The Faith Of Abram
Sermon
My generation was brought up in an age which regarded inactivity with deep suspicion, thus there are many of my friends today who are unable to sit and do nothing. Some of them feel guilty if they sit down to read a book, and there are a number of people amongst my acquaintances who would never watch television during the day, regarding such an activity as the worst kind of time-wasting.
We were taught, quite rightly, that time is precious and must never be wasted. To be fair, nothing could be wasted in those early post-war years, the memories of hunger and deprivation were too recent. But it did tend to create a generation who find it difficult to sit down and relax, so there's a kind of built-in guilt in taking time out for yourself, and busyness is generally rated as next to godliness.
Churches need their busy people - those amongst the congregation who can be relied upon to help out when necessary, no matter how busy they are. It's a well known fact within churches that if you want something done, you give it to the busiest people because they nearly always find extra time from somewhere.
For some people, this investment in busyness is what keeps them going. They pour themselves into good works of every description, and they are usually wonderful people to have around. But just occasionally, it seems to go wrong. Sadly, there are some people who are full of good works, but there's a kind of unattractive self-satisfaction about them, as if they know how wonderful and how indispensable they are. They're often regarded with awe by others, because nobody else can hope to come near to that level of good work, but somehow, the good work isn't always welcomed.
Perhaps the starting point is wrong. Perhaps good works should be the outpouring of faith and love for God, rather than a duty or something we feel driven to do because of our feelings of guilt. St Paul was quite clear that good works have very little to do with salvation, but that salvation comes through faith in Jesus. His terminology for this was "justification through faith". In other words, that we human beings aren't made right with God through anything we ourselves can do, but only through trusting in and believing in and following Jesus. We can't buy God off, even through a lifetime of good works. To be right with God we have to receive the forgiveness for our sins which Jesus made possible through his death on the cross. And we can't purchase that forgiveness, we have to accept it as a free gift.
In today's letter to the Romans, St Paul put it like this: "Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness." Salvation isn't a wage due to us because we do good things, but is the result of faith. St Paul goes on to use Abraham as an example of faith, and there are many occasions in Abraham's life where his faith shines through in the face of all the odds. The occasion St Paul uses in today's reading is where God promises Abraham that his descendants will inherit the earth. When God made this promise to Abraham, Sarah his wife laughed, because she was already well beyond her child-bearing years. But Abraham believed and trusted in God's word, and Sarah did bear a son, Isaac, against all the odds. And today's Old testament story of Abraham setting out from his home city of Haran into an unknown future, is another example of his faith.
Abraham had no idea where he was going, and was already quite old when he set out. He left the shelter and security and support of his home and his own people to face possible danger and deprivation, with no real purpose in mind other than obeying God. Many people leave their comfortable home surroundings to face and overcome some challenge or other, such as rowing around the world or climbing the highest mountain or trekking through Antarctica or jetting off into space, but very few leave with no idea of where they're going, just because they believe God has told them to leave.
Those who, like Abraham, are so close to God that they hear his voice that clearly, or who have such faith that they set out without question and without a backward glance on some new journey of discovery, find out for themselves the rewards that faith brings. Faith brings a new spiritual awareness and a special closeness to God. None of us can discover that sort of closeness by doing good things, but when we discover that closeness through faith, we can't help but express our faith and our joy and our energy in the Lord through the things that we do. And very often that joy and delight and energy is expressed through a concern for other people. So faith causes us to do good things, but doing good things doesn't necessarily cause us to have faith.
We can't earn any of God's gifts to us. No matter how much good we do in the world, we aren't due a wage from God for them. We can only receive what God decides to give us. And since his love for us is immense and overwhelming, he chooses to offer us immense and overwhelming gifts, like complete forgiveness for anything and everything we have ever done wrong or will ever do wrong, the ability to communicate with him and to hear his individual response to us, guidance on life's path, support and strength in our bad patches, and a deep and indescribable joy which St Paul calls "the peace which passes all understanding."
All of this and much more, is free. God gives it to us because through Jesus we are "right" with God. God doesn't consider us to be some lesser form of being to be kept at arm's length because we're not fit to be in his presence, but considers us clean and wholesome and fit to be his sons and daughters and so to be treated like heirs to the throne. Jesus gained all these privileges for us through his death on the cross and he did that through sheer love for us. Jesus was God on earth, God become human, and so he reflected God's feelings towards human beings.
We can't gain any of this for ourselves. God gives all his gifts to us because we are made right with him through Jesus. In St Paul's word, we're justified through faith. Nothing else can achieve such results, not the law which was given by God to Moses to help human beings grow close to God, and not the good things we do. If we're to be born again, as Jesus told Nicodemus the Pharisee he must be, we must step out in faith, risking ridicule or loss of status or loss of reputation or ostracism. We must step out in faith, not at night as Nicodemus did keeping one foot in the safe camp of his secure life, but openly in the daytime where we can be seen, risking all for Jesus' sake.
