January 04, 2009 Why Believe?

Isaiah 60:1-7
Ephesians 3
If we asked a group of lawyers, why practice Law, their answers might range from the idealistic intent to change the world, to fight for what is right and just, protecting the innocent, to the candid desire for all that money/ influence can buy. Asking a group of doctors, why Medicine, we might hear of the desire to heal, to push back death, disease and decay, or interest in specialization, perhaps an anecdote of a relative or childhood friends who were afflicted with a chronic or terminal disease. Inquiring of Teachers, why Teach, we can imagine the joy of students learning, discovering, mastering that which they did not know. Asking a group of engineers, Why Engineering, they might describe the satisfaction of problem-solving, making life better, easier, more attainable, more sustainable. The Biblical Lessons for this week of Epiphany, name for us what it is to identify ourselves differently, not as Doctors, Lawyers, HomeMakers, Bankers, Administrators, Realtors, Students, Husbands/ Wives, Partners, Parents, Adult Children, but instead as Believers.

Rarely are we asked, Why Believe? We listen for what the Church tells us to believe. We wonder what the Bible says about a particular issue. We search for a pastor, a preacher/ a congregation who are friendly and believe something close to what we do, where we can fit in and feel cared for. A church where it does not cost too much either in practice or in other people's expectations, or in compromising our politics.

The Apostle Paul names, I BELIEVE because of you! I struggle and face hardships, am a prisoner in life for Jesus Christ and for you. Christian Faith is personal. Not a set of laws, rules and beliefs to memorize. Not a philosophy you must come to understand and be able to teach. Truly it all comes down to one basic truth, God loves You! We believe in response, created in the image of God we love. That often means struggle, facing hardships, making sense out of what is painful and costly, taking risks: NOT to tempt fate, NOT to be foolish, but because of that other. At times choosing to not act, to withhold because we love, because we want and need to trust, to act in covenant commitment.

We have a tendency to try to name, to compartmentalize and define, so as to know. As described in our Call to Worship, we come up with all these names for God, the many identities we want God to have, which speaks less about God and more about us in our need. The point of EPIPHANY is not one day thousands of years ago when three kings (whom we have named Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, one Young, one Old, one Middle Aged; one European, one Asian, one African, one with Gold, one Frankincense, one Myrrh) who followed a star; but that God is continually providing EPIPHANIES, glimpses of reality, when our circumstances and awareness are ratched up to a new gear a different witness. We describe one another as Liberal or Conservative, Extroverted or Shy. Many of us have developed a shorthand of believing what we have been about as a ministry, what I preach, is all about relationships. In truth, Relationships is safer, easier, more politically correct, than questioning why our community has so many secrets. Why intimacy and happiness, and trust are so hard.
I serve on a committee with a group of doctors and lawyers, who describe the difference in their fields, is that Doctors think in terms of Seconds, Minutes, Hours and Days, whereas Lawyers and Judges think in terms of Weeks and Months and Years. Faith is about Lifetimes, Generations, a Future beyond our imagination.

The beauty and pain of Isaiah 60 is that the Prophet was lifting up a vision of what might one day be. Over a period of 70 years, their Nation had been under attack, their economy destroyed, their holiest places desecrated. The brain drain that they knew, was not their children being attracted to jobs elsewhere, but their brightest and best being carried off as prisoners of war, taken to far distant countries, where they lived for another 70 years. But still the prophet believed, that one day their children's children's children's children would come home, and through their experience dispersed across the world, instead of having been lost, they would have lived their lives so others would believe as well.

This holiday season, there has been a silent Epiphany, a Witness to the Love of God, all around us. Over the last several years we as a church have made a commitment that we would be here for others welcoming them when they needed. As such, we have done many funerals and weddings for those who were not members of this congregation, not even Presbyterian, sometimes not Christian, but wanting to be married in the presence of God. Many of these have left their Unity Candle at the end of the Wedding, which has allowed us to be encircled throughout Advent and Christmas with the LIGHT in the midst of darkness kindled in their love.

What Isaiah and Paul also describe is that Christian Faith has CONTINUITY and therefore Integrity. I did not suddenly wake up this morning believing in something, making up a God that had never been before. Paul never claimed to have created a new and different faith for Non-Jews, that is for all the rest of the world. Paul claimed and gave his life for the faith of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, for the Law of Moses, the love of Ruth, the faith of King David and Wisdom of King Solomon, which had all been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, who was known and remembered, who had been one with them, had taught and fed and healed, who also was abandoned, suffered and died for that same covenant of love, and even death could not stop that loving compassion.

Why Believe? As a Christian I respond because I am loved. Because before the man asks her father, before the woman asks her friends to be bridesmaids they ask us to be part of their marriage. Before the child of Anna has a name, we know him and pray for him before God. When the stranger is in need we respond. When the 98 year old has not a friend left in all the world, when they have buried their spouse and their colleagues and friends, we are able to sit at their bedside and hold their hand and pray. Why believe, because the Holy Spirit of God has taken us by the shorthairs on the back of our necks and allowed us to see where we could make a difference and planted in our minds the question: Who knows but that all of life was created, all the circumstances aligned so that you could act, so that you could make a difference in someone else's life. Can you forgive? Can you be forgiven? Can you hold accountability? Can you trust?