Keep faith
and keep the Faith.
This
morning’s scripture speak of faith in two aspects, the quality by which one believes in God through
Jesus and that which is believed by
Christians.
As believers
we respond to God subjectively and in different situations but we also hold to
the faith of the church through the ages expressed in the creed and church
catechism.
Faith has a
subjective and an objective aspect, an individual and collective side, all of
which is illustrated by our readings with the Old Testament and Gospel readings
going for the subjective, the epistle for the objective aspect.
Habakkuk
affirms that the righteous live by their
faith (2.4) and Our Lord in Luke 17, following
a
warning to beware of stumbling blocks to faith, gives a shocking response to
the apostles’ demand:
Increase our
faith! saying if you had
faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry
tree, “Be
uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you. A little
faith in a great God goes a
long way. Jesus goes straight on, though, to warn
against overconfident believing paralleling the
obedience of faith. We
believers are worthless slaves… doing
only what we ought to have done (Luke 17.10).
Keep faith – he’s saying – but keep it humbly.
Keep the faith
– is the invitation of the second reading which again has a latent warning
against individuals setting themselves above themselves as believers. The passage has a strong affirmation from
Paul of personal faith I know the one in
whom I have put my trust but it goes on to affirm the vitality of holding
to the consensus of Christian
believing handed down from the apostles. Hold
to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and
love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you,
with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. 2 Timothy 1.14
At the end of 2 Timothy Paul summarises this as Keeping the Faith. These later New Testament writings s call the
Pastoral Epistles show the Church adapting after the death of the apostles to a
succession of faith guardians from which our bishops descend. When I became
your parish priest I became so before you and the Bishop with a declaration of
assent to apostolic faith in these words professing
the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the
catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in
each generation.
Over my 39 years as a priest I have faithfully endeavoured to hand on the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy
Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds over almost two generations
and at considerable cost. It’s meant challenging thinking: that Sunday
obligation’s unbiblical, baptism’s a form of baby blessing, hell’s questionable,
marriage’s renegotiable, ordination’s leadership, male and female are
interchangeable, the devil’s a myth - and I’ll stop there!
Keep the Faith I say to myself
and to others. If you don’t keep to it, Christian faith in its fullness, the whole counsel of God as Paul puts it
elsewhere, the catholic or whole faith, if you don’t keep to it, you’ll end up not keeping faith. The Jesus you see
will diminish from the contours or dimensions of apostolic faith. The way you see God will be the way you see him, not as he has actually
revealed himself and handed down through the apostles and their successors,
witnessed by the creed, the sacraments, the commandments and the Lord’s Prayer.
Guard the good treasure entrusted to you,
with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
Keep faith
and keep the Faith.
I remind you to
rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands. Paul writes to
Timothy in today’s lesson; for God
did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love
and of self-discipline.
Without God’s grace, without the Holy Spirit’s
anointing, without knowing our Bibles, welcoming Holy Communion, praying,
confessing our sins, we will be unable to live in that obedience which
Christian faith is.
To live forgiving all who hurt us and thinking of others
more than ourselves, to live with both enthusiasm for the Gospel and sympathy
for the many in our acquaintance who’re far from Christ – all of this we flag
at without the Holy Spirit whose life within us, given at baptism, needs rekindling
again and again!
We need the Holy Spirit to keep faith, and we need him
to keep us abreast of the Faith, to grasp again and again the rich wonder and
cohesion of Christian faith and draw us back from settling for
Christianity-Lite! Of course we can’t
make the best the enemy of the good, and the Lord gives us the most brilliant
example here, affirming marriage as unbreakable and yet protecting an
adulterous woman, applauding utter integrity and yet absolving a thief.
Keeping the faith is something for you and I. Judging unbelief is a matter for God. As Chesterton said, looking through history, with various
upsets and persecutions, Christianity has appeared to be going to the dogs
seven times over its history - each time the dog has died! Currently our heels
are being snapped at by arrogant secularism, behaving as if all the immense knowledge
we now have coexists with any more wisdom than past generations. Then there is resurgent
Islam at our heels with its naïve and wrathful simplification of Christianity.
The
lectionary today recalls faith in two aspects, the quality by which one believes in God through Jesus and that which is believed by Christians.
How well do you know your faith?
Confirmation classes might be a long time back, the world has moved on
from there, even if Christianity remains with the unalterable newness of Jesus!
Might it help you to pursue a fuller grasp of Faith than a sermon can give, attend
the midweek Life and Faith group, or find
a good book on Christian basics to help you field the questions people put to
you rather than keeping your head down when religion’s an issue. The Church
library may help, or having a talk with one of the clergy.
Religion
will always be an issue, God-given yet man-handled! 20 centuries of Christianity
carry wisdom but that wisdom is ours to seek and you don’t get it any more here
in Britain by osmosis. Indeed without actively seeking to increase your
apprehension of Christian Faith there’s so much that’s counter it around that
the default is more and more renegotiation if not surrender to its plausible
yet deceptive alternatives.
Faith in the
Christian perspective is as Paul defines it in Romans 5:11 is exultant trust in God through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Our Lord, who in the words of the second reading has abolished death and brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel.
Keep faith – keep the Faith – and may the Holy Spirit
anoint you this
morning through the eucharist so that
you gain fresh resolve to seek
the Lord and get yourself more
abreast of the faith of the Church which
is the good treasure entrusted to you..(by) the Holy Spirit living in us.
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