Reasons for Believing - Sermon 8th March 2009

Gen. 17:1-7, 15-16 ,   Romans 4:13-25,   Mark 8:31-38

Peter’s confession; so much turns on it – it’s the culmination of a learning process in which the disciples move from knowing nothing about this Jesus who has called them, to a huge collective insight, spoken by Peter: “You are the Christ, son of the Living God!” But it’s also the moment when, just as they seem to have grasped who Jesus is, just as they seem to have found a label big enough to stick on him, a pigeon-hole big enough to file him in, that he definitively says “Yes – but...!” “I am what you think, but in a way you could never have imagined!” And starts speaking of the Cross.

And we’ve said this so many times! And inevitably that means that, every time I see it come up in the Lectionary, at least once a year, I’ve found myself wondering what I can possibly say about it this time...

Then, yesterday, I found myself in Union Street, in Aberdeen.

To make sense of what follows, you need to know the discussion we had on Thursday, at the Lambs and Elephants. Even by our usual standards, it was a splendid, sprawling discussion, taking in everything from medical ethics to political correctness  - and once again we found ourselves revisiting the old question “What do you do when you meet a beggar in the street?”

Do you give a beggar money, because they ask? What if the person then goes and spends the money on drink or drugs? Is it better and more loving to buy them a cup of coffee and  a roll out of Gregg’s? Or is that condescending? Is it maybe more moral – and does it treat them the more as human beings – to give them money and let them decide how to use it? Is the simple affirmation of them as a human being that you offer by giving them money more important  than the risk that they might “misuse” the money? Who is to say what constitutes “misuse” anyway? 

We all had our preferred positions, but, this being the Lambs and Elephants, we all respected the others’ point of view. I don’t know if anyone else’s mind was changed about what to do in such a situation; mine wasn’t. But I heard again the counter-arguments from people I respect very much, and I found that this left something working away at the back of my mind. I went back to something that Oliver Wendell Holmes, the American jurist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, used to say about judges and their legal decisions. He used to say that, whereas most people think that judges work from their reasons to their conclusions, they don’t. They work the other way. A judge will decide a case, and then give his reasons for his decision.  The decision comes first. The reasons constitute the judge’s explanation for her decision – as much to herself as to anyone else. And, says Holmes, though we think we don’t, that really is how we do, as human beings, think and reason. The decision comes first.

I wasn’t thinking of any of this – not consciously, anyway - in Aberdeen yesterday until I came across a young man, begging. And I did what I do in such situations. I reached into my pocket for a substantial coin. And I hadn’t any. He didn’t notice. I walked past and promised – myself more than him – that I would be back when I had change. But as it turned out, my path didn’t take me past him again.  Much further on, I came upon Waterstones. In I went, and upstairs, where I found a Costa Coffee bar. I felt too guilty for a coffee, not having had change for the young man. Aha!  I could break a tenner for a coffee, and then I would have change.  But then I glanced at the prices and thought “I’m not paying that for a coffee...”

My eye was drawn to a book called 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God by one Guy P. Harrison. And my mood got much worse. It looked to me like one of those books that appear in such profusion nowadays which set up a God I have certainly never believed in, and prove that he doesn’t “exist”. And, I found myself thinking,  they use words like “believe” and “exist” in ways very different to the ways in which either I or the whole classical Christian tradition use them. I put it back on the shelf, but with the odd reflection that “most people who believe in God do so because they are stuck with him...” 

Now, that sounds very negative, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me to be the way things are. And quite right too! And it immediately led on to me imagining a conversation with “Guy P. Harrison” (in my mind, it was a televised debate, but this grandiosity I put down to my having watched far too much of The West Wing on T.V. with Carolyn!) in which he asked me why I believed in God, and I simply said “Because I am a Christian...”

And the more I thought about that, the more I thought that that was exactly right. I believe in God because I am a Christian. I believe in God because I’m stuck with it. I don’t believe in God because of any of Harrison’s 50 reasons. And, I found myself thinking, I bet that’s how it really is with a lot of people. And then I found myself thinking that it was a stupid title for a book anyway. It sounds plausible enough; list a number of reasons why people say they believe in God, and examine, maybe demolish them. But you still won’t actually have discovered why people believe in God.

And then I had another thought. I was on a roll! It’s like someone writing a book on 50 reasons I love my wife. Or 50 reasons I believe my wife loves me. It’s all totally beside the point. We who believe in God – you and me - do so because we are stuck with God. Any reasons I might give for any of this are totally beside the point. Just as, in a sense, the reasons  I might give for giving money to beggars – or not – are not actually the reasons why I give money to beggars – or not. That’s not the way round in which it happens. I am confronted by a beggar, and his demand, and I respond, and then- maybe because you ask me, or maybe because I am curious about my own motivation – I give reasons. 

Still rather grumpy, I stomped next door to the HMV shop. I found myself thinking that if I were to treat myself to one of those excellent, low-price Naxos recordings, that would break a tenner and give me change for the young beggar in the street. And I’d have bought a CD that I could look forward to enjoying.

