Faith beyond the "a-ha!"

It happens to all of us. Sooner or later, we will learn or discover something that changes everything, but it is still too big for us to comprehend. We have an “a-ha!” moment but “a-ha!”  turns out to be some combination of awe, wonder, confusion, and incomprehension all at once. In last weeks Gospel, we heard Peter “get it” but he didn’t “get it” all at once. It will take time for all the pieces to come together.

Well, Peter isn’t alone. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I “get it” but “don’t get it” all at once. It happens to all of us.

We heard in last week’s Gospel how Peter was able to confess and say out loud that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Peter is “the rock.” He got it. And yet Peter does not understand.

In today’s Gospel we hear that Peter could not bear the idea that Jesus would be arrested and then die at the hands of the very people he is here to save. As soon as Jesus proclaims Peter as the Rock on whom the all of the gathered saints will rest and, Jesus tells Peter that his thinking is backwards; that he is the tool of the devil. Why?

For one thing, Peter came from a world that expected the Messiah to be something quite different than what we’ve heard through a few millenia of Sunday School, sermons, and Christmas Contatas. The conventional wisdom was that the Messiah would be a political leader sent by God to liberate the Jewish people from their occupied and dispersed state. Instead, Jesus shows that the Messiah liberates people from their separation from God, each other, and creation. That’s a big mental and spiritual leap: to move from the idea that Jesus was a prophet to being the Messiah is one thing, but to re-imagine what the Messiah does is something else.

I think the same thing happens for us. We think we understand something because we’ve had the light-bulb go off, only to find that we are immediately thrust into a new set of questions. The “a-ha” answers a bunch of questions and solves a whole host of problems. And also shows off the world in a new, and sometimes troubling light.

Allow me to share three stories.

C.S. Lewis thought he understood pain. He wrote and lectured about the problem of pain. In his book of the same name, he talked about pain in two ways: in terms of the consequences of people’s choices and also about how God allows pain to help us grow. Living through two world wars seemed to verify his point of view—that pain comes from either human choice or from divine purpose. Then the unexpected happened: this Oxford don and lifelong bachelor, fell in love with Joy Davidman, a Jewish-American divorcee who had converted to Christianity partly due to Lewis’ writing. They met in 1953 and in 1956 she became ill with cancer. They were married in 1957 and she died in 1960. This is when Lewis learned about two other truths about pain: that we are drawn to our choices, like love, because we are always looking for something more; that sometimes pain happens; and, finally, that not just religion but all of life is an act of faith. He wrote about all this in his little book A Grief Observed under an assumed name, which ironically was gifted to him several times over by friends concerned about his own complicated mourning.

Henri Nouwen was a spiritual director, a priest, and a scholar. He thought he knew about the mystery of life in Christ, about how suffering can put us in touch with the cross and peer into the resurrection. He decided to put aside the trappings of success to live alongside adult mentally retarded persons in a community called The Arch. His experience of living with people whom society cast aside and who would never succeed, be wealthy or famous, showed him the fullness of life and of love.

Frances Perkins was raised a New England Congregationalist and became an Episcopalian as an adult. She witnessed the devastating Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire that killed 125 workers, mainly women and children, and in response studied Social Work at Columbia University and would become the first woman to in the Cabinet as U.S. Secretary of Labor during the Roosevelt administration. She led the development of Social Security and Unemployment Insurance and worked out labor and management relations during the war years. During her time in government, she took regular retreat and spiritual direction at an Episcopal monastery and lectured on scripture, theology, and Christian social responsibility in her parish in Manhattan. Perkins experienced God’s grace through Sacramental living in all creation. For her, to live in a loving relationship with God was to participate in the work of grace for all people, especially to working people and the poor.

Paul’s letter to the Romans presents a picture of the Church that is grounded in Christ Jesus. Much more than doctrinal uniformity, Christian community is shown when people change and call out of each other their very best selves. But this change just doesn’t fall off of trees.

Over and over again we hear stories of people who are firm in their faith—who have an “a-ha!” and get it. They are converted from one kind of life to a new life in Christ. And then something else happens, something they cannot avoid, and they are converted again.

This is one thing we learn from Peter. When we follow Jesus Christ, we will be changed. And we will be changed again and again.

Many Christians think that change must happen all at once, and then is locked down. Once and done! Often we fear that our faith will be in vain if we are anything less that 100% certain about everything. But this keeps many people from fully engaging God in Christ, because their need for this kind of certainty keeps them from experiencing the kinds of change the Spirit brings. The thing is that life in Christ does not require us to know all the answers. Faith is trust. Faith is knowing in a different way, over and over again.

The Gospels give us a picture of Peter as the icon of a Christian in motion. And he is so like us! He could not bear to hear that Jesus would suffer and die. In his heart he knew that Messiahs aren’t supposed to do that. But the more he followed Jesus, the more he ‘d learn that for God to transform and make whole creation and heal the rift between us and God, that God would break the rules over and over again.

Peter will discover that faith is fundamentally hopeful. Starting with his confession of faith, the rebuke he heard from Jesus, and moving through transfiguration, arrest, crucifixion, resurrection, the Gentile mission and on and on, would learn again and again that the light bulb, the aha!, is never the end, but is always a new beginning.  He will discover that faith always looks forward.

That kind of faith gave him—and gives us! — the capacity to absorb everything new God taught him. Faith gives us the capacity to move from certainty to openness to change this is how God builds a church that engages and transforms the world.

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Bulletin for Worship for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, September 3, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, September 3, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on September 3, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on September 3, 2023.