Fruitful Faith in Fearful Times

Last Sunday morning, in my talk I explained that, for the Christian, a vital part of keeping God’s Second Commandment – loving your neighbour as yourself – is sharing the Good News of Jesus with others in word as well as deed, in what we say to them as well as what we do for them. And how important that is at this time when so many are understandably very fearful about life, as we all of us face so many uncertainties, so many unknowns. /So many things we placed our trust in give us good cause now for doubt; so much of what we took for granted has suddenly disappeared. Anxious times indeed.

It was St. Peter, in his epistle, who reminded Christians, when challenged about the truth we have to share, to do so respectfully and lovingly, but to be always ready to do so. Peter trusted in that incredible promise of Jesus that the Holy Spirit himself would give us the very words we need on such occasions. It’s a mystery, I know; but I also know it to be true - as millions of other Christians have known it to be true from those very first days of the Church./ How reassuring; and how much it raises our confidence as disciples when we discover this to be true ourselves. All it takes is not a degree in Theology, but faith, faith ‘as small as a mustard seed’ Jesus told his disciples; that is, just enough faith to be obedient to his command to tell others about him, about who he is, about his wonderful love for them, and why he came to ‘save’ them and offer them eternal life./ No, a person does not need a degree to tell someone that; just a little faith, faith ‘as small as a mustard seed’.

It is at times like these that people are more open to listen to the Good News that Jesus is. One person who had good cause to be fearful and in the most fearful of times was St. Paul; and yet he chose a fruitful faith in fearful times.

The piece we just heard read to us from Ch 8 of Paul’s letter to the Romans almost certainly was written from gaol or while under house arrest awaiting judgement. It was for both him and his readers a time of great suffering and fear. And yet fear and suffering are not uppermost in his mind as he writes: he doesn’t focus on these; rather, he focuses on God’s great love for us in Christ, Christ’s championing of our case, and Christ’s promise of eternal life. Paul thinks about their fears and their sufferings with a truly Christian mind; that is to say, he looks at them from the perspective of eternal life, and the deep, deep love of Jesus for us, a love from which as vs 38- 39 ‘nothing can separate us’. It is from this perspective, the perspective of eternal life and of Christ’s deep love, that we can look at how we can grow a fruitful faith in fearful times.

Ch 8 of Romans is a wonderfully reassuring chapter which I commend to you all to read in full and to pray about as you put yourself in the shoes of his readers. Great preachers have preached on just one verse alone from chapter 8 for longer than it takes a former churchwarden of mine to get round 18 holes of golf. No names mentioned of course!

Paul being Paul, just as Jesus did, mixes reassurance and promise with reminder and rebuke. To belong to Christ, he tells us in this chapter, is to know for sure, for certain, of his eternal presence in us, of our eternal safety in him, and that we can never be separated from his love, whatever life throws at us. So, says Paul, we should live appropriately in that security, seek Christ’s agenda - not only for ourselves but for this world and for others, allowing ourselves to be led by his Spirit in what we say and do, because this shows that we are God’s, by no means perfect, but nonetheless faithful children.

Of the many things we can glean from this chapter, one is certainly an insight into the whole perspective Paul has on this life and its troubles because of his faith in Jesus, because of his understanding of the necessity, the inevitability, of that first Good Friday and Easter Day. He understood the requirement of Good Friday, of the meeting of God’s justice and mercy on the cross, and of his love in willingly paying the debt human pride and sinfulness owed. He understood the significance for the whole of humanity of Easter Day, of the resurrection of humanity’s unique and universal Saviour which proved that Jesus was whom he claimed to be and that his offer of eternal life was no empty promise but a sure hope. And so it followed for Paul that these great truths would challenge the Christian to adopt a pattern of belief and behaviour which radiated the life of the Spirit of Christ living in those who had put their faith in him.

And of course Paul’s assurance and confidence about his situation - truly awful though it was in human terms - arising from the historical facts of Good Friday and Easter Day and the experience of the Holy Spirit in his life since his conversion, enabled him to build a ‘world view’ we would probably call it today, that made perfect sense. He had found answers to the four essential questions needed to make sense of this life, answers which had to work together rather than against each other: what is the origin of life; what is the meaning and purpose of life; how ought we to behave; and what is our destiny? All these come together and are answered perfectly in Christ. Or as Saint Augustine put it: ‘Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.’

God’s great love in Christ then; Christ’s championing of our case; Christ’s promise of eternal life, all these, says Paul in v 31 should convince us that we can put our faith wholeheartedly in Christ and not fear those who mock or slander or persecute us, nor indeed what happens to us in this life. And in verses 35&36 he paints a stark and terrible picture of what one might face. We must, as Christians, be realists: to be human means to live in a fallen and a broken world, a world where disease and death are part of the challenge of what life is. I don’t have time this morning to go into the question which I know troubles many people and prevents many from believing in a loving God, ’Why does God allow suffering?’ But I will just say this. Neither Jesus nor Paul address it in the way that would satisfy our curiosity. Jesus, when asked, simply tells his questioners to make sure they become reconciled to God and to do their utmost to relieve the sufferings of others, making very clear as he did, just who is the ‘neighbour’ whom we are called to love ‘as ourselves’. At base, it is only the prospect of eternal life, freely offered by Jesus, that allows us to believe in a loving God; this and the revelation in Jesus of God’s eternal love for us. Meanwhile, let’s get stuck into the relief of others’ suffering rather than just the cultivation of our own safe spaces and comfort zones, because that is our calling at this time, something we should do with love, peace, and joy.

It is obvious that Paul is more concerned about our spiritual life, and how we live that out in the here and now, than he is about our physical death and the sufferings we face. Why? Because he deems this far more important in the greater scheme of things./ It is difficult, I know, for us to do so because so much constrains us to focus on everyday needs, even if not just ours but the needs of others: there are not only mortgages to be paid but the next door neighbour’s shopping to be done, there’s the Coronavirus to be battled and beaten. / But if I know Jesus and the sure hope he offers of eternal life with him, it changes completely the way I look at this life and my relationships. It means that I need not fear and will want to live a fruitful life of faith for him because, as Paul says, nothing can separate us from God’s love. The danger is that the Church and Christians become wrapped up entirely in meeting their ‘neighbours’ physical and emotional needs, forgetting their spiritual needs. I know it’s not seen as very ‘British’ to talk about one’s faith, but the Christian faith is so much more than just the offer of tea and sympathy or doing the shopping – even if that’s all people want. It may well be a good idea to start with tea and sympathy, but we cannot leave it there. The love we know we must offer to all; it is a love which casts out fear and it is founded on Christ.