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"The Faith Journey"
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews, the 11th chapter and 1st verse.

What would you do if I were to tell you that I think the Christian Gospel is sheer fantasy? Would you change the channel you’re watching? Hit the mute button? Well, hear me out: I do believe the Gospel is fantasy, but I also believe it is true. That is, I think the Gospel is without a doubt beyond our experience, extraordinary, not of this world, and in all these ways, fantastical. But it’s for that very reason, quite frankly, that I believe it.

To put it another way, I believe the Bible not because it tells me of things I have seen and know for myself but precisely because it describes a reality that stretches beyond the confines of my finite, mortal existence and therefore has the capacity to redeem me, and you, and this life and world we share.

Near the beginning of his lengthy Christmas poem, “For the Time Being,” W. H. Auden makes the following confession: “Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.” And there it is: when you are on the brink of death, from illness or failure or disappointment or heartbreak or calamity or oppression or depression or whatever, when you are on the brink of death you are keenly aware that you are insufficient, that this world and reality is temporary, and that you stand in desperate need of the miraculous, of salvation, because that which is merely possible cannot save.

And that is what the Gospel offers, an impossible possibility, a reality that transcends the everyday real, a Truth deeper than all else we have been told is true.

Now some, I know, would call this an escape, a flight from reality and the specter of death. And make no mistake: this is the great risk of the Christian life. For the truth the Gospel proclaims is not some mere fact that we can prove; rather, it is a claim, a confession, even a gamble, that there is a Reality and Truth that lives just behind and beyond our everyday experience.

And what a gamble it is! I mean, think about it: week in and week out, in churches all across this country and world, preachers declare not only that there is a God who has created and still sustains the vast cosmos, but that this God not only knows that you exist, but actually cares, cares deeply and passionately about you and your hopes and dreams, successes and failures, cares enough to send God’s only Son into the world to die that you might have life.

This is precisely the gamble that the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is talking about when he says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” I mean, let’s face it, there isn’t much evidence for a loving, self-sacrificing God. Just read the newspaper or watch the evening news. Almost everywhere we look it seems that we humans delight in violence and destruction while failing so spectacularly and regularly at loving each other. How, then, can we imagine a God of love behind it all? To put it most bluntly: in the face of the evening news, it would seem that the good news of the Gospel is just a little too good to be true.

Or maybe, just maybe it’s so good it must be true. That was the opinion, anyway, of J.R.R. Tolkien, the Cambridge English professor, devout Christian, and author of The Lord of the Rings. In an essay written half a century ago, Tolkien argued that the Gospel story is the perfect fantasy because it tells the deeply true and ultimately joyful story of humanity—fallen and redeemed—in all of its horror, poignancy, and glory.

And believing this story takes faith. From this point of view, of course, faith isn’t an unshakeable certainty or unassailable knowledge, and it certainly isn’t the opposite of doubt. Instead, biblical faith is living with doubt and uncertainty and yet still believing this other story that tells us of a God who loves this world so passionately that God will stop at nothing until this world and all of us who live here are gathered together in that love. This kind of faith requires equal measures of imagination and courage, the imagination to see a reality beyond the evening news and our everyday experience and the courage to live life as if it were true.

Faith then, Biblical faith, is less like certain knowledge and more like an invitation to an adventure, an adventure described throughout the pages of Scripture and which, at almost any single point, is simultaneously too good to be true and so good it must be true. From Genesis’ claim that God created the whole Earth and placed humanity at the center of it all to care for it and each other, to Revelation’s promise that in time God will wipe every tear from our eyes and create a new heaven and earth to dwell with us in peace. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is chock full of one unbelievable promise after another. And at the center of it all stands the fantastic, foolish, even unthinkable confession that in Jesus, God almighty took on our lot and our life, dying the death of an outcast, so that we might have life and have it abundantly in this world and the next.

