We Believe

Paul Walton
4 November 2003

I want to begin tonight with three apologies: (1) This sermon has nothing to do with the lectionary readings; (2) It’s not new, but a rerun of something I did a few years ago; (3)—and the thing I’m sorriest for—it’s a lot longer than the average Mustard Bush sermon.

‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.’ That’s how the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews begins.

Faith gives us assurance. But the Greek word we translate as ‘assurance’ says much more: faith is the reality of ‘things hoped for’. Faith makes things happen. In faith, we anticipate and participate in the reality of what we hope for, the final outcome of what we believe. By faith, we anticipate and participate in our salvation, and in the final victory of God over the forces of evil and destruction that are loose in the world.

Faith enables us to cooperate with God. It involves the whole of our being: our will, feelings and mind. But faith can be a fragile flower.

Last week, Mark talked about his journey, about reclaiming the word ‘evangelical’ and the language of faith. I thought I might follow that up with this address named, ‘We believe…’. Who are the ‘we’ who believe? We are people who believe in different ways. I am convinced that ‘we’ Christians should be fully aware of the different ways we believe.

Let me introduce you to a piece of writing by a teenage girl, which comes from the Belonging series of Uniting Education. Listen to what she says when asked about what she believes:

…the answer doesn’t exactly come to mind…

So I had to think about it…

I mean sure, I believe in the sun, the moon and the stars, I believe in love, I believe in this beautiful beautiful planet, I believe most things I’m taught… I believe in the human race, but I also believe that people can change and beliefs can change…

So here I am in my teenage years believing passionately in the world and all its charms, knowing I’m a lucky kid and that there probably is a God in heaven. Believing within myself that I am invincible and that no one close to me will ever come to any harm, believing that only a happy future lies ahead, full of success: yet knowing full well that there will be failures, that some days the sun won’t shine and the car won’t start…

‘Belief’ is too strong a word for the questioning, the sceptical and mildly radical mind of a young adult. There are just these gut reactions that I have and think about a lot, base my values and morals on, live my 17 year old, Coca-Cola, rock and roll, pizza shop, Mickey Mouse, glow-in-the-dark, Year 12 in a coastal town life by. I like to think that one day I’ll believe in things… Maybe when I’m all grown up and worldly, hopefully happy and successful, I won’t even have to think about what I believe in, I’ll just know—it’ll be a part of me. That would be nice.

‘Maybe,’—one day—‘I won’t even have to think about what I believe in, I’ll just know—it’ll be a part of me.’ What refreshing honesty! You know, many people have to make a journey in believing today. God’s people have always been pilgrims through life—sometimes literally, like Naomi and Ruth. The journey for some of us is from just believing to struggling to believe to renewing belief.

Just Believing

Some people just believe. Their faith and their world fit together like a glove. They believe without doubting. God’s in his heaven, and God is in control. If we suffer, we’ve done something wrong. There are lots of passages in the Bible which reflect this position of just believing.

For instance, Psalm 37:25 says,

I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.

Just believing is the natural stance of children. They just believe. Children, if they are brought up with love, trust what they are told. And everything is all right.

For example, take the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. People who just believe accept this doctrine in its literal sense. Mary became pregnant by direct means of the Holy Spirit. No man was involved. It was simply a miracle.

People who just believe have a feeling of simple harmony right at the heart of their being. Everything about faith makes sense. It’s not only children who just believe; adults too can share this kind of faith. And I believe that it’s wrong for those who can no longer just believe to criticise or try to change people who do.

A childlike faith is a gift in any person, no matter what the age. A typical childlike creed could be

God is everywhere;
Jesus is in my heart;
the Holy Spirit helps me.

Struggling to Believe

A great many people today can no longer just believe. They are struggling to believe. This happens to many students as they advance through the process of education—for example, that seventeen year old girl whose story we heard. But it’s not only the education system that fosters and promotes the struggle to believe. The struggle can start when tragedy strikes. Remember Job, who lost his children and his health? Job very definitely struggled to believe. Or the struggle to believe begins when people are disillusioned by life—I think here of the Preacher, who wrote the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. ‘Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.’ What’s the common thread running through students, Job and the Preacher of Ecclesiastes? The common thread is simply that questions are raised, questions which cannot be answered by just believing.

Questions! Where is God in the suffering of the world? Just believe. Do Buddhists go to hell? Just believe. Is the Bible true? Does prayer work? Is there a God? Just believe, just believe, just believe. Yet saying just believe doesn’t work when someone is gripped by these questions.

Is it wrong to ask these questions? No, not at all. But it is wrong to suppress them. People who ask these questions do the Christian community a service. They help to keep the church honest. They courageously listen to the questions they are hearing, and they take them seriously. They seek the truth, and they are not content with secondhand answers. And they can have a great faith in Jesus, if not in the answers of the church.

What about the doctrine of the Virgin Birth? If we are struggling to believe, we will ask very hard questions. How is it possible? We human beings have an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the father in each cell of our bodies. How did the Y chromosome appear in Mary’s uterus? Did God create it? Aren’t there other virgin birth stories from that era? Isn’t the Bible operating from prescientific understandings of how human life begins? Do such miracles really happen? Can Jesus truly be human if this doctrine is true? Doesn’t this doctrine promote an unhealthy—even impossible—ideal for women? The questions make your head spin. The fortunate person who just believes is not troubled by these questions, but someone who is struggling to believe may be overwhelmed by them.

