On Faith

SERMONS

On Faith
Rev. Mary Katherine Morn
October 15, 2000

Opening Words

by Denise Levertov
I believe the earth
exists, and
in each minim mote
of its dust the holy
glow of thy candle.
Thou
unknown I know,
thou spirit,
giver,
lover of making, of the
wrought letter,
wrought flower,
iron, deed, dream.
Dust of the earth,
help thou my
unbelief. Drift
gray become gold, in the beam of
vision. I believe with
doubt. I doubt and
interrupt my doubt with belief. Be,
beloved, threatened world.
Each minim
mote.
Not the poisonous
luminescence forced
out of its privacy,
The sacred lock of its cell
broken. No,
the ordinary glow
of common dust in ancient sunlight.
Be, that I may believe. Amen.

Reading:

From Imagination: The Power of Adult Faith

by Sharon Parks

Human beings live `always on the verge, always on the borderland of something more.' Human beings bear a consciousness of something beyond the immediate. Human life finds itself forever on the thresholds of time, of space, and of the unseen—`reaching up to the gates of Heaven while one foot is slipping off the edge of the Abyss.' (Phillip Wheelwright, The Burning Fountain) In spite of the massive evidence of the mundane and the ugly in our experience, we human beings tenaciously harbor the conviction that we were `made for something more.' Something more was promised. There is more to live into, to embrace, or to be embraced by. We have a sense that we participate in something wider and deeper than we have yet realized—a more inclusive patterning of relation, a more profound ordering of justice, a richer loving of life in its manifold forms. We intuit a unity of the whole. Time, the world as-it-is, the world of space and sense—all may be lived into and transcended. We human beings harbor a conviction of a `beyond filled with Holiness.' Having the capacity to intuit the whole, we have the capacity for faith.

Seeing the title of this sermon printed in the newspaper yesterday made me smile just a little. I wondered how many people felt surprised by this simple, obvious, and perhaps provocative title. Few words carry as much baggage for religious liberals. “Faith” provokes many responses among us. I've heard some Unitarian Universalists say they cannot use the word. Others use it, once unpacked. I also smiled, though, at the thought of people unfamiliar with Unitarian Universalism and how it might have seemed to them that I would be preaching, “on faith” this morning. I imagine there were some who wondered what I ordinarily preach about, if not faith?

There's a way in which all my sermons are about faith, even when I don't use the word. But today I want to be deliberate with this simple, much-used, sometimes maligned word: faith. In fact, I want to begin by turning to a theologian's point of view. Among liberal religious people in the west, Paul Tillich must be the most-often quoted theologian on the subject of faith.

Paul Tillich says, “faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.” In both parts of this definition, Tillich is pointing to the central and unique nature of faith in our lives. By using ultimate he separates faith from most things in our lives, he places it above all else. Using “concern” he describes the active nature of faith in our lives. The object of our faith, of course, may not be ultimate. Here he echoes Ralph Waldo Emerson's warning: “be careful what you worship, for you will worship something.” It's not completely clear to me, but in a sense, if the object of our faith is not ultimate, then perhaps it is not really faith, faith being defined by the ultimate nature of our concern. The important thing here is that we often treat something as having ultimate value, when it does not have ultimate value. Two examples Tillich offers are faith in nation and faith in success. Neither of these will bear the test of life. In the end, if we place our faith in either of them we will be disappointed.

He goes on to suggest there are three ways faith affects us: as demand, as threat, and as promise. First of all, it is faith when we are called to it—when it demands a response from us. We may not always respond, often we do not, but by its nature it has a claim on us. (If it is ultimate, then of course it is imperative, necessary--it demands our attention.) Secondly, faith holds a threat. My liberal sensibilities respond negatively when I read this in Tillich. Let me come back to it. The third thing faith offers is a promise. This is consistent with the reading from Sharon Parks. We live on the verge, at a threshold. We tenaciously harbor the conviction that we were made for something more. That something more was promised.

It is within the promised that the threat resides. And we cannot have one without the other. Standing on the threshold, we can look either forward or back. We can look on one side of us, or the other. We can see either the promise or the threat. I would call it the promise of wholeness. Or the promise of inclusion in the universal community. Sharon Parks describes the promise in this way: a more inclusive patterning of relation, a more profound ordering of justice, a richer loving of life.

