Faith is a Verb

Rev. Carol S. Haag
The Unitarian Church in Summit
Oct. 4, 1998

A year-and-a-half ago, I promised to preach a sermon with this title. Life intervened and the sermon never occurred. A couple of weeks ago as I contemplated the topic for my fall sermon here with you, with my mind fully engaged in matters of departing ministers, the children's program startup, building considerations, and loss of office staff, I realized that beneath all the busy-ness, behind all the diversions, there was an underlying religious question that was nagging at me. It was the question of faith -- what is it exactly? How do we get it, or know when we have it? And how do we live out our faith?

Now I can assure you this sermon was not written a year-and-a-half ago. I don't write sermons easily and certainly do not write them until I am sure they are to be delivered. So, while the topic is the same, I may have grown and changed a little since then, and what you are about to hear is a reflection of current thoughts, grounded in my present reality.

Faith is located in my dictionary somewhere between "fair-weather -- failing in times of distress or need" and "fake -- fraud, counterfeit, practicing deception." Strange surroundings for a concept as important and sustaining as faith. Faith is defined as "1. unquestioning belief, 2. unquestioning belief in God, religion, etc., 3. a religion or a system of religious beliefs, as the Catholic faith, and 4. anything believed." It is not until the fifth and sixth definitions that one finds "complete trust, confidence, or reliance, as children having faith in their parents" and "loyalty, allegiance to some person or thing." Conversely, belief is defined in terms of faith: "conviction that certain things are true; faith, especially religious faith."

It is my intention this morning to attempt to tease apart these issues of faith and belief. In so doing, I will explore aspects of faith that seem to fall into three categories: mind, emotion and spirit. You are cordially invited into this process with me today. It would be in line with our Principle of "encouragement to spiritual growth" if some people continued to explore their faith journeys in small groups during the coming year. There are some wonderful resources to help with this process and it is an exciting aspect of participation in a liberal religious community.

Newcomers frequent my office, in person or by telephone, inquiring about this faith of ours, Unitarian Universalism. They come to explore, to request information about our religious education program for their children, to plan a marriage ceremony. One of the first statements is often, "Well, I believe in God, of course, but ...," then the personal story of religious quest begins to unfold. There are those whose past religious affiliation no longer serves to nourish their spirit and those without an organized religious tradition who are feeling an inchoate void in a materialistic culture and seeking to find meaning and spiritual wholeness. In both cases they are seeking a faith that will help to make meaning out of existence, a faith to sustain them through the good times and the bad.

So what is faith? Faith is often seen as a statement of belief, what the mind tells us is true. An article in the Trenton Times by George Will reported astronomical events in the universe that impact the Earth. "More than 150 terrestrial impact craters have been located on the Earth's surface, one 50,000 years old and a kilometer wide near Winslow, Ariz. Every hour the Earth, orbiting the sun at 66,500 mph, gains a ton of weight from micrometeorite dust. Fist-size meteors hit about once every two hours. Once or twice a week there are 'near hits' like the house-sized object that passed within 65,000 miles in 1994."

My mind tells me this is true; I have no reason to believe that it is not. Yet my personal experience does not confirm it as true. I cannot feel the meteorite dust; I have never seen or felt a fist-size meteor. How can they all fall in areas of wilderness with a planet as densely populated as ours? I believe this to be true, but I go outdoors without a hard hat; we do not board up our windows to prevent them from being shattered by cosmic rocks. I have a similar reaction to the incidence of earthquakes in California. I know absolutely that they occur, that they are damaging, that a devastating one could occur within my lifetime and demolish huge areas of the West Coast. Yet I go to California and enjoy its charms. If faith were belief solely, then it would dictate that I live in a cocoon and never emerge, even for food or sex. Now the dictionary did define faith as "unquestioning belief," and in the examples I have just given there are questions: Is the science accurate? What is the probability of one of these events occurring exactly where I happen to be? Nevertheless there are precious few things I believe that are not open to intellectual question. As human understanding grows, we have myriad examples of truths that have been challenged, disproved, and modified over time. It is one of the staple affirmations of our Unitarian Universalist faith that revelation of truth is continuous, not given once and for all at a specified time in the past. It is one of our Unitarian Universalist truisms that we do not accept anything on faith alone, but apply our reason to make sense out of life.

So I question whether faith for me can be unquestioning belief.

Many scholars and theologians have spent lifetimes trying to discover the nature and evolution of faith development. James Fowler is well known for describing six stages of faith encompassing normal human faith development beginning in infancy and extending to the rare stage reserved for saints and bodhisattvas. Children's faith development begins with their concrete experiences in a family, basing their beliefs upon what parents and significant others, such as grandparents and nursery school teachers, say is true. To quote James Fowler:
"Stage 1 is the imitative and fantasy-filled phase in which the child can be powerfully and permanently influenced by the examples, moods, actions and language of the visible faith of primal adults."
In Stage 2, "the person begins to take on for himself/herself the stories and beliefs and observances which symbolize belonging to his or her community. Attitudes are observed and adopted; beliefs are appropriated with literal interpretations, as are moral rules and attitudes."
Stage 3 he calls "Synthetic-Conventional Faith -- providing coherent and meaningful synthesis of an expanding world. Authority is extended to include 'those who count,' including peers." This is as far as many people go.
Stage 4 -- Individuating-Reflexive Faith -- "In this transition ... the late adolescent or adult must begin to take seriously the burden of responsibility for his/her own commitments, lifestyle, beliefs and attitudes." In this stage one must face and deal with "certain universal polar tensions," such as:
individuality vs. belonging to community;
subjectivity vs. objectivity;
self-fulfillment vs. service to others;
the relative vs. the absolute.
This stage is enough for most of us to wrestle with for the remainder of our lives. Fowler describes two further stages, which I find difficult to understand and which are beyond the scope of this morning.

