Sometimes we need to be reminded that Faith Does Work!

I shared with you on Father's Day how my father impacted my own life. But I have also known he has impacted many others through his faith and strength. Now my trials an tribulations by no means match what my father went through with his illness. But one thing my parents/father taught me is that God has a plan and we need to live each day to its fullest. We experience a lot of craziness with the Navy and other factors in our lives, but in the end we can always see that God had/has his hand in it and we were always grateful we listened.

My mom just sent this reminder from a dear friend of my parents, Dr. David Fisher. He was the Senior Minister at Park Street Church for a few years and that is how my parents met him and his wonderful wife Gloria. He is now the pastor at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, NY. I thought I would share it with you all a sermon he preached on June 8th, since I know sometimes it is hard to stop and listen. But have Faith.

“Faith Works”
Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 9:9-13
Rev. Dr. David C. Fisher
June 8, 2008
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

I want to tell you a true story. I know it’s true because a man with whom I went to school
told me the story and he was there.

In the dark days of the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, Bishop Desmond Tutu
held a protest worship service in his cathedral in Cape Town. As the worshippers
gathered, armed policemen met them in the courtyard of the cathedral. The intent to
intimidate was obvious.

It didn’t work. The cathedral was packed when the service began. Shortly after worship
started, the policemen came into the service and lined the walls around the sanctuary.
Bishop Tutu interrupted the service. With that famous broad smile, he extended his
arms in a gesture of hospitality. He welcomed the policemen to the service and said, “I
invite you to come over to the winning side.”

Beyond his obvious courage, Bishop Tutu exhibited remarkable faith in light of every
appearance that day. The cause of freedom seemed small and overmatched by state
power and its violent oppression. Yet Tutu could see a moral vision utterly lacking in his
opponents.

Bishop Tutu’s faith bears witness to an ancient truth held fast by the people of God from
the beginning. Do not be fooled by appearances. Behind all human powers lies another
power. God is at work in the world. Therefore, do not put faith in the powers that be
whether kings, armies and governments, or human systems.

That ancient truth is articulated in many ways. The leaders of the American Civil Rights
Movement often said, “No lie can live forever, and no truth can forever be denied.” Dr.
King often quoted an old African-American philosopher, “The arm of God’s providence is
long, but it bends toward justice.”

The great Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Peace Prize back when
the Soviet Empire seemed invulnerable. Solzhenitsyn directed his acceptance speech to
the writers of the world. He suggested that the powers that be were frightened of words
because words bear truth, and truth unseats the powerful. “One little word,”
Solzhenitsyn said, “is more powerful than an Empire.”

The great women and men of the Bible and Christian history live by that divine wisdom.
People of faith live out of hope that God will prevail in spite of all appearances to the
contrary. That hope for the future informs the present and empowers the people of
God.

The story I told is true not only because it happened. It bears a deeper truth. Behind
such stories of faith is another story that makes our stories and the stories of the Bible
true. God’s story is woven in and out of the story of the Bible and the history of the
people of God. The stories of the Bible bear primal truth, God’s truth, which transforms
the lives of those who attend to them.

Our morning texts are two such stories. They are true stories, not just because they
happened, but because they bear another truth that points at our lives and offers to
rewrite the line of our lives.

Abraham and Sara were living ordinary lives – at least by Near Eastern standards.
Abraham was running his father’s business and becoming a success in Haran, a city in
present day Iraq.

But their story is preceded by an exceedingly sad story. It seems humans made a mess of
God’s good earth and their own lives. The narrator of Genesis sums it up simply, “the
earth was filled with violence.”

Abruptly and without warning, God changed the subject. God had an alternative plan for
humanity. God addressed the man Abraham. “Go to the land I will show you,” the Lord
said. The command was accompanied by an extravagant promise. “I will bless you and
your descendants,” said God. “I desire everything good for you. My shalom is yours.”
“But,” God went on, “my shalom, this promise, isn’t about you. Your mission is to bless
the rest of the nations of the world. I desire the entire creation to be covered with my
shalom. I want you to assist me in the repair of my broken world.”

“Now, go. I will be with you, and my power will accompany you.”

The remarkable feature of the story is Abraham and Sara’s response. Without argument,
without discussion or planning, they began packing their bags for the move south.
“Abraham believed God,” the narrator adds, and God counted that as righteousness.
Abraham understood the basic principle of the moral universe: God is the Lord, and
we’re not.

Early in the biblical narrative, Genesis 12, faith enters the story to transform it and its
characters. Abraham and Sara’s faith is simple and complex at the same time. They
entrusted themselves to God. Faith is always trust. They threw themselves and their
futures into the arms of God. They obeyed God. Faith is not faith without obedience.
God is the Lord, and we’re not. They lived in hope. They expected God’s shalom to
enrich their lives despite appearance to the contrary. They built a home in Canaan, the
Promised Land, and acted as if it was their land. No matter that the title deed belonged
to others.

