Readings
Isaiah 35:1-10
Psalm 146:4-9
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Do you believe or do you have faith?
Not long ago such a question would have left me confused and perhaps it leaves you in a similar state. In our post-modern context we all but use these words interchangeably. To believe is to have faith. To have faith one must believe in something. That is the logic we often assume when talking about faith and belief.
Today’s Gospel passage is about faith and belief as well. John the Baptist is sitting in Herod’s prison not long before his execution and he hears about what Jesus is doing. He sends some of his followers to ask if Jesus is the one “who is to come” or if they should wait for another. In other words, John has certain beliefs about what God is going to do and who God is going to send, and he is asking Jesus whether or not he is the one John believes in. Jesus sounds and looks like the one coming, but John isn’t sure.
Jesus responds to John’s question of belief by responding with a litany of things that are occurring. Rather than simply saying, “yes, I am the one,” Jesus invites John into a deeper place; a place that moves beyond belief to faith. He is inviting John into mystery rather than certainty; he is inviting John into a larger vision than John’s beliefs may have contained.
Jesus then challenges the crowd with a similar call to faith. He challenges them in terms of their expectations. He asks them what they came to see when they came out into the wilderness and dismantles those expectations and, possibly, their disappointments.
He calls John a prophet; a word rich with meaning that was more about social justice than foreseeing the future; a word that was more about embodying God’s steadfast love and faithfulness than it was about rewards for the righteous and punishment for the wicked. He quotes the prophet Isaiah to invite the people to recognize that there was more to John than their beliefs contained. He emphasizes his point by saying that “among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.” But then comes yet again a statement of mystery, a statement that draws us into a deeper level with God than simple belief. He says that the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John.
Today’s Gospel lesson, through Jesus’ interaction with John and then the crowd, invites us to not only rethink what we believe, but to move from belief to the deeper journey of faith.
You see belief is about what we are willing to accept. It is about what makes sense to us based on how we think and what we have experienced. Belief, more often than not, can change radically as we move through our lives. How many of us deeply believed in Santa Claus at one time only to lose that belief as we matured? But many of us perpetuate that belief for our children and grandchildren. Why is that? Because, I would argue, we have moved beyond belief to faith. We have moved from limited certainty to the deeper experience of truth. The spirit of Santa Claus is far more profound than the literal existence of a fat man in a red suit. Santa Claus exists in the love and generosity of the season; he exists in the vision and the hope that we embody for one another. It is that spirit that continues to move our hearts and inspire us to replicate it in the lives of others.
The same is true for us in terms of our relationship to God. Every Sunday we affirm a number of beliefs. They are not bad in and of themselves. In fact, in the development of our spiritual lives they are an important first step towards the sacred realities that underpin all of existence. But as we mature, we find that our beliefs must change in order for them to remain relevant and we find that we must become open to the deeper reality that lies underneath and beyond those beliefs. That journey beneath and beyond is the journey of faith.
No, the journey of faith is the movement from certainty to mystery. It is the mature recognition that reality is far more complex and perplexing than our imaginations can contain. It is a willingness to recognize that our beliefs are limited and finite expressions of how we make sense of reality and will necessarily change if we remain honest in the face of the deeper experiences of our lives. It is the embrace of a reality that lies below and beyond anything we can imagine or even comprehend.
The philosopher Alan Watts sums it up well when he says:
We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “lief” or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.
Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity (New York: Vintage Books, 1951, 1968), 24.
The season of Advent is a perfect time to reflect upon both that which we believe and that which we do not. In this time of waiting and watching it is the perfect opportunity to embrace the journey of faith. If we are willing to consciously embrace it, the quiet of Advent affords us the chance to move beyond what we believe about God to having an experience of God that is marked by God’s love both for us and for others. It is a journey that let’s God’s love flow through us to everyone and everything. It is nothing less than being open to transformation and transcendence.
Jesus called John the Baptist beyond his belief in a messiah into a deeper journey of faith regarding who is to come. Likewise, Jesus called the crowds beyond their belief in John the Baptist into a deeper journey of faith he called the kingdom of God. This Advent Jesus is also calling us beyond our beliefs to embrace the deeper mystery that lies beneath and beyond what we presume to know. May we in the quiet of this season engage the process that will move us beyond a nativity to the living presence of God in our lives today.