REASONABLE FAITH
Mark 9:21-24 Jesus asked the boy's father, How long has
he been like this? From childhood, he answered. It has often thrown him into
fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help
us.
If you
can? said Jesus. Everything is possible for him who believes. Immediately the
boy's father exclaimed, I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!
What is irrational here is the creation of faith in the
faithfulness of God by the crucifixion, the betrayal of Jesus Christ, who was
utterly loyal to Him. We note not only that the faith of Jesus Christ in the
faithfulness of the Creator runs counter to all our rational calculations based
on the assumptions that we are being cheated in life, that its promises are not
redeemed, that we must count not only on broken treaties among men but also on
having everything taken from us that has been given us and that we hold most
dear, that we have only chance to count on, and that our chances are small.
This is a greater surd: that the man who reasoned otherwise, who counted on the
faithfulness of God in keeping all the promises given to life, and who was
loyal to all to whom he trusted God to be loyal, should come to his shameful
end, like all the rest of us; and that, in consequence of this, faith in the
God of his faith should be called forth in us.
On the basis of that faith we
reason; and much that was unintelligible on the ground of faithlessness or
faith in the little gods who are not trustworthy is now illumined… In that
faith we seek to make decisions…knowing that the measure of faith is so meager
that we are always combining denials with our affirmations of it. Yet in faith
in the faithfulness of God we count on being corrected, forgiven, complemented,
by the company of the faithful and by many others to whom He is faithful though
they reject Him.
To make our decisions in faith is to make them in view of
the fact… that Christ is risen from the dead, and is not only the head of the
church but the redeemer of the world. It is to make them in view of the fact
that the world of culture – man’s achievement – exists within the world of
grace – God’s Kingdom.
Christ
and Culture
by H. Richard Niebuhr, pg. 254.
