Acting on what you cannot see

Verse one of chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament makes an essential Christian statement: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the statement makes it even clearer: “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.”

Those words address the great dilemma of human kind. From today, even if we think we have all the facts, we cannot see tomorrow with clarity. Christian faith offers an alternative. We trust things not seen to deliver tomorrows with hope.

To fulfill my need for laughter these past few weeks, I have not turned to the comic section of my daily paper or to the editorial page where pundits explain to us common folk what is going on in the world. I turn to the financial pages and take note of the gyrations of the stock markets. That is really funny. I probably should take the markets more seriously since my retirement annuity is heavily invested in the stock markets, but I do not.

Along my educational journey, I was taught that all humor is based on the discrepancies of life. The humorist looks at the enormous gap between what is and what people perceive ought to be and invites us to laugh heartedly. If we do not laugh, we become angry, then we become depressed and finally we despair. After watching the ups and downs of the stock market, I conclude that being a stockbroker is the most absurd profession yet invented by human kind. Our society pays them big money to invest our wealth for the tomorrows. The stockbroker apparently believes he/she knows what is coming tomorrow. Some of the really smart investment counselors are now saying, “Put your money in gold!”

That is the point at which I laugh until my sides ache.

I think of myself as being a devout Christian. If I am serious about my commitment to Jesus, then I must put myself to the test. Do I trust the Rabbi from Nazareth to lead me to a life that will satisfy heart and soul, knowing full well that my life will never be understood by the power brokers of the world? In my memory bank I have stored the stories that Jesus told to illustrate his faith understandings. He told the story of the rich man who kept building bigger barns in which to store his growing bounty of grain. If he were telling the story today, he probably would have described an investor who was obsessed with increasing his portfolio. In the story Jesus described the wealthy man in one word — fool.

Greed is a deadly obsession. Its betrayal is all encompassing. No matter how much wealth is accumulated, it is never enough to satisfy our hopes for our tomorrows. A truly satisfying tomorrow can never be assured. It is my understanding of Jesus that he advocated trusting those things unseen rather than those things that we can see.

Paul wrote about half of the New Testament. I do not always agree with what Paul wrote, but at times he described the essence of Christian truth with precision. At the end of Chapter 13 of First Corinthians he named the three great pillars of Christian faith. Faith, hope and love. All three are dynamics that come out of the realm of the unseen. In Paul’s understanding our hopes for tomorrow are attained by faith in the power of love. The greatest of the unseen powers is love.

No Christian should need to be reminded of Jesus’ hierarchy of loves. They should be written indelibly on heart and mind. His first command is to love God. The second is to love neighbor. Then he added that we should love one another. The fourth is a crusher. We are to love our enemies.

The critical question that no Christian can avoid is this. Do we trust love’s ability to deliver the tomorrows for which we hope? The Jesus who sits on my shoulder and whispers in my ear, insists that it is the only way.

The 2012 Olympics will soon be upon us. Competition in London will be more intense than ever. The Olympics are symbolic of the economic and cultural competitions with which the world has become obsessed.

Competition is becoming the atmosphere of the 21st century. The reality that people do not want to face is that competitions destroy more tomorrows than it creates. There is very little space at the top of the awards stand. Only one national anthem is played. The tomorrows that are created by competition sit on shaky ground. I fear that competition among religions will mimic the competitions among athletes, economies, and cultures. Unfortunately most Christian traditions are committed to competition. The temptation to pursue the strategy of competition with other religions may be overwhelming.

Are the fruits of competition the tomorrow for which Christians should hope?

Early Christians were sometimes called followers of “the way.” American Christianity is in a state of upheaval. People are attempting to rediscover the way. I believe the level of creative thinking among American Christians has never been better. Old ways are freely challenged. Diversity of opinion abounds. There is considerable conversation about a new kind of Christianity.

My hope and plea is that a new generation of Christian leaders will eschew competition and embrace the way of faith in a love that produces tomorrows with hope for us all.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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