It is clear to me that the kind of faith development Fowler is describing is more than cognitive belief, it is deeply emotional and relational. It is based less upon knowing and more upon understanding. This kind of faith development is visceral and it carries with it clear indications for action, for how to live one's life.

I will tell you a story that came to me over the Internet. It strikes me as an example of faith development that is all around us and in which we all can participate.

"Information Please" (the "I" of the story is not identified):

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.
Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person -- her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. "Information Please" could supply anybody's number and the correct time.
My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer.
The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.
The telephone!!
Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver and held it to my ear. "Information Please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information."
"I hurt my finger...," I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
"Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?"
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could.
"Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts.
Then there was the time Petey, our pet canary, died. I called "Information Please" and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?"
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better.
Another day I was on the telephone. "Information Please."
"Information," said the now-familiar voice.
"How do you spell fix?" I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall.
As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity, I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information, please." Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well, "Information." I hadn't planned this but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft-spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed. "So it's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time."
"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls."
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered, "Information." I asked for Sally.
"Are you a friend?" she said.
"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Sally had been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."
Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?"
"Yes."
"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you." The note said, "Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean."
I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.

I invite you to your own conclusions about faith from this story. It speaks to me powerfully of those last definitions of faith, of faith as trust, confidence and loyalty. It speaks of "belief" honed by reason and maturity. It speaks of the development of faith in a young man, a deeply relational faith.

There is another understanding of faith that transcends both cognitive belief and emotional understanding. I would call it faith of the spirit. On the cover of today's Order of Service is a representation of Life Spirals, a spiral faith model developed by Iris Ford. Trust, Joy, OKness, Life Stories, Forgiveness, Acceptance of Difference, Love, Caring, Acceptance of Limits, Letting Go, Hope, Peace. Often faith development is portrayed as an upward path with God or the Buddha at the top. Iris Ford's model goes the other way, starting in infancy developing trust and expressing joy and going ever deeper. Like a spiral staircase, one can go up as well as down and may find oneself returning over and over again to a particular sticking place, revisiting the need to feel OK, finding new limits that need to be accepted, letting go, expressing joy, rebuilding trust, ever extending one's reach to maintain hope and to attain peace.

I submit that faith development of this type depends upon actions, our own and others'. Faith depends upon what is done to us and what we choose to do with the gifts and limitations of which we are possessed. Faith development of this type transcends cognitive belief, though such beliefs are intrinsic to the evolution of one's faith. Faith development of this type is more than emotional understanding and reaction, powerful formative factors as these may be. Faith of the spirit is synonymous with our actions in this life, with all its bumps and warts. It is our stance toward life. It is the stuff of complete trust, confidence, reliance, allegiance and loyalty. For me it is what makes life worth living.

What we believe with our minds may be proven wrong, or at least different from what we had thought. What we believe with our hearts is subject to loss and to betrayal. What if the little boy of the story had encountered a less kindly operator or one who later betrayed him?

The faith we need to make meaning out of life, to stand by us in times of trouble, to lift us up beyond our own muddling attempts, is faith as a verb. It is a faith we have some hand in constructing, minute by minute, action by action, by the very nature of our being, by how we are in the matter of living.

Faith as a verb means to me not the arrogant assumption that we can do it all ourselves, individually. Faith as a verb means to me using all the resources at our disposal and being open to the spirit of life that is within and around us all.

Faith as a verb means to me making promises and living into those promises, knowing we may never match up to all that we promise but knowing that unless we put our whole heart, mind and soul into a commitment, it has essentially no chance of success. In marriage services I say, "Marriage is a bold step into the future, a risking of what we are for what we may yet become." Marriage is an act of faith and that faith is maintained by living the promises made on the wedding day -- every day for the rest of one's life. This does not mean that every marriage will succeed, but how much greater a chance for meaningful relationships we would have if each partner in a relationship lived the promises faithfully. The life spirals do include Acceptance of Limits and Letting Go. But not too soon, not before the promises have been really acted upon, really lived.

Faith as a verb means making and remaking one's faith daily in the acts, large and small, of our quotidian existence.

I would like to close by reframing the opening reading as a statement that faith is a verb:

If we live criticism, we learn to condemn.
If we live hostility, we grow in aggressiveness.
If we live ridicule, we become harsh.
If we live shame, we shame ourselves.
But if we live tolerance, we learn to be patient.
If we give encouragement, we learn confidence.
If we praise, we learn to appreciate.
If we live fairly, we learn justice.
If we live securely, we learn to have faith.
If we live approval, we learn to like ourselves.
If we live acceptance and friendship, we learn to find love and hope and peace in our lives.

The sermon in a Unitarian Universalist setting is never the last word on any subject, but rather an invitation to further dialog.

You may want to read other visitors' comments on Carol Haag's "Faith is a Verb" .

If you wish to add your own comments on this sermon, please enter your name, e-mail address, city, state or province, country, and of course your comments into the following form: Name:

E-mail address:

Affiliation:

City:

State or province:

Country:

Comments: