Developing A Faith That Works, 5: Faith, Vision, and How You See the Universe

[Thanks for SHARING this blog with people who might be interested!  Hit the button on the right to subscribe or to share the post] We've been talking in this series about the nature of faith and spirituality - how faith is something more than simply believing doctrinal statements about Reality, God, and life - it's about the heart, an experience that goes deeper than the mind and thoughts and impacts the deepest part of our selves and works itself out in acts of compassion and love and unselfish service.  We've seen that the original words for faith describe more than reason and propositional beliefs (read the last several blog posts to see the whole picture here).  Fiducia is about a relaxed, worry-free trust and confidence in God.  Fidelitas emphasizes a deep loyalty, allegiance, and faithfulness in heart, soul, mind, and body to God - a desire and choice to stay on the journey no matter what.  And Visio is vision, a way of seeing – a way of seeing “what is,” of seeing the whole - a choice to see Reality, God, the Sacred as life-giving and nourishing (as opposed to hostile and threatening or indifferent).  So let's unpack Visio a bit more and notice how vision (how you see the whole) impacts personal faith and spirituality.

Faith As Vision (Seeing What Is)

There's an ancient story about Jesus and a blind man that illustrates the nature of faith as Visio and how that impacts life:

^35-37Jesus came to the outskirts of Jericho. A blind man was sitting beside the road asking for handouts. When he heard the rustle of the crowd, he asked what was going on. They told him, "Jesus the Nazarene is going by."  ³⁸He yelled, "Jesus! Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!"

³⁹Those ahead of Jesus told the man to shut up, but he only yelled all the louder, "Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!"

⁴⁰Jesus stopped and ordered him to be brought over. When he had come near, Jesus asked, "What do you want from me?"  ⁴¹He said, "Master, I want to see again."  ^42-43Jesus said, "Go ahead—see again! Your faith has saved and healed you!" The healing was instant: He looked up, seeing—and then followed Jesus, glorifying God. Everyone in the street joined in, shouting praise to God. (Luke 18)

Notice the contrasting visions of Reality, God, and life between the crowd and the blind man.  Placed in the context of theologian H. Richard Niebuhr's description of the 3 ways of seeing "the Whole" - Reality and Life (as I described in my last blog post) - it's interesting to see how those differing "visions" play out in this story.

THE CROWD	THE BLIND MAN
Who Jesus is:  the Nazarene – a local religious dignitary at best; so he's being seen as too busy to help a blind man; plus this view says that blindness is a punishment from God so why would a religious leader help?  The blind man is under divine judgment.	Who Jesus is:  Son of David – a designation for Messiah, chosen of God; Jesus is God's representative.
How Jesus will respond:  don’t bother him – he’s too busy, too important	How Jesus will respond:  if I can just be noticed or make myself heard, Jesus will listen and do something for me; God is on the side of sinners
The Universe:  conditional; you get only what you deserve, and you deserve only what you put it; different “layers” or stratas in life based upon worthiness, value	The Universe:  capable of giving mercy; responsive to need
Life Response:  structured and ordered – must follow by the rules of those structures – must act appropriately (keep yourself in your designated place)	Life Response:  courageous; break the rules at times when the need is greater than the system; some confidence of being heard; live life with passion and desire; express it

There are some significant implications of these contrasting visions for our faith journey:

• Notice how Jesus connects the issue of faith with “seeing” in the blind man’s experience.  In contrast to the crowd who “sees” Jesus in a very limited way (a local man, albeit a religious dignitary), this blind man, even before he’s healed of his physical blindness, in fact already “sees” – Jesus affirms to him, “You’re actually 'seeing' more than these other people who have their eyesight.”  The man’s faith in Jesus as the Chosen of God (the anointed Messiah who comes to deliver captives and bring wholeness to the broken of Israel) reveals his "enlightenment" and ability to "see."  This man’s “vision” of Jesus is as one from God who will bring him healing or at the very least is interested in his well-being and state in life.  If nothing else, Jesus will at least give him some alms for his next meal.  His view of God’s Kingdom is one of well-being, being nourished and sustained – the God of this Kingdom is gracious.  And this kind of faith empowers the man with courage, with boldness, with persistence and tenacity in the face of obstacles and social rejection.  The point illustrated here is, how you “see” the whole impacts your experience!
• Jesus says to him, “Your faith has saved you and healed you!”  Those are the words for wholeness and salvation and completeness – before he has received his physical eyesight.  Seeing – vision – this kind of faith – is a matter of the heart, the perspective – a choice you make about how you want to look at life, the world, the universe, God.  You may not be able to prove it all, but you choose to live with a paradigm of grace, confidence, compassion, and self-forgetfulness – a belief in God as a gracious, supportive, compassionate, faithful Force in your life that empowers you to not live in fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and insecurity.  One whom you’re willing to follow even when you might not feel all the reality of it.  It’s still truth to you and you shape your life around it.  As Neibuhr said, How we see the whole radically affects how we respond to life!

So here are some personal questions for your reflection:

1. Where are you in the three differing views of Reality Niebuhr describes (see my last blog post) with your VISION for Life and Faith?  Which “reality” tends to be what you SEE?  Why?
2. What do you tend to do to cultivate that VISION?
3. In this series, we’ve talked about FAITH as confident trust, faithfulness/loyalty, and vision of a gracious God. Which of those words for faith do you relate to the most (tends to be your "normal" faith experience)?  Which one would you like to possess the most?

Conclusion

Remember Mother Teresa and how her diary reveals the deep doubts and frequent sense of abandonment by God she experienced in her life?  And yet, in the midst of all this darkness, she continued living her life, following the Way of Jesus of self-forgetfulness and abandonment to God, by giving herself tireless and compassionately to the forsaken ones in Calcutta.  In reality, she was empowered to live this powerful life because she made a choice to “see” all of Life, including her faith in God and her view of others, in the context of goodness and graciousness.  She made a commitment to that Vision.

In an undated diary entry written to Jesus, she wrote, “If this brings You glory — if souls are brought to you [because of my struggling with personal darkness and pain from not feeling your Presence] — with joy I accept all to the end of my life.”

TIME magazine, in August 2007, did a cover story titled, “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith,” after her diary was published.  They told the story about her encounter in 1968 with the British writer-turned-filmmaker Malcolm Muggeridge who visited Teresa. Muggeridge had been an outspoken agnostic, but by the time he arrived with a film crew in Calcutta he was in full spiritual-search mode. Beyond impressing him with her work and her holiness, she wrote a letter to him in 1970 that addressed his doubts full-bore.  It was almost like she was talking to herself and describing her own journey of faith.

She wrote:  "Your longing for God is so deep and yet He keeps Himself away from you," she wrote. "He must be forcing Himself to do so — because he loves you so much — the personal love Christ has for you is infinite — The Small difficulty you have re His Church is finite — Overcome the finite with the infinite."

Muggeridge apparently did. He became an outspoken Christian apologist and converted to Catholicism in 1982. His 1969 film, Something Beautiful for God, supported by a 1971 book of the same title, made Teresa an international sensation.  And Mother Teresa apparently heeded her own advice - she walked through the darkness by overcoming the finite with the infinite.  She chose to maintain her faith in the God of her Beloved Jesus even when she couldn't feel the love.  She chose to give the Love anyway, in acts of profound self-forgetfulness and compassion, to those who needed it.

Faith as vision chooses to see the Whole of life in a very profound way – that Life is nourishing and life-giving, that God is gracious, even in the midst of not experiencing it that way all the time.  Because in the end, that vision is the most empowering for a life of compassion, giving, and unselfish serving and blessing to the world.  Faith isn’t just a matter of the head – believing certain propositional statements about God – faith is a matter of the heart – a deliberate choosing to allow your heart to trust, to have confidence, to be faithful and loyal to the best in Life – and yes, to believe (which before modern times literally meant to belove) – to believe that God is gracious – to belove God and to belove what God beloves.  That’s the kind of faith that produces an empowering and sustaining spiritual life!

So how’s your vision today?  How about joining me in the following personal prayer.

MY PRAYER:  “If Jesus were here in front of me today and asked me what I wanted, like the blind man, I would say, ‘Master, I want to see again!’  I confess there are times when I look at life through the lens of fear, anxiety, self-preoccupation and lack of confidence.  But today I choose to see the Universe as life-giving and nourishing.  I choose to see beauty and feel wonder and awe and gratitude for life.  I choose, God, to see you as gracious and compassionate.  I choose to be willing to live beyond myself, to spend and be spent for the sake of others.  I choose to live in freedom, joy, peace, and love.  O God, I want to see!  Amen.”

Developing A Faith That Works, 3: Two Metaphors

[Please SHARE this blog with people who might be interested!  Hit the button on the right to subscribe or to share the post] We're talking about faith and the different meanings attached to that word.  We've discovered that faith is more than just a matter of the head - what you believe about God and life - notional propositions.  Faith is a matter of the heart.  And there are three words for faith used to describe this picture.  The first word is "fiducia" which means "trust, confidence."  See my blog entry about that word. Now we're dealing with the second word for FAITH, "fidelitas" - which literally means fidelity, allegiance, loyalty, faithfulness.  How does this word define "faith" as a part of the spiritual journey?  What nuances does this word "fidelity" suggest about the faith life?  Scripture uses two intriguing and very personal metaphors to describe the faith experience.  These metaphors provide a glimpse into what genuine faith is not.  The first is adultery and the second is idolatry.  Let's consider these a bit.

Fidelity vs. Spiritual Adultery

Here's the way one author describes this metaphor:  “When the Bible speaks about adultery, most often it is not speaking about human sexual relationships.  Sometimes it is, as in the Ten Commandments and in some other passages.  But when the prophets indict the chosen nation of Israel as adulterous or Jesus speaks of ‘an evil and adulterous generation,’ they are not saying that there is a lot of spouse swapping going on.  Rather, they are referring to unfaithfulness to God and God’s covenant [which involves their personal and corporate calling and identity].” (Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity)

So what does this say about faith?  Let's unpack the metaphor.  I have a bit of credibility with this since I can speak from a very painful personal experience.  But the lessons I've learned are hugely significant to life and spirituality.  I can understand more clearly and deeply why scripture uses this metaphor to talk about the spiritual journey.

What is the nature of adultery?  At its simplest, adultery is a loss of loyalty and faithfulness to a covenant.  Right?  It’s a shift in loyalty, steadfastness, and allegiance from one person to another.  Sometimes it’s very subtle and invisible.  Adultery in a relationship happens long before the bed is involved.  Small shifts in attraction or connection.  And with every shift to another, there’s an equal shift away from the other.  So adultery isn’t simply something a person does in a new relationship, it’s also something that person isn’t doing in the covenanted  relationship – and usually that shift comes first.

So adultery in scripture is referring to unfaithfulness to the covenant between the people and their God.  What would the Hebrew prophets be referring to by using this metaphor – how were the people unfaithful to the covenant?  What were subtle shifts taking place in their attention and commitment to the God of their covenant?  What were things they stopped doing in that covenant that led them to shift allegiances?  Significantly, often in the context of this accusation is a reference to the people’s refusal to honor the poor, widows, orphaned, and marginalized among them – a neglect of taking care of those in need – they were dishonest in their financial dealings, they robbed people by charging interest – the religious bureaucracy would enforce their own views of religion and God on the people, setting up impossible rules esp. for the poor and economically disadvantaged, portraying God as a vengeful Judge. Their role was suppose to be to represent the truth about God by how they treated each other.  And yet they built a very exclusive community and religion, considering other people less than themselves.

