June 21, 2015

         Is it easy to have faith? All our lives as followers of Jesus we are continually measuring our faith or our faithfulness. We read the bible or hear a nice sermon and we think that it really is pretty simple. Then life comes in. We face a disappointment. We get caught up in something that sets us off. We hear of an unspeakable tragedy. Faith becomes hard. It’s hard to believe the promises we so very much want to believe. It’s hard to live up to the standards we know we want to live up to.

         The hero stories of the bible sometimes seem too fantastic. Goliath is huge. He carries so much armor and so many weapons; he’s like a human tank. Plucky little David runs around the battlefield full of confidence. We’re happy he won. We would not have heard about him otherwise. His confidence in God is inspiring – but not so much that we are ready to take on similar risks.

         The disciples are worried about a great storm. Perhaps they have seen such storms in their experience as fishermen. They knew that it was bad (and not just frightened by the unknown.) Jesus is asleep. They are desperate. Why are you sleeping, Jesus? He wakes up and tells the storm to be quiet and suddenly everything is still. Where is your faith? I don’t know what is more disturbing, the power of the storm or the power Jesus has over the storm. Who could have guessed that?

         God asks a lot of us. We want to love and be better people. We are comforted by promises of some better day. It’s the living day to day that is the struggle. We don’t see Goliath but we do see storms. We do see insurmountable problems. Jesus is not asleep on a cushion in the back room waiting to be awakened. God has not trained us how to sling stones to defeat our enemies.

         Name your giant or your storm. Is it addiction? Illness? Long-term unemployment? Comfortable sayings about God’s love won’t put food on the table. This week we are confronted with the stubborn sins of hate, racism and violence. Nine people were gunned down in a church while they prayed and studied the bible. This evil act points to a whole host of social ills we have not had the will to change. It is also a challenge to our faith. Where is God? Why did this happen?

         It appears that the killer is a man filled with hate. He is a racist and we thought racism was over. It is hard to believe that anyone could spend a life nursing such hatred – that groups of hate-filled people continue to organize or believe that they have a cause worth their time. Even in this unbearable tragedy, there is news of hope. As the killer was arraigned, the family members present had one message, “We forgive you.” The tragedy is impossible to understand. The forgiveness may be even harder to believe.

         There is much to be learned about what happened. We can learn this. Faith does not believe in what is impossible. Faith believes in what God promises. Those forgiving families believe in God’s mercy – that it extends even to the hate filled murderer.

         How will we live faithfully? We need to live as we believe God promises we can live. Instead of fearing what we do not know, we can have confidence in a God we do know. Instead of pretending that the suffering of others does not matter because it doesn’t happen to us, we can choose to live as God calls us to live and seek to love and respect all of God’s children.

         David picked up five smooth stones. He used what he had at hand. God has given us everything we need to face the giant of racism. We can respect our neighbors. We can see our solidarity with neighbors who live in Waterbury and South Carolina (and not just close by in Woodbury.) We can seek peace instead of violence. We can seek mercy instead of hate. We can believe the good news and live as if it is true, because it is.