"Watch Your Language!" Reframing Our Faith Part 2: The Journey from Faith to Trust

Scriptures   Mark 9:14-29 ... Romans 8:37-40

Undoubtedly, many of us have heard this admonition at one time or another in our lives: “Have faith.” Have faith. No referent or direct object. Just simply: Have faith. Believe.

A late mentor of mine loved to tell the story of two clergy: one a pastoral counselor and spiritual director, the other a younger colleague and client seeking counseling and direction. The younger colleague wondered aloud one day, “I wish I had more faith.” The older cleric was intrigued. “Well: If you had more faith … just what would you do with it?”

What … indeed? What to attach more faith to? Better put: To whom should our faith be related? Better still – stepping down a bit deeper: In whom do we believe?

What to attach more faith to? This past Monday, all of us were invited to attach ourselves ultimately to the theme of the Presidential inauguration: “Faith in America’s Future.” That’s a good faith to attach ourselves to – certainly.

But try to strike up a relationship to a massive, sprawling entity like America – even the noblest ideas and ideals of America – and we naturally fall short of the better question: To whom should our faith be related?

Well God, of course. We in the church know it’s all about God. Everything we say and do in this hour of worship is all about God. The answer is always God. Is it not?

Children know it best of all. Like the child who was listening to a children’s message once, when the pastor asked, “What’s brown and furry and has a tail and eats nuts?” The child leaned over to his friend and whispered, “The answer must be Jesus – but it sounds like a squirrel to me!”

To whom should our faith be referenced? The answer is always Jesus. Or God. We relate our faith to God: To a “who” – much better than to a “what”.

And yet, better still – continuing our step-down approach to a deeper faith: Is God the one in whom we believe? Do we make our faith home in God? A God found not on those huge inauguration theme banners (“Faith in America’s Future”), but on the tiny print of so many a coin and bill that made that and most events happen. Shouldn’t we cast our anchor and make our home with those words in that tiny print, that more profound subtext of our lives: “In God We Trust”?

“Faith in America’s Future?” It’s good thing – and we couldn’t miss it last Monday. “In God We Trust?” Perhaps that’s the best possible thing of all. One such a grubby subtext of our daily lives, we can and often do easily miss it. For ours is not just a God we have general faith in, "out there". A God to whom we are comfortably related – in a Dutch uncle sort of way.

Better and deeper still: Ours is a God in whom we can trust.

Marcus Borg’s inspired this four-part Reframing the Faith series with his 2011 book: Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power – And How They Can Be Restored. In the chapter “Believing and Faith”, Borg writes that the meaning of believe today is very different than what it was before the 17^th century: “In English, prior to about 1600, the verb believe always had a person as its direct object, not a statement.” Not, “I believe that.” But, “I believe in.” From the Old English be loef – to be-love – to hold dear.

The preposition “in” is important here, Borg adds. “I believe in you” means having confidence in a person – trusting that person. In a spiritual context, “I believe in you, God” means more than just a derivative or drive-by type of faith: the "faith of our fathers” attitude. In a spiritual context, belief in God means a relational trust in God – for Christians, in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit as well. (1)

To believe in God: Not faith about, but trust in! It was the Apostle Paul’s favorite way of stating his belief: “in Christ.” For him, believing was not a Sunday spectator sport. It meant a “beloving”: a trusting, ongoing affair.

Which is why it’s our task to reframe, for a new generation, our “faith” – if we really want to call it that. For articles of faith do not cut it for the spiritually seeking. Our task, midst all the secular suffocation that surrounds us, is to build our faith and theirs into a trusting, beloving affair with God.

Sometimes, I believe we muddled Protestants confuse “In God We Trust” with “In Us God Trusts.” As if it’s up to God to build up trust with us! Au contraire, the Apostle Paul writes: God’s bonds of trust with us are quite inviolable!  “For I am convinced,” he writes, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Trust isn’t up to God to build on with us; it’s up to us to build into our trust with God. No wonder the father of the epileptic child cries out to Jesus in the Mark story today: “I believe; help my unbelief!” He’s talking not about “faith”, but a gradual building of trust.

In God We Trust: Trust here is an active, learning, build-into verb. Perhaps our money should read, “In God We Practice Trust” – daily, continually – to discover God has been here, all along. Going back to our step-down approach to faith: Relating to God daily, that we learn to trust in God in the process.

Paul knew – he really, really knew – the truth of the following powerful daily prayer I learned recently: “As I begin this day, I open to receive You. Please enter where You already abide.” Such is a daily spiritual practice not for us to have faith about God. Such is a daily spiritual practice to build ourselves into a trust in God. A living, breathing trust. Not an article of otherworldly faith.

“In God We Trust.” Four simple words. We have seen the active intimacy of the phrase “In God”, as well as our gradual building into the word “Trust.” But what about the "We"?

Most of us know that the Del Ray Club situated on our property draws nearly 200 Twelve Steppers daily, seven days a week. Recently, I am told, a broken-up and beaten-down, sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired alcoholic was spotted one day by a Del Ray oldtimer sitting on the curb outside the club, holding his head in his hands.

“I cannot do this,” the man sniffled. “I can get sober, but I cannot stay sober.” The oldtimer removed the man’s hands from his face. “You’re right – you’re absolutely right,” he said – to the man’s surprise. “You cannot stay sober.”

“But this I know: We can. Only we!”

“In God We Trust.” It’s our journey – and not God’s – from believing into be-loving … from faith into trust. It’s our journey – and not yours – and not mine – to take.

(1) HarperOne, 2011, pp. 118-119.