So when Jesus came along and made the profound declaration, "If you've done it to the least of these people (the poor, orphaned, hungry, captives), you've done it to me," the fact that they were not taking care of these disadvantaged among them meant that they were not being loyal to God.  And that shift away from the needy was a shift away from God.  Which led to shifts in loyalty to other gods (we'll see this in the next metaphor).  All of this was called by the prophets spiritual adultery – unfaithfulness to God and the covenant with God.   Here's a classic passage from one of the Hebrew prophets about this (Jeremiah 7):

⁷ “How can I pardon you? For even your children have turned from me. They have sworn by gods that are not gods at all! I fed my people until they were full. But they thanked me by committing adultery and lining up at the brothels …

²³ But my people have stubborn and rebellious hearts. They have turned away and abandoned me.

28 They refuse to provide justice to orphans and deny the rights of the poor.

³¹ the prophets give false prophecies, and the priests rule with an iron hand. Worse yet, my people like it that way!"

Notice the powerful emotional shift the people are experiencing away from God - the last line:  "My people like it that way!"  The allegiance has completely turned, a new loyalty has been formed away from God - they actually like "the other" better.  And it's being revealed by how they live their lives with the disadvantaged and needy among them.  They no longer value what their God values.

So faith as loyalty, fidelity, and faithfulness to God (in the context of this metaphor of adultery) involves keeping focus on God, not allowing shifts in devotion and loyalty away from God; it involves paying attention to what God pays attention to; centering one’s self on God’s intent for life; being true to our calling and purpose and God-given identity; valuing what God values by living in alignment with the highest values of life.  Placing your heart on God by placing your heart on what God places the divine heart.  Which leads to the second metaphor.

Fidelity vs. idolatry

Here's an interesting take on the meaning of "idolatry" in the context of our faith journey.  I came across a fascinating connection with fidelity in the electronic and technology world.  Here's the definition:

“FIDELITY is the degree to which the output of a system accurately reproduces the essential characteristics of its input signal. Thus, high fidelity in a sound system means that the reproduced sound is virtually indistinguishable from that picked up by the microphones in the recording or broadcasting studio. Similarly, a television system has a high fidelity when the picture seen on the screen of a receiver corresponds in essential respects to that picked up by the television camera. Fidelity is achieved by designing each part of a system to have minimum distortion, so that the waveform of the signal is unchanged as it travels through the system.” (Sci-Tech Encyclopedia)

So the concept of fidelity in electronics is about achieving a pure alignment and congruency between the input signal and the output signal.  What comes in is what goes out.

What does this say about faith as fidelity?

Scripture also uses the metaphor of idolatry to describe the opposite of fidelity in faith.  So using the above illustration of fidelity from the electronic world, idolatry would then be a lack of alignment or congruency between the input and output of our lives.  In other words, we’re not being true to ourselves, to the divine image in us, which is another way of saying we’re not being true to God and God’s purpose/design for us.  We have allowed a disconnect to exist.  Idolatry is incongruence – a shift in our allegiance from who God made us to be to who we think we're suppose to be (perhaps someone else's image of us or who they think we should be).  Either way, we’re “worshiping other gods” by not being ourselves.

So what is fidelity in this case?  A willingness to be a transparent and unobstructed channel through which the Divine Spirit flows.  Letting God’s Spirit continue creating the divine image in us so that we manifest God’s love and goodness in clearer and clearer ways.  And the divine flow through us is always manifested most accurately and powerfully when we're living in alignment with who we are, our true identity, our God-given purpose.

Here's the point:  When we allow and discipline ourselves to focus on these qualities we are placing ourselves in direct connection with God’s Spirit and we become transformed – the disconnect between the source of the input and our output is removed.  We become congruent with God.  THAT’S THE PROCESS OF FIDELITY.  It's a deliberate and intentional choice to be in harmony with God - to allow the heart of God to shape our heart, to value what God values, to live in alignment with the divine passion to show compassion, care, support, and loving action toward ourselves, others, and the world - and to all of this in our own unique, special, and God-designed way.

