year but I think it worth repeating.  She works for a Non Government Organization that operates in the small kingdom of Lesotho in South Africa.  One of the programs they run is providing support to grandmothers in Lesotho and when Kate was there last year she had the opportunity to spend a day with one of the grandmothers.  Kate travelled for many miles, walking from the support centre with this particular grandmother to her house, a small, mud brick, one room dwelling.  Here the elderly lady looks after herself and four grandchildren.  The parents are dead because of AIDS, as is the case in much of Lesotho.  In the house were a few sticks of furniture, a few nick knack things and the necessities of an open-air kitchen.  And on the shelf was a bible.  An old, dog eared, well worn, overused, beat-up bible.  The cover was missing and Kate said it looked like mildew had set in in a couple of places.  But over the course of the day that bible is well used.  Twice daily it is taken from its place of honour on the shelf and it is held by the Grandma as she prays to the Lord for help, for strength, for guidance and sometimes just for food.  She prays with that bible in her hands for she is a woman of great strength and more importantly of great faith.  She knows that the words in that book will help her to live her life as God wants her too and to allow her to make a difference to her family and by extension to her community.

But here’s the kicker – the grandmother can’t read.  Can’t read English, can’t read Sesutu her native language.  But for her she doesn’t need to.  She has faith and she knows that that faith will be renewed and restored just by holding the word of the Lord in her hand.  She understands its power.  Occasionally someone will stop by who can read it to her and then she is overjoyed but for the most part it is just her, her faith in the Lord and his word.

So sometimes maybe that’s all we need to do when we feel our faith start to tremble a bit or become a bit fragile.  Maybe it’s as simple as holding God’s word in our hands, hugging it and asking for its power to restore our faith, to shore up our faith, to make it strong again so we to can make a difference with our lives and in our families and communities.

There is a song from the 1960’s called One Tin Soldier.  It was actually written by a couple of Canadian guys and eventually featured in the movie Billy Jack.  The synopsis of the song describes a fictional kingdom located on a mountain, who possess a great treasure.  There is another kingdom in the neighbouring valley who become envious of this treasure and intend to claim it for themselves, suspecting it maybe gold.  The mountain kingdom refuse their request instead offering to share it with them rather than surrender it outright.  The people of the valley proceed to invade the mountain and kill everyone in order to seize the treasure.  Once the treasure in located it is revealed that it is actually a boulder inscribed with the words – peace on earth.

The bible – our bible has those words – and so many more.  It is a treasure that cannot be valued but it must be used – even if it is just held – to be of any use – and most significantly it requires a degree of faith if it is to make any sense.

This morning’s gospel is all about faith.  It’s important to understand that Jesus has travelled and is now outside Jewish territory and is in the land of the Gentiles.  Tyre and Sidon are on the Mediterranean Sea near present day Lebanon.

The woman starts by calling him Lord but it is thought this is more of an honorific – a sign of respect – and that she really doesn’t realize what she is saying but she goes on to call him the Son of David and by doing so shows some knowledge of Jewish thoughts about him. What she probably does know is about Eshmun a pagan god of healing whose temple is only about 5 km from Sidon but she has heard of Jesus and goes to him instead of the pagan temple.

Jesus’s response is interesting and perhaps to us even a bit baffling.  He tells her that he is here to save the lost sheep of Israel not her – and at this point in Jesus’s ministry that it what his focus is on - the Jews and their spiritual needs.  But that focus is starting to change and we see it here in this passage.  Jesus is now in the land of Gentiles and he is dealing with Gentile people.  God’s message of redemption for the entire world is starting to spread.

Now the Jews frequently insulted Gentiles by calling them dogs which in those days were for the most part wild, homeless scavengers.  Perhaps by calling her this he is not trying to insult her but rather test her faith and if that is so it is one that she passes with flying colours because she responds by pressing Jesus by alluding to the extended blessings promised to the Gentiles by Abraham.  This woman knows her stuff.  He responds to her – as he responds to all who call upon him in true faith - by extending his healing ministry to her and eventually to all the Gentile nations.  We should be extremely grateful to that humble woman of great faith who asked for assistance – not for herself – but for her daughter.  Its not always easy to challenge God – and often doesn’t turn out well if you do - but this woman shows it can be done, particularly if it is being done with faith in your heart.  God does listen.

There is another example of faith I would like to share with you.  Are any of you fans of the TV series Grantchester, which finished last week, if so you saw yet another example of faith, or rather lack of it, at play when the Vicar in the show, is in the church and states that God was never with him, that he was always alone.  He is clearly going through a great crisis of faith.  At that moment his Police Inspector sidekick, an unbelieving atheist, reminds him of how he has turned out, what a wonderful life he has built, despite many setbacks in his early life, reminds him that this was not by chance, that he was never alone and he is not alone now.  There is a written prayer used in the show that ends with the line of God reaching out his hand to catch the person who is falling.  By the end of the episode the Vicar’s faith is restored.

In conclusion, I would ask you – even implore you - to keep your faith strong, perhaps by using some of the steps I’ve mentioned, gathering together, music (sing loud), prayer and particularly through regular use of the Bible.  It might be that our faith will be tested like the Gentile woman’s or like the Vicar in Grantchester.  God will test our faith from time to time so you need to ‘keep the faith as they say’– have trust - in the bible, have faith (trust) in Jesus because Jesus has great faith in you or he wouldn’t have chosen you to be one of his own.