Sermon: Walking by faith

Hebrews 11:1-,3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40

If you visit a certain National Trust property not too far from here which is known for its extensive grounds that are ideal for long walks, you may discover, as I did, that whoever did the signage expects everyone to walk in an anticlockwise direction. Not intending to be perverse, I walked clockwise and although I saw several signs with arrows on over the course of about six miles, none of them told me which way to go. Instead they all pointed back the way I had come, thus confirming to me that I had come from the right direction but leaving me to make my own decisions about where to go next at junctions. It was a fascinating exercise to discover that there was not a single sign for clockwise walkers!

I found myself recalling experience when I looked at today's reading from Hebrews. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out not knowing where he was going." He only found out as he went along that he was going the right way. Otherwise there would have been no faith involved, just the spiritual equivalent of the willingness to follow directional arrows. That's easier, but it's not an act of faith. Moses experienced something similar when he was complaining to God about the command to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let Moses lead the people out of slavery in Egypt. Moses wanted assurance and God said "This is the sign that I have sent you - when you have brought the people out of Egypt you'll worship me here on this mountain." In other words, "You'll know I've been with you when you get back here." I can imagine Moses saying, "Thanks, God, that's a lot of help right now."

The whole biblical story tells us that God has made us for more than following directional arrows. That's partly why the bible paints such a messy picture: it tells stories of humans trying to be faithful, not stories of robots doing what they are programmed to do. In the play "A Man for All Seasons" Thomas More says, "God made the angels to show him splendour, as he made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But man he made to serve him wittily, in the tangle of his mind." We are called to intelligent, thinking, faithful, witty discipleship not to robotic compliance.

And it is not always easy. It was by faith that our ancestors received God's approval, faith that involved active response. In Abraham's case it meant he had to leave a settled way of life in a city and become a nomad, exchanging a house for a tent simply because he believed that God had called him. Assurance came later in various ways, not least in the fact that as an elderly couple he and Sarah became parents. So we are told that by faith he received the power of procreation, since he was too old: despite a lifetime of disappointment the elderly couple had to act in faith that they had been given the power to have a child. Faith means acting on what we believe, getting on with it and watching things unfold.

And the author of Hebrews goes on to say that at times people died in faith without having received the promises, only seeing and greeting them from a distance. We walk by faith, not by sight. So faith means we don't read the last page of the book first in order to find out how things turn out - which is what I did as a child whenever I got frightened while reading Alice in Wonderland and needed reassurance Alice would survive her various encounters!  But while we can't read the book of our own lives beyond the chapter we have got to, we can set what has gone before in our lives in the context of the overarching story told in the bible, a story which gives us the confidence to live by faith that God's kingdom is indeed coming on earth as it is in heaven.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. It is not mind over matter or blind faith, and it is not, to quote the White Queen, believing six impossible things before breakfast. Neither does living by faith involve sitting around waiting for a vision from heaven or an audible voice giving step by step instructions. Although I don't discount the possibility of either, the history of the Christian church suggests that such miraculous experiences are rare and need to be subjected to wise discernment. And the few people who do have visions still have to get on with the daily business being faithful in the midst of ordinary life; they can't live their life depending on one extraordinary past event. No, our ability to live as people of faith is an active, informed and loyal response to the bigger story of God's ways with the world and it is nurtured by the ability to see the signs of God's activity as we go through life - going back to my earlier example, it is cultivated by the ability to recognise the directional arrows confirming that we have been and are now on the right path, that God is guiding us and not letting us go astray.

I remember when, as a teenager considering which universities to apply to and what career to consider, I was very worried that I would miss the right path - I think I had an idea that there was but one right way for me to go which existed somewhere as a blueprint for me to follow and I had to work hard to find out what it was. Eventually I tumbled to the fact that God was even more interested in helping me not to make a mess of things than I was, and that in any case there was not a blueprint marked "a plan for Rosalind's life" buried somewhere like hidden treasure that only I was looking for. Instead I discovered that God worked with me as I used my common sense and took advice, and that God would work through circumstances as they unfolded. It was liberating. Years later, when considering whether to remain in my chosen career in this country or move to the US to test my vocation in a Benedictine community, I realised that there were two equally good options and whichever path I chose was OK with God; it was up to me. And the final choice was made through a conversation when dancing with a friend at a church party: not something my teenage angst over how to be faithful would ever have allowed for!

The same principle applies whether we are facing a specific decision, as I was, or if we are facing life in general or long term difficult circumstances in which we need faith to trust in God and keep going - ill health, family problems, long term unemployment or bereavement. The tenacity to live as people of faith in those circumstances can take as much faith as it takes to make and commit to a one off decision. It is what an American pastor, Eugene Peterson, has described as a long obedience in the same direction. Abraham had to decide to leave the city where he lived and become a nomad, but he also had to decide to keep going when it was tough. Sometimes living with faith is as unglamorous as doing whatever is the next thing that is in front of us, just keeping on keeping on with our path through life, making the best decisions we can when decisions are called for, and noticing the arrows pointing backwards that reassure us that this we have come on the right path after all. That is why older people often have such remarkable faith in God despite hardships: they have more history to draw on to remind them that they have proved God's faithfulness to them in the past.

We have been given minds and we have been given examples through other people of ways to serve God faithfully. There is immense spiritual benefit in cultivating an awareness of God's presence and power in the midst of daily life; it will give us the resources we need to serve God wittily when our minds are in a tangle. That is why we need regular times of worship and conversation with other Christians, our fellow travellers, and why solo discipleship can be so much harder to sustain than discipleship in the company of other travellers who may know the route or spot the way-markers better than we can on our own.

It's August when the pace of life often changes slightly even if we are not on holiday, so can I suggest that this is a good month to give some time to building up our spiritual resources for when we need them in order to be people who live with faith. In the language of the gospel reading, it is a time for making sure we are dressed for action with our lamps lit, waiting for the call that indicates it is time to act. That preparation might mean reading a helpful Christian book, refreshing your memory of times when you have known God's faithfulness in the past, setting aside some time each day for reading the bible prayerfully - perhaps beginning with some of the stories in the gospels or Acts, or of people like Abraham and Moses which you'll find in Genesis and Exodus. Or it might be through enrolling for one of the diocesan theology courses that start in the autumn, booking yourself in for the Benedictine weekend, having coffee with some Christian friends simply to talk about God and to encourage one another. Or, taking the cue from the gospel, it might mean getting rid of any possessions that clutter our lives and stand in the way of our discipleship, so that we have resources to give to people in need. Any or all of those things, or many others, will help you to spot the signs that you are on course with God and will build up your faith in God so that you too have the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

We all have to start somewhere; even Abraham, the man held up to us as a model of faith, had to set out afresh each morning and he walked - as far as signage went - in a clockwise direction. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out. We are called to nothing less.