And the really amazing thing about the Biblical witness is that it not only tells us the stories of the people of faith who have gone before us, but it actually invites us into that same fantastic story. The Bible, you see, starts at the very beginning in Genesis and ends at the very end in Revelation, and you and I live—right now!—somewhere between the Acts of the Apostles and Revelation. That’s right, at this very moment you are being called to take up your part in this story, to struggle to believe in a world of doubts, to love in a world of hate, to make peace in a world of violence, to offer hope in a world of despair. And whether you succeed or fail, I promise you that you may still take heart, for the God who created the world out of nothing and raised Jesus Christ from the dead will not give up on you, has not given up on you, and will work through you for the health of this world.

Faith, according to Hebrews, is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Or, to quote St. Augustine, “Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” Welcome to the adventure.

 

Conversation with David Lose

Lydia Talbot: David, a masterful statement on faith, and as a former English teacher I appreciated your wonderful references to Auden and Tolkien. You come from a long line of Lutheran pastors. Your father is a pastor, your mother had a number of pastors on her side of the family. Can you define a particular moment in your own faith journey when you took the leap of faith?

David Lose: That’s a great question. I think that happens at a lot of times. It happens in times of struggle when you begin to wonder whether God is there, whether God cares. And then you begin to wonder whether you’re allowed to wonder that. And it happens at times of opportunity, too, when you sense that God is calling you to something beyond yourself. So I don’t know if there is any one dramatic time, but there are certainly many points where the liveliness or activeness of faith has just been pulsing, has just been so apparent that this life of faith we have isn’t static but is this ongoing adventure.

Daniel Pawlus: I wanted to pick up on that because that’s one of the things I like that you said. Faith really is an adventure that we are invited into, isn’t it? And what inspired you to invite others on this journey with you? Because it’s not about answers necessarily, it’s about questions and allowing ourselves that process.

Lose: Yeah. I think a lot of folks think that having faith is to have no doubts, no uncertainty at all, when I think it’s precisely the opposite. That is, living faithfully is struggling to believe even with a lack of evidence. And I get excited about allowing people to be more realistic about the world and about the challenges that face them. And then to be more realistic about the hope that pulls them on, too.

Talbot: The Chicago philosopher, Mortimer Adler, once wrote a book called, “How to Think About God.” He described himself as a believer in the God of philosophy and the tension between the two: the God of philosophy and the God of religion. He said he had one foot over the edge of the chasm between the two. What do you say to people who have one foot over the edge?

Lose: I would tell folks in my congregation, particularly that were struggling, that I would count myself as 51% a person of faith and 49% agnostic. Not atheist, because I often find atheists to be more sure that God doesn’t exist than I’m sure God does! But agnostic, a certain admitting that you can’t tell for sure. You can’t prove it. And when folks imagine faith to be that lively, that it isn’t about knowing everything, I think they find it more inviting, because it connects with their own experience of struggling to believe, not just sitting back comfortably knowing all the time.

Pawlus: And there is a risk inherent in that, that you talked about. A kind of a gamble to make that choice to go along with that, isn’t it? Which can be very exciting to someone who is maybe in the position that Lydia is talking about.

Lose: Yeah. Absolutely. Being a person of faith is staking your life on the claims in Scripture that there is more to ths world than readily meets the eye. And it is to take a risk, to take a wage, but that’s what makes it so much more exciting.

Talbot: Now, who has been—of course your parents, wonderful role models for you—along the line in your pilgrimage, who have been others who have informed you most about your faith style?

Lose: Yes. Clearly my parents and teachers and significant friends. But I count the whole cloud of witnesses that the author of the Letter to the Hebrews talks about a little later in the same chapter. That whole cloud of witnesses as those who inspire us in our faith. Particularly, when I think about how many characters in the Bible struggle and fail and doubt. From the prophets and those who wrote the Psalms, to the disciples, and even Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, or crying out in despair on the cross. All of these people struggled. And one of the stories that regularly inspires me is the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, because to me that’s what the life of faith is more like. Not just knowing for sure, but wrestling and struggling and refusing to give up and crying out at the night, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” Or the man who runs up to Jesus and Mark and says, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” Those characters are so real. I think it helps us to be real about the challenges and the opportunities of the life of faith.

