We Walk by Faith
We Walk by Faith
2 Corinthians 5:7, 14-21
November 13th, 2022
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people, but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for the one who for their sake died and was raised.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
You may have noticed something different about your bulletin this week. We are using our standard “logo-front” bulletin instead of the “Faith Story” bulletin we have been using for the past several weeks. Why? Because I concluded the “Faith Story” series last week. We spent fourteen weeks exploring the many “heroes of the faith” named in that great “Roll Call of Faith” in Hebrews 11 . . .
· By faith, Abel . . .
· By faith, Enoch . . .
· By faith, Noah . . .
· By faith, Abraham . . .
And so on. “By faith” these heroes served their divine purpose in both amazing and ordinary ways.
It occurs to me, however, that we never actually took time to define the word “faith.” “Faith” is a word we Christians like to throw around a lot, but what does “faith” mean, really?
I think a lot of people tend to conflate the word “faith” with the word “belief.” But that conflation misses the mark and may actually impede our spiritual growth and development.
“Belief,” you see, is a human attachment to an idea or a thought. I can believe, for instance that if I step on this stair, that it will hold me up. I can believe that 2 + 2 = 4. I can believe that the sky is blue or that my team is the best team. But just because I believe something, it doesn’t mean it’s true. New evidence may arise that shows me my belief isn’t accurate. Maybe my team loses, and I have to reevaluate whether my belief that my team is the best is accurate. Belief is simply an attachment to an idea or a thought. We can change our beliefs . . . in fact, intellectual and even spiritual growth requires us to do so.
Faith, on the other hand, is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8-9 defines faith this way:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
Faith is a gift from God. We can’t work our way into faith, nor can we “believe” our way into faith. It is a gift from God.
I think of faith as a “whisper from God.” We can’t box up a whisper any more than we can hold onto the wind. The best we can do is hoist a sail and let the wind propel us forward. And so it is with faith.
· Belief is a human attachment to an idea or a thought.
· Faith is a whisper from God’s heart to ours.
Nevertheless, many if not most of us attempt to capture that “whisper of God” at some point in our lives. We try to catch it; we attempt to put it in a box. We squeeze it into a creed or a set of doctrines. And just like trying to capture wind, if we put it in a box, it no longer blows, and if it doesn’t blow, is it wind at all? Yet the church has done exactly that throughout most of Christian history . . . trying to squeeze faith into a creed or doctrinal statement.
That’s why, from time to time, guests or new people at the Chapel will ask me, “What does your church believe?”
It seems they’re looking for a dogma, a doctrine, a creed. They want to know if we “believe” like they do. My answer to folks who ask the question in this way is often unsatisfying to them: “We’re non-doctrinal,” I’ll say. “We’re non creedal.”
Sometimes they’ll tilt their head and look at me blankly.
I’ll continue: “You see, we’re an interdenominational congregation. We have people from dozens of Christian traditions. We invite them to bring the best of their Lutheranism or their Methodism or their Presbyterianism or their Catholicism or their “Whatever-ism” with them, and we find a way to be church together.”
“Yes. But what do you believe?”
Sigh.
Maybe I need to work on my “elevator pitch”—a way to articulate who we are as a church in a brief, concise way that could be delivered in a two-minute elevator ride.
Maybe my elevator speech would begin with 2 Corinthians 5:7:
We walk by faith, not by sight.
God whispers can’t be contained in a set of words we might string together any more than they can be contained in golden cow.
Here’s the thing about creeds and doctrines: they’re useful to a point. They’re like the rules of religion. Pablo Picasso once said about art: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” And when it comes to creeds and doctrine, we might say: “Learn the rules like a seeker, so you can break them like a saint.”
Creeds and doctrine are useful to a point, but they are not, in and of themselves, the point.
There’s a story in the Gospel of Luke about Jesus on his way to have dinner at the home of a Pharisee. It was the Sabbath, and he encountered a man with severe edema. Now, the law prohibited healing on the Sabbath, but Jesus healed the man anyway. He defended his action to the scribes and Pharisees by pointing out their hypocrisy: “who of you wouldn’t pull his ox from a ditch if it fell in on the Sabbath?”[1]
Learn the rules like a seeker, so you can break them like a saint.
Here’s the thing about creeds and doctrines, yes they’re useful to a point, but every creed and every doctrine is an instrument of division. Some of the earliest creeds, like the Nicene creed, were used as cudgels to combat those considered to be heretics.
You know what a heretic is, right? Someone who doesn’t believe exactly like you do.
Creeds and doctrines are created in order to determine who’s “in” and who’s “out.” Creeds and doctrines, when adopted by churches and denominations do little more than weed out people who can’t attach themselves to every jot and tittle. This is why we have over 40,000 Christian denominations. We just keep “denominating” or dividing over the jots and the tittles.
I can’t imagine God is thrilled with our continual “denominating.”
