Five words for Lent (5): Faith
Faith
Dear friends, this week I shall be talking about faith but I came very close to having a different word beginning with F in this slot – and that word is friendship. Hopefully by the time I have finished my remarks you will understand what the connection is between faith and friendship.
Jesus says to his disciples, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Jesus shares the truth with his followers, and thereby they become friends. There is a link between truth and friendship, and, indeed a link between truth and faith.
After all what is our faith? I am fond of the summary given by St Paul: if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead then you shall be saved. I like this because it isn't just a matter of words – we have to believe in our hearts – but also because it makes the resurrection central. Elsewhere Paul writes that if Christ be not raised then we are of all men the most to be pitied, for our faith is in vain. If Jesus wasn't raised then it means that the world wins.
This faith, this confession that Jesus was vindicated by his resurrection from the dead, this is the core of what it means to be a Christian. Not because of a particular mental assent to a proposition, but because if we believe that Jesus was raised then it means that those forces which struggled against him a) are not of God, and b) end up losing. Which means that when we struggle against those forces, as a result of following Jesus, we can be encouraged, for Christ has overcome the world. We are a people who are semi-detached from all worldly systems of authority, and – ideally – fully detached from the way of the world, the way of accusation and blame which is the hallmark of the enemy. Let us never forget that the prince of this world seeks to seduce us into seeing this world, and the verdicts of this world, as final. To keep the faith is to resist that seduction and recognise that we are the subjects, the friends, of a higher authority,to set our mind on things above.
The command repeated most often in Scripture is 'do not be afraid'. Fear is the opposite of faith, not doubt. Doubt and faith belong together, for faith is how we live when we are without certainty. If we are certain, we do not need faith. If, however, in the midst of our lives we are required to make a decision on how to proceed – and we are torn in different directions – and we are afraid – then it is at that point that we are called to act with faith, to step out boldly into the unknown, trusting that the Lord will be with us. In some ways, for me, the essence of faith is the invitation to live as if the resurrection were true. We all feel fear at different points and in different ways; living as if the resurrection were true is scary. Yet when we do this, when we do indeed live as if the resurrection were true, then real life becomes possible. I sometimes think that, in just the same way that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, it is the quality of life that opens up when we believe in the resurrection that is in itself the strongest evidence for the truth of the resurrection. This is actually how the world is.
Yet we can't walk this path on our own. We belong to each other, most of all we belong with those who share the confession of the risen Jesus, and where there is this shared confession then something wonderful becomes possible. That something wonderful is friendship. The Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote much about friendship, about how it is one of the greatest goods available to human beings, and he said one thing about friendship in particular that I have often reflected on, as when I first heard it I rather disagreed with it, but the older I get, the more that I understand the faith, the more that I believe it to be true. Aristotle said this: the highest form of friendship is only possible where there is a shared aim.
Friendship requires a shared aim. Where that shared aim exists, so many other things fall into place, into their proper proportion. To consider the questions of scandal, and offence taking, and forgiveness properly – friendship in the faith is the context. Imagine that you are walking up a mountain, and there is a group of you. To reach the summit of the mountain is the shared aim. Perhaps it's Snowdon and there's a cafe offering refreshments. Now imagine that one of the party stumbles... stumbles, falls into sin, triggers a scandal. In such a situation many human communities will repudiate the one that has stumbled, will cut them off and exclude them, leaving them behind, letting them make their own way in future. That is not the Christian path. Rather we are called to bear one another's burdens, and when one of us stumbles we are to reach out and help the one that has stumbled. So long as the one who has stumbled still seeks to climb the mountain, to reach the summit, then the stumbling is neither here nor there. Grace overcomes the stumbling. We ascend together, we ascend together as friends, in fellowship one with another, helping each other, supporting each other, encouraging each other, loving each other. That is what friendship in the faith is. This is the way. We leave behind the worldly patterns of behaviour – the game of blame and shame – and instead we recognise that we are pilgrims on the journey, and we need each other. How does the saying go? If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel together.
This is the way of faith. To see Christ, the risen Jesus, as the truest expression of the nature of God and of the world, and to see and interpret the world in the light of the resurrection. Which means that what the world can offer doesn't really appeal, whereas Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. We have been invited into friendship with him, and as we proceed in the life of discipleship, as we explore our faith and let it flower, we journey on towards him who is the source and summit of our Christian lives. And our task is to invite others into this same journey, to share the truth of the faith with them, and thereby to gain new friends.
Which leads me to the question of the the New Covenant, how we are sustained upon our journey – what was Jesus doing with the bread and the wine at the Last Supper – and I shall explore that next Sunday evening.