Talbot: You’ve used the word “struggle” a number of times in our visit. Have you faced any particular personal struggle in your life and your faith has been shaken?

Lose: Oh, I think all of us have if we’re going to be honest about it. Certainly the loss of friends or a family member. In my case, a brother-in-law when my nephews were very young. At all of those times you ask very naturally and understandably, how could God let this happen? Or is there a God? Or, if there’s a God, does this God care? And I think those times of honest probing are exactly what faith is about.

Talbot: And that’s what reminds us that faith and hope are inseparable companions.

Lose: Absolutely.

Pawlus: I’m curious to ask you as a teacher at the seminary, what are your experiences with your students in terms of living the Bible today, taking this risk? What are some of the questions they’re asking you as they’re going to go out and minister to people?

Lose: Yeah. It makes ministering itself far more exciting.

Pawlus: I would think. Yeah.

Lose: Absolutely. At times I’ll tell my students, I think there are two understandings of Christian faith. Both of them share a sense that this world is a tumultuous place, full of dangers and opportunities and troubles. One understanding of the Christian faith is that when we come to faith, all the tremors should stop and everything should fall into place. The other thinks that Christian faith allows you to keep your footing in the midst of the tremors. That’s what ministry is about: to invite students into imagining that they don’t have to have all the answers, but really are called to help people keep their footing, to proclaim a word that inspires them again.

Talbot: To keep their footing. That would imply being sustained by faith.

Lose: Yes. And when you think about, it makes sense of why we go to church. I think there are lots of reasons to go to church. It might be part of your cultural heritage. It might be you want your children to have values. You might be looking for community. But for me, I go to church out of a sense of desperation, that it’s hard to believe for more than about seven days in a row! You know, you hear this word on Sunday about a God of love and mercy and forgiveness and your faith is kindled. Then you go out into the world and by Friday—some weeks, by Monday!—you really begin to wonder, could this possibly be true? Then you come back to church to hear it again because it’s hard to believe for more than a week or so.

Pawlus: I totally agree. Going to church on Sunday helps me plug back in and remind me of what’s most important in my week. It’s hard for me to imagine not going on a regular basis. But there are some people that feel they don’t need to go.

Lose: Yeah.

Pawlus: How do you feel about that? Everyone has their own spiritual practice but...

Lose: Yeah. I think it’s hard to find the same kind of hope and inspiration in community other than in church. Sometimes I’ll share an example of some parishioners of mine from a number of years ago, who said that on a Sunday when they couldn’t get to church—when something came up, one of the kids was sick or there was a crisis in the home—they’d do this quick, two minute inventory of the week they just had and the week to come and then try and figure out quickly who needed church more. I just love that image and love the idea of pastors and congregational leaders thinking about crafting worship and preaching so that people would feel like it was a necessity, it was bread for the journey and they didn’t want to miss it.

Talbot: And you’ve used the word community several times, as well. The community of faith. There is no other replacement for that, is there?

Lose: To share your struggles, to share your successes, to look together for opportunities, but to be joined to a body of believers.

Talbot: Now, you have two young children, David, you and your wife, in Minneapolis. Tell us about Sunday school and how you talk with your children about faith. In 30 seconds!

Lose: Well, I think Sunday school and church for children is where they begin to learn the story and they begin to know that the story really doesn’t end, that the Bible isn’t this book that tells us about people way back there, but it tells a story that’s ongoing and unfolding. They begin to know those characters like they know their extended family. So as they grow up, my hope and prayer is that they see themselves as a part of that family and called into that same adventure of faith.

Pawlus: Our invitation to live the Bible today and everyday. Thank you, David.

Lose: Thank you very much.    

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