But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, a people claimed by God for his own, to proclaim the glorious deeds of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people at all; but now you are God’s people. Once you were outside his mercy; but now you are outside no longer. 1 Peter 2:9-10
Having faced a short Epiphany, and an early Lent this year we face the Lenten disciplines with Epiphany fresh in our minds. Ash Wednesday fell on February 14 and the celebration of Easter is not far ahead on March 31. Years like this find us pivoting almost immediately from the celebration of light and the revelation (the theophany) of God in Christ to the whole world, to the implications of our own shortcomings in the Lenten season. The preparations for the Easter feast are already underway in our homes and at our tables.
As a bishop, I am constantly seeking for ways to explain, cajole, preach, assure, win over or otherwise help folks understand the commitment of discipleship and its cost. Jesus regularly assured his followers that they needed to count the cost of following him – up to and including “taking up your cross”. What Jesus calls us to is listed again and again as an act of following him wherever it is he leads us. When Jesus saw a person with the faith or character required, his own apostolic call was “follow me”. When others came to him puzzled and wanting to know what to think about what he was saying and doing, Jesus said “come and see.”
I was raised in a tradition that valued belief above all else. So much so that it seemed less important to ask the questions about what was believed – so long as I could say “I believe”.
However, faith is a gift. This is a truth which many miss and fail to understand the implications. Many people who have been hammered upon by the drumbeat of “belief”end up exhausted trying to find a way to “believe” what the Church says or what the Bible teaches, but they get stumped. They can’t quite get their brains to “believe”. Faith and belief are used synonymously. The words are used interchangeably. But there is a subtle difference.
To believe something (in our rational world) usually means the intellectual assent to a series of points. God exists. God loves us. God sent his Son to live and die for us. To the average person who struggles with their own place in the world of doubts, disinformation, alternative truths and conspiracy theories, “believing” almost anything can be difficult. Without acceptable evidence, well trained minds cannot simply believe, and then wonder at what the older generations understood and accepted so easily.
It can be helpful to try and tease this out by asking what the opposite of believing is….and then the opposite of faith. Often I get different answers: the opposite of believing is not believing, while the stock answer for most is that the opposite of faith is doubt.
It’s important to note that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Doubt can be a good friend of faith, for doubt can keep faith from tipping over into certainty. Certainty requires no faith, it admits no doubt and carries on impervious to the grey areas of life. Certainty does not hope for anything, it will not bear with anything other than itself. Certainty knows itself before it acknowledges anything or anyone else. Certainty knows for it declares it so.
This makes certainty the opposite of faith. Faith includes lots of things, but it does not include certainty. The author of the book of Hebrews points out “Faith is the confidence in what we hope for. The assurance of things we do not see” (Hebrews 11.1) Faith includes confidence, and hope (for things unseen), but there is no certainty here. There is only faith. Faith is an assurance, but not one that is blind to all the other realities that face us.
This is a first step in the change from believer to a disciple. A disciple is an active agent, confident in the constant love of God and hoping for all the gifts and blessings promised by the Lord – but ready and hopeful even when they do not appear. For disciples in difficulty, patience is engaged, compassion is cultivated and the community of believers supports and upholds one another in the actions of being a disciple, walking a way that makes a difference in the lives around us.
Consider for a moment – when others look at us, and at our lives, people don’t ask us what we believe, for what we believe is made manifest in how we live. This is the very definition of being a disciple. Belief is an early step on the road to being a disciple and walking with Jesus in faith.
So here we are in Lent – the time where by fasting and almsgiving and prayer we are meant to prepare ourselves to be better disciples. This time is our extended and focused chance to cultivate our faith, compassion and love to deepen our walk with Jesus and to immerse ourselves in the Paschal mystery. In doing so we will find ourselves giving more of ourselves and loving more deeply – forgiving more readily and softening our hardened hearts. The world needs us to grasp this difference – our kindness, our love, or compassion, our action toward all those around us are founded in our walk as disciples.
It is time to move from being a believer to being a disciple – to walk the way with the Lord in a very real and tangible way. To walk with hope and confidence of what has been accomplished in Jesus life and death and what as been promised. Knowing that the One who promises is faithful beyond our capacity to ask or imagine.
