education

Faith is drying up. It no longer has any material that
it can transform. It has become unworldly and therefore
ineffectual. For many Christians it would not be a turning
point in their lives if they decided, one day, to stop praying
tomorrow, next Sunday to leave off going to church,
and at the next opportunity to stop the church paper.
Their lives would continue according to the very same
social rules, norms, styles of behavior, and models as
before. Nothing would change because their faith would
already, long before that, have become unworldly, inconsequential,
and ultimately futile. It was, in fact, not faith at all. Where faith is really faith
it cannot be shoved to the margins of life. Christian faith, just like Jewish faith,
subjects all of life to the promise and claim of God. Its nature is such that it
interpenetrates all aspects of the lives of believers and gives them a new form.
Of itself it demands that social relationships must change and that the
material of the world must be molded. Faith desires to incorporate
all things so that a 'new creation' can come to be.

(Gerhard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church? pp. 261 & 262)

Does faith make a difference in your life? Do you think different thoughts? Do you speak different words? Do you do different things? Are you a different person, because you are a person of faith, than you would be, if you were not a person of faith?

Most of us, I believe, would like to answer a resounding, "Yes!" to these questions. Yet, for many of us, when we listen to our hearts, we realize our response is much more qualified. Faith may make a difference in our lives, but perhaps not as much of a difference as we might like to believe or as God might have hoped.

The truth of Lohfink's words, that "faith is drying up," is to be found in the growing number of folks for whom being part of a community of faith is simply no longer a priority in their lives. For too many generations, we taught our children the obligation of "doing church" instead of the joy of "living faith." Now that the social pressure to be a good, White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant is gone, so are our children.

As we enter into this season of Lent, I would ask each of us to consider why we are here (or, if we have grown inactive, why we are not). The bible tells us that, among other things, a church is a community of faith, a group of people called by God for the purpose of demonstrating in their life together what life will be like in the Kingdom of God, when we love God with all that we are and love our neighbors as ourselves.

How can we be the church, if we do not worship together each week? How can we be the church, if we are not studying scripture and praying to God, together, faithfully? How can we be the church, if we have not made it a priority to serve one another and love our neighbors? How can we be the church, if we are not teaching the faith to our children?

My friends, God will not let the well of faith run dry. Nevertheless, we have to draw the water. If we can do nothing else for God, let us all commit (not because we are obligated, but because it is a privilege and a joy) to doing this much: pray, daily; worship, weekly; and, serve, joyfully, as the people of Faith United.