A Tangible Faith
Happy Monday, Hillspring.
As you might’ve heard, I returned about a week ago from spending some time in Israel. Israel is always amazing, and this time proved no different. There are so many things I love about visiting there. Whether walking on ancient streets, seeing all the diverse geography, meeting some of the most wonderful people, or eating incredible food, there is a beauty, life, and depth to the country that you have to experience to believe. It’s the kind of place I endlessly describe with many exuberant adjectives and still do it no justice!
But what I really love about the country, what leaves me in awe of it at every corner, is the history. It oozes from the rocks everywhere. Everywhere you go, you see something with historical, world-impacting significance. You can sail on the Sea of Galilee, explore Crusader fortresses, see the ruins of the palace in Caesarea Maritime and hike to the top of Masada. You can even run your hands through the leaves of an olive tree that could have been just a little shoot when Jesus was kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane.
One of the most impactful things for me was praying at the Wailing Wall, pushing my little prayer into a crack in the rocks, and feeling the weight of thousands of years of prayer joining mine. My little voice calling up to heaven was one of hundreds of millions of voices doing the same thing for thousands of years in that same place. It was overwhelming to think about all the faces, reasons, and prayers offered up to God through the centuries from right there. Behind each prayer was a person like me with hopes, dreams, possibilities, fears, questions, and all the rest of the flavors of life on this side of eternity. It made me wonder how God sorts through all the noise!
More than that, it really got me thinking about the humanity of my faith. In my day-to-day life in infant USA, I’m tempted to think about my faith primarily in spiritual terms: my prayers go to heaven and hope mystically God does something, I sing songs of worship and trust God hears and is honored, I count the growth of my spirituality primarily by looking inside myself and asking how I'm doing at loving God and loving others. Those are all great things, but they aren't tangible. They are beautiful, necessary, and good, but they aren't cloaked in sweat, laughter, tears, weather, earth, and the like.
There’s a danger in over spiritualizing our faith. When I separate my spirituality from what I’m physically doing in the world around me, it can get lost. It becomes easier to turn it into a mind game and exercise, get inward-focused, philosophize and ponder. And when I do that too much, it makes it easy to avoid doing all the very practical things Jesus told us to do.
Jesus started his ministry through the very clear reading out of the book of Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me
to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19)
Then he sat down and said, "today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled." This was Jesus' mission, what he was about and what his followers were to be about. Now read that list again. Can you see how practical and tangible ministry was in Jesus' mind? All the things he came to do are cloaked in sweat, laughter, tears, weather, earth, and the like. They are messy, personal, tangible, and, in short,human.
I needed to be reminded of that. I needed to be reminded that the kingdom of God is practical, tangible, and fleshed out in the real world, not just in thoughts and philosophies. That is what kingdom living is about. It's about doing things the poor would see as good news, setting people who were bound up free, healing those who need it, supporting the oppressed, and letting people know God loves them. It’s messy and beautiful.
As we continue this sermon series and look at how we can grow as a church, let's be careful not to focus on philosophies, ideologies, numbers, and "churchy" things. Remember that this unwashed, sweaty carpenter stood on the same rocks that I did and practically loved people who were very much like you and me.
That same Jesus has loved each person who came to the Wailing Wall with all their humanity over the centuries and stood there just as I did.
Our faith is tangible. Let’s live it out!
Grace and peace.
Trevor Owen
Pastor of Spiritual Formation