Jesus made this point when he summarized the entire Hebrew scriptures (what Christians often refer to as the Old Testament):  love God with all your heart, mind, soul and body, and love your neighbor as yourself; on these two commandments rests the entire law of God.

Idolatry (the opposite of fidelity) is about allowing our hearts, our attention, our values to shift away from God and what God values to other interests - when we try to live someone else's life instead of being who God made each of us to be - when we become preoccupied with ourselves to the exclusion of caring for others - when our egos take control and we become unable to live beyond ourselves in self-forgetfulness and compassion - when we become obsessed with fear, anxiety, insecurity in our relationship with God and the world.  Interesting picture of idolatry, isn't it!

God's Fidelity and Faithfulness

In the end, what is it that empowers us toward fidelity and faithfulness?  Sacred scriptures make clear that our loyalty and faithfulness with God are radically empowered by a recognition and embracing of the central core truth of the divine nature:  God’s unconditional compassion and faithfulness.  One of the great theologians, Paul Tillich, defined faith as “the courage to accept acceptance.” Imagine what your confidence level in living life would be like if you lived from the truth of your complete and unconditional acceptance - if you truly knew your self and uncategorically accepted your self the way God accepts you!

Fidelity is not about never sinning, never being selfish and self-centered, always doing everything perfectly and never failing.  Fidelity is about faithfulness to the journey.  Staying on the journey with Life, with God.  Having the courage to accept God’s acceptance so that we give it gently and patiently to ourselves and to others.  Fidelity is about staying on the journey!

And what is the most powerful motivation for us to keep on keeping on is the central truth of scripture:  God’s faithfulness (even in the midst of our unfaithfulness).  Here’s how one of the Hebrew prophets put it in the context of one of the most beautiful love stories in scripture.  God reaffirming his commitment to his people after they have been so unfaithful to him.  Listen to a piece of this powerful poem from Hosea 2:

¹⁴ “But then I will win her back once again.  I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. ¹⁵ I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.

¹⁶ When that day comes,” says the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my master.

¹⁷ O Israel, I will wipe the many names of Baal from your lips, and you will never mention them again.

¹⁸ On that day I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and the birds of the sky and the animals that scurry along the ground so they will not harm you. I will remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, so you can live unafraid in peace and safety.

¹⁹ I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion.

²⁰ I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord.” (Hosea 2)

I know this faithfulness personally!  What has kept me going with boldness and courage and persistence, even through the darkness of my own failures and stumbles, is experiencing in the very core of my self that commitment and loyalty God has for me.  It continues to transform and empower my life!  Faith is about staying on the journey with a faithful God.

Here's my prayer:  “God reminds me, no matter what I’ve done, whether great or ungreat, successful or unsuccessful – my faithlessness to God or anyone else doesn’t negate God’s faithfulness to me!  God is committed to me forever, no matter what!  So I will live in this truth!  Embrace it!  Let it melt my heart and fill it with hope and courage and relentless trust!  God believes in me, period!  And with this loyalty together, we will go on to change the world!  Amen.”

Stay tuned for word three for faith in my next blog.  Thanks for staying on this journey of exploration about faith.

Developing A Faith That Works, 2: What Is Fidelity?

[Please SHARE this blog with people who might be interested!  Hit the button on the right to subscribe or to share the post] The word "faith," especially to Westernized Christians, has come to be seen as a primarily notional experience - having to do with what you think about God.  It tends to mean holding a certain set of "beliefs," believing a set of statements to be true, whether cast as biblical teachings or doctrines or dogma.  Your faith is judged by how much you believe and how accurate your beliefs are.  If you possess this "right" kind of faith, you're called a "believer."

As a result, this concept of faith as primarily an intellectual exercise has turned faith almost exclusively into a matter of the head, too often with disastrous results by heartless, nonloving "believers."

But significantly, that was not the central meaning and usage of the word "faith" in the history of human religion (including early Christianity).  As Karen Armstrong, in her powerful book The Case For God, states, "Religion was not primarily something that people thought but something they did ... Religion [from its very inception in human history] was always a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of mind and heart."

