“Works Without Faith”
Rev. Dr. David E. Gray
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
September 13, 2009
Romans 3: 21-26; John 6: 22-35
Welcome to the fall season. This morning we had a terrific welcome back brunch led by our Congregation Life Lay Ministry. I look forward to our coming together to celebrate the life of our congregation this fall. I am seeing some of you for the first time in awhile as we return to the routines of church from the summer.
Several of you have asked how my August vacation went. Bridget and I drove our two boys on vacation to upstate New York, then to Cape Cod, the back home. Previously, the furthest we had driven them was the Baltimore Aquarium. So the 1400 mile drive with the boys was truly a leap of faith. A few times my wife would call to the back seat to our three year old, “Are you being gentle with your little brother?” And back would come the response, “No I am not.” But that was about the most challenging part of the drive, all those hours and miles were fine.
The first morning back from the trip I got up, began to drive to work, the same road I always take to the church, and two blocks from our house I was stopped at a traffic light and my car was hit by a bread truck. Couldn’t believe it. Wasn’t a bad hit and all was ok. But I thought, “All those highway miles and here on the simple road I knew so well my car was hit.”
As I sat in my car I thought about how it could have been worse. I remembered times of near misses when it’s only by the grace of God that my car wasn’t hit or I didn’t hit someone. I thought of times when others in my family weren’t so lucky. I thought about how so much of life consists of things we cannot control. As the world has become more and more complicated we all rely on others, on the roads, in the air, with our food, our children, our medical care. Life requires us to trust.
In the Bible, the word we use for trust is faith. Putting our trust in things we cannot see. We can see the works of our hands, but there is a limit to what our hands can do. And so we come to church to practice putting our faith in the hands of the one who was there yesterday, is here today and will be there tomorrow.
Despite my run-ins with bread trucks, I love that our second lesson suggests that we put our faith in the bread of life that feeds our souls – Jesus Christ.
I read now from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John as crowds had witnessed Jesus’ performing miracles and began to dialogue with him about what they had seen. Jesus had engaged in two miracles - the feeding of the five thousand and walking on water. The crowds had just witnessed the miracles and yet were more interested in their stomachs being full then that Jesus has provided miracles.
Reading from God’s Holy Word. Let us pray. Holy and loving God. Illuminate your word for us this day and help us to always put our faith in you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
This morning we continue our sermon series on Faith and Works in the world. How we push our faith past the boundaries of Sunday. We face a great challenge in seeing and seizing our faith in the midst of our works. During the week it’s easy to get wrapped up in our businesses of our work and works. I don’t have to tell you that.
John’s Gospel addresses the human tendency to want concrete answers in a world that requires trust. Our second lesson is a dialogue between Jesus and a crowd of Galileans who talk about works and faith. The crowd has two questions for Jesus. First they ask him, “What must we do to do the works of God?” Secondly, they ask him, “What sign are you going to give to us that we should see and believe? What works are you performing?”
The crowd at Capernaum was focused on what works they could do to impress God and they wanted to know what works Jesus would perform to impress them. Much of our time in life is spent on our works, trying to secure our futures and impress others. Jesus said, “This is the work of God - that you believe in him who he has sent.” Again, “This is the work of God - that you believe in him who he has sent.” Jesus defines our task as putting our faith in God. Because that changes all our work during the week. Rather than working to survive or to enjoy things that perish, Jesus asks us to tie our efforts to those things of God, because only those things really last.
The crowd at Capernaum tried to shift the burden of work to God. They asked, “What sign are you going to give to us then that we should see it and believe? What works are you performing?” They imply that they will only do God's work of believing if Jesus does God's work by performing a sign first. Keep in mind, Jesus had just fed the five thousand and walked on water. And still they wanted more proof. To use the words of the modern day philosopher Janet Jackson, “What have you done for me lately?”
But in demanding that God perform, Gods grace disappears.
Jesus answers the crowd that God’s grace is still alive. Jesus says, “God gives you the bread of Heaven, the true bread which gives life to the world.” Our relationship with God is a gift, one of grace on the part of God. God gives us the ability to believe in the one would gives us life now and forever, not to perform for us, but out of God’s grace.
The Biblical tradition helps us understand how precious faith is. The crowd at Capernaum asked Jesus to perform a work like Moses did and that would lead to faith. But if we read about Moses in the Old Testament, the story of Moses was a tale of works without sufficient faith. Moses was given the Ten Commandments and was empowered to do the work of liberating the Israelites from bondage, to give them the law and was allowed by God to get his people to the edge of the promised land. But only up to the boarder of the promised land. Moses was not allowed to go into the promised land because he lacked sufficient faith. Moses was crushed and died without ever seeing the Promised Land; Joshua had to lead them in. Moses did many right works, but it was not in God’s plan for him to lead the people to the promised land.
