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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Hello, happy Sunday! This
morning, I want to tackle some big questions: “Why do we believe?” and,
separately, “Why are we Christians?”.
Let’s start with belief. In
our Gospel lesson today, Jesus mentions belief six times and, as far as I can
tell, means it five different ways. With the help of some online dictionaries,
let’s run through them. Right off the bat, we have our religious meaning: to have
faith in the existence of something. “Believe in God”. Next we have a
relational definition: to have confidence in a person’s abilities, character,
or potential. “Believe also in me.” Thirdly, there’s surprise or annoyance:
“I can’t believe it!”. “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not
believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” Fourth: to trust that
something is true or that somebody is telling the truth. “Believe me
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe
me because of the works themselves.” And lastly, we have the belief of a
dreamer: to think something is possible, in the absence of certainty. “Very
truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the
works that I do…”
If there’s one throughline
between all of these, it is that the possibility of doubt is necessary for
belief. God might not be real. The person you trust might lie to you or not
live up to their potential. Maybe you’re surprised or annoyed, but you can
believe that it happened. Perhaps, some of your dreams fall through. Belief,
trust, and faith are all conceptually built on the mystery of an unknown future;
staking our hopes on a singular vision that we wish to manifest – amidst countless
alternative endings.
It’s a shame we can’t know
the future. Where are we going? How do we get there? Why isn’t it all laid out
for us? Imagine what it would do for all our anxiety – our troubled hearts, as
it were – if it was! But, when addressing the worries of his disciples, Jesus doesn’t
eliminate all their doubts. He asks first for their faith, then he offers his
plans for the future. Before, they were focused on the negative possibility of
Jesus’s absence. Now, he directs them to focus on the positive vision of taking
them unto himself in his Father’s house. And when they ask for more guidance, he
tells them that he is the way, the truth, and the life, with everything tying
back to God.
History shows that they really
took to this reassurance. For years after Jesus’s death, resurrection, and
ascension, the disciples and others who came to believe in Christ were known
simply as followers of “The Way”. They wouldn’t be called Christians until a
decade later, when persecution in Jerusalem, sparked by St. Stephen’s death,
scattered them abroad to Antioch and elsewhere.
Again though, Jesus leaves
room for a certain amount of uncertainty when he calls himself the Way. He
could have just as easily called himself “The Road”, or “The Path”, or “The
Well-marked Trail”, but he doesn’t. He calls himself “The Way”. While a road is
paved and clear cut, a way is more ambiguous. It implies that you know where
you are and where your destination is, but not necessarily the specific route to
get there. Imagine climbing a tall hill with a clear view. From there, you can
see not only where you are going, but also the major landmarks that will act as
signposts after you descend. Even though you now know the way, you might still
get muddled or lost before finally arriving.
A famous example of this is
Moses leading the people of Isreal out of Egypt and to the Promised Land. Ahem,
it could definitely be said that their journey was not a simple one.
Near the end, however, Moses ascends Mt. Nebo and sees their destination: the
land promised to them by God. And, if you turn the words about, “The Promised
Land” becomes “The Land of Promise”: a hope for their people’s future after
years of troubled hearts and tested faith.
So, let’s go back to the
first of my opening questions: “Why do we believe?”. Of all the definitions we
named for belief, the one which resonates with me the most is the last one, which
seeks to make possible our dreams and imaginations. So, let me rephrase this
question as: “Why do we dream?”.
In “Man of La Mancha”, the
character Don Quixote sings a song entitled "The Impossible Dream”. That song concludes with the following lyrics:
“And I know, if I’ll only
be true to this glorious quest, that my heart will lie peaceful and calm, when
I’m laid to my rest. And the world will be better for this: that one man,
scorned and covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage to
reach the unreachable star!”
We dream because we see the
absolute potential that tomorrow might bring. In a world where nightmares seem
to abound at every turn, we dream in order to take back a bit of control and
choose for ourselves a future worth striving for. Although the Way may be long
and winding, or like Moses we might not get there within our lifetime, we keep
walking forward for the peace and calm that awaits us in our Father’s house.
Despite the affectations of
my wording, however, neither dreaming nor believing are by any means exclusively
Christian qualities – far from it! So, why are we Christian?
The most obvious characteristic
of Christianity that differentiates it from other religions, or alternatives
like atheism, agnosticism, and humanism is the man himself: the person of Jesus
Christ. His identity in our faith, as both human and divine, is the very
embodiment of the impossible dream; someone who reached the unreachable star.
Despite bearing all the foibles of humanity, both his own and those of society,
he was a living example of God’s grace and salvation manifested here on Earth.
And in his very existence, we can take heart and gain courage as we seek the
same, both in ourselves and in our society.
As Jesus himself puts it, “the
one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do
greater works than these”. Jesus not only believed that we could do it – we could
also live as sons and daughters of God – he believed that we would reach even
greater heights than he did. Because he pioneered a Way for us to follow, and is
even now interceding on our behalf, we are poised to walk even further along his
path and realize dreams even more audacious than claiming to be God’s son:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.”
This line from the Lord’s
Prayer is easy to gloss over, because we say it so often. But, when we say it
together today, I ask that you say it with intention. For it is the fervent
wish of our paragon, our Lord; a grand dream still waiting to come true. May we
continue to follow the Way and have the courage to keep reaching for that
unreachable star. Amen.
