Faith
Have you noticed how little faith we have in things these days? In the past we lobbed off a letter and waited for a reply. We kept no record unless we had a secretary with a piece of extremely messy, carbon paper. Now, not only do we save it on our word processor but also copy it to a removable disk, flash drive, memory stick or dongle, in case of a hard disk failure, and probably print a copy as well, all just in case it is all lost in the post.
Neither do we trust e-mails. We save the message in our “sent file”, as proof of date and time of sending. Strangely, every electronic transmission ever sent is still flying about on its way to outer space but mine sometimes cannot find the other side of New Malden. I have had to wait ages for documents to arrive when sending them from one computer to the other in our house. Actually, as the bundles of 1s and 0s into which they are split are divided and sent by different routes round the world wide web, it is a miracle they all arrive and reassemble themselves at all.
Perhaps it is not the technology but the people we do not trust. It is would be very easy to claim not to have received communications. Despite (or because of) modernisation, increasingly unreliable systems allow for the possibility that we are telling the truth. Computers crash and post turns up that has been stuck in the sorting office for years or been nibbled by snails. Health and safety regulations prevent postmen from approaching our door if we have an overgrown path, slippery steps or an aggressive pet.
On Wednesday we discussed our gifts, spiritual or otherwise, and in particular healing. Would any of us feel able to approach a crippled beggar and instead of giving money, call down healing upon him? Most of us would not, although we would be happy to bring him to the church and ask the congregation to pray for him. Why do we not believe that Jesus’ words to the disciples apply to us too? He told them that if they had had faith the size of a mustard seed (smaller than the dot under my question mark above) they could have healed the possessed boy themselves, or even have moved a mountain (Matt.17:20-21). Later Jesus reiterates this telling the disciples that if they “have faith and do not doubt” they too can punish a fruitless tree or move that mountain (Matt.21:21).
When did we become so sceptical about things? As the human race has developed it has discovered science and thus thinks itself able to discern all about everything. Apparently, though, we do not even know what makes up the majority of the universe – scientists conveniently call it dark matter and profess it to be there even if not able to prove it. Without it all their other assertions fail to make sense, so it has to be there! Or does it? Why do we find it easier to have faith in them than God?
I once heard Prof. Richard Dawkins, the career atheist, say that God was impossible to prove and, therefore, Christianity was just a matter of Faith. A specious argument I feel, as surely, Atheism is even more a matter of Faith. God is impossible to disprove and His works are obvious in the events inexplicable to science. If Prof. Dawkins is right there is nothing to lose by having Faith but if he is wrong there is everything to lose by not having it. Why take the risk?
