Crunchy Faith

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 17, 2008
Second Sunday in Lent

Crunchy Faith
Genesis 12:1-4
Mark 8:31-33

The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon,
its rays reaching out over the land
to wake the livestock
and chase away the chill of the night air.
Abram was up early, as he always was.
He may have been 75,
but he was still a man of vigor and energy
even if from time to time his joints
could be heard complaining.

He had gone outside, just down the hill
to oversee the shearing of the sheep.
His flock was among the largest in the region,
and the shearing went on for days.
The workers were already corralling the animals,
and the din of the bleating swallowed Sarai’s voice
as she called from the top of the hill.

But then Abram heard it:
“There’s a call for you.”
He went back up the hill
to answer the call.
Sarai heard her husband’s clipped responses,
“Where is that?
Sounds like quite a journey.
Yes, of course we’ll go.
No, I don’t need to write it down;
I’ll remember.
No, I don’t have any questions.
I will do just as you ask.
I’ll get started right now.”

Abram turned to his wife and said,
“We’re moving.”
She was incredulous:
“Moving? Where?
Who were you talking to?
What did he want?
Why do we need to move?”

Abram looked into his wife’s eyes,
“I was speaking with the Lord God,
and he is calling us to move from here
to a land called Canaan.
We are to leave immediately.”

Sarai had heard of lots of different gods,
gods by the dozens.
It seemed that every worker they added to their staff
brought with him or her at least two or three new gods:
gods of the harvest, gods of the rain,
gods of wine, god of the night, gods of day.
But the Lord God: that was a new one for her.
“Canaan – where is that?” she asked.

Abram responded,
“A long way from here,
more than 600 miles to the south.”
Sarai was stunned,
“600 miles! Does this Lord God have any idea
what it would take for us to move all our possessions,
all our livestock,
everything 600 miles?
Why on earth does he want us to move there?”

Abram paused for a moment before he answered,
“I don’t know.
All I know is that we are going.
I know the journey will be very difficult
and will take us the better part of a year.
I don’t have any idea what we’ll find when we get there.
But the Lord God has told us to go,
and what he has asked of us
we will do.”

And Abram and Sarai did just that:
they left behind their own country,
and headed south to the strange land.
And after months of a difficult journey
they came to Canaan,
a land where they were aliens, strangers,
a land inhabited by people who looked different from them,
spoke different languages,
and worshiped different gods.
But there they settled,
as they Lord had commanded them.

But that wasn’t to be the end of it.
Abram stayed on the move for years,
first down to Egypt when famine plagued Canaan,
then back up to Canaan,
moving, always moving,
a massive enterprise for him and Sarai,
his joints protesting loudly with every move.

But Abram did as the Lord asked.
No questions,
no hesitation,
no second thoughts.
The Lord spoke, the Lord called,
and nothing distracted Abram from obeying.

Abraham’s story is one of profound faith.
Faith so strong that some 4,000 years later,
we still look to him as the very example
of what it means to have faith:
“Oh, to have the faith of Abraham!”

No one else seems to come close,
not even the men who followed Jesus as his disciples.
They were men who had faith, absolutely;
But they were also men who were easily distracted,
whose faith was strong one minute,
gone with the wind the next.

Peter, the strong, swarthy fisherman,
proved himself in the end
with the help, of course, of the Holy Spirit,
but while he walked with Jesus,
he often tried Jesus’ patience.
Our gospel lesson was not the only time
Jesus lost his temper with poor Peter.

Remember the story of Jesus’ transfiguration
from a couple of weeks ago,
when Peter was with Jesus on the mountain top?
He witnessed the glory of God through Jesus Christ,
and yet by the time he got back down the mountain
the lesson seemed to have been lost on him.
What about the time when the disciples
were crossing the Sea of Galilee
and Jesus came to them walking on the water?
Jesus encouraged Peter to come out of the boat.
Peter did have the faith
to take that step over the gunwale,
a step that perhaps none of the disciples
might have been willing even to try.
But barely a second on the water
and his faith evaporated and down he went,
prompting our Lord to respond,
“You of little faith,
why do you doubt?”

In our lesson, Jesus told his disciples that he must suffer,
be rejected, and die, before rising again.
Jesus knew his Father’s will and obeyed it.
Peter heard him and immediately rebuked Jesus,
causing Jesus to respond angrily to Peter’s criticism
with those words we know well:
“Get behind me Satan.”
Get behind me, because your weak faith
is getting in the way of God’s will.

