FAITH: What is it for? An Advent Meditation
Faith: What is it for?
Typically people view faith as something given or not, to be used or not, as one chooses. This is an individualist approach which tends to make faith and the practice of faith something optional, a kind of security blanket.
I propose this is narrow, wrong and a false view. It is not biblical.
Faith is not given us for ourselves, even for our own salvation because it will never work by itself, alone, in a vacuum. It must be practiced or lost. Secondly, it must cost something or is not worth anything. For too many, faith becomes a convenient sentiment, a fall back choice, usable for crunch times. That view is a child's faith in a super parent when some rescue is needed. Most of the time we feel we can get along without it.
Some investment must be made, as a faith is a gift that cannot be earned or deserved. Faith is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. But if you do not use it, it withers. It can wither to nothing, unto darkness.
Faith is given you for loving, for building community. If you are not stretching yourself in loving, your faith is not growing. If it is not being used, it is not growing, and it is dying, slipping away from non-use, decaying like food kept too long in the frig.
You are either finding Christ in your world, or denying Christ. That is the stark message of Jesus. There is no in-between. The in-between is already a not paying attention to the grace that has been offered. Not loving, not locating the Christ around you, is a resting in the twilight of self-concern, not the bright sunshine of God's love.
Either we are finding Christ in others or we are not paying attention, because the "least of my brothers" is everywhere. Either we are growing in love, or failing to grow in love. Today is the time to decide. Be careful, lest the light in you become darkness. Luke 11:35
The other side of this is that Love is not a quid pro quo, something for something like the rest of human existance. Love grows only by loving, by giving it away, by becoming vulnerable, by risking. Those who stop risking, who stop being vulnerable, also stop growing.
Youth is a matter of the heart. Cor loquitur cor. The Little Prince had some words about the importance of heart. Can we listen to our own hearts?
We create the world we live in by what we focus on and by how we behave. Shall it be loving, or (fill in the blank)?
Paschal Baute
First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2005.
Gospel: Matthew 25, v 36 ff.
Typically people view faith as something given or not, to be used or not, as one chooses. This is an individualist approach which tends to make faith and the practice of faith something optional, a kind of security blanket.
I propose this is narrow, wrong and a false view. It is not biblical.
Faith is not given us for ourselves, even for our own salvation because it will never work by itself, alone, in a vacuum. It must be practiced or lost. Secondly, it must cost something or is not worth anything. For too many, faith becomes a convenient sentiment, a fall back choice, usable for crunch times. That view is a child's faith in a super parent when some rescue is needed. Most of the time we feel we can get along without it.
Some investment must be made, as a faith is a gift that cannot be earned or deserved. Faith is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. But if you do not use it, it withers. It can wither to nothing, unto darkness.
Faith is given you for loving, for building community. If you are not stretching yourself in loving, your faith is not growing. If it is not being used, it is not growing, and it is dying, slipping away from non-use, decaying like food kept too long in the frig.
You are either finding Christ in your world, or denying Christ. That is the stark message of Jesus. There is no in-between. The in-between is already a not paying attention to the grace that has been offered. Not loving, not locating the Christ around you, is a resting in the twilight of self-concern, not the bright sunshine of God's love.
Either we are finding Christ in others or we are not paying attention, because the "least of my brothers" is everywhere. Either we are growing in love, or failing to grow in love. Today is the time to decide. Be careful, lest the light in you become darkness. Luke 11:35
The other side of this is that Love is not a quid pro quo, something for something like the rest of human existance. Love grows only by loving, by giving it away, by becoming vulnerable, by risking. Those who stop risking, who stop being vulnerable, also stop growing.
Youth is a matter of the heart. Cor loquitur cor. The Little Prince had some words about the importance of heart. Can we listen to our own hearts?
We create the world we live in by what we focus on and by how we behave. Shall it be loving, or (fill in the blank)?
Paschal Baute
First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2005.
Gospel: Matthew 25, v 36 ff.
posted by Paschal Baute at 7:01 AM
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