Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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 "If only you had the faith of a mustard seed…."  "According to your faith be it unto you."  "Be not faithless, but believing."  "He said unto them, 'Where is your faith?'"  "Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace."  And thus abideth these three, faith, hope and charity…."  The apostles said to Jesus, "Increase our faith."  "We walk by faith, not by sight."  "The just shall live by faith."  What can I say?  The New Testament is about faith.

 Of course, the New Testament was first written in Greek, and in Greek (bear with me now) -- in Greek the noun "faith" is the same word as the verb "believe."  The same in Greek, but, unfortunately, not in English.  In English we can say, "He believes," but not, "He faiths."  But we can say that in Greek and use one word.  So the first definition of faith has to be, simply, belief.
 But that is not enough, not nearly enough to describe what the New Testament means by faith.  "Belief" can refer simply to the facts about something and not be a faith statement at all.  "I believe cats have claws."  "I believe the North won the Civil War."  Or "belief" can be about faith, but only in a sentimental way, and thus have no real impact on our lives: "I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows."   (How nice!)  What Jesus called faith is belief we live by, belief accompanied by boldness and courage, belief we stake our lives upon, take risks for, even die for.

 The journey to Capurnium was difficult enough if you weren't carrying a paraplegic on a stretcher!  But he had begged them, pleaded with them, and the four of them  were his best friends.  How could they say "no?"  The sun was hot and the road was dusty and full of stones.  Backs and arms ached and feet were sore when they arrived in Capurnium and went looking for the one who was "the talk of the town," the healer.  They found the right street, and could even see the house where Jesus was staying, but couldn't get to it.  Hundreds, maybe thousands had come.  The house was full, the doorway was jammed, and a huge crowd spilled out into the narrow street.  A single person could not have gotten through, much less four men carrying a stretcher!  "Well, too bad, old friend, we tried.  Looks like it's impossible!  Too many people!  Tough luck, old buddy.  We're going home.  It'll be dark soon."  But, we remember these four, of course -- still talk about them two thousand years later -- because they didn't give up.  Somehow, in friendship and in faith, they got themselves and their friend up on the roof of the house where Jesus was, and they cut a hole in the roof (I can still see the picture from Sunday School), and lowered him down, right in front of Jesus.  Jesus immediately commended them for their faith, and restores their friend to wholeness.  Witnesses remembered not only that he was healed, but also that he walked away carrying his own stretcher.
 Faith is belief that changes things, that cares with the heart, that doesn't easily give up.  And, in that sense, it's faith that makes the world go round   It makes the difference between deathly life and lively death.  That's why Jesus talked about faith all the time.  To him, it was as essential as the air we breathe or the ground we walk on.  Can we, in this hectic, crazy world, find faith -- find something to live for, or even die for?  Something that will animate our spirits?  Or will we just plod through life, putting one foot before the other, doing what we've always done?  Faith is a break-away thing, something that delivers us from our prison houses.  It is the water that slakes our thirst forever.  (The woman says to Jesus, "Sir, give me some of that water."  We say it, too.) Can we find faith like that?  Where and how should we seek it?

 First, and this is a very hard thing, we have to let go (or, at least, be willing to let go) of what is.  We have to be willing to let our old selves die, as Jesus might have said.  An old Latin professor of mine told the class one day that the purpose of an education is "to break the grip that the present holds on our minds."  I would agree, and I would say that one of  the purposes of faith is, also, to assure us that what is is not what always was nor what always needs to be, that God works in mysterious and unexpected ways.  But some people are terribly stuck in what is.  For example, the scribes and Pharisees in this story are hog tied in their own traditions!  They can't get over the fact that Jesus used the wrong words when he healed the man.  Can't rejoice in the healing, can't be awed by it.  Can only stamp their feet and insist on the right words.  Jesus asks them, "What's the difference what I say?  The man is up and on his feet, isn't he?  Didn't he just carry his own bed out of here?"  We shouldn't miss the main point of this story by engaging in an argument about the relationship between sin and sickness.  The main point is that for these critics tradition was everything, man's need and God's mercy was nothing.  True religion is replaced by ritual, forms instead of faith.  What Hal Luccock called  the "supreme catastrophe of the soul."

 But before we laugh at these stuffy old religious leaders, trapped in their traditions, we ought to ask what traps there might be in our lives.  What habits, traditions, ways of thinking, prevent the Holy Spirit from alighting upon us, and keep us spiritually dumb.  I believe that, in today's world, it's not just a question of being trapped in religious traditions -- it's a question of being trapped altogether, our whole selves forced into some mold.  Many voices today tell us: "You are what you are and can't do much about it.  You're the product of your upbringing, of your genes.  You will be pretty much what your father was.  The apple won't fall far from the tree."  We are portraying people's lives as if their outcomes were pre-determined.  We have made a science out of discouragement and depression.  There are whole industries churning out statistics designed to prove it, to categorize us, to tell us what we are and what we will always be.  If you live in this zip code, you are this or that.  If you live in the inner city….  If you are raised by a single parent…. If you're under sixteen….  If your parents were alcoholics….  If you're a working mother….  If you're on welfare….  If you're in the forty percent tax bracket….  We are sliced and diced a hundred ways, and (in essence) told what we should be, what we can be.  And we have counselors to help us be satisfied with our lot in life.
 How can God work in the life of one who is convinced, by statistical averages, that he is and will always be this or that?  Statistics say that very few paralytics ever get better.  The odds are one in a million.  Listen to the numbers.  Be satisfied to spend your life on a stretcher.  No sir.  By hook or by crook I will get to the healing hands of Jesus.  Most friends would not do so much for one they loved.  But we're not like most friends.  We'll carry our buddy over hill and dale, and dig a hole in a roof for him, if it will help.  Faith helps us beat the odds.  Statisticians never count on faith.  Faith is the joker in the deck, the wild card.  Faith says you can be anything you want to be, because God can do anything he wants to do.  He is not governed by statistics, and so neither are you.

 We ought to remind ourselves, from time to time, that the Christian church was established by the most unlikely people: sinners, prostitutes, tax-collectors, slaves.  No reasonable person would have entrusted them with anything important.  But they found faith -- found it in Jesus Christ, and were no longer satisfied to walk the common path, could no longer be what the world expected them, and their ilk, to be.  In faith they did the most incredible things, for as they were transformed they transformed the world.