What is faith?

A Sermon preached on Sunday 11 June 2023 (2^nd after Pentecost) at St. Augustine’s, WI and St. Christoph, MZ

Genesis 12:1-9, Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Considering the theme of all three readings today, how could I not preach about faith? Abram shows great faith when he “went, as the Lord had told him” - leaving country, family, and house behind. (Genesis 12:1) Paul uses Abraham’s faith as an example when writing to the Roman Christians. And in the Gospel, not only does Matthew show great faith when, like Abram, he leaves his previous life behind to follow Jesus’ call, but also both the unnamed synagogue leader and the unnamed woman show faith in Jesus and in his healing power.

What is faith? For Martin Luther, faith was one of the three “sola or only,” three things that are “only and alone” necessary for salvation (clearly, I understand the word only differently from Martin Luther!).

They are “Sola Gratia” ("only by grace alone"): That it is only through God's free and infinite grace, not any works a person can do, that salvation is accomplished.  Sola Fide ("only through faith alone"): Salvation only comes through a person's faith in God, a faith that God also provides. Sola Scriptura ("only through the Scriptures alone"): That the Bible is the sole, infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice, which means that everyone must be able to have access to God's Word, the Bible. While we Anglicans are also a church of the Reformation, we tend not to emphasise these Sola quite so much and when we use them, we qualify or temper them. Faith is not static, but a process and we see our salvation in our transformation through faith and the Spirit. Faith is also never an abstract but must be something that expresses itself in how we live and how we love. And Scripture is for us not the sole but the primary source for Christian doctrine, as viewed and interpreted through the twin lenses of reason and tradition.  

What is faith? The faith shown and expressed by the various actors in today’s readings from scripture was not abstract, not just a matter of passive belief. Abram and his family set off on a long journey around the fertile crescent through – on today’s maps – Iraq and Syria and down through Israel into the south, into what became the kingdom of Judah. He did this at great age – 75 – trusting in God’s protection and promise. That was a big ask, after all 75 is not the best time to want to start a family or a new life. God needed his action as part of the fresh start for humanity that God had planned through Abram. Paul picks up on this idea in his letter. Not only did Abram believe that he would become “father if many nations,” he also did what was necessary on his part to make this happen – although with a little more initial scepticism than Paul is willing to acknowledge. God’s promise and Abram’s faith and actions lead directly to the new expanded family of faith formed both of believing Jews (the adherents of the law) and to believing Gentiles (who share the faith of Abraham).

Too often we tend to define faith as a system of religious beliefs and doctrines – the “Christian Faith” – as something to be learned and just accepted. But true faith, a living faith is much more, it requires action, it requires us to live a life of faith, to want to follow Jesus, to trust in him. Not blindly of course, even if Matthew immediately jumped up and followed Jesus. Questions are not only permitted, but they are also welcome. That is what we mean when we talk about faith seeking understanding.

What is faith? The author of the Letter to the Hebrews defines faith as “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1, NIV) Hope certainly played a big role in the two healing stories we heard in the Gospel. The leader of the synagogue, called Jairus in Mark’s Gospel, hopes that his daughter will live again and has so much confidence in Jesus’ power to give life that he comes and kneels before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” (Matthew 9:18) Against all hope, the woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years, still hopes for a cure and believes that “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” (Matthew 9:21) And according to Paul, “Hoping against hope, (Abraham) believed that he would become the father of many nations.” (Romans 4:18) What gives us confidence in what we hope for, what we trust in, and what we believe in are God’s own actions, our trust comes from the evidence of how God has acted throughout salvation history, and from those we experience in our own lives.

And so, Paul writes, Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” (Romans 4:21) And later he raises up Abraham’s faith as an example not only to believe in what God had done in the long distant Jewish past, but in a God who was and is still acting, for we “believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.” (4:24-25)

What is faith? Faith is not a one-way street; our faith is a reaction to God’s faithfulness and love. God trusts in us; God does not give up on us; and God is faithful to God’s promises. At the centre of all the promises that we see being fulfilled in today’s passages is the gift of “life” from God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” (4:17) For Abram it is a new life in a new country as the founding father of a new nation. Despite his and Sarai’s age, God promises him the gift of another sort of new life, with a son. Paul makes this point with very drastic language: “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.” (4:19) In the Gospel reading Matthew was invited to begin a new life with Christ. The woman was not only healed of her sickness but restored to a full life in community, and the leader’s beloved daughter was brought back to life by Jesus, who, as we hear at the end of this section of Paul’s letter, will himself be raised from the dead by God, as a sign of the promise of resurrection to new life that is available to anyone who believes and trusts in it.

What is faith? It is a way of living, but we need more than just faith to live a Christian life. Rather than the Reformation trio of “grace, faith, and scripture,” those “sole” sources of salvation, I think that Paul’s triad from 1 Corinthians (13:13) best describes the key elements of a life in Christ: “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” For love – God’s love – is what we trust in, what we hope for, what we try and live by and in the end what we will be part of.

Amen.