Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, September 17, 2023.
Our worship theme this month is faith, and I wonder, when you hear that word, what it evokes in you. Does it make you smile, or does it cause you to tense up? If you hear, “Let’s talk about faith,” does that feel like an invitation, or a test? Maybe both?
Years ago there was a podcast that I loved, called “Speaking of Faith,” that was conversations between the host, Krista Tippet, and people like scientists and mystics and wise people from diverse faith traditions. One day they changed the name to “On Being,” which really annoyed me, and I wrote them an email saying so. Because don’t we need ways to be speaking about faith in the public square? On Being is just as good and rich as Speaking of Faith was, and I’ve gotten over my annoyance, and still love those conversations. And still, their name change is proof that faith is seen as a difficult word that many people are happy to avoid.
I understand why, when faith has too often been used a to control and exclude and oppress. When faith is treated as a like a gate: you have to say the magic words, and believe them, or pretend to, in order to get in. But that’s not what faith is!
Faith is not about what about what you think or believe, it’s how you live. It’s how you act, and what you choose to do. Faith isn’t a thing you possess, it’s a practice, that can grow stronger over time. Adversity can help; sometimes faith appears when everything seems lost.
Martin Luther King, Jr. told a powerful story about his experience of this, early days of the Montgomery bus boycott, when his life and family were being threatened daily. On a dark night he was sitting alone at his kitchen table, unable to sleep, because of these death threats. He prayed, naming his doubts and fears, and a new faith came. He wrote:
“At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: ‘Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.’ Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.”
Does faith necessarily involve God or some kind of higher power? I’d say not necessarily, but that faith does involve something larger than one’s own ego. Which is often the part of our selves that resist faith, and is threatened by it; that tells us faith is unreasonable, impractical, a dream.
Some of you know my friend Kimberly, she’s a UU and spiritual director who has preached here. Kimberly spoke at my ordination, 18 years ago this month, and she said something about faith:
“One doesn’t commit their love to a life partner without faith in the redemptive power of love’s forgivness.
One doesn’t raise children without faith in a mighty force for good in the soul of the world.
One doesn’t enter public ministry without faith in the possibility of beloved community…
Some say those who have faith are fools. Faithful ones, they say, believe in the possibility of abundant goodness when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
But I hold with those who see the light of hope in darkness. Who see small openings in what look like high, thick walls. Who see water in the rock.”
Too often people talk of faith like it’s a thing you either have or you don’t; “He was a wonderful person until he lost his faith.” Or faith is seen as signing on to a particular creed or set of belief, like a secret handshake. And often faith is equated with certainty; it has to be unshakeable to be faith at all.
But isn’t faith richer and more nuanced and more beautiful than that? Isn’t faith holding on to hope when you don’t know how? Isn’t it the following of a vocation when you don’t know where it will lead? Isn’t that what faith is? It’s not what we say or think or even believe; faith is what we do, how we act, how we move through our days and our lives. Faith is a verb.
I expect that most of you here could tell us a story of your own faith. When against the odds you hung in or held on, when you dreamed of a different life or a different way and you persevered with that dream and it is slowing becoming real. I truly hope that being part of this church helps encourage and support and strengthen your faith.
A few years ago, when Sophia Lyons was our intern minister, she brought a practice to us called “Journey of Faith,” and some of you were part of. In Sunday worship you stood up here, and said, “My name is ______, and this is my journey of faith.” And your telling of these journeys was beautiful and inspiring. We’re going to start doing doing this again, and I already have several of you in mind, but if you are interested in sharing your journey of faith, speak to me!
That beautiful song our choir song about hope could just as easily be about faith, and right now, I’m not sure I know the difference. Just that they are so needed these days. I couldn’t live without faith or hope, and I can’t imagine a congregation without them, or a family, or a county.
“I sing of hope, and don’t know how.” That’s what faith is—moving forward when you can’t see what’s just ahead, but still, taking that next step. We’ve living in a time when the decline in church membership is well-documented, but at the start of a global pandemic, when none of us knew what the future held, we in this congregation moved forward with our campaign to invest in this building and finally make it accessible. If that’s not faith, then I don’t know what is! And it’s taken longer than we hoped, but we are close to completion, and it’s almost time to set a date for when we’ll celebrate and give thanks for the faith and generosity that made this happen. Talk about faith in action.
We all need encouragement and inspiration in our faith—no one can do it alone—and what would be do without mystics and poets and spiritual companions? The poet David Whyte is one such source of inspiration, let’s hear again a few of his lines:
I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world…
One could meditate on those lines for a while! The say hhe evokes images from the stories of Jesus in a boat with his disciples. had me thinking about those stories this week, and what Jesus says to them when they are freaking out about the waves crashing over and nearly swamping the boat. Which would be scary for anyone, right? But what does Jesus say? I put it at the top of the order of service: “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40).
For Jesus, the opposite of faith was not doubt. Faith was not about belief or certainty; it was about how you faced the uncertainties of human life. About who you broke bread with, about what you valued, about what you were willing to risk, and even, die for. David Whyte again:
and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them
and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love
I like to imagine this poem as not primarily about romantic love, but that he’s describing love for one’s self, and for others, including those we might not really like even; love for our world and for causes that may seem hopeless, but are nonetheless compelling, and, of course, love for that fathomless mystery some of us call God.
…so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you simply don’t want to
any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.
We come here to sing a song about hope, we come to sing a song about faith. And when we’re not quite ready, we can come and hear others singing those songs, holding open a space for faith and hope and love, so that in time, we can join in too.
Dear spiritual companions, can we commit ourselves to journeying deeper in faith? Opening our hearts and minds to the liberating love that keeps whispering in our ears, asking, “May I have this dance?” Can we work on opening even more to this world around us, with all its pain and its problems; opening to these lives we have been given, and to these companions. And being grateful for it all.
So how can we keep from singing?
Amen.