Dynamic Faith

February 17, 2008     Lent 2 A

Genesis 12:1-4a             Psalm 121

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17         St. John 3:1-17

Since the rise of modern biblical criticism, the question has often been asked: Did Jesus intend to found a Church?

If by that we mean: Did Jesus intend that the outcome of his work should be an ecclesiastical organization such as emerged in the second, the fourth, the thirteenth, or the sixteenth century, the answer is pretty certainly no.

But if by "Church" we mean, as biblically we should, "the people of God", then the answer is that the question is incorrectly stated.

For, the people of God, was founded with the call of Abraham. Paul himself treats Abraham as our "forefather" in faith. This makes it clear that he is the father of Christian believers no less than of his physical descendants.

Some years ago, there was a revival of biblical theology centered on the notion of the "God who acts," During that period the Bible came to be known as the "Book of the Acts of God." Theologians were constantly speaking of the mighty acts of God in history.

But then the question was raised: How can we today really conceive of a God who acts in history? How can the flow of cause and effect be broken by God, which this notion seems to imply? How can we believe in a God who truly becomes human?

Part of the answer is suggested by the first reading today. God acts by calling key individuals like Abraham, and it is by these human responses that a channel for the execution of God's will is carved out in the world. It is because Abraham left his country that God was able to create of him a great nation, a blessing to all the nations of the world. For Abraham, faith was as much an action as it was a belief.

Think of Abraham in his own situation. In his world your life revolved around your land and your family. You had your sense of self because of your ancestors and the land you inherited from them. Your profession, your very name was yours because of who came before you and where they lived.

Abraham was seventy-five. At seventy-five you've pretty well seen the landscape. Not much more is to be expected. He knows who he is. He is virtually at the point where he should be passing on his identity to his children. Abraham, for all practical intents and purposes was reaching the end of his life.

But for Abraham it was the beginning. There was yet another call:  "Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk, go away from your parents' house. I will show you. You'll know the place when you get there. I'll make a great nation of you out of nothing." Given the cultural expectations we might expect the proper response: "Fat chance. A great nation? Blessings and high achievement unexpected? Get real."

Yet this great old man stirred to the voice of God. He gathered his family and things and hit the road. He was seventy-five. He believed in what God said, and demonstrated that belief in action.

The Jews (and we their cousins) have such great heroes. When Abraham heard a new call in his eighth decade, it was before the great famine and the tragedy of Lot and his wife, before he shared the bread and wine of Melchizedek, before he ever reached Egypt or Canaan, before the birth of Hagar's Ishmael, before he would plead on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah.

It would take twenty-five years more for the promised covenant even to take shape, when he would be one hundred and his wife would change her name. This was all before Isaac, his prize child, long before Sarah's death and his second marriage to Keturah. It was, in fact, one hundred years before he would die. It's a good thing he hadn't settled down permanently in his seventies.

Abraham and Sarah, our parents in faith, remind us that it is not so much a matter of when this life's journey ends, as it is a matter of where the great hike of hope takes us. Faith, dynamic faith, involves not just belief, but action.

Christian faith since the time of Paul has seen that promise fulfilled not only in Israel's salvation history as recorded in the Old Testament, but still more in the coming of Christ and in the history of the Christian Church.

This whole history can be understood as a response to the call of God, a call going out to a whole series of key persons, beginning with Abraham and culminating with Jesus Christ and his apostles.

That is why Paul can use Abraham as the paradigm of faith, even of Christian faith. Faith is obedient response to the call of God, and therefore it opens up channels for the redemptive action of God in history and in the world. Faith, dynamic faith, involves action.

How long it was between the call to Abraham and the coming of Christ. Centuries!! Just think how many centuries it will take for us to delve into the mystery of God as shown in the coming of Christ.

And so, it's true, I wouldn't resist or resent the going. We believe, after all, in the resurrection of a body far more glorious than our present meager skins. But I no longer think of rushing it. We need not assume that where we are is where we are to be. We must be ready for the going, in whatever form that might take.

Abraham knew as much. He is our father in faith. For Abraham faith was not just believing, it was acting on that belief. It was leaving everything that made him who he was, his land, his family, and setting off for the place and the life to which God had called him. Dynamic faith can do that. Dynamic faith not only believes in God, it demonstrates it in our lives and actions.