What happens to people who struggle to believe? There are a number of outcomes. It’s neither easy nor desirable to struggle to believe for year after year after year. If that were to happen, I suspect that the ‘struggler’ might look around at others who believe easily, and wonder, ‘Why?’.

If it's not good to continue struggling to believe, what are the possible outcomes? Let me list three:

* We can stop believing, lose our faith. Sometimes the struggle to believe ends because other things seem more enticing, or we spend our time doing other things, like having fun. But it can also be because the struggle to believe is just too hard, the questions too great, or we get weary of being told, just believe. I have spoken to a good number of people who have left the church for this reason, and not just young people. I suspect we all have.

* We can retreat from the struggle to believe. But there’s a problem: once we have been gripped by those questions, we can’t go back to just believing. We have crossed a bridge which collapses behind us once we get to the other side. There is no return to simple, childlike faith, no matter how much we might desire it.

Those who retreat from the struggle often become fundamentalists. Let me talk a little about that. You may have thought that what I have called just believing is fundamentalism. It’s not. Just believing is accepting what you have been taught, whether that is a fundamentalist faith or not. But fundamentalism is frequently a reaction to the questions which lead people away from childlike faith. Those who retreat into fundamentalism have tasted the questions, and have decided not to keep asking them. They have adopted a system of belief which protects them against the questions. But it’s not a childlike faith. Fundamentalism is not just believing. It’s a particular option of faith which proposes an alternative to the struggle to believe.

Others who retreat from the struggle to believe may become so-called ‘liberal’ Christians. Theological liberalism is an genuine attempt to take the world seriously; but ‘liberal’ Christians sometimes have answers that satisfy them, which are too glib for other people. Anything embarrassing or problematic in the Bible is ‘cultural’, or ‘outmoded’. And liberals can be every bit as intolerant as fundamentalists.

* The third outcome of the struggle to believe is to emerge through the other side with a faith which has been refined in the fire of the questions. Let’s look at that now.

Renewing Belief

It is very hard struggling to believe. But if the outcome is not a loss of faith, or a retreat to fundamentalism or liberalism, it may be a renewal of belief. This renewal of belief is achieved through honestly facing the questions. But when we face them, something happens, if we listen for the answers. We find that we don’t really ask the questions; it is more that we are questioned ourselves. Something—or Someone!—calls us into question. We realise that God is there with us as we ask the questions. Not only is God there, God is asking us questions. And we must answer.

In this renewal of belief, we make the astonishing discovery that the best answers come from the faith we have been so sharply questioning. But there’s a problem. We can’t go back to childhood. We can no longer just believe.

But there is a way. That way is to choose to re-enter the world of Christian faith and symbols, and let them speak to us. It is to quieten ourselves, and listen. We do that as children, because that’s what children do; when we enter a renewal of belief, we do it because we decide and determine to put our trust in Christ. But the Christ we meet is the Christ who was with us while we asked those questions. The Christ we meet does not expect us to forget our doubts, and wants us to still engage with the world.

Let’s look again at the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. The person who experiences a renewal of belief has decided that the Virgin Birth is true after all. She may have decided it is not literally true. But she discovers in it a breathtakingly awesome way of speaking about God coming into the world, God becoming human. And she has found that God asks questions of her through the story of Mary’s conception of Jesus. She discovers herself in this story. So when Mary says ‘Yes’ to God, she becomes an concrete example of Christian obedience. Mary’s ‘Yes’ means that Christ is formed within her womb; and Christ is also formed within us as we say ‘Yes’ to God.

Those who encounter this renewal of belief can again speak in simple ways, childlike ways, about their faith, while at the same time they do not deny the questions. For example, it’s said that the theologian Karl Barth said the most profound truth he knew was,

Jesus loves me; this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.

There are different ways of believing. Some just believe. That is good. Those who just believe may wonder what all the fuss is about. They may wish others would stop asking questions. They may feel inadequate in the presence of those who do. There’s no need. The church needs such people and the strength they bring.

Some are struggling to believe. Their questions are a wonderful internal challenge to the church. They need to seek answers to them, but not to try to change other people. In particular, not to get younger people to ask questions before they are ready. Rather, they should learn to listen to the questions that God is asking them.

Some have weathered the questions, and found a renewal of belief on the other side. They have realised a new depth of faith in the mystery of God after the struggle. They may wish that everyone could see it like them—but they may have forgotten how very hard the journey was at times. Others will have to make it at their own pace.

Another quick word—the struggle to believe can occur again over different issues, and another renewal of belief may then follow. The road of faith can take a number of detours and have potholes in unexpected places.

The Gospel addresses us all, wherever we are. In the Church, there is a rich tapestry of faith and belief. It’s typical of the times in which we live. My hope is that we can believe, and grow in faith, whether we

just believe;
or are
struggling to believe;
or are discovering a
renewal of belief.

It’s sometimes hard for Christians to hear one another. We might more easily misunderstand each other. But God addresses us, whoever we are, and if we listen, we realise that God is speaking the language of our need. And perhaps, we will receive the gift that was so desired by that seventeen year old girl:

‘Maybe,’—one day—‘I won’t even have to think about what I believe in, I’ll just know—it’ll be a part of me.’

Do you want to make a comment? Have a conversation about this issues raised here? Go to the message board.

Back to Home Page
Back to Sermons