We have to remember that the word “satan”
was a Hebrew word that meant
not someone or something that was evil,
but rather someone or something that got in the way,
that was an obstacle.
The second sentence helps us to understand
why Jesus saw Peter as an obstacle,
as someone who was getting in the way of God’s will:
“For you are setting your mind not on divine things,
but on human things.”

In the words we used last week,
Peter had lost his focus on the will of God
and was distracted,
distracted perhaps for what he thought was a good reason:
the very idea that Jesus might be killed
was one he didn’t even want to think about.
But still, he was distracted by his own will,
rather than God’s.

Now in this Lenten Season,
as you are going about the work of spiritual housecleaning,
is your faith more like that of Peter
or more like that of Abraham?
Most of us,
probably all of us,
would say that we are closer to Peter.

A healthy, vibrant, vital faith –
the faith of Abraham -
doesn’t just happen.
It takes work, hard work;
It requires constant attention.
God may plant the seed of faith in our hearts,
but it’s up to each of us to water it,
feed it,
nurture and nourish it.

Before I went to seminary, I worked for
the British magazine The Economist,
where I was the editor of management and finance publications
for the company’s research arm.
An Englishman named Nico Colchester was my boss.
He was a good man, and wonderful writer,
witty and wise.
In one of his editorials he had written
of the importance in life of keeping things “crunchy”:
“A crunchy [path] is not necessarily right,” he wrote,
“only more certain than a soggy one
to deliver the results it deserves.
Run your country, or your company, or your life as you think fit.
But whatever you decide, keep things crunchy.”

I’ve always thought that Nico’s lesson
can apply to our faith lives as well.
We need to work at keeping our faith crunchy;
otherwise it will become soggy.
Abraham kept his faith crunchy;
Peter, on the other hand,
struggled with sogginess,
and not just when he tried to walk on water!

What are some of the things that will help you
to have faith that is crunchy?
First, of course, is coming to worship each Sunday.
Worship is a central part of our faith lives.
But a word of caution:
just coming doesn’t assure you of crunchy faith.
You cannot just show up and take a seat.
You need to participate in worship:
Pray the prayer of preparation;
sing the hymns with enthusiasm,
pay attention to the words you are singing;
reflect on the words we are saying
as we pray together;
listen to the texts from the Bible;
take notes as you listen to the sermon;
put your offering in the plate with words
of thanksgiving to God.
And don’t just stop there:
Volunteer to help lead worship as a liturgist,
or take a bold step over the gunwale
and offer to do the Time with Children.

What else can you do?
Read the Bible.
Yes, read the Bible.
Don’t just wait till Sunday to hear it read.
Read it.
Do this on your own, or with family or friends.
Come to Bible Study --
we’ve got plenty of room in both groups.
If you want help in picking a Bible,
or as you read it, just ask!
But read the Bible!

A third thing to help you have crunchy faith:
Pray.
An active prayer life is one of the surest ways
of keeping your faith crunchy.
Or, put another way, the less you pray,
the more likely you are to find your faith soggy.
Prayer is conversation,
lifting up your concerns to God in your own voice.
Just as important, prayer is listening.
God hears all prayers:
and God answers all prayers,
but God does not always answer
your prayer on your time schedule
or in the way you hope he will.
God answers prayer in his time
and in his way.
If you are distracted by soggy faith,
you may well miss his answer.

These are three simple steps to crunchier faith,
three very appropriate things to work on during Lent,
and build on long after the last alleluias of Easter fade.

There are other things you should do too, of course:
In this Lenten season, work on forgiveness:
forgive as you have been forgiven.
Take out that junk drawer that holds grudges –
that drawer we talked about last week –
and dump out the contents and sweep them away.

Love:
work on love,
love NOT on your terms,
but love that is giving, stretching,
moving you from comfort.
Remember, Jesus is not impressed
when we love those we like.
We are called to reach out in love and reconciliation
even to our enemies.
Jesus never said this would be easy.

We are already at the Second Sunday in Lent.
Did you begin your spiritual housecleaning this past week?
Did you begin working on your deep spiritual introspection?
Did you begin working on ways that will help you
see where your faith is soggy?
Or were you distracted by other things this past week?

Use this week to put away distractions.
Focus, looking to Abraham as your model.
Get out your brooms
and use this Lenten season to clean house.
Get to work now,
and by Easter,
which is not that far away,
you could find yourself at a whole new level of faith --
faith that is wonderfully crunchy.
AMEN