by Rev. Dr. Carl Scovel, Guest Minister

A sermon given February 4, 2001

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

Two weeks ago, I preached on Bible questions; today I will preach on Bible answers. We all know that the Bible is filled with specific answers to specific questions: When should I work? When should I rest? What should I eat? How should I treat my parents, my kinfolk, strangers and enemies? When should I pray and how? Whom should I marry? Whom should I love and whom should I shun? When should I grieve? How should I bury?

The codes of ancient Judaism directed every aspect of life in Israel from birth to death. They are a fascinating study of a culture shaping itself.

And then we come to Jesus--a man who believed in these laws, yes, and followed them, well, most of them--most of the time. And yet, sometimes he broke the laws of rest, dismissed his family, touched the unclean and told a wannabe disciple to let his dead father bury himself. Not only did Jesus sometimes contradict tradition, he was often inconsistent in his own teachings on divorce, filial duty, temple worship, and neighborly relations.

For Jesus, religion was more than a matter of custom, duty and morality, more than ethics, more than answers. What was this "something more"? What was his law, his answer?

And to answer that, I’ll tell a story: "Good teacher," a man said to Jesus. "What must I do to receive eternal life?" Jesus replied, "Why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone. But you know the commandments: Do not steal, do not murder, lie or commit adultery, and respect and obey your parents." The man said, "These I have done since childhood." (So give me a gold star and a lollipop!)

I wondered what Jesus saw on this man’s face, because he then said to him, "You lack one thing. Sell everything you have, give it to the poor and follow me." And the young man, sorry he’d ever asked, turned from the teacher and walked away, for he had great wealth. (Luke 18:18-25)

Now what was the point Jesus was making? Was it about money? I think not. Was it about the poor? I think not. Was it even about becoming a disciple? I think not.

The issue, I think, was trust. The issue was faith. This man had so much wealth he trusted nothing else. He had married his money. And Jesus saw that until he and his money were parted, he could never trust God.

The disciples said to him, "Teacher increase our faith." And Jesus said, "Increase your faith? You don’t need much, you know, no more than a mustard seed." That’s enough for the first step and the rest will follow. The great message of Jesus, I think, was trust, or faith.

Now too often the church law translated that word "believe" to say "agree with us!" meaning "Say yes to our creeds, yes to our dogma, yes to our political stands, yes to our morality, yes to our power." I believe nothing could be farther from the faith of the man from Galilee who asked people not for their minds or their mouths or their money or their morality, but their hearts.

A woman followed him through the crowd. For twelve years she had suffered from a flow of blood that would not stop. She reached out and caught the edge of his robe and, says the story, the bleeding stopped. Jesus turned and said to her: "Daughter your own faith has healed you. Go in peace."

How many times Jesus says to the healed those words, "Your faith has healed you." To the blind man, the paralytic, the centurion, the leper, the four friends, the Syro-Phoenician woman. Not "I have healed you," not "God has healed you." Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus say these words, but "your faith has healed you." Jesus had faith in people’s faith, though it be as small as a mustard seed.

Now that is striking because we do not have faith in our own faith. How often we say, or hear others say, "I’m not very religious, but I’m spiritual," meaning, as I hear it, "I don’t have any great convictions about the meaning of life, but I still feel a connection."

Jesus would say, I think, that the feeling of connection is the seed of faith, not the full flower, but the beginning. Maybe you walk in the woods or stroll the beach or listen to great music and feel a connection with The All, but then say, "But I’m not committed. I don’t have faith even to commit myself." I feel this is a common attitude among UU churchgoers.

But I think we are all people of faith, for we are all committed to certain assumptions, whether we admit it or not. For example, we may be committed to the proposition that if we work desperately hard and continue to earn our present income, we will improve the quality of our life in the long run. That is an act of faith. Or, we may believe that what we now own is essential to our happiness. That is an act of faith. Or we may believe that the success of our city’s school or professional football, baseball, hockey or basketball team is actually important.

Or, that there is a real difference between the two major political parties in our country, or, that there is no difference--both an act of faith. Or, that collecting stamps, coins, antiques, lead soldiers, campaign buttons, you name it, is a good thing. Or, that coming to First Unitarian Church in Portland today was a good decision. We hope you are right, but you may not know for months.

We live by faith by making assumptions, by trusting teachers, preachers, poets, writers, politicians, or by doing certain things without questioning because we think they’ll make us wiser, richer, happier. Everyone lives by faith, but faith in what? That is the question.

When I encounter the anger and disillusionment so common in our Unitarian Universalist movement, so common that it controls what will or will not happen in our congregations; when I see this wrath and disappointment, I look behind it for a shattered faith and a broken trust. I look for the priest or pastor who reacted with scorn and ridicule when we expected kindness; I look for the teacher who abused her pupils when they needed encouragement. I look for parents who raised their children in fear of judgment when their children needed love. Behind every anger stands a hurt; behind all wrath, a disappointment, a broken trust and a shattered faith.

And why were we hurt? Why were we disappointed? Because we expected more from the priest or pastor, more from the parent or teacher, than they could give us. And because we needed absolute trust, we could not see they could not give this to us, because we wanted to put our whole faith in one person, one event, one institution. We could not see that no one person, no event, no institution, can take the place of God. We need to trust, but no one thing on earth merits our full trust.

The psalmist said, "When my father may forsake us, then the Lord will take me up." Not, "If they forsake me," but "When they forsake me," because even my parents, being human, will fail and sooner or later, then forsake me. This is the human condition. So whom do we trust? Where do I put my faith, my heart’s need, my need to trust, this need I do not need, but cannot banish, what do I do with it?

Here is my answer. Put your trust in nothing. Nothing. Trust no thing absolutely, no person, people, institutions, absolutely. Let no good, however good, be God.

Here is the role of prayer--prayer is before all else an act of trust, an act of faith.

I lift my need to the nothing, to the No Thing, to the great, the ultimate, No Thing, to the unseeable, unnameable, uncontrollable, whom we hope to see, and claim to name, and try to know, and know we can’t control.

Not for naught did the ancient Jews refuse to name the Holy. Not for naught is the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." None, not the Boston Patriots or the Ravens, nor your parents or your pastor, not your kids or your goods or your obsessions or your lifestyle. Sooner or later all these must drop from your list of deities. Give your hearts only to the Great No Thing

That may sound to you like a strange way to name what we more often call "God," but I am speaking to people who need new names for God and yet every name, including, "The Great No Thing," must give way to another name, or new names, that is, to silence, the silence of prayer, the silence of trust and faith.

When Jesus told his listeners, the crowd and his disciples, to have faith, to trust, to believe the good they could not see or know or name, I think he was speaking of this kind of faith.

And that is how he invites us today in order to guard us against false faith, small gods, and transient trusts. He asks us to give our wills and hearts to the great no-thing, the ultimate non-specific, in hold words "the spirit."

We must give our hearts. Our need for the unnamed unknown is the deepest desire of our lives. This I believe with all my heart and that is why I have preached on faith as the Bible’s answer to our need.

And if you forget everything else I’ve said this morning, I hope you will remember that once a retired preacher from Boston came to tell you what you already knew: that the soulquest is the quest of your life, the quest for your life, for your faith. May God bless you, may God guide you in that quest.

PRAYER

Let us pray. Holy One above all, we thank you for the seed of seeking in our hearts, the hunger for food not found upon a table, the thirst for drink not held within a cup. Bless our quests that we may have faith for our journeys, strength on the way, and joy at the end. Amen

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Copyright 2001, Rev. Dr. Carl Scovel.  All rights reserved.