Faith is always hope in God’s promised future. Hope, in turn, makes God’s future bend
back into the present where we experience bits and pieces of what will one day be
complete. Faith brings the future into the present giving us new eyes, new hearts, and
new lives – all by the power of God.

We know something about hope. A gardener plants a tomato seed in the hope that it
will germinate, sprout, grow, and one day produce delicious tomatoes. Any gardener
trusts that the power inherent in that seed, vine, and blossom will do its work and its
promise will be fulfilled. That hope motivates gardeners to cultivate, weed, feed, and
nurture the plant – in hope.

Before a child is born, we dream of what he or she will become. We organize our lives
around that hope. We devote ourselves and our resources to our dream. We know what
can be and what will be. We trust the life in that child to do what it will do.

The Gospel Lesson is remarkably like the story of Abraham and Sara. Matthew was living
an ordinary life. He was a successful businessman. He had a contract from the Roman
Government to collect taxes. Tax collectors could charge what that could get away with,
pay the contractual amount to the Romans, and keep the rest. They were usually wealthy
men.

Matthew, the tax collector, enters the story abruptly. Matthew, the gospel writer, gives
us none of the details we’d like. He isn’t at all interested in the psychological factors
that might have motivated Matthew. He isn’t interested in any prior relationship
between Jesus and Matthew.

We readers, however, do know the rest of the story. Jesus has been preaching about the
extravagant promise of God now in play in time and space. The ancient promise of God’s
shalom on earth has taken on a new flesh and blood power. Jesus is establishing God’s
reign – he called it the Kingdom of God – in the lives of all who believe him. He’s been
inviting any and all to follow him into God’s kingdom – a place where God reigns and
where God’s rule prevails. The extravagant promise was, in fact, the beginning of a new
creation here and now in the lives of women and men and children; the creation of a
new community governed by the norms and values of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus walked by Matthew’s office and said, “Come, follow me.” Matthew didn’t know what
he was getting into. He especially didn’t know how following Jesus would complicate his
life. It is, after all, quite inconvenient to live an ethical life organized around loving God
and one another.

What Matthew did know was that Jesus’ voice was the voice of the Lord. God was
summoning him to a new life. Immediately, Matthew threw himself into the arms of
God. He entrusted his life to Jesus and the Kingdom of God. He obeyed the summons to
follow Jesus into that Kingdom. He began to live in hope that God’s preferred future was
truer than any human vision of the present. He believed God.

The point of the story and all the stories of the Bible is simple: Faith works. In the Bible,
faith is never passive or idle. Faith stirs people up to love and to do good works. Faith
does something.

Faith is not a set of abstract ideas about God nor a system of belief. Faith is a verb. To
believe is to do something about the God who makes extravagant promises to folks like
us. Faith trusts; faith obeys; faith hopes.

Nothing could be more practical than faith. Faith leaves nothing in a life untouched.
Faith works.

Let me tell you another true story. This story is also true on more than one level. Dick
was a member of the search committee that brought me to Park Street Church in
Boston. Dick was an effective leader in the church and one of the great men I’ve
known.

Dick was bright. He had three degrees from M.I.T. Dick was successful. He was the
youngest Senior Vice President in the history of the Boston Company, an asset
management firm. More important, Dick was a good man. If I accomplished anything at
Park Street, Dick deserves much of the credit.

Dick was struck down with a non-malignant brain tumor in his 40’s. He had surgery,
recovered, and then the tumor returned. He discovered he had a condition that
produced non-malignant tumors all over his body. He had two more brain surgeries. The
third one cost him the use of his legs.

He never gave up, and he never stopped being who he was. I’ll never forget a vacation
to the Cayman Islands Gloria and I took with Dick and his wife. It was after the surgery
that disabled his legs. Dick wanted to go snorkeling so I carried him out into the water
on my back. He snorkeled for an hour or so and tired.

For some reason he decided he wanted to get out of the water using his walker. It was
more difficult than he or we imagined. Two of us got behind him and helped his legs
work. One of us kept him steady on the walker.

When he finally reached the shore and caught his breath, he said, “That was great.”

Once he asked me, “Do you know what makes me different from you?” I could think of
lots of ways but said, “No. What?” He replied. “For me, every day is a gift from God and I
live it like it could be my last.”

It took nearly 20 years for the disease to kill him. We lived in Minneapolis by then and
when it was clear he was close to death, I called him to say good-bye. His voice was weak,
and he didn’t waste it on small talk. He said, “We sure got a lot done – and we had lots of
fun.” I stumbled for words, and we said good bye.

Dick threw himself into the arms of God long ago. He lived out of hope that God’s
future would bend back into his own life. He decided to follow Jesus. That faith changed
everything. Faith shaped his life, and faith sustained him through many difficult days of
his life. Faith works.

Amen.

© David C. Fisher, 2008

PS: If you are ever in the Brooklyn, NY area on a Sunday, I highly recommend that you go visit the Fishers. I wish his sermons were podcasted. :-)