There’s a story about a devout Baptist fellow (I can pick on Baptists since that’s the denomination I come from) . . . this man survived a shipwreck and ended up alone on a deserted island. For years and years he survived alone, until one day he was spotted. When the rescuers arrived, they noticed three structures or huts, so they inquired about them. “Well that one on the left is my house, and that one on the right is my church.” The rescuers asked, “What about the one in the middle?” “Oh that’s the church I used to go to.”
Doctrine is a driver of division. “Do you believe exactly like me? No? Heretic!”
Is this what Jesus wants?
At the last supper, just before his arrest, his mock trial, and his crucifixion, Jesus prayed to God in front of his friends gathered: “that they may all be one” and again “that they may become completely one.” (John 17:21 & 23)
In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes to a group of people with whom he has had some conflict. The language Paul uses is “reconciliation.” He wants them to know that they are reconciled to God through Christ, and they are reconciled to him despite their previous conflict. Paul instructs them that Christ has given them a “ministry of reconciliation.
The divisions we have, doctrinal and otherwise, are the antithesis of this oneness for which Jesus prayed and the ministry of reconciliation to which we have been called. That’s why we (here at the Chapel) are non-doctrinal. Does this mean that individually we have no beliefs, no doctrine? Of course not! What it means is that you can have beliefs that differ from mine and we can still “be church” together. Heck, you can completely disagree with everything I’m saying in this sermon, and we can still “be church” together. We are called first to “be one” in Christ and secondly to “beget oneness” in Christ. We are “non-doctrinal” because we take seriously the “ministry of reconciliation.” And personally, nothing—nothing gets me more fired up that that. It’s what the world desperately needs. It’s what we’re uniquely positioned to offer:
· Reconciliation with God through Christ.
· Reconciliation with one another through Christ.
· Reconciliation even within ourselves through Christ.
As for that last one: if this church, through the power of Christ, can help each of us become the best version of ourselves, then we’re succeeding in our ministry of reconciliation.
In that spirit of reconciliation, I want you to hear the closest thing we have to a doctrinal statement within the International Council of Community Churches (ICCC), the fellowship of churches to which we happily belong. It’s a statement of affirmation for churches like the Chapel:
We are God’s people—created in diversity, gathered in unity. We affirm our faith in one God; in Christ our Teacher; in the Spirit as our Guide. We affirm our ministry as a Community Church—a church which tolerates religious opinions; a church which respects the sincere convictions of every person; a church which seeks to be as comprehensive as the spirit and teachings of Christ, and as inclusive as the love of God. We affirm our place in the body of Christ, in the one, holy Church, in the people of God. We commit ourselves to the continuing mission of Christian unity—that unity for which Christ prayed, “that they all may be one.”
We are God’s people! Thanks be to God![2]
My good friend and mentor, Marty Singley, wrote a folksy affirmation of faith for the ICCC church we served together:
We believe in Jesus. We want to be like Jesus. We want to teach what Jesus taught and live like Jesus lived. We’re not much into doctrines and human-made systems of belief. Those mostly serve the purpose of dividing people into camps of right and wrong, acceptable and not acceptable. We don’t believe Jesus lived that way. Jesus found ways to accept and love everyone he came into contact with. We try to do the same, although we have to admit we’re not nearly as good at loving as Jesus was. But we’re trying! We like the idea of a “community” church because we believe Jesus made himself available to the whole world—not just a little group of select people. We’re not overly troubled by folks who come along with different beliefs, ideas, or experiences. We can find reason to “commune” with anyone not because we think or believe alike, but because most of us are seeking the same thing—a way to a better world, a truth that sets people free, and a life that is abundantly full and meaningful. We believe the way, the truth, and the life revealed in Jesus is worth discovering and sharing together!
To me, this is a far more compelling vision for church than the stagnant creeds of yore that attempted to capture the whispers of God in a box. Sure, those creeds were useful, to a point. But if the point becomes the creed, then we’ve missed the point.
We walk by faith, not by sight. And we’re not turning back.
So, if you need a church with a creed or a dogma, we may not be the church for you. No judgment, none at all. We’re all at different places in our spiritual journeys. There are plenty of churches like that to choose from.
But . . .
. . .if you want a church where you’ll find freedom beyond the limitations of doctrines and creeds
. . . if you want a church in which love is the measuring stick
. . . if you want to share the journey with people who walk by faith and not by sight
. . . if in your bones you want oneness, reconciliation with God, others and self
Then welcome home. Settle in. Breathe, now that you can. But don’t get too comfortable. There’s work to be done. The ministry of reconciliation is never complete.
If we can “be one” and if we can “beget oneness” then we become the answer to Jesus’ prayer, “that they may be one.”
Chapel by the Sea, may we continue to be the answer to Jesus’ prayer.
[1] Luke 14
[2] Rev. Bob Fread—International Council of Community Churches