It was a way of being and living, not simply a way of thinking.  The stories and sacred scriptures of every religion emphasized the journey of heart and spirit in learning the sacred art of self-forgetfulness and compassion.  As a result, religions developed powerful rituals and practices that, if followed and wholeheartedly engaged in, would enable adherents to step "outside" their egos and experience the Sacred and Divine, empowering them to live more compassionately and unselfishly toward others.

For example, as Armstrong points out, the early Chinese Daoists (over 300 years before Jesus and the early Christian followers) saw religion as a "knack" primarily acquired by constant practice.  They, like the earlier Buddha and even Confucius, refused to spend lots of time speculating about the many metaphysical conundrums concerning the divine (as Buddha once said to a follower who constantly pestered with those kind of questions:  "You are like a man who has been shot with a poisoned arrow and refuses medical treatment until you have discovered the name of your assailant and what village he came from.  You would die before you got this perfectly useless information!").

Zhuangzi (c. 370-311 BCE), one of the most important figures in the spiritual history of China, explained that it was no good trying to analyze religious teachings logically.  He then cited the carpenter Bian:  "When I work on a wheel, if I hit too softly, pleasant as this is, it doesn't make for a good wheel.  If I hit it furiously, I get tired and the thing doesn't work!  So not too soft, not too vigorous.  I grasp it in my hand and hold it in my heart.  I cannot express this by word of mouth, I just know it."

Like the Chinese hunchback who trapped cicadas in the forest with a sticky pole and never missed a single one.  He had so perfected his powers of concentration that he lost himself in the task, and his hands seemed to move by themselves.  He had no idea how he did it exactly, but he knew only that he had acquired the knack after months of practice.  This "self-forgetfulness," Zhuangzi explained, was a "stepping outside" the prism of ego and experience of the sacred.  (from Armstrong, The Case For God, pp. xii-xiii, 23.)

No wonder Jesus, centuries later, reiterated this paradigm of spirituality and religious experience when he called his followers to "take up your cross and follow me."  He's not simply talking about believing in your head the right doctrines and the core truths.  He's talking about a "way" of living.  Referring to his own experience as the example for his followers, he said, "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who is willing to give up his life in this world will keep it forever." John 12:24-25

Genuine faith is not just about your head, it's about your heart, it's about your journey, it's about life transformation that comes from self-forgetfulness and an experience with God the Sacred and the Divine.

SO IN THIS SERIES, we're taking a look at the four words that are translated as "faith."  We're unpacking each word and exploring what it means and what the differing nuances suggest about developing a faith that works in real life, a faith that transforms life, a faith that defines ourselves and produces a rich and deeper experience of both God and Life.  It's a return to the core of what religion was always meant to facilitate but has too often lost along the way:  a transformation of the heart.  In my last blog, we explored the 1^st word for faith, “fiducia,” from which we get our English word "fiduciary" (a person in whom we place our trust to protect our finances and estate).  So “trust," is the central definition, which in the realm of faith then conveys a profound kind of relaxed, solid, worry-free confidence in God as a power that can be trusted and relied upon to have our best interests in mind.

Today's word for faith is "fidelitas," which is the Latin word for "fidelity."  It literally means loyalty, faithfulness – originally referring to a vassal's loyalty to his Lord; a steadfast and devoted attachment that is not easily turned aside; constancy, steadfastness.  Faith as fidelity means loyalty, allegiance, the commitment of the self at its deepest level, the commitment of the “heart” to the experience of God not simply to statements about God.  A radical centering in God from your heart and soul not just your mind.  So what does that look like in real life terms?

There are two metaphors that the sacred scriptures use in describing our faith relationship with God that I'll unpack in my next blog post.  These metaphors describe what "fidelity" is NOT and so help to increase our understanding of what genuine faith as fidelity and loyalty is.  Stay tuned!