Enemies of Faith: Presumption and Despair

Fr. Scott Homer
Second Sunday of Lent, 2010

In the name of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Our God is an awesome God. We are so fortunate. God is on friendly terms with us. You know, its really quite amazing when you think about it. God, the creator of the universe, all powerful, all knowing, and yet compassionate and kind. He hold the supernova and the black hole in his hand. Light years are moments. The billions and billions of stars? All his and yet he has promised to take a personal interest in each of our lives and to see to it that we are protected and cared for forever. What does this sovereign Lord of the Universe expect in return? He expects us to cooperate with him by exercising our faith—by believing in the promises he has made and by preserving the hope we have in his saving work. We are saved by God’s grace alone, but we are saved through faith. And although faith is all that is required of us, it is required, and we need to beware that we do not fall into patterns of faithlessness. Faith is trusting in the hope of God’s promises refusing to succumb to either despair or presumption.

In the letter to the Ephesians Paul says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” And Jesus, Paul, Peter and just about everybody else in the Holy Writings agree that it is God alone who does the saving work. God forgives our sins. God conquers the power of evil and death. God leads us into his eternal kingdom. God provides everything. All of this divine work is what we call Grace. God’s saving work in our lives is God’s grace and apart from God’s grace no one is saved. All depends upon God—almost. We human beings have not been left without a part in the process. We , in fact, play a vital role, so vital that there will be no salvation without our part. God saves but we accept God’s grace in our lives. It is God’s power working in us but it operates through our faith. And so faith, whatever that entails, is the link between us and God, the source of life. Faith is the key to our future so we might want to learn about it and get good at it. There is nothing more important—not family or career, not environment or economics, not even food, clothing or shelter. If our long term wellbeing depends upon receiving God’s grace, and if God insists upon working via our faith, which all the messengers of God tell us is the case, then having faith, living in faith, being expert at faith is the essential life task.

Now, as we look at this issue of faith, let’s not be confused about the nature of faith. Faith is not quantitative in nature. You don’t have a little faith or a lot of faith. You don’t have strong faith or weak faith. You’ve either got faith or you don’t. Either you is or you ain’t! The disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith and Jesus responds by saying that even a tiny amount of faith is sufficient. He says the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains. Jesus’ point is that quantity of faith isn’t the issue, are you are acting out of faith or out of something else, that is the issue. I personally believe you can have faith one second and not the next. I think that is what we see in Peter’s confession. One second Peter is declaring Jesus the Christ. He is acting in faith. The next second he is arguing with Jesus. He is acting out of something other than faith. So, faith is neither great nor little. Instead, it is either on or off. So we don’t need to worry about how to increase our faith. We need to figure out what motivators are causing us to abandon our faith. If we can identify the enemies of faith, those things that cause us to act apart from faith, then we may be able to limit the enemy’s power over our lives. By the way, this is true of all dysfunction. If we are able to describe the dysfunctional behavior, and to understand the purpose it is trying to serve, then we begin to have options once again. As long as the dysfunction is invisible we are powerless over it but when we see it for what it is, we can begin to be set free from its destructive influence.

So what are these destructive motives that compete with faith and threaten us with extinction by separating us from the saving grace of God? What might be causing us to act apart from faith? Well, it is really much simpler than we might think. There are really only two root causes. They are opposites, but although they are opposites, they both cause the same mischief in us by leading us to act as if God’s Word and God’s purposes do not matter. One is very familiar to us. One is nearly invisible but both are deadly. The two are: presumption and despair. God builds up hope within us and presumption and despair tear it down. Most of us are very familiar with despair. We have experienced its powerful affect upon us at numerous points in our lives. We have felt its crippling effect. Despair is the near certainty that all is lost. There is no hope, no way that anything good can come out of our situation. In its extreme it is the feeling that God is powerless to help us or maybe even worse, that God is indifferent to our plight. It is no coincident that we are told that at the Gates of Hell there is a sign that reads, “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.” Despair is a hellish feeling that leads people away from God’s saving grace. And yet all of us, on a regular basis, choose to act out of the spirit of despair rather than out of faith.

Every time we say, “I can’t do anything about it,” or, “It’s beyond my control. The system is just screwed up. That person is a hopeless case. None of it matters. Whatever,” every time we abandon what we know to be right, decent, true and good, by resigning ourselves to futility we are acting out of the spirit of despair. Judas hung himself by completely and utterly cutting himself off from the hope of God’s forgiveness and salvation. But we entertain the same sort of despair in small ways on a daily basis. We all know despair intimately and usually when we talk about the enemy of faith, we talk about the various ways that despair manifests itself. But what about presumption?

