Substance

30 June 2019 – 3^rd Sunday of Pentecost

Micah 6:1-8; Matthew 5:1-16

What is the substance of faith?  Believing something?  Nah.  It needs to go deeper than that.  It is written in The Letter to the Hebrews, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1).  So more than simply believing something, there must be such a level of trust that we are willing to step into what we believe. 

Hope is willing to take a risk only when there is substance to the “conviction of things not seen”.  And although this is all written in the Scriptures for us to know, it becomes real only when we choose to live into the Promises.

The notion of individualized salvation as the “end” of a journey of discovery rather than as the “means” to even greater discoveries has put hope itself in the dust bin of theology.  As long as we can have some reasonable notion of going to heaven when we’re dead rather than experiencing heaven as we live, the rest is just dead weight.  The very false, yet very popular, idea of not having to do anything. 

This reduces the substance of faith to a mere belief which can change as the wind blows.  It is why so many feel perfectly justified in being disconnected from the fellowship of the Church, disconnected from ongoing religious instruction, disconnected from the heritage and the traditions of the Church, disconnected from common decency which is the essence of the Holy Law. 

There is no substance in that narrow way of thinking because Jesus didn’t teach exclusively about “going to heaven” as much as He taught about the reality of the Kingdom which can be experienced in Him.  Going back to Moses’ instruction to the Israelites in Deuteronomy, Moses emphasized Israel’s need and charge to continually tell the Story and to teach it faithfully to the next generation. 

Israel’s gravest danger, which Moses warned them about repeatedly, was in becoming completely disconnected from their past.  The substance of their being as a community, as a nation, as a “holy people” got lost.  And when that was lost, all was lost.  The substance of their being was lost.  They no longer had any sense of their being as a people of The Lord, of the Covenant.

I think the same may be said of the Church today

Someone once said we can teach our children about religion; but for faith to be understood by our young ones, it must be on full display.  That is, it must be shown and demonstrated.  It is what The Lord revealed to the prophet, and it is what Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is entirely about. 

Even as it goes to religious practices, Jesus had this to say to the scribes and the Pharisees: “You tithe … but have neglected the weightier (not more important but, rather, substance) matters of the Law: justice and mercy and faith.  It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others” (Matthew 23:23).

This is why faith itself cannot be reduced to a mere feeling or a vague belief in something which lacks demonstration.  Faith must be stepped into; this is, in fact, the essence of “assurance” (as the Israelites afraid of entering into the Promised Land and suffering the consequences of their fears).  We step in because we are unafraid.  So the genuine substance of faith must be an abiding principle that is as much about today as it is about eternity. 

We cannot teach our children about eternity (this concept being far beyond the human capacity to comprehend), but we can teach them how to navigate today while trusting fully in our Shepherd based on what He has done in the past for His people who obeyed Him.  This is why the study of the First Testament is so important to us.  The lessons from then are entirely about the substance of now. 

The Beatitudes are the “weightier matters of the Holy Law” (justice, mercy, and faith) that do not displace the religious practices necessary to develop and strengthen our relationship with our Holy Father and with one another.  Beginning with the needed assurance for those who are “poor in spirit” (lacking any sense of hope) and wrapping up with letting others “see your good works and bring glory to your Father in heaven”, what is lacking in so many is a demonstrable faith.

We are often “poor in spirit” because we have never really invested ourselves in the assurances of our Lord; and because we are not fully invested, there is no “light” for others to see because there are no “good works” that demonstrate what faith in our God looks like.  Others – especially including our children and grandchildren - are unwilling to step out in faith because the Church which proclaims its allegiance to this Great Shepherd is, by and large, unwilling to risk … well, anything.  Certainly not social standing.

With the Independence Day holiday only a few days away, there is a lot of talk about freedom; but I cannot help but to wonder if we really understand what it means to be truly free.  Too often, judging on the context in which the word is so casually tossed about, freedom typically seems to mean freedom from doing whatever it is we don’t feel like doing – OR – the freedom to do as we please regardless of how it may adversely affect others. 

Or in the case of a journalist who was so viciously attacked in Portland OR a day or two ago by the so-called ANTIFA (anti-fascist) crowd, freedom for this crowd seems to mean freedom to attack and brutalize any who do not agree with them.  In other words, as long as they are free to protest fascism by the hands of “others”, they are equally free to deny freedom to others; the freedom to walk the streets unafraid, the freedom to report, the freedom to do and to be according to our Divine Gifts.

But this is the ironic twist; freedom without the experience of living into the concept is only a concept.  Much like faith itself which is reduced only to a vague belief in something which has yet to be, unless we experience it, unless we move and step into it, we will never know of the assurances of all Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the Beatitudes.

How can we be the “salt of the earth” or “the light of the world” if our faith is exclusively personal and never communal?  The short answer is it cannot be.  It is just as Jesus pointed out; “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it under the bushel basket but on a lampstand for all to see”.  And in the context of the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount as a whole, our Teacher is not talking about us merely talking out loud about it.  Jesus is talking about demonstration.

The substance of faith itself is, indeed, freedom; freedom from the shackles of our doubts and our fears, freedom from the bonds of a secular culture that seeks popularity by blindly following the “blind guides” into the abyss of darkness, the freedom to do good where good is needed most. 

Freedom is not at all about shouting from a distance to “them” (whomever “them” is) and telling “them” they need to do more for those who live in the margins of society; it is entirely about being with those who live in the margins of society, the “poor in spirit”, those who “mourn”, those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness”. 

Freedom is entirely about being free and having the will to put everything at risk for the sake of being a “peacemaker”.  It is the substance of our faith.  It is the very Face of God.  Amen.