"Giving As Good As You Get"
First Congregational Church -- Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost -- August 12, 2007
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.

[texts: Genesis 15:1-6/Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16/Luke 12:32-40]

You can never trust God too much. Why is it that some people do not bear fruit?
It is because they have no trust either in God or in themselves.

There is part of me that wants to repeat those wise words of Meister Eckhart and then point you to the Puritan preacher and theologian Thomas Watson's "Where reason cannot wade there faith may swim" and sit down. I believe that these two spiritual giants -- one of the 14th, the other of the 17th centuries -- present the essence of what we hear in the Scripture lessons today. I suppose the title of the sermon also manages to sum it up – giving as good we get. God places trust in us and now we’re to do the same. In the process of being faithful we become fearless – giving as good as we get.

What do I mean when I say 'faithful'? Well, let's talk about 'faith' for a moment. The writer to the Hebrews tells us, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." The Greek word here is pistis; the verb form is pisteuo. It can be translated as 'faith,' as 'trust', or as 'belief.' When one recites the creed in the Greek Orthodox Church, for example, the first word is 'pisteuo' -- "I believe."

Somewhere along the way we have started to equate faith and belief with intellectual assent. To "believe in" something means to have come to agreement in a set of propositions. When we ask someone if they believe in God, if we don't get the brush-off or a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer, we're given a set of statements about God. Now while I may deem the intellectual life an important part of spirituality, I don't think we can reduce faith to agreeing on a certain set of dogmas or propositions. In my mind that approach to faith limits God and renders faith something less than it really is.

Faith is trust and, even though it is a noun, it implies action. To put faith in God is to say that we have found God trustworthy. When Abram and Sarai had their encounter with God they had no creeds or propositions requiring assent. They had left home, family, and nation to follow this mysterious presence that promised a new home, a new family, and that they would become a new nation with a rich heritage. They trusted God, the mysterious presence, even though both of them were well beyond child-rearing age, and God kept the promise. Abram didn't see the fullness of it in his lifetime, but Isaac, his son by Sarai when in her 90s, carried on. God kept the promise and those who see Abraham as the ‘father’ of their religion, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, all constantly look back to it because God has proved trustworthy time and time again.

It's unfortunate that we look at this story of trustworthiness almost with nostalgia, because we live in a time where trust has been squandered. Talk to most people and they will tell you that someone in whom they placed trust violated it, and now they are suspicious and lacking in confidence. Pick up the newspaper or turn on the television and you'll see the erosion of public trust in government, health care, and -- especially -- in the church. Case in point, several years ago swindlers hiding behind pulpits enticed people to invest their money with them. One gentleman, in a news interview, said, "I thought I could trust God's minister, my money would be safe with him." It wasn't, and I'm not so sure that the individuals involved were really God's ministers; you can get ordained over the internet you know. We’ve all heard and seen the news reports of broken trust in various denominations and there has been a time or two when it’s happened here, too. Trust, then, has to be re-established if we are to be seen as God's faithful people and the church is to regain its proper role of being a safe, welcoming, trusting community.

How do we nurture trust? By being trustworthy and demonstrating that the God we serve is as well. In short, by giving as good as we get, because God has demonstrated trust in us and we are to do the same. If we are trusting, faith-full, people we will be authentic in the way we live. Jesus says, "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." If our trust is in God, then our thoughts, our priorities, our resources, our actions, our whole lives are going to flow in that direction. If our treasure is in our stock portfolio, our hobby, or our agenda for this or that organization -- yes, even the church, it's going to show. Restoring trust begins with our own placing of trust in God and living accordingly. If we are faithful we have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. With apologies to Franklin D. Roosevelt, we need not fear even fear itself, because we are prepared to give as good as we’ve got.

Fear is the result of lacking trust; the opposite of trust then is not distrust, but fear. It's as simple as that. Without faith, trust, we are afraid of the very contours of life itself. The ups and downs of daily life, the stock market, especially after the roller-coaster of the last few days, or our relationships render one immobile when fear dominates. Fear makes us suspicious of everyone and everything as we constantly watch our backs, wondering from which direction the next blow will come. Fear paralyzes and renders life less than livable.

God told Abram, "Do not be afraid" and Jesus told the disciples, Abram's descendants, "Do not be afraid little flock." Faith stands against fear and triumphs over it. While religion -- and I must include Christian Churches through the ages here -- may have used fear as a means of control, this is not the essence of what God desires for God's creation or what Christ taught. A religion based on fear simply cannot achieve the potential for growth that God has placed within the human mind and heart. Again and again, Jesus stands over against our human fears and conquers them, even our fear of death. The cross is a potent symbol of God's trustworthiness and of our conquered fears. As John Shea, a contemporary theologian, has written:

The trust which the symbol of the Cross encourages is neither reliance nor safety nor presumption. It has absolutely no overtones of passivity . . . . Trust does not shrink from the unavoidable demands of the Mystery, from relationship, sexuality, friendship, and social responsibility . . . . For the person who lives in the Cross of Christ, trust is the God-side of human courage. [Stories of God, p. 156]

Faith, then, calls us into the fullness of life, not away from it. Through faith we are given the freedom to enter into relationship with one another, because we know that God is there with us. We are able, through faith, to open ourselves to one another, since God has shown us the way of trust opening God's most intimate self to us. We are also, through faith, free to care for other people's deepest needs, taking risks in extending ourselves because God has taken risks for us. God trusts us and we are, in turn, enabled, empowered, to trust others – giving as good as we get. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has put it this way, "What God does first and best and most is to trust his people with their moment in history. He trusts his people to do what must be done for the sake of his whole community."

God trusts us to act in a trustworthy manner. God isn't suspicious of us. If you place trust in someone and let him or her know that you do, they will, more often than not, rise to the level of trust and behave accordingly. I remember back to when I was a dorm moderator and having a talk with the students about this very thing. I told them that if they wanted to be treated as adults, they must behave as adults. If they behaved as children, they would be treated accordingly. I told them I trusted they would behave as adults and, for the most part, the majority did. I am convinced that if you view people with suspicion they'll conform to your worst expectations. God trusts us for a reason; we're made in God's image and likeness.

God has trusted us with God's image and likeness, and that's no small thing. God has become one of us in Christ to take on our fears, our pains, and our disappointments and to overcome them. God trusts us now to become what we have been made to be and restored to by Christ. Meister Eckhart put this idea in terms of maturing the divine spark -- the image and likeness -- that is within each of us. He said, "A seed of God is in us. Now a seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree; a hazel seed in a hazel tree. A seed of God grows into God." If this is what God trust us with, how can we continue in fear? You're right, we can't.

Therefore, we must be faithFULL and fearLESS, giving as good as you get. We have nothing to fear because God is faithful. God has identified with us in our goodness and potential. God has identified with us in our brokenness and our twistedness. God is in our midst and loves us, so what have to fear? NOTHING.

Now we have to accept our position of trust, remember faith is, at root, a verb, so we must put our trust into action. We should leave this place of worship and refreshment renewed in our determination to live as a trustworthy, a faithful people. Trusting in God and in ourselves we can make a difference in the world around us. "Do not be afraid little flock, for it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Christ is among us -- be faithful and fearless, giving as good as you get! Amen.