Faith is Hard

Several of our confirmands made profound comments last Sunday. One has echoed within me all week. With a calm voice, yet clear awareness of turbulent realities, one of our confirmands declared, "Faith is hard."

Faith is hard. How refreshing to hear those words from one making a first pubic profession of faith. Yes, child of God, faith is hard. Trusting in the existence, presence, and goodness of God in a world in which we cannot pluck a rose without risking the thorn is hard. Feeding the hungry, forgiving the offender, seeking forgiveness, loving neighbor and enemy, and living in Jesus' word and showing his love is hard. Even showing up to worship, study, care, and serve amidst so many opportunities, possibilities, and distractions is hard.

Because faith is hard, the sixty-six books in our Bible repeatedly remind us that we need each other and call us to live in community. We often focus on larger than life heroes and heroines, but beneath and beyond them are communities reaching for freedom from slavery, holding on when driven into exile, rebuilding among the ruins, enduring occupation and domination, and discovering the eternal in the quotidian. According to Matthew, Jesus promised, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Matthew 18:20). He does not disappear when we're alone, but we sense his presence more readily in community.

Because faith is hard, scripture makes loving God and neighbor foremost. Identifying enemies is easier, but being and making friends and neighbors lasts longer and transforms. Healthy and loving relationships require effort, patience, and endurance; yet, from those relationships we can confront and find our way through the realities that most threaten life, love, and goodness.

Because faith is hard, scripture consistently calls us to notice and care for the least of these. That does not come easily; yet, when those with the capacity to help notice and care for the least of these, everyone has a better chance of survival and, more importantly, better reason to trust in the existence, presence, and goodness of God.

John Calvin said it grimly: "Whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil." Martin Luther said it as a challenge: "Many people have considered Christian faith an easy thing, and not a few have given it a place among the virtues. They do this because they have not experienced it and have never tasted the great strength there is in faith." Thomas Merton stated it poetically: "We too often forget that Christian faith is a principle of questioning and struggle before it becomes a principle of certitude and peace. One has to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after one has begun to believe, one's faith itself must be tested and purified." Jürgen Moltmann provided a theological context: "In the fellowship of the assailed and crucified Christ, faith grows up in the pains of one's own suffering and the doubts of one's own heart. Here the contradictions and rebellions do not have to be suppressed. They can be admitted." I prefer our confirmand's clarity: "Faith is hard." Thanks be to God that we have God and each other. Alleluia! Amen!  

Easter Blessings,

LP