Hold On to Faith

Rev. MaryEtta Moore

St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
November 6, 2022

Let us pray: May the words of our mouth and the thoughts of our mind be acceptable in your sight. Amen Our scripture tells us that for generation after generation we have relied on God and kept the faith. In order to understand how we have held on to our faith thru the centuries, let us go back to the beginning. Well, nor quite back to the beginning of the world but back to a man who heard the voice of “I Am” telling him to pack up his family and worldly goods and go to UR. The voice convinced him that “I AM” was the one God, not one among many. I am sure that you know who I am talking about; Abram or as later he would become Abraham.

At the time of Abraham people believed that there were many Gods and you prayed to the one that thought would help you with what you needed at the time. It might have been like the time in China when my Chinese daughter-in-law took me to the Budish temple where believers lit incense and prayed to the various forms of Buddha. Of course, the different is that they were various forms of Buddha (any one is free to explain them to me) and not different Gods. Think of how Abraham has to hold on to his faith in a single God as he left and followed the path to UR, people must have laughed at him and told him he was crazy, as well as the normal challenges he and his entourage faced with not only people, camels and sheep as they traveled.

Abraham is called the father of three faiths: Jewish, Christian and Muslim, all because of his decision to listen to the voice of the one God and through all the rough times he was able to hold on to his faith. The Jewish and Christian faiths are through Isaac and the Muslim faith from Ishmael, Abraham’s son with Hagar; another person who God had to doubt her faith.

We have the story of the Israelite as they wandered in the desert for 40years, complaining about their lot after being brought out of slavery, remember they didn’t have enough food or water. It must have been hard for Moses to hold on to his faith as he listened to them complaint even after God sent food and water. Our Psalm for today is considered one of the Lament Psalms. The middle of the Psalm that I didn’t read, is the Lament let me read it now: “Yes, we are wasting away because of your wrath; we are paralyzed with fear on account of your rage, you put our sins right in front of you, set our hidden faults in the light of your face. Yes, all our days slip away because of your fury; we finish up our years with a whimper.

We live at best to be seventy years old, maybe 80, if we’re strong. But their duration brings hard work and trouble because they go by so quickly. And then we fly off. Who can comprehend the power of your anger? The honor that is due you correspond to your wrath. Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart. Come back to us, Lord! Please, quick! Have some compassion for your servants! How easy is it for us as well as the Israelites wandering in the desert and the Psalmist to blame God for what has gone wrong in our lives and to question our faith. When what we really want is to feel God’s love surrounding us.

Recently, a young friend, probably in her 50’s, remember at my age it is easy to be a younger friend, saw me and told me how happy she was because God had finally answered her prayers. Her son was finally going into drug rehab. She stated that she had almost given up in believing, since God didn’t seem to hear or answer her prayers.

In talking to her more when I asked permission to use her story today it seems that her son had become homeless due to his drug addition, he had lost everything until just recently he was jailed. While in jail, his father (her ex-husband) died but neither his sister nor her wanted to pay his bond for fear he would again be on the streets. But God had answered her prayers when the court counselor managed to place him in a residential drug rehab program rather than receive prison time. She also said that now it is up to her son what direction he takes.

What my friend didn’t know is that one of our grandsons’ stories is almost identical to her sons. From experience I could tell her that he faces a long road and may need to go through rehab a second and even a third time before overcoming his addition.

Another example of how we can question our faith when ourselves or someone we love is going through difficult times. Most of us will face a crisis at some time in our life. One that we all have gone through in the last few years was the covid pandemic and now some face other major health problems as well. Many are facing economic problems and wonder where God is. Sharon Conley Cottingham wrote in the Upper Room “The past several years of Covid fear, economic uncertainty, racial unrest, evidence of climate change, and the regular challenges of our everyday lives have left all of us with some sense of overload. We’ve experienced seismic shifts and one upon another. Our collective energies are overloaded with change, trauma, disorientation, and newness.” She further wrote that at times she wondered about her faith.

Remember our Psalm stated that God has been our helper and guide through generations. Among those generations were the disciples and apostles of Jesus. Think what they went through as they preached and taught about Jesus, they faced death and persecution, many were put in the arena to face the lions for sport, but they kept spreading the word. Paul was a member of the Jewish faith and at first persecuted the disciples and others that followed Jesus, but after his conversion experience he became one of the strongest followers in preaching about Jesus. Paul went on journeys and at times was jailed, but in one of his books he states that he has run the race and kept the faith.

The question for us today is how we hold on to faith. One way is like the disciples and keep spreading the word, another is to pray like my friend did. Sharon Conley Cottingham found that her usual way of pushing on harder wasn’t working for her anymore since covid, so she tried another method which was to spend time in reflecting on life and faith. Reflecting on what has changed in our lives and what changes do we need to make, also learning to rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us.

Do we thank God for what he does for us or do we complain like the psalmist and the Israelites by fearing God. Adam Hamilton, the lead pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS in one of his books suggests that we begin each day thanking God for a new day, then give thanks before each meal and again at night. By thanking God, we can begin to change our approach to life and our faith.

Unlike the Psalmist, Hamilton has God’s faithful love filling us every morning. Some other ways to hold on to our faith are to keep a journal of changes in our life and how we want to response to the changes. If one of the feelings, is grief, allow time to reflect on our loss. Write down our feelings of grief and ask God to help us handle our grief. Another way to hold on to faith is to spend time being quiet and letting the spirit in, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Our job is to stay available to that Spirit. Carmelite nun Ruth Burrows has written, “On our side prayer is simply being there: open, exposed, inviting God to do all God wants.”3 Our practices and disciplines help us to be there. We keep in touch with God by being available for God to keep in touch with us.

By letting the spirit guide our thoughts we can become calm until like the last verses of our Psalm for today we let the kindness of the Lord our God be over us and the works of our hands last. May all of us Hold on to our faith. So Be It!