ON FAITH

Faith. What is your faith? Not your religion. Not your beliefs. What is your faith?
James Fowler, the guru of faith development wrote Stages of Faith, a book that is part of every religious scholars reading list and found in most clergy persons personal library. In the first chapter of that book he describes the following story:
He was driving to a workshop on faith, which he was leading. He was rehearsing a set of questions he had planned for the opening session, questions designed to open up some honest talk about faith in our lives. They were the questions, which you have in your bulletin tonight. He felt satisfied with these questions; they were not easy questions. He congratulated himself for his cleverness in coming up with such a useful, probing workshop opener and then, it hit him. How would he answer his own questions?
He then says: "I had to pull my car over to the shoulder and stop. For the next forty minutes, almost making myself late for the workshop, I examined the structure of values, the patterns of love and action, the shape of fear and dread and the directions of hope and friendship in my own life."
How easy it is to talk about faith – to preach about faith – to even teach about faith – how many of us can articulate our own faith? Fowler says that faith is not the same as religion or belief and that faith is not always religious in content or context. He says that faith is universal for all human beings, even for those with or without religious beliefs, traditions, or communities. Fowler’s definition of faith is this: "Faith is a person’s or group’s way of moving into the force field of life. It is our way of finding coherence in and giving meaning to the multiple forces and relations that make up our lives."
What are the values that are your ultimate concern? Fowler writes, "Our real worship, our true devotion directs itself toward the objects of our ultimate concern. Ultimate concern may be invested in family, university, nation, or church. Love, sex and a loved partner might be the passionate center of one’s ultimate concern. Ultimate concern is a much more powerful matter than claimed belief in a creed or a set of doctrinal propositions or a set of principles. Faith may or may not find its expression in institutional or...religious forms. If we understand faith in this manner then it involves how we make our most important decisions and it shapes the ways we invest our deepest loves and our most costly loyalties.” Where is your faith?
The key question of faith is not "What do you believe?" but "On what or on whom do you set your heart?" The Hindu, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words for faith all involve an alignment of the heart or will -- a commitment of loyalty and trust. “ I set my heart on, I give my heart to, I hereby commit myself to, and I pledge allegiance to” are all meanings of the word "believe".
We tend to ask of one another, "What do you believe?" but I think we should try to reach another level of depth -- the question has to become one of faith: "On what or whom do you set your heart? What hope and what ground of hope animate you and give shape to the force field of your life and to how you move into it?"
I have a friend who is a rare commodity. She is younger even than my own children – but wise well beyond her years. She is the most “faithful” person I know. Sometimes she amazes her friends – sometimes she amuses us… but none of us doubts her true faith.
 She cuts coupons from the paper and magazines and when she goes to the store she leaves them on the shelves next to the products they represent so that some other person might use them.
 She regularly grocery shops for the food bank – she diligently tithes all that she earns, but also all that she receives in the way of gifts or windfalls.
 She doesn’t hesitate to tell you she is praying for you – and she is the kind of person that when she says it, you know it will happen.
 She has said that every night she prays for all the children of the world who are hungry or hurt or alone – and she truly believes her prayers will make a difference.
 She is scrupulously honest. I have never heard her curse – and when she really became steamed at a man she knew she called him a “jack-behind” and her friends thought she was hilarious – but we also knew her choice of language came from integrity – not ignorance or self-righteousness. She thought it would be wrong to say “ass”.
 When she is asked to be the lay reader at her place of worship, she routinely memorizes the texts – why? “Because people will understand it better if it isn’t read” she says.
 She has often said: "I want to live the kind of life that God will want to answer my prayers."
Her focus was not really on God answering prayer but rather on living the kind of life that reflected her understanding of ultimate value. This woman could be Lutheran, or Jewish, Catholic or Buddhist. Her faith does not depend on the expression of her religion. She has found her faith – and I believe that all the underpinnings of her religion could be taken away, and she would still be a person of faith.
I think one of the reasons we don’t understand our identity, as a people of faith is that we have forgotten which questions to ask. Instead of prophetic questions, like Micah’s ‘What does the Lord require?’ (to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God), we are such products of consumer society that our questions about religion are upside down: ‘What do I require? – How is this church, this order of worship, this denominational identity, this way of looking at God helping/serving/informing/me? What am I getting out of this experience?”
Like Micah, my friend’s focus is on what is required of her. She understands how easy it is for us to fall into selfishness and behaving in ways to serve our own needs. She has the unconscious humility of the truly righteous. Certainly in my friend’s living -- in how she spends her time and energy, her faith and practice are intertwined. She, like Fowler, considers faith serious business and she has an infectious joy of life.
On whom or what do you set your heart? I can’t answer for you… but the goal would be to answer that question with honesty, with courage, with trust that the question itself can teach you something and can lead you to transformative growth. There are no right answers here – no wrong ones either.
I have two wishes for you. The first is that you may be caught by the question about faith in the same way that Fowler was that day in his car. To have one’s attention, mind, heart, and spirit caught in such a way is both gift and grace. The second wish I have for you is that, if you do not wish to enter into discerning your own faith – if this is something you abhor -- that you will listen and respond to others as they reflect upon theirs. Either way, I believe we can find transformation.