Scripture: Psalm 91
One way I have of thinking about what faith is, what faith is to me, is to think of it as the “nevertheless” part of my life. In a way, my whole life is built upon, depends on that “nevertheless”.
Here are some faith statements in my own words:
I look at myself and see nothing more than a mass of matter. I know that in a literal way I am just blood, bones, tissue, water, electrical impulses that send messages from one part of me to another. I realize that there are those who argue strongly that this is all that we are and that everything we think, feel, do, or dream is a result of how the molecules of our bodies bump into each other. Sometimes I have that sense myself. Nevertheless, I believe there is a me that is separate from—no not separate from, but embedded in this matter, that is different from and more than the physical me, that is worth something more than what the marketplace could get in money for my flesh, in fact that is, as the ads say, priceless.
People do bad things. They hurt other people. They act cruelly and they do so intentionally and without remorse, and they do it often enough that some people just seem, no matter how you look at it, to be bad people. Nevertheless, I consider every person a holy being, which I’m sure you understand is much different from saying I believe people are good.
I know that there is no proof of God. I am even of the opinion that often when we talk about God we are talking about some being we wish existed or some being who we have made in our image, or according to some image of what we would like God to be. Humans are good at making gods. And it just might be that we make up gods because we need them and we create them to serve our own needs and interests. Nevertheless, I continue to talk about God. I continue to talk to God. I continue to seek out the God who is beyond the gods we make up. I give thanks to God. I argue with God. I consider what God may have in mind for me, for us. And I try to trust my life to God.
There are lots of others, but those will do for examples. For today, my purpose is not to discuss the various specific things I have just said, whether those are good things for me to believe or anyone else. Faith is not a formula. It’s fluid, and the particular words I use might only not be the best words for someone else to express the same truth, they might not be the same words I would use tomorrow. My point is simply that for me, the key word is always the “nevertheless”. How I move from one point to the other, from let’s say non-belief, or maybe non-engagement with God to engagement with God, how that happens is the mystery of faith. For me that is often or almost always a “nevertheless”.
Here are some faith statements from the Bible:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…” Did you hear the nevertheless in there? It’s not written down but it’s there. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, nevertheless I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
“Do not fear. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you, and when you walk through fire you shall not be burned.” That is, even though you are in danger of drowning, even though life can threaten to overwhelm you, can threaten to overwhelm anyone at any time, nevertheless I will be with you, nevertheless the waters shall not overwhelm you, and though you are in the midst of fire, nevertheless you shall not be burned.
Or remember Jesus saying, for instance, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” which could be read as: even though you are in the midst of a terrible grief, nevertheless you are blessed. Or blessed are the poor in spirit might also read: Even though you think you have little faith or strength of spirit, nevertheless you are blessed.
I ended last week with words from Psalm 121. Here are also words from that Psalm. The Lord will keep you from all evil. The Lord will keep your life. Let me add the words that are not there…but are. Even though evil may threaten you, even though you may be in danger of losing your life or heart or soul, nevertheless God will keep you from all evil. God will keep your life…in the palm of her hands, to use a repeated Biblical image.
And Psalm 91 says: “Because you have made the lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.” Again paraphrasing just slightly: “Even though the snare of the fowler may threaten you, or deadly pestilence, nevertheless God will shield you and under his wings you will find refuge…”A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand all around, nevertheless the destruction shall not touch you.”
All of these neverthelesses have to do with our theme for this morning—the enemy within.
Last week I said, among other things, that we are indeed threatened in one way or another—lives, values, souls, wholeness in jeopardy from enemies that we may think of in various ways but that do surround us. To deny or ignore the existence of enemies, to imagine somehow that our lives are secure and not in jeopardy, is either a luxury of the privileged or a delusion of the spiritually sleepy.
But of course there are enemies not only out there in the world, but also inside of us and they are connected. What the threats from the outside do is make us afraid. They work their way inside of us in the form of fear, and it may be that fear of one sort or another is at the core of all our inner enemies.
I have just a few words to say about this and then I am going to suggest that the sermon just spill over into our prayer time today, which will take place in small groups. That will give others a chance to talk, which we like to do from time to time in worship. It also says that how we deal with our enemies within is ultimately a matter of prayer. But here are just a few more thoughts to lead in to the time of reflection and prayer.
We are familiar with Jesus’ saying that we are to love our enemies. I think he meant it, and we usually take it this way, that we are to seek to be in loving relationship with other people who may for one reason or another present themselves to us as our enemies. It may be though that we can apply what Jesus says to our inner enemies as well. It may be that we are called to love, or in some sense embrace, our inner enemies too…as opposed to denying that we have them or as opposed to being ashamed or guilty about them.
The kind of macho stance that says, “I’m not afraid of anything” or even any thought we may have that this is something good to strive for doesn’t serve any good cause. It certainly doesn’t move us toward being whole human beings. The faith stance that says that faith is supposed to grant people immunity from being afraid, grief-stricken, or disheartened is simply a false faith. It is important that we love these enemies, at least in the sense of embracing them as part of our humanity, at least in the sense of acknowledging they are part of us without a sign of weakness of faith or a source of guilt or shame.
Still, they are enemies because they do threaten us. They threaten to take us over. They threaten to become not just a part of us but the whole of us, or at least too much of us. They threaten to become what determines our actions and even our sense of who we are.
We need a nevertheless. We need both sides of the nevertheless. Not just “O woe is me, my enemies are all around and my heart faints within me”. And not just “I will fear no evil”, but “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, nevertheless I will fear no evil.”
This is not a question of how we survive or how we achieve inner peace or serenity in the midst of all sorts of threats and assaults. It is a question of how we be and become a child of God, not a child of the world, that is to say child of the fears the world may fill us with. How do we become shaped more by God than by our enemies or our fears? How do we let ourselves be made in the image of God, not in the image of those we oppose? How do we find not only a place of safety but a place of sanctuary, not where we expect to be protected but where in spite of the fact that we are vulnerable and subject to real threats and subject to our own fears and discouragement, but that in spite of all this we may continue to grow into God’s image of us.
Rather than end the sermon, I invite us now to continue it in small groups. In addition to whatever questions may have been raised by my words this week or last week, I will suggest just a few questions for your conversation, knowing that Sojourners will talk about whatever they please, or I should say that I know you will be led by the spirit and that the conversation may go in any direction. Still here are a few questions:
Are most of our enemies within grounded in our fears?
To the extent that you are able to talk about them, what are some of those enemies within for you personally? What are some fears that seem to be at work in our lives that are enemies?
For you, how do say the “nevertheless”? How do you complete the sentence: Even though I am beset by enemies without and by enemies within, nevertheless…
Where does that faith come from, for you?
I will save the amen today for the end of the service, and simply invite you to rearrange your chairs as necessary and then to have a moment of reflection to prepare for today’s prayer time…
Jim Bundy
July 28, 2002