Years ago I heard a story about a wild group of college students who decided it would be fun to watch a hurricane make landfall. These were the folks who had the most outrageous parties on campus. These guys belonged to the fraternity everybody wanted to pledge. The ones who claimed to work hard and play hard. And so when they heard that a category five hurricane was approaching, they decided to rent a beach house and to hold a big hurricane party and watch as the storm made landfall right before their eyes. As everybody else was fleeing for inland, this group was carrying their belongings, and the kegs and the liquor onto the barrier island. Well, when the storm hit the power went out. The water was so high that rescue workers could not get to the island for a couple of days afterwards. And when they did, there was no beach house left. There were no signs of life. Just waves lapping up on a deserted stretch of beach.

The young partiers had heard the warnings. They ignored them all. The partiers knew that police and rescue personnel wanted to protect them by getting them inland but they chose to believe they were above the danger. All the wisdom said, don’t do it but they knew better than all the experts. If any of them believed in God they must have believed that God would ignore their arrogance and recklessness and would protect them anyway. In a word, the partiers were presumptuous.

Jerusalem was the City of God—or at least it was supposed to have been—a city built around the Temple—the city where God dwelt in the midst of his people. Jerusalem was supposed to have been the city that housed God’s chosen people, the place where God’s people lived in God’s presence, worshipped in God’s sacred Temple and enjoyed God’s shalom, the peace that only God could ever provide. And when they strayed, God sent his prophets to Jerusalem. He sent them dozens of times and for hundreds of years—God anointed messengers to give storm warnings, to persuade the people to repent and return to the Lord, to listen to God’s word and to obey God’s clear commands but they ignored all the warnings and went on doing precisely what they wanted.

And so, as Jesus looked out over Jerusalem he gave voice to God’s complaint against the city. He said that Jerusalem was not the City of God. It had become something quite different from what He and his Father had intended it to be. Jerusalem had become the city devoted to killing God’s Word, the city devoted to crushing God’s people, the city that rebelled against God’s authority, and that thumbed their noses at God’s warnings. Jerusalem had become the city of God’s absence. A group of reckless and arrogant partiers in the face of an immense and dangerous storm. Jerusalem acted as if they could do as they pleased with impunity, that somehow being God’s chosen people exempted them from God’s clarion call to faith. In a word, they were presumptuous. They challenged God’s sovereign will, refused to heed the prophets’ warnings, choosing instead to kill God’s prophets in order to silence them, and now they were preparing to kill God’s Son.

Jesus laments the certain demise of Jerusalem. As a consequence of their actions, God had abandoned them. Jesus speaking in his true voice, as God Almighty, said, “Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” There would be no peace. There would be no freedom from the foreign oppressor. God would not enter into their presence. He rescue them from their fate. They would live forsaken—alone and apart from God. They would live vain, conflicted lives because of their presumption.

Some of us have made presumption high theology. We behave as though faith is proven by challenging God,by ignoring holy living, by acting selfishly, and by living recklessly and carelessly. We think we can behave like drunkards and God will not care. We act as if we can manipulate the world around us for our own advantage and Jesus will simply smile and ignore our bad behavior. We think we can ignore God’s call upon our lives, ignore the plight of the poor, ignore the pain and suffering around us and that God will ignore our indifference. But our God is not just a merciful God. Our God is a just God. Even when we don’t, He cares. Make no mistake about it. He cares and there will be a day of reconing.

Jesus, speaking like a prophet, though far more than a prophet, does what prophets always do. His words do not simply condemn. His words also point to restoration and salvation. Jerusalem will know God’s salvation. They will see God in their midst again. They will be redeemed. But when? When will Jerusalem once again receive God’s blessing? When will God’s people know God’s presence and God’s peace? Jesus says, it will be when they acknowledge God’s promises and heed God’s warnings, when they accept God’s Word and when they honor God’s Anointed One. Their salvation will come when they act in faith. They will be redeemed when, in faith, they welcome the LORD saying, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”
We are saved by God’s grace. It can happen in no other way. It is a free gift—a gift we can do nothing to merit. Our salvation comes when Jesus enters into our midst and administers it to us. He is God’s word in our lives. From the moment he enters into our lives we will choose whether we will welcome him as the source of life and salvation or we will kill him as a false prophet. If we act out of despair we will not be able to believe that Jesus could actually make a difference in our lives or we will believe that He could not possibly care about us and we will have no faith in the promises he has made to us. If we act out of presumption we will believe that Jesus is an unnecessary step. We will believe that God would never be so closed minded as to insist on faith in his Son. Surely God will save us apart from all this old religion stuff. In either case, if we act out of despair or out of presumption we will be lost, not because God’s grace was absent but because we refused to acknowledge God’s grace when He presented himself to us.

Finally, we can choose to act on faith, to accept the promises as true. This may not be that easy. It may require that we suffer rather than submit to lies. It may compromise relationships. It may mean that we have to humble ourselves and admit that in God’s eyes we have fallen far short of his expectations but when we choose to act on faith, and to accept God’s promises as true, it will mean salvation for us. Amen.