Then I thought “Of course, you could give him the tenner...” And then I thought “That doesn’t feel right – but I’m not sure why. A pound or two-pound coin might lift his spirits, make him think that someone sees him as a human being; but a tenner would be just weird...” Then I realized that I’d made my decision, and was now trying to rationalize it. See how difficult Jesus’ advice is about not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing...?

 And then I got really irritated with HMV. This, in a big record shop,  is what passes for a classical music section...? There was nothing I wanted. So I stomped out, and across the road. And once I was on the other side of Union Street, three things happened in quick succession. I found two pound coins in my pocket, under my phone, car keys and handkerchief. My mother was right – I do carry far too much in my pockets! And almost immediately, I came across another young man, and gave him a pound. And then I came across a young woman sitting with a polystyrene cup, and gave her my remaining pound.

It was almost, but not quite, a reflex, almost, but not quite, not a free action at all. I’d already made my decision. In a sense, it was made for me. I was stuck with it.

Yesterday, I reflected, was important and interesting for three reasons. Firstly, it’s what Saturdays are often like for twenty-first century Christians. That is, they are just like anyone else’s Saturdays, even though we perhaps think about them a bit differently afterwards! Days in the real world.

Secondly, the decisions we take are based on what we already believe.

Thirdly, I found myself thinking about Peter’s Confession.

“You are the Christ, son of the Living God...”

It looks like a moment of insight, of new and higher understanding. A moment when Peter can give new reasons for being a disciple, because he understands things better, can make more sense of what he has seen, experienced, come to understand. It looks like a moment when he runs through his reasons – maybe more, maybe less than 50 – for believing in this Jesus, and realizes that the case is stronger, and that it supports an even bigger, higher set of beliefs about him.

But it’s not. As the unfolding conversation indicates, Peter is basically no further forward. All he has actually managed to say is that for him, Jesus is somehow really important. All he has managed to say is that Jesus is, for him, ultimate.Which he had known since he responded to the call at the lakeside.

Now, that’s not nothing.

But as soon as Jesus starts talking about realities, about where things are bound to go from here on in, Peter doesn’t want to know. Because he does have his reasons for believing in Jesus, and Jesus himself seems to be knocking some of the most treasured of them down. He isn’t going to be recognized as really important, even ultimate, by everyone, the way he has been by his disciples He isn’t just going to “come out” as the Messiah, and be accepted by all in a glorious process that sweeps everyone who believed in him in the early days to power and importance.. Especially Peter. And Peter’s recognition of Jesus’ ultimacy, it now seems, might turn out to be terribly dangerous to Peter...

And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.  But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men."

Peter’s reasons for believing in Jesus, it seems, have been really poor ones. Mince, you might say... And Jesus himself destroys them. But the faith doesn’t go away.

And the penny drops. It isn’t because of his reasons that Peter believes. Peter believes first, and then come the reasons. Just like us. The reasons are not why we believe. We believe because we are stuck with believing. Because we can’t do otherwise.

And, most surprisingly of all – that’s OK.

Because that’s how human belief works. Because what we are talking about here isn’t “belief- that” but “belief-in.” Trust.

Peter’s reasons for believing may be rubbish ones. But they can be replaced by other, better ones, that will reshape his faith. This happens in dialogue. In dialogue with others. In dialogue with his faith community. In dialogue with the very centre of his own faith. Or – as we Christians tend to say – with “Jesus”. The structure of faith can change, without altering the commitment. It’s the commitment – the trust – that anchors faith, and enables us to change our reasons, to modify the structure of our faith.

There is no “Peter’s confession” in John’s Gospel. The passage that comes closest is this one, from the end of chapter six, after the feeding of the five thousand:

After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;  and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

You couldn’t have it more clearly put: we are stuck with Jesus, stuck with our faith in him. Stuck, in the end, with his ultimacy. And that, basically, is what a Christian is: someone for whom Jesus Christ is ultimate. Someone who can only speak of God in terms drawn from Jesus Christ.

The reasons we believe aren’t why we believe. We believe first, and then give reasons.  Harrison’s examples – I have taken them from an online review of his book which makes me wonder if I’ve been a bit harsh on him – includes these “reasons for believing in God”:

"Faith is a good thing"

"Believing in my god makes me happy"

"A sacred book proves my god is real"

"My god sacrificed his only son for me"

"Without my god we would have no sense of right or wrong"

"Millions Of people can't be wrong"

"No-one has ever disproved the existence of my god"

"The End Is Near"

I can only speak personally, but I have never, ever offered reasons like these for believing in God. The reason I believe in God is quite simply that I am stuck with Jesus Christ.  Because he has laid hold of me. Because he won’t let me go.

And that is the heart of it. Faith is not believing because of reasons. Faith is a relationship. Faith is trust where the reasons give out.

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life...”

Wherever this leads, we trust. Because, for us, Jesus Christ has become ultimate. 

“...we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Everything else follows from that. As the hymn which is perhaps the greatest loss to us as we moved from CH3 to CH4 puts it:

Let me no more my comfort draw

From my frail hold of thee;

In this alone rejoice with awe –

Thy mighty grasp of me...

Faith comes first. And we’re stuck with it. Gloriously.

Thanks be to God.