In the ordinary conduct of human life, faith is an indispensible. We are constantly in situations where we just have to trust ourselves to others - to the work they do, to their reliability... Sometimes they may let us down. Sometimes we come to a point where we say, "I won't trust him/her anymore." But a person who is totally suspicious is in a very bad situation.
I recall a dear old couple in our first parish. As they both became older and frailer, she developed a deep suspicion of all her neighbours. She would say to me, "My neighbours are terrible. I got some new socks for Henry the other day, and someone shaked them from off the clothes line. Someone's even been shaking the water out of our tank." Every time I saw her someone else had "shaken" something. Then she had a stroke and died. I remember Henry saying to me, "You know, something very strange has happened. While Mary was alive the neighbours were being so nasty, but since she died they have become so very nice and helpful - really kind! I don't know what's happened!" Poor Mary, because of a medical condition, had become unreasoningly, impossibly suspicious.
On the other hand, I guess we all have known people who are completely gullible. They fall for every door-to-door salesman. If someone says it, it must be right. It doesn't enter their head to question anything.
When we talk about faith, we don't mean gullibility! Faith always has realism about it. But we can't go through life with Mary's constant suspicion!
We have all been shocked recently by the loss of life in the San Francisco earthquake. It was well known that sometime soon there had to be an earthquake. For the past ten years something was supposed to be done to strengthen the Bell Bridge. Now disaster has struck and television has brought to the world the graphic pictures of tragic loss. Living on the San Andreas fault is dangerous. In what ways can buildings (and bridges) be constructed to minimise that danger so that people can reasonably and responsibly live there? Some, with the total suspicion of Mary, will want to move somewhere else to live. I don't think many would have the gullible reaction! I am sure that all who stay - whether out of choice or having no choice - will want strong action and reasoned reassurances.
Added to that has been the bus disaster north of Grafton. How can we travel with safety anymore? Can we really be sure that semi driver hasn't been on amphetamines? Is he using two log books so he can keep driving and stay on schedule? And what about all the other drivers on the road? What's their blood alcohol level at the moment? And - how can I be sure my serviceman keeps my car in a state safe to drive anyway? Yet the evidence of our church parking area is that a fair number of us drove to church this morning. We used our reason, but we also exercised faith.
The Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk, wrote at the end of the seventh century BC. It was a stormy time politically. In 605 BC the Babylonians defeated the Egyptians at the Battle of Carchemish on the fords of the Euphrates and were now marching westwards. In Judah it was a time of violence, oppression, quarrelling . . . The prophet could write, "Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted" (1.4).
Habakkuk questions the Lord about what he is about to do. Surely the perversion and corruption of God's people cannot go on forever! The Lord's reply is that judgment is going to come on his people in the form of the advancing Babylonian armies. But this provokes the prophet to another question. Why would the Lord have appointed such a treacherous and wicked people to execute judgment? The answer is that, at the appointed time, they too will stand under judgment - for piling up stolen goods, building a kingdom on unjust gain, building a city with bloodshed...
Troubled times indeed! In contrast to the prevailing mood in Judah - and among the threatening invaders - are the people whose trust is in God, called here the righteous ones. The suffering of the arrogant and violent we might understand. But these ones, already suffering injustice at the hands of their fellows are also to be part of a country plundered from outside!
In the middle of the description of impending disaster for the arrogant, there comes the word for the righteous - "but the righteous will live by his faith" (2.4b). This is both the promise of life (in the face of the threat of death) and also the means of a positive life-stance no matter what.
This verse is quoted in the New Testament in Romans 1.17, Galatians 3.11 and Hebrews 10.38. This is what Paul writes in Romans 1 - "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith'." (vv.16-17). Paul then goes on to speak of the "wrath of God" - the judgement of God against sin. How is it possible to be "right with God"? - that's what the word "righteous" is all about. And it's the central theme of Romans. When Paul talks about the "righteous", he doesn't have in mind the goody-goodies at all, but sinners who have been made right with God. The amazing good news for Paul is that God makes sinners right with himself. That's the significance of all that God has done for us in Christ. The operative principle from our side is "faith from first to last". The RSV translates it "He who through faith is righteous shall live". There is the promise of life. There is also a whole way of life.