Similarly, King David was allowed to do the important work of defending the people of Jerusalem. He killed many enemies and set up the conditions for the Great Temple. But he was not allowed to actually build the temple of Jerusalem; his son Solomon did that, because God wanted it to be a city of peace and faith. David did great works of battle but not have the sufficient sense of peace to build the temple. To stop and enter the moments of peace in our world we have to have faith. Faith that things will be alright without us and that others will be able to do some of the work of the world. When we can say that we can be at peace.
As Moses and David found out, it’s not our works that save us or get us to the Promised Land or to the Temple of God.
What ultimately saves us? Jesus says that only what is of God is eternal. The way we tap into that eternity is through our faith. Faith is what saves us for the afterlife. Faith saves us from trying to earn everything with our works which will only disappoint us. Faith saves us from over extending ourselves because we don’t trust that things will be ok without us. Faith saves us from putting too much pressure on ourselves. Faith saves us to stay connected to God through each of our weeks.
I’d like us to consider our congregational life and how we can live our faith together during the week here at Bradley Hills.
First, last year you completed a booklet called Faith at Work. Testimonials of how your Christian faith intersects with your days. Great series of stories. Copies of this are in the library. Think of how your faith intersects with your days. If you have a testimony or story of why you belong to this church or how your faith sustains you during the week, would you email or share it with me? Secondly, this time of year can be an important time to further develop our faith. Did you realize we have spirituality groups that meet each weekday at Bradley Hills? Monday through Friday we have at least one small group activity a day that can strengthen your spiritual faith. Please take one of the pamphlets outside that details these and join us. Third, this is the time of year when our prayer lives during the week become extra important. We are so busy that an active prayer life can make a big difference. And as you might see from the What’s Happening, we as a church will now be focusing on praying for one person in mission or activity each week. Will you join us?
The reason we try and cultivate our faith is that so much of life is out of our control. There are many days when I feel like I don’t have much faith. Perhaps the most important thing we take with us from Sunday to our weeks is the importance of our faith. Because there are things that happen in life that challenge our faith.
It’s amazing to think what can happen when we do or don’t bring our faith to our work.
There is a great interest now in the life of Charles Darwin as this year is the 200th anniversary of his birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “The Origin of Species.” There is a new book out about the impact of the death of Darwin’s 10 year old daughter Annie on his life and work. That tragedy shook and limited Darwin’s faith in God and had a direct impact on all else that he wrote. Can you imagine what could have happened if Darwin had brought faith to his work?
One of the truly great critical thinkers of the 20th century is John Rawls. In 2002 it was discovered that Rawls had published his senior thesis at Princeton in 1941 on his moral religion. It turns out that Rawls was seriously considering becoming an Episcopal priest at the time. But then he went to World War II and lost his faith in God and took another path. Can you imagine what could have happened if Rawls had brought faith to his work?
I also think of CS Lewis. During that same time period, the 1940’s, in England, an Oxford professor named C.S. Lewis gave helped many people keep their faith going during the week and during the war. Lewis was someone who once struggled with faith himself during the First World War. But his faith retuned as he grew older and his radio broadcasts about the importance of faith inspired many and kept many people going during the war. He brought faith to his work.
This weekend we commemorate the eighth anniversary of September 11, 2001. A day which challenged our faith. In the miracles of that day - the courage of those on Flight 93 to charge the cockpit, the bravery of firefighters who rushed up the twin towers, the grace in families drawn closer together – many people gained faith. Church attendance swelled, social connectedness indicators rose, people signed up to volunteer for military or national service. And quite a few people renewed their commitment to the idea that Jesus expresses in John 6, that while life is short and however temporal our works might seem, God is eternal.
If we struggle with faith, we are not alone. If circumstances push our faith into a corner we are not alone. But recall that Matthew records Jesus saying that you only need faith the size of a “mustard seed” for God to do something great. Like Moses and David, it may be that we cannot do it all and we have to have faith that God will complete the important work in the world in God’s time.
Jesus is asking us to trust what we cannot see. We cannot see faith. The author of the Book of Hebrews defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.” I love the advice given in the children’s story The Little Prince, that “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
But we can see the evidence of faith in our church, in our families and in our work.
I believe that having faith helps our work when we come to realize that we are part of God’s bigger plan for all time.
As Rudyard Kipling once wrote,
“When Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried.
When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it - lie down for an eon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew!”
Our work becomes something different when its part of our faith. But works without faith don’t get us where we want to be. It takes grace, practice, perspective and trust.
Those in conversation with Jesus after his two miracles wanted something. They suggested that God owed them something. As if faith was something that they owned. But Faith is not something we own. It’s something we get from God. Faith is not something that fits neatly into a routine that seeks to limit God. Faith is something that inspires us to get out of our routines. Faith is not something that stays comfortably on Sundays, but should stay with us all week.
Faith is what makes life still work when events don’t work out as we’d like. Faith comes from Heaven. It gives life to the world. And thank God it does. Amen.
