4 Pentecost proper 6 June
17, 2018
Ezekiel 17:22-24 Psalm 92:1-4, 11-14
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17 Mark 4:26-34
St. Paul wrote: "We walk by faith and not by sight." And in walking by faith he believed that he perceived life in a superhuman way. He saw things that other people could not see. Was St. Paul like one of those proverbial blind ninja warriors? You know the ones who can beat everyone in martial arts and sword fighting even when they are blind because they have perfected the art of seeing from within.
No, I don't think that St. Paul was like a blind ninja warrior. I think what St. Paul implied was this: "We walk by faith and not by physical sight alone." St. Paul believed that this inner disposition of faith gave him another way of seeing.
We use the word "faith" so often that we don't stop to think about what it means. Faith can be the disposition of trust in God. It can be a synonym for belief. Faith can be the general reference to a particular community of belief, like the Episcopal Faith, the Catholic Faith, the Christian Faith, the Jewish Faith.
I have come to appreciate a fuller meaning of faith by returning to the classical meaning of the Greek word for faith. In the New Testament Greek, the Greek word, "pistos" is used for faith or belief. New Testament Greek was the "low standard" Greek left over in the world as a result of Alexander the Great conquering the world and bringing Greek to commerce, politics and learning throughout the world. The Hebrew Scriptures was translated into Greek as an outcome of the pervasiveness of the Greek language. People in various locales had their own native language but for business and government, a very low standard of Greek was used. The New Testament was written in this koine Greek even as Latin in the Roman Empire was vying to become a new lingua franca.
In the classical Greek of Aristotle and Plato the Greek word "pistos" was important for the discipline of rhetoric. Public Speaking was important for the ancient Greeks; they studied and developed the art of public speaking and they had hired speech writers called rhetoricians. The goal of rhetoric according to Aristotle was "pistos" or persuasion. Why did one make a speech? To persuade. Rhetoric was the study of how to persuade through the use of language. Why does one want to persuade? One wants to convert another person to one's proposed values. Pistos or persuasion is important in life. Every salesperson wants to be good at "pistos" or persuasion. Every politician wants to be good at "pistos" or persuasion.
This notion of persuasion adds a greater fullness to how faith or belief is presented by St. Paul and by Jesus in his parables. What is faith? Faith is that internal constitution of one's life expressing what one is persuaded about? And what is one persuaded about? One is persuaded about one's highest values, the ones which draw our interest, our devotion and our allegiance. One's life is all about being persuaded by our values.
St. Paul had a great event when his values changed significantly. He was a Pharisee well-versed in his religion and yet he used his religion as a justification for persecuting the followers of Jesus. In Paul's famous conversion, he was confronted in a vision of Christ and he had a change of heart; he had a conversion. He became persuaded about the value of Jesus Christ in his life. And because of this new persuasion, he saw things completely different. If St. Paul walked only by sight what would he see? In his world, Jesus was not King; the Caesar was. In his world, the "main" religions were the religion of the synagogue and the Roman Mystery religions with their gods and goddesses and their temples. In his world, people were devoted to the Caesar as a god and son of a god. The Caesars had propaganda about their being saviors and peacemakers through military might. If St. Paul walked only by sight, he would see small house churches of diverse people beginning to gather because they too had this inward conversion experience to Jesus Christ as the new value in their lives.
St. Paul did not live to see these little house churches take over the Roman Empire and move into the basilicas; but he was so convinced about the profoundness of Jesus Christ that he saw things differently.
This seeing by faith is also found in the parables of Jesus. What did Jesus see with eyes in his time? Caesar was the king of the world and the Roman Empire was the main kingdom visible everywhere. But Jesus taught his disciple to walk by faith and not by the sight of the obvious. He taught using parables to teach a different kind of seeing from the heart. He taught about being able to see or perceive the kingdom of God.
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was so obvious that it was easy to miss. Coming to faith is like the harvest of life. One is in the cycle of life to achieve the harvest of coming to faith to be able to see the obvious presence of God everywhere even when it looks like the kings of the world are prancing as those who presume to be in control. People with faith know that God will outlive all kings and us. People of faith know that we have inherited a Plentitude of life which we did not make or create.
Jesus said the kingdom of God was like the small mustard seed, tiniest of seeds and yet suddenly it takes over and one can suddenly discover a yellow meadow of paradise, one variety which became large shrub trees. Jesus valorized the individual deeds of faith, love and kindness because when they are collected they become impressive character. When the small deeds of love and kindness are really seen, then one realizes that they are the hidden scaffold which preserve and sustain the world even while the television and the media tells us it is the kings, politician and the publicly famous who sustain the world. Mustard seed thinking works in our personal lives and in the world at large. We only attain character by the repetition of deeds of faith, love and justice. People may dream for things to be better and when the reward is not easily seen or instant, they give up in disappointment and discouragement. People give up on churches and parishes because they stop seeing their own small deeds of faith as valuable to build the character of the whole.
St. Paul and Jesus invite us not to live by sight alone; they invite us to this interior seeing, the seeing of faith, because we have been converted and persuaded by the surpassing love and greatness of Jesus Christ. Today, you and I are invited to this seeing with eyes of faith and we can have this kind of seeing because we have been converted by surpassing love of God in Christ. Amen.
