What is faith? What does faith look like? How do we find faith? How do we come to faith?
Most of us have probably heard the definition of faith from the letter to the Hebrews that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
The language of that definition is poetic but the meaning is elusive, representing faith as a sort of contradiction, that hope is assurance, that conviction can be found in what cannot be seen.
Faith as paradox.
What is faith?
Jesus corresponds with a Roman commander through various messengers resulting in the commander’s slave being healed.
Jesus says he has never found such faith before, not even in Israel as he finds in this foreign commander.
A picture of faith full of contradiction.
A commander of an occupying army whom the Jewish elders plea on his behalf, calling him worthy for he loves the people of Israel even building for them a synagogue.
A powerful man who is concerned for the well being of others, for the weak.
He is a symbol of imposed foreign authority yet in the midst of divisive ethnic tensions he carries goodwill for all.
He is respectful of Jewish sensitivity to entering gentile households.
He is important yet he is humble.
And he trusts in the power of Jesus spoken word to bring the miracle of healing.
And he asks repeatedly for Jesus to make things right. Cleverly and politely insistent.
A picture of faith.
Faith seems to be found in the most unexpected places. There is a lesson in there somewhere.
Later on in Luke’s gospel Jesus tells the parable of the widow who pesters the judge for justice until the judge gives in, and then Jesus says that when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?
Faith is shown as persistent, as insistent even as belligerent trust that demands God to make things right. Faith is shown as something that God is searching for as well.
“God, you are God right? Fix this mess. What are you waiting for?”
We are all looking for faith, even God.
A faith that is stubbornly demanding for things to be right.
So often we imagine faith as something ethereal, passive, indifferent, detached from the stuff of life.
But what we are shown is faith as something that is mired up to its knees and elbows in the broken and unjust stuff of life, bluntly saying to God, “Hello, a little help here!”
So what is faith?
What does it look like?
How do we find it?
We are advised to look for:
contradiction,
for unlikely keepers of faith,
for a practical concern for the pain of others,
for a stubborn insistence for things to be made right.
It is interesting how we are shown this picture of God looking for faith while at the same time we are shown that faith demands of God to faithful.
Faith seeking faith.
We tell God to be faithful, God tells us to be faithful.
It’s almost like it’s an argument or wrestling.
It is in that fervent place of God and humanity pestering each other that faith just sort of happens.
Faith happens while we are doing something else.
Go figure, another contradiction.