Faith, belief and the cost of discipleship
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, a people claimed by God for his own, to proclaim the glorious deeds of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people at all; but now you are God’s people. Once you were outside his mercy; but now you are outside no longer. 1 Peter 2:9-10
Having faced a short Epiphany, and an early Lent this year we face the Lenten disciplines with Epiphany fresh in our minds. Ash Wednesday fell on February 14 and the celebration of Easter is not far ahead on March 31. Years like this find us pivoting almost immediately from the celebration of light and the revelation (the theophany) of God in Christ to the whole world, to the implications of our own shortcomings in the Lenten season. The preparations for the Easter feast are already underway in our homes and at our tables.
As a bishop, I am constantly seeking for ways to explain, cajole, preach, assure, win over or otherwise help folks understand the commitment of discipleship and its cost. Jesus regularly assured his followers that they needed to count the cost of following him – up to and including “taking up your cross”. What Jesus calls us to is listed again and again as an act of following him wherever it is he leads us. When Jesus saw a person with the faith or character required, his own apostolic call was “follow me”. When others came to him puzzled and wanting to know what to think about what he was saying and doing, Jesus said “come and see.”
I was raised in a tradition that valued belief above all else. So much so that it seemed less important to ask the questions about what was believed – so long as I could say “I believe”.
However, faith is a gift. This is a truth which many miss and fail to understand the implications. Many people who have been hammered upon by the drumbeat of “belief”end up exhausted trying to find a way to “believe” what the Church says or what the Bible teaches, but they get stumped. They can’t quite get their brains to “believe”. Faith and belief are used synonymously. The words are used interchangeably. But there is a subtle difference.
To believe something (in our rational world) usually means the intellectual assent to a series of points. God exists. God loves us. God sent his Son to live and die for us. To the average person who struggles with their own place in the world of doubts, disinformation, alternative truths and conspiracy theories, “believing” almost anything can be difficult. Without acceptable evidence, well trained minds cannot simply believe, and then wonder at what the older generations understood and accepted so easily.
It can be helpful to try and tease this out by asking what the opposite of believing is….and then the opposite of faith. Often I get different answers: the opposite of believing is not believing, while the stock answer for most is that the opposite of faith is doubt.
It’s important to note that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Doubt can be a good friend of faith, for doubt can keep faith from tipping over into certainty. Certainty requires no faith, it admits no doubt and carries on impervious to the grey areas of life. Certainty does not hope for anything, it will not bear with anything other than itself. Certainty knows itself before it acknowledges anything or anyone else. Certainty knows for it declares it so.
This makes certainty the opposite of faith. Faith includes lots of things, but it does not include certainty. The author of the book of Hebrews points out “Faith is the confidence in what we hope for. The assurance of things we do not see” (Hebrews 11.1) Faith includes confidence, and hope (for things unseen), but there is no certainty here. There is only faith. Faith is an assurance, but not one that is blind to all the other realities that face us.
This is a first step in the change from believer to a disciple. A disciple is an active agent, confident in the constant love of God and hoping for all the gifts and blessings promised by the Lord – but ready and hopeful even when they do not appear. For disciples in difficulty, patience is engaged, compassion is cultivated and the community of believers supports and upholds one another in the actions of being a disciple, walking a way that makes a difference in the lives around us.
Consider for a moment – when others look at us, and at our lives, people don’t ask us what we believe, for what we believe is made manifest in how we live. This is the very definition of being a disciple. Belief is an early step on the road to being a disciple and walking with Jesus in faith.
So here we are in Lent – the time where by fasting and almsgiving and prayer we are meant to prepare ourselves to be better disciples. This time is our extended and focused chance to cultivate our faith, compassion and love to deepen our walk with Jesus and to immerse ourselves in the Paschal mystery. In doing so we will find ourselves giving more of ourselves and loving more deeply – forgiving more readily and softening our hardened hearts. The world needs us to grasp this difference – our kindness, our love, or compassion, our action toward all those around us are founded in our walk as disciples.
It is time to move from being a believer to being a disciple – to walk the way with the Lord in a very real and tangible way. To walk with hope and confidence of what has been accomplished in Jesus life and death and what as been promised. Knowing that the One who promises is faithful beyond our capacity to ask or imagine.
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