Ezekiel 17:22-24 Psalm 92:1-4, 11-14
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17 Mark 4:26-34
St. Paul wrote: "We walk by faith and not by sight." And in walking by faith he believed that he perceived life in a superhuman way. He saw things that other people could not see. Was St. Paul like one of those proverbial blind ninja warriors? You know the ones who can beat everyone in martial arts and sword fighting even when they are blind because they have perfected the art of seeing from within.
No, I don't think that St. Paul was like a blind ninja warrior. I think what St. Paul implied was this: "We walk by faith and not by physical sight alone." St. Paul believed that this inner disposition of faith gave him another way of seeing.
We use the word "faith" so often that we don't stop to think about what it means. Faith can be the disposition of trust in God. It can be a synonym for belief. Faith can be the general reference to a particular community of belief, like the Episcopal Faith, the Catholic Faith, the Christian Faith, the Jewish Faith.
I have come to appreciate a fuller meaning of faith by returning to the classical meaning of the Greek word for faith. In the New Testament Greek, the Greek word, "pistos" is used for faith or belief. New Testament Greek was the "low standard" Greek left over in the world as a result of Alexander the Great conquering the world and bringing Greek to commerce, politics and learning throughout the world. The Hebrew Scriptures was translated into Greek as an outcome of the pervasiveness of the Greek language. People in various locales had their own native language but for business and government, a very low standard of Greek was used. The New Testament was written in this koine Greek even as Latin in the Roman Empire was vying to become a new lingua franca.
In the classical Greek of Aristotle and Plato the Greek word "pistos" was important for the discipline of rhetoric. Public Speaking was important for the ancient Greeks; they studied and developed the art of public speaking and they had hired speech writers called rhetoricians. The goal of rhetoric according to Aristotle was "pistos" or persuasion. Why did one make a speech? To persuade. Rhetoric was the study of how to persuade through the use of language. Why does one want to persuade? One wants to convert another person to one's proposed values. Pistos or persuasion is important in life. Every salesperson wants to be good at "pistos" or persuasion. Every politician wants to be good at "pistos" or persuasion.
This notion of persuasion adds a greater fullness to how faith or belief is presented by St. Paul and by Jesus in his parables. What is faith? Faith is that internal constitution of one's life expressing what one is persuaded about? And what is one persuaded about? One is persuaded about one's highest values, the ones which draw our interest, our devotion and our allegiance. One's life is all about being persuaded by our values.
St. Paul had a great event when his values changed significantly. He was a Pharisee well-versed in his religion and yet he used his religion as a justification for persecuting the followers of Jesus. In Paul's famous conversion, he was confronted in a vision of Christ and he had a change of heart; he had a conversion. He became persuaded about the value of Jesus Christ in his life. And because of this new persuasion, he saw things completely different. If St. Paul walked only by sight what would he see? In his world, Jesus was not King; the Caesar was. In his world, the "main" religions were the religion of the synagogue and the Roman Mystery religions with their gods and goddesses and their temples. In his world, people were devoted to the Caesar as a god and son of a god. The Caesars had propaganda about their being saviors and peacemakers through military might. If St. Paul walked only by sight, he would see small house churches of diverse people beginning to gather because they too had this inward conversion experience to Jesus Christ as the new value in their lives.
St. Paul did not live to see these little house churches take over the Roman Empire and move into the basilicas; but he was so convinced about the profoundness of Jesus Christ that he saw things differently.
This seeing by faith is also found in the parables of Jesus. What did Jesus see with eyes in his time? Caesar was the king of the world and the Roman Empire was the main kingdom visible everywhere. But Jesus taught his disciple to walk by faith and not by the sight of the obvious. He taught using parables to teach a different kind of seeing from the heart. He taught about being able to see or perceive the kingdom of God.
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was so obvious that it was easy to miss. Coming to faith is like the harvest of life. One is in the cycle of life to achieve the harvest of coming to faith to be able to see the obvious presence of God everywhere even when it looks like the kings of the world are prancing as those who presume to be in control. People with faith know that God will outlive all kings and us. People of faith know that we have inherited a Plentitude of life which we did not make or create.
Jesus said the kingdom of God was like the small mustard seed, tiniest of seeds and yet suddenly it takes over and one can suddenly discover a yellow meadow of paradise, one variety which became large shrub trees. Jesus valorized the individual deeds of faith, love and kindness because when they are collected they become impressive character. When the small deeds of love and kindness are really seen, then one realizes that they are the hidden scaffold which preserve and sustain the world even while the television and the media tells us it is the kings, politician and the publicly famous who sustain the world. Mustard seed thinking works in our personal lives and in the world at large. We only attain character by the repetition of deeds of faith, love and justice. People may dream for things to be better and when the reward is not easily seen or instant, they give up in disappointment and discouragement. People give up on churches and parishes because they stop seeing their own small deeds of faith as valuable to build the character of the whole.
St. Paul and Jesus invite us not to live by sight alone; they invite us to this interior seeing, the seeing of faith, because we have been converted and persuaded by the surpassing love and greatness of Jesus Christ. Today, you and I are invited to this seeing with eyes of faith and we can have this kind of seeing because we have been converted by surpassing love of God in Christ. Amen.
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