What do we mean by faith? At one level faith is a deep intellectual conviction. This is an important part of faith which we ignore at our peril.
In "Alice in Wonderland" the Queen tells Alice how old she is and Alice replies, "I can't believe that!" The Queen tells her she will be able to "if you close your eyes and take a deep breath".
Some people think of faith that way. I recall having heard someone say, "I don't care if they prove the Bible is false - I'm still going to believe it!" That is not the Christian basis for faith!
It is true, of course, that over many years, while scholars have been pouring doubt on the Scriptures, many Christians have continued to believe them to be the Word of God, to express the truth - in spite of the scholars. They have been quite right to do so and there are good sound reasons for their faith. They have questioned the methods, the motives, the basic assumptions of the so-called learned ones. They have maintained their intellectual conviction that the Bible is the Word of God.
This in itself is not unusual. Do you know all about electricity? Have you got your Ph.D.? Are you really qualified to flick a switch? to use a stove or a toaster? Your faith in electricity is not irrational just because you can't explain how it works! Or - to take another question - is polyunsaturated better for your heart or not? Scholarship - scientific or Biblical - can go through fads and fashions that leave us shaking our heads! Sometimes, like the righteous of Habakkuk's time, we have to believe in spite of the prevailing wisdom.
While it is important that faith is not irrational, it cannot be operative unless it is dependent trust in God - in the fact that he's here, in all he has done for us in Christ...
Do you believe in aeroplanes? They have been a bit scarce lately - perhaps they have been drifting back into mythology! There are in fact people who have an intellectual belief in aeroplanes but wouldn't be seen dead in one! They don't allow their belief to benefit their lives - even if someone else were to pay for a ticket! They don't have a dependent trust in them.
The town of Howard had a power station when we lived in Childers. It has since closed down, together with the small coal mines that fed it. I recall visiting a lady whose house was no more than a mile outside the town and had no electricity! It was her conscious and deliberate choice. Believing in electricity and depending on it were two different things.
The righteous of Habbakuk's time had more than an intellectual conviction that the Lord is God and that he had revealed himself to his people.... They depended on God. They prayed to God, confessing their own sins and bringing the burden of a nation that had turned away! They knew that God had acted in the history of his people before and looked for the evidence of what he was doing now. Like the prophet, "How long, Lord?" was part of their prayer.
Do you believe in God? Good for you! says James in his letter. The devils do too and they tremble with fear! The question is whether you depend on God, whether you depend on the salvation he has made possible for us when Jesus died on the cross for us... Not just "do you believe it's true?" but "do you depend on it for yourself?"
But faith must also become a way of life. Our intellectual conviction about God and our dependent trust in God must affect the way we live.
"The righteous shall live by faith" was not just a statement about what would happen to the righteous as they passively believed in God! In point of fact, things looked pretty rugged for them in terms of this life. Finally and ultimately, of course, after this life, in the presence of the Lord himself, they would be seen to be right for believing in the Lord, they would inherit eternal life!
But there was more to it than that. For the righteous, faith was a way of life, the only way to live.
And that is how it must be for us too! In Eph.2.8-10 Paul wrote "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works so that no one can boast." Now that's our dependent trust in God and all that he has done. Paul is saying that our dependence on what God has done makes salvation ours. But he then goes on, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
God intends that our faith becomes a way of life. It must be more than what happens within the walls of the church when we celebrate the worship of God. It must be more than what happens in private when we read the Bible and say our prayers. Living by faith will affect our attitudes to others, the way we relate to family and friends, the way we thank the person on the checkout, our attitude to those who let us down, our way of relating to boss and worker... Living by faith will affect the way we speak, the way we drive, the way we work...
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