November 19, 2000

Pastor David G. Mullen

Matthew 6:25-33

Jesus wasn’t doing science, he was doing faith. He looked to the birds and the wildflowers, and in the awesome way things work together in creation, saw the presence of a caring Creator. Trusting in that loving Presence, whom he called, your Father in heaven, Jesus found no need to worry about anything. No matter what happened, everything would OK. Jesus wasn’t doing an ecological study or environmental impact statement. He wasn’t analyzing the structure of the world to see what went wrong, and where and why and how it might be tweaked here and there to make it better. No, Jesus wasn’t doing analysis, wasn’t doing science. Jesus was doing faith.

Because Jesus was doing faith, he asked the stunning question of his followers: Why do you have such little faith? There’s something in that question worth thinking about. When Jesus asks, He really means, Why do you have such little faith--in the loving, guiding presence in the world I call your heavenly Father? You see the situation is this: We actually have huge amounts of faith. We have faith in all kinds of things, place our trust in dreams and schemes and expectations, but the problem is that in daily life we actually have such little faith in the loving, guiding presence in the world Jesus called our heavenly Father.

Why do you have such little faith–in God? Even back in Jesus’ day, long before science or rationalism arose, people looked at the world and drew conclusions opposite his. Sure, they believed in God in the abstract, but in the face of famines, wars, diseases, disasters, and for most people, grinding poverty, it seemed reasonable to believe that this world was nothing but a venue for suffering and trouble. Today that fundamental belief remains the choice of millions. The creed of the world stands for "dog-eat-dog" eternal vigilance, believing in scarcity, threats and worry. True, in America at least, most people say they believe in God. But it tends to be up here in our heads while in our hearts, where what really runs our lives is found, we believe "God helps those who help themselves." And the emphasis is always on themselves. Sure, we’ve got faith--lots of faith. The problem is, our faith is not in God, but rather in ourselves, our powers, and negatively, in the conviction that this world is tough, you suffer, and then you get to die. No wonder life is so miserable for so many!

Can worry make you live longer? Jesus asks. I’ve had miserable seasons of worry in my life. I’m not proud of them, I just tell you that so you know that I don’t see myself as having everything together at all times. Some years back, when my two oldest kids were both in college, all too frequently I woke up at three or four in the morning, totally freaked out over how we were going to survive financially through those college years. Anxiety took over my life in those wee hours. In those moments I was living as though a caring, loving God did not exist.

Why do you have such little faith--in God? What kinds of things or situations get to you, kick in your negative faith, and get your anxiety running? Clearly my faith was a negative one, believing more in the relentless, unforgiving power of the economic system, and in my weak abilities, than in God.

Contrast my faithlessness to an amazing Lutheran pastor of the 17^th century. In preparing for this Thanksgiving Service, I once again ran across the story of Martin Rinkhart. Rinkhart’s ministry in Germany spanned the Thirty Years War in Europe, an epoch of horrors that included a great plague. At the height of the plague, Rinkhart was conducting 40 to 50 funerals a day, and he eventually buried so many people he hardly had a congregation left. His own wife died; his children became ill. Yet, Pastor Rinkhart found faith and courage sufficient to write the hymn that will send us on our way this morning, "Now Thank We All Our God, with hearts and minds and voices, in whom this world rejoices." The hymn offers no easy answers. It is rather a great expression of faith, an affirmation of exactly what Jesus is trying to get us to believe today: no matter what you believe the evidence is to contrary, there is a loving, guiding Presence in our world and in our lives.

Maybe we Americans are just plain spoiled. In our sub-conscious we know that dangers and death await us all, yet we’ve gotten so used to having a good life, and every convenience, and things going our way, that when real trouble hits us, we haven’t exercised enough real faith in God to know that God will see us through our crisis. Faith needs to be exercised over time, and often we don’t come to deeper faith in our Father in heaven until we’ve faced serious problems and discovered the loving, caring, guiding presence of the Heavenly Father. Rinkhart’s faith came to shine more brightly because of the trouble and darkness he lived through. Let us not give up on God, then, at the first sign of serious trouble. No, when crisis hits, that is the time we really have a chance to find our how real the caring, guiding presence of God is.

This past week a friend directed me to the Hubble Space Telescope Website because he said, there was a remarkable picture of the aftermath of two galaxies colliding. Look at the birds in the sky! Jesus said. Well guess what: in the picture the larger galaxy looks like a bird. A bird, not of the air, but of the Universe.

What got to me in the picture are the amazing results of the cosmic struggle: the exquisitely beautiful, bright blue-white star fields strung like a diamond necklace across the galaxy in the exact path where the smaller galaxy had passed through. I thought back to a seminary class when I heard a professor of systematic theology say, "When you come to understand what Christ is all about, the whole universe lights up like a neon sign." Like the galaxy that caused the new stars to shine, Christ’s collision course with our unbelieving, troubled world did the same thing: the bright star fields he left behind are his churches–are us.

Look at the birds in the sky! Why do you have such little faith–in God? Jesus is telling us that he knows his loving heavenly Father is taking care of all things. He staked his life on it on the Cross and rose from the dead on the dawn of Easter to show us that in the deepest possible way everything really and truly is OK. And we are here as testimony to his faith.

Therefore, when it comes to understanding God, Jesus tells us we’re not doing science. We’re doing the great experiment of faith in the merciful presence of the Creator. When struggle and suffering moves belief in God from here (head) to here (heart) the whole universe lights up like neon sign. And then we have thanksgiving. No, then we are thanksgiving! And no one can keep us from singing. Amen.