And when we do that, we'll have no further need to keep ourselves constantly busy, because we'll know for ourselves exactly what "justification by faith" really means in practical terms.
We were taught, quite rightly, that time is precious and must never be wasted. To be fair, nothing could be wasted in those early post-war years, the memories of hunger and deprivation were too recent. But it did tend to create a generation who find it difficult to sit down and relax, so there's a kind of built-in guilt in taking time out for yourself, and busyness is generally rated as next to godliness.
Churches need their busy people - those amongst the congregation who can be relied upon to help out when necessary, no matter how busy they are. It's a well known fact within churches that if you want something done, you give it to the busiest people because they nearly always find extra time from somewhere.
For some people, this investment in busyness is what keeps them going. They pour themselves into good works of every description, and they are usually wonderful people to have around. But just occasionally, it seems to go wrong. Sadly, there are some people who are full of good works, but there's a kind of unattractive self-satisfaction about them, as if they know how wonderful and how indispensable they are. They're often regarded with awe by others, because nobody else can hope to come near to that level of good work, but somehow, the good work isn't always welcomed.
Perhaps the starting point is wrong. Perhaps good works should be the outpouring of faith and love for God, rather than a duty or something we feel driven to do because of our feelings of guilt. St Paul was quite clear that good works have very little to do with salvation, but that salvation comes through faith in Jesus. His terminology for this was "justification through faith". In other words, that we human beings aren't made right with God through anything we ourselves can do, but only through trusting in and believing in and following Jesus. We can't buy God off, even through a lifetime of good works. To be right with God we have to receive the forgiveness for our sins which Jesus made possible through his death on the cross. And we can't purchase that forgiveness, we have to accept it as a free gift.
In today's letter to the Romans, St Paul put it like this: "Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness." Salvation isn't a wage due to us because we do good things, but is the result of faith. St Paul goes on to use Abraham as an example of faith, and there are many occasions in Abraham's life where his faith shines through in the face of all the odds. The occasion St Paul uses in today's reading is where God promises Abraham that his descendants will inherit the earth. When God made this promise to Abraham, Sarah his wife laughed, because she was already well beyond her child-bearing years. But Abraham believed and trusted in God's word, and Sarah did bear a son, Isaac, against all the odds. And today's Old testament story of Abraham setting out from his home city of Haran into an unknown future, is another example of his faith.
Abraham had no idea where he was going, and was already quite old when he set out. He left the shelter and security and support of his home and his own people to face possible danger and deprivation, with no real purpose in mind other than obeying God. Many people leave their comfortable home surroundings to face and overcome some challenge or other, such as rowing around the world or climbing the highest mountain or trekking through Antarctica or jetting off into space, but very few leave with no idea of where they're going, just because they believe God has told them to leave.
Those who, like Abraham, are so close to God that they hear his voice that clearly, or who have such faith that they set out without question and without a backward glance on some new journey of discovery, find out for themselves the rewards that faith brings. Faith brings a new spiritual awareness and a special closeness to God. None of us can discover that sort of closeness by doing good things, but when we discover that closeness through faith, we can't help but express our faith and our joy and our energy in the Lord through the things that we do. And very often that joy and delight and energy is expressed through a concern for other people. So faith causes us to do good things, but doing good things doesn't necessarily cause us to have faith.
We can't earn any of God's gifts to us. No matter how much good we do in the world, we aren't due a wage from God for them. We can only receive what God decides to give us. And since his love for us is immense and overwhelming, he chooses to offer us immense and overwhelming gifts, like complete forgiveness for anything and everything we have ever done wrong or will ever do wrong, the ability to communicate with him and to hear his individual response to us, guidance on life's path, support and strength in our bad patches, and a deep and indescribable joy which St Paul calls "the peace which passes all understanding."
All of this and much more, is free. God gives it to us because through Jesus we are "right" with God. God doesn't consider us to be some lesser form of being to be kept at arm's length because we're not fit to be in his presence, but considers us clean and wholesome and fit to be his sons and daughters and so to be treated like heirs to the throne. Jesus gained all these privileges for us through his death on the cross and he did that through sheer love for us. Jesus was God on earth, God become human, and so he reflected God's feelings towards human beings.
We can't gain any of this for ourselves. God gives all his gifts to us because we are made right with him through Jesus. In St Paul's word, we're justified through faith. Nothing else can achieve such results, not the law which was given by God to Moses to help human beings grow close to God, and not the good things we do. If we're to be born again, as Jesus told Nicodemus the Pharisee he must be, we must step out in faith, risking ridicule or loss of status or loss of reputation or ostracism. We must step out in faith, not at night as Nicodemus did keeping one foot in the safe camp of his secure life, but openly in the daytime where we can be seen, risking all for Jesus' sake.
And when we do that, we'll have no further need to keep ourselves constantly busy, because we'll know for ourselves exactly what "justification by faith" really means in practical terms.
