Office Hours
8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday-Friday
Phone: (608) 838-3586
Fax: (608) 838-6685
E-mail: secretary@hope-in-action.org
to have your information updated or added!

THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Getting Faith

John 10:22-30

Some years ago, a one-line letter came to Walter Wangerin, well known Lutheran preacher, writer, and storyteller.

            “Dear Walt,” it said.  “How can I get faith?  Karen.”

            And this is a question that is on all of our minds, in one way or another.  How can we get faith?

            Does prayer give us faith?  Prayer nurtures faith.  It strengthens faith.  But faith itself, even the tiniest bit of faith is necessary for prayer.  For if we do not even have the tiniest bit of faith in God, how can we address God in prayer?

            Does following the commandments give us faith?  The 10 Commandments of Moses.  The Great Commandments of Jesus – Love the Lord your God with your whole heart and mind and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.  But as good as these laws are for the faithful, they can be a yoke, a burden on those who do not have faith.  Without faith, they can seem to be impossible demands.  Acting in love is an expression of faith and a product of it.

            Does simple devotion give us faith?  Read your Bible.  Go to church.  Those things are helpful, even essential, for in reading the Bible and in going to church we hear the story of Jesus.  We must know that story in order to believe.  We must know the one in whom we believe before we can believe.  But knowing who Jesus is is not enough for faith.  Knowing Christ is not yet believing in him.

            How do we get faith?  None of these is enough.  Faith is not something we earn or manufacture on our own.  It is not by right performance or personal study that we climb the mountain to a God who sits above us and waits.  For even those of us who know the story of Jesus without believing in him, know that he is God come down to earth for us. 

The question remains: How do we get faith?

            This is also a question of today’s gospel.  Jesus is in the temple, during the festival of the Dedication, a minor festival which celebrates the cleansing of the temple after its defilement by the Roman ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes.  Some come to Jesus and ask him, “How long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly!”  It’s not that they are disrespectful, or even just dense.  Jesus hasn’t been speaking plainly.

            Jesus says, “The thief steals over the fence.  The gatekeeper will not let him in.  The gatekeeper opens only for the good shepherd.”

            “Okay, but are you the Messiah?”

            “I am the gate.  All who have come before me are thieves and bandits.  I am the gate who lets the sheep in.  Whoever enters by me will be saved.”

            “No more of these pictures, Jesus.  We want you to tell us in plain language.  Are you the Messiah?”

            “I am the good shepherd.  The hired hand looks out for himself and runs at the first sign of trouble.  The good shepherd looks out for the sheep and lays down his life for them.  I am the good shepherd.”

            “Jesus, quit stringing us along.  If you are the Messiah, say it right out – yes or no!”

            So finally Jesus says, “I have told you, but you do not believe.  If you want something more concrete, look at my works.  But it still won’t know make sense because you don’t believe.”

            Hearing the words of Jesus is not enough.  Seeing the works of Jesus is not enough.  Even knowing who Jesus is, is not enough.  For even if Jesus said, “Yes, I am the Messiah,” that would not be enough.  They still would not believe.  It would not bring faith.

            So, if all this is not enough to get faith, what gets in the way?  Is it our insistence on proof?  Is it our need for certitude?  Is it our desire for control?  Any of those things might keep us from faith.  For faith comes, not from listening to our own voice, but listening to the voice of the Shepherd, from trusting that he is the Good Shepherd, and from following him.  It comes not from our knowing him, but from him knowing us.  It grows out of a relationship in which we acknowledge that he is the greater power and that he can be trusted.  It comes from our letting go.

            How do we get faith?  This is a question that is on our minds in one form or another.  So, what does Walter Wangerin say?  How does he respond to Karen?  He tells her a story:

            When he was in the second grade, he tells her, he roared all over the neighborhood, confident of his father’s strength and protection, even boasting, as young boys often do, that their father is stronger than the other kid’s father.

            In his neighborhood, in his back yard, in fact, there stood a cherry tree.  Ten feet up from the ground, a stout branch forked northward.  Wangerin said that was his special place, his personal place, his private place where he would go to be alone, to dream, to read, to bathe himself, he said, in the higher air of self-importance.

            But one summer’s day, while he was perched in that tree reading, a thunderstorm rose up quickly.  Before he knew it, the book was gone from his hands and he was clinging to the branch for dear life. 

            As the rain poured down and the thunder cracked, he cried out to his father, “Dad!  Dad!”  He saw his father appear at the back door.  “Hurry!” he cried, knowing he was now safe.  But his father did not climb the tree as he expected.  He made no effort to carry him down.  Rather, he stood directly beneath him, raised his arms and called above the thunder, “Jump.” 

            “Jump?” young Wally thought.  Those strong arms he had boasted about all around the neighborhood now looked not like mighty trunks, but thin sticks, mere twigs.  Certainly they would not be strong enough to catch him and hold him in his fall.  And what if they broke?  What if they let him fall to the ground.  Then what?  Would he die?  Forget jumping!  And he clung to the tree even more tightly.

            But as strong as the tree branch was, the east wind was stronger that day.  It shook the tree, rattled it and ripped it.  And the branch to which he clung split beneath him.

            He did not jump.  In sheer panic, he let go.  In utter helplessness, he fell, not in confidence of his father’s strong arms, but in fear of the hard ground.  He let go, not in the strength of his faith, but in his weakness.

            Yet, despite his disbelief, his father did catch him.  Then he knew the strength of his father.  He was still weak, but now he was strong in his father’s arms, strong enough to cry, strong enough to laugh, strong enough to hug, to let himself be carried in.  And that’s how they went into the house.

            His father was just as strong as he had always been.  So, what had happened?  “I had fallen to land on the truth and truth was a living being,” Wangerin said.  What had happened?  Faith had happened.

             In his explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, Martin Luther writes, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.  But the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and kept me in true faith.”

            Faith is not something we do, something we accomplish, or even something we get, but something that happens to us.  It happens not because of our will, but often against our will.   It happens when we can no longer cling to our own security, our own confidence, our own self-importance. It happens when we come to the end of our own resources and the only thing left for us is to let go.  And we land in the waiting arms of love.

            The love of God is all around us.  Faith happens when we fall upon that love and know who it is who caught us.  It is the Messiah.  It is the Good Shepherd.  It is Jesus.  And no one will snatch us out of his hand!