She only offers a vision of the promise, though, after she has acknowledged the massive evidence of the mundane and ugly in our experience. In fact, the promise only makes sense in the context of this threat. One way to articulate the threat, then, would be exclusion. (Now try some reverse translation: heaven and hell are metaphorical expressions of promise and threat. And for some, more than metaphorical.) I live with an understanding of both the threat and the promise of faith. I know, too well, what it is to stand at the threshold of time, of space, of the unseen, and to feel one foot slipping off the edge of the Abyss.

All of this leads us to the necessity of doubt for faith. Faith doesn't work without it. (I'm still using Tillich.) One theologian (Miguel de Unamuno) has said, “Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.” And Alfred Lord Tennyson explains, “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.” A lived faith requires doubt to make any sense at all.

Denise Levertov reminds us, in the opening words for this morning, throughout her poem of the doubt that accompanies her faith. “Thou unknown, I know.” “Help thou my unbelief. Drift/gray become gold . . . I believe with doubt. I doubt and interrupt my doubt with belief.” On the threshold. On one side of me I apprehend the mystery. I face the beauty and power and meaning of life. And I also face the ugliness and my weakness and the threat of meaninglessness. Some days I walk with ease in faith. I recognize that in the midst of suffering, life is still sweet. I can almost see and almost hear the corn on its stalks. And even without the seeing or the hearing I do not doubt the corn. Some days my feet are firmly (and comfortably) pointed toward action that affirms the goodness of being. And some days I have to repeatedly turn back around in that threshold, away from the despair that threatens. I have to forgive myself for actions that I take when I have forgotten that being is good, that life is a gift, that there is meaning in life—mine included. On one side of me I see the whole. Always, though, from at least on the periphery of my vision, I also see the fragmented, broken, seemingly irreconcilable pieces.

As Parks writes, Having the capacity to intuit the whole, we have the capacity for faith. Notice that she doesn't say we have to understand the whole. Or become the whole. Only to intuit it. Tillich is a little stronger in his language, yet he is saying the same thing. Humanity is able to understand in an immediate personal and central act the meaning of the ultimate, the unconditional, the absolute, the infinite. This alone makes faith a human potentiality. In his framework the human (finite) experience of what is ultimate, infinite, is necessarily partial.

How's that for abstract theological talk? Let me bring it down to earth a bit. I am agnostic about many things. Life after death. The existence of a separate, all-powerful God. Just to mention a couple. I just don't know these things. This is very different, though, from my doubt. It's not that I doubt these things. I neither doubt nor believe them. Doubt and belief, for me, come into play about the things that really matter in my life. The things that determine how I will act in the world. That provide me with the hope and the strength to go on living. Essentially, it comes down to: “being is good.” There is something more—something more than the mundane and the ugly and the cruel. Life has goodness in spite of these things. And every time I act on this belief, I act in faith.

Do you remember the story about the tiger and the strawberry? Buddha tells this parable. A man was traveling across a field and encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger as waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted.

Can you relate to that feeling? How danger threatens from above and below. Some days it's almost funny to consider. Other days there's nothing the least bit funny about it. In fact, I believe this little Zen story simply describes the human condition. Above us is death. Below us is death. This is where we live. But the story reminds us that we have a choice. That there is something more. We can either pluck the strawberry, or not. We can either experience the sweetness, or not.

This, I believe, is the most basic question of faith. It's not a question of what you believe. Of what you are willing to accept. With or without questioning it. I'm not even sure it's about what we can and cannot see. The faith expressed in this story is the simple faith of someone who can see what is right there, see beyond the fear to what else is right there, and taste its sweetness. And know it is enough.

This is the kind of faith I strive for in my life. The faith to reach out for the strawberry that is right in front of me. Even when I cannot see it or smell it.

Yesterday I had the privilege of being a part of Symposium 2000, a celebration of Albert Schweitzer and Johann Sebastian Bach. One of the speakers, a physician, former head of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War described Schweitzer's approach to faith. Though he didn't use that word. Basically he said, “optimism is a duty, pessimism is a waste of time.” I would say it this way: Living with faith is a duty. Any other way to live is a waste of time. You may remember that even though Schweitzer was trained as a theologian and he served for some time as a pastor, in his later life Schweitzer rarely got involved in theological debate. “My life is my argument,” he explained. His life of extraordinary service made a pretty good case.

Faith is an act of affirmation of life. I don't know what the true meaning of life is. I don't know where goodness comes from or evil, for that matter. I just know that I don't want to miss the sweetness that life offers. So, whether I see it or not. Whether I smell it or not, I will seek in my life to reach out for whatever sweetness is right there. And I pray that I can accept it as enough.