The Mystery of Faith

Psalm 1, 2, 3 • Psalm 4, 7
Num. 32:1-6,16-27 • Rom. 8:26-30 • Matt. 23:1-12

Why is it that two people facing the exact same set of facts and circumstances might draw very different conclusions and make consequentially different choices? Why is it that one person succumbs to addiction while another finds the grace of sobriety one day at a time through a twelve-step program? Why is one person converted and transformed by an encounter with God’s love in the risen Christ and another sees only superstition and foolishness in Jesus and the Christian way?

I think these are the kinds of questions Paul was struggling with in his letter to the Romans. Why was it eventually so clear to him that Jesus was the fulfillment of his Jewish hopes and expectations, while to most of his Jewish contemporaries, Jesus was a heretic at worst and a good man whose life came to a tragic end at best?

For some, the answer lies within the will of the person in question – either one is moral and faithful by acts of will and choice, or one is willfully rebellious and unfaithful. I think Paul was emotionally honest enough to recognize that his moral rectitude played little if any role in his conversion, for it was while he was a murderous persecutor of the early church that Christ chose him and changed him. The only answer he could offer to this mystery was that God worked this change of heart in him, and Paul named this graceful work of God - Faith.

While I cannot agree with the doctrine of predestination that many minds greater than mine have settled on to explain this mystery of faith through grace (Paul, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin to name a few). I do, however, agree whole-heartedly with Paul, that whatever faith and unselfish love there is in me, it is there by the grace of God. If I have played any role in my ongoing conversion to the Way of Love, it has been to surrender my willfulness to God daily. But even this answer is not satisfactory because it leads me to ask, why does one person surrender and another does not? I find myself back again, pondering the mystery of faith. I’m grateful that our Anglican way of being Christian allows us to live in the paradox of this mystery as we surrender our lives bit by bit to the great love that is at the heart of ALL that is.

Written by Trent Palmer

Trent is a member of the Vestry, worships online at the 8:45 service (as do we all), helps out as needed with Morning and Evening Prayer, co-mentors the EfM class, helps with Community Meals on Mondays, and is doing long neglected chores around his house.