"The Reason For Faith" May 6, 2018

John 15: 9-17 Acts 10: 44-48 Social Media has changed human understanding of “Friendship”. But while we may now have hundreds or thousands of contacts, the relationship of Friends is different. Real Friends are intimate. To be Real Friends requires time together, letting down barriers, experiencing life and struggles and laughter together, that “virtually” cannot be done. Cambridge University published a study, that “real friendship” requires sharing a minimum of 200 hours together, literally if you worked at getting to know one another like a full-time job, making Friends would take 5 weeks, most of our friends are only acquaintances or likes. Possibly that may also be influenced by the depth of experiences shared. I had a grandfather, whose name was Charles Herb, and doing factory work for 40 years he was known by co-workers on the line as “Herb”, when finally his best-friend asked him: “Hey Herb, what is your last name?” Over and over again, the Church receives phone calls from strangers saying “I am so lonely! I go to concerts, I go to the beach, I go to movies, I go to the Mall, but in these crowds I am all alone. How do you make friends?” The irony of this passage from John is that while Jesus says to his disciples, “No longer do I call you servants, but friends, and greater love hath no one than to lay down their life for their friends” he already knows that within moments everyone of those whom he claims as his friends whom he loves, shall abandon him, deny him, betray him. But the point of the Love of God for us, is that even so, knowing full well everyone is going to betray and abandon God, still God loves us. The other day, I overheard an email conversation among my family about the Bible. Their conversation repeated the old-line about the Bible, that The God of the Old Testament is God Judgment, and the God of the New Testament is a God of Love and Friendship. I do not believe that! Instead I believe that this morning’s readings identify a shift in human development from the Reason for Faith in the first 8000 years, and the Empires of the last 2000. Regardless of how humanity came to be, created out of the dirt and breath of God, microbial organisms in the cesspool of genetic material, or left off here by aliens… as Nomadic tribes, each and every person’s Reason for Life was Survival. There are still those times in our lives today, where all we can focus upon is getting through the day, trying to avoid pain and suffering, Living a selfish-life. But the challenge that came to Abraham, later to Moses, is to live in relationship to God. Instead of imagining ourselves as the Center of the Universe, to witness all God has done for us to enjoy, and as part of Creation: to give thanks. There is something extremely comforting in knowing that we do not have to be in control, that there is a God, and we have a place as a part of God’s plan and Creation. The Word of God that came to Abraham and Sarah, the Reason for Faith in God was simply to follow God, leaving the past, trusting believing God would be God and God would love you. Writing this in stone we made Laws, but what God gave Moses was a Covenant. Mark Twain described the difference between Laws and the Covenant with God is the difference between a Lightning Bug and Lightning! Contracts are legally enforceable requirements, demanding that you do or not do specific things, enforced by an authority of power and the State. A Covenant is personal and relational, evolving, a covenant is trust between friends. A covenant is a living, spiritual bond. The 10 Commandments were laws built on one Covenant: Honoring Your Parents, Not Killing, not Committing Adultery, not Stealing, not Lying, not Lusting, Coveting… all are based on One basic Reason for Faith, that we love God. There was a time, when humanity imagined God was far distant. That God had created this world like a great machine, setting it in motion. Today, scientists are learning more and more each day that this Creation, the whole universe is a living organism, a living being an ecological network, with every element interdependent. What changed between the First Testament and the Gospels, was not only the rise and fall of the Pharaohs, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, Rome’s Caesars, but also the reality that human development all the Laws, and Religious Contracts had not furthered humanity’s love of God. The Reason for Faith was unfulfilled! Rather than a God of Judgment and Punishment, versus a God of Love, there is only One true God. AND a miraculous thing happened, that one true God loved the world so much, that although we had rejected God over and over, God chose all over again to commit to love us. Instead of a Rainbow in the Heavens, instead of being Cut in Circumcision, carved in Stone, or carved into our Hearts, God’s next Covenant was in becoming One with us in Jesus Christ. HERE in some of the last words of Jesus, Jesus establishes a new understanding of the Reason for Faith: GOD LOVES YOU, LOVE ONE ANOTHER. Jesus’ 11th Commandment is to Love One another as friends. A few weeks ago, the Presbytery installed a new Pastor at the King Ferry Church, and I went, sitting in the congregation, and heard the Presbytery ask the minister 20 different questions of commitment and responsibility, then two questions of the congregation of the Church : Will you Trust this person? Will you accept and follow their decisions as they seek to lead the people of God? In the Presbyterian Church we ask those same questions at every ordination whether as Pastors, Elders or Deacons, because our being the Church demands that we trust. Larry Weiss has often questioned me, that instead of Religion, Faith, Beliefs, I routinely describe our relationship with God and one another as Trust. In the 21st Century, we have great skepticism of institutions, like Religion and the Church, Beliefs and Practices and Faith are continually being doubted, because there have been leaders with feet of clay. But for me, I know that all of us can identify with the issue of Trust. We have loved and been loved, we have trusted our parents, teachers, employers, those in leadership and we have been wounded, we have broken trusts. The Reason for Faith, is having experienced broken trusts, still trying to trust, to know and be known. Peter was invited to a huge leap of faith in human development. For Centuries it was religious LAW that Jews were Circumcised and practiced Kosher dietary laws, to the extent that they could not enter the home of a Non-Jew, or have a Non-Jew enter their house. Sleeping beneath the stars on the roof of the house of Simon the Tanner, Peter had a revelation, a great sheet filled with every manner of creature, and the sheet was lowered to him as the voice of God declared “Peter, Rise and Eat” and he responded that he had always been pure and separate from the things of this world. If instead of CONTRACTS we sought to fulfill the COVENANT, if instead of being limited by LAWS we followed the Holy Spirit of God, what would life be? Suddenly there was a knock at the door of the house, and Gentiles, led by a Centurion of the Roman Legion named Cornelius said he had been sent to bring Peter. When before Peter’s eyes, the Holy Spirit came upon these non-Jewish, uncircumcised, non-kosher soldiers. Then Peter questioned having received the Holy Spirit, can we refrain from offering Baptism of Water?