McPhail Baptist Church

July 19, 2020

Prelude: "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"

Sue Sparks

Favourite Hymns 

Ernie and Lynda Cox 

I Heard The Voice of Jesus Say

I heard the voice of Jesus say,“Come unto Me and rest;


Lay down, thou weary one, lay down thy head upon My breast.”


I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad;


I found in Him a resting place, and He has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,“Behold, I freely give

The living water; thirsty one, stoop down, and drink, and live.”


I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life-giving stream;


My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in Him.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s Light;


Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, and all thy day be bright.”

I looked to Jesus, and I found in Him my Star, my Sun;


And in that light of life I’ll walk, till trav’ling days are done.

Open My Eyes, That I May See

Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me;


Place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free.

Refrain

Silently now I wait for thee, ready, my God, thy will to see;


Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!

Open my ears, that I may hear voices of truth thou sendest clear,


And while the wavenotes fall on my ear, everything false will disappear.

Open my mouth, and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere;


Open my heart, and let me prepare love with thy children thus to share.

I Serve A Risen Saviour

I serve a risen Saviour, He’s in the world today;

I know that He is living, whatever others say;

I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer,

And just the time I need Him, He’s always near.

Refrain


He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.

He lives, He lives, salvation to impart;

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

In all the world around me I see His loving care,

And though my heart grows weary I never will despair;

I know that He is leading, through all the stormy blast,

The day of His appearing will come at last.

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John 2:1-11 (NRSV)

The Wedding at Cana

2 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

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"Wine Into Water"

Rev. Ernie Cox

Special Music: "To God Be The Glory"

Ernie and Lynda Cox

"Jesus’ Idea of Faith"

Rev. Steve Zink

“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed….nothing will be impossible for you” 

(Mt. 17:20)

Today I would like to share some brief reflections on the theme of faith. One thing that has always impressed me in the teaching of Jesus is his surprising approach to faith. I call it surprising, for his approach differs so dramatically from the stock notion of faith in circulation today. 

What does the word faith suggest to your mind? If I were to guess, I would bet that most would think of faith as something equivalent to “beliefs.” And what exactly are beliefs? Beliefs are statements. Beliefs are propositions that can be written down. Here are some randomly selected beliefs from different religious contexts: 

“Moses crossed the Red Sea” 

“The unrighteous will be cast into the Lake of Fire”

“Allah disapproves of ham sandwiches” 

“The world was made by Jehovah in a mere six days” 

“Raël is the final prophet”

“When the pool of Beth-zatha is stirred by an angel, the first person to dip the toe is healed” 

We could go on forever with this. If all the beliefs of humankind were to be written down, I don’t suppose the world itself could contain all the books that would be written! Is genuine faith equivalent to collecting together the right list of these kinds of statements? What if one includes a wrong statement in their list of beliefs? Does that mean they have “tainted faith?” If a person has only a fraction of the correct statements, though none of the wrong ones, does that mean they have “little faith?” Suppose a person has nothing but the full quota of right statements. Would that mean that person possesses “great faith?” 

Christianity, along with most religions in general, have traditionally approached faith as though it were equivalent to beliefs. To be a Christian has historically meant that you hold to a collection of certain statements, gathered into some kind of creed or confession. To be a Christian means that you declare loyalty to a sheet of paper, though no group ever agreed on the right number or the exact formulation of the statements. Over the centuries there came to be countless disputes and violence over the correct list. As Theodore Parker put it, “The heresy of one age is the orthodox belief and ‘only infallible rule’ of the next…..Men are burned for professing what men are burned for denying”.

Some Christian people speak of “sharing their faith.” Here again the meaning can only be beliefs. What such people are attempting to do is share their set of treasured statements with other people they’ve assumed are “lost” for want of the special list. Faith is thought of as “a message,” something passed from one person to another by language. 

You might be surprised to discover that Jesus did not think of faith in this way. Jesus did not treat faith as equivalent to beliefs. I’m not saying he didn’t have any beliefs. Of course he did. Everyone has beliefs. But for Jesus, faith wasn’t equivalent to a person's list of statements. That’s why Jesus never produced a statement of faith (surely an inexcusable oversight if he thought faith was simply another word for beliefs!). Ernst Kasemann said “Jesus never asked anyone whether he believed in the virgin birth, the resurrection of the dead, and the descent into hell”. Not only did he not produce a statement of faith, he never asked us to produce a statement of faith in his name. For Jesus, faith was not a list but an act. It was an act of dependence. 

The idea of faith as an act of dependence should not strike us as totally foreign. No doubt you are reading this while sitting on a chair. You are counting on that chair right now. You are choosing to depend on it. You are exercising reliance. The degree of faith is quite irrelevant here. One person crosses the bridge in confident dependence. She strides across with a sure grin and a normal pulse. A second person approaches, trembling with a lack of confidence. With knees knocking together and palms dripping, he nervously makes his way across the bridge. Both have made it across safely. The bridge was just as objectively supportive for the first as for the second. The degree of faith made no difference in terms of the final result. Faith as small as a mustard seed, though it doesn’t spare one mental anguish, is still adequate to the task. What is important is not the degree of dependence, but what is being depended upon. 

For Jesus, faith was an act of dependence on the ineffable power in life that produces what we name as good and beautiful, that mysterious sustaining force that many call God. Faith is choosing to respond to the needful moment, in an act of dependence upon a transcendent good. 

Obviously, this type of faith cannot be “shared." It is your own act; it can never be another’s. This type of faith cannot stick with you all of your life, running in the background as a set of beliefs can do. As an act, it must be renewed at each moment it’s called upon. It may fail one moment; it may rescue and uphold the next. Each moment is its own trial and each act involves a fresh risk. 

We are now in a much better position to understand much of what Jesus says about faith in the gospels. Who does Jesus praise as examples of faith? Infants and heretics! In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus gave thanks, saying, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Mt. 11:25). Infants! What does an infant know of any creed? But the infant does know about dependance. They live every moment by such a trust in the sources of their nature and security. 

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus praises adult faith on only two occasions, both of them Gentiles, both of them absolute heretics by the standard of Jesus’ cultural context. The first of them, a Roman Centurion, would have worshiped the god Mars. The second, a Canaanite woman, would have worshiped the god Baal. Of the first, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith” (Mt. 8:10). Of the second, Jesus said, “Woman, great is your faith!” (Mt. 15:28). 

While the faith of infants and heretics is praised, the faith of the disciples is critiqued. Even here, though, the same idea of faith is operating. Think of the story of Peter’s faith as he attempted to walk on water. Don’t get bogged down in the question of historical literalism. Whatever event may or may not lay behind the story, the text itself functions as an instructive parable of faith. 

Peter ventures to walk on water, finding success at first. However, fear soon overcomes him and he begins to sink. Jesus reaches out to save him but adds the rebuke: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Exactly what kind of faith are we working with here? Belief in the “Apostles Creed”? Did Peter sink into the water because he believed in only 36 of the “39 Articles” of the Church of England?. It is manifestly obvious that the notion of faith here has nothing whatsoever to do with beliefs you write down on a sheet of paper.

The idea in this parable of faith is this: stepping out where there are no sturdy facts, no visible securities. It is walking over darkness and chaos in the hope of good. Many Christians of the fundamentalist variety treat their beliefs as absolute certainties. For them faith means a zealous knowledge of sure things. How wrong-headed this is! True faith is the exact opposite! Truth faith is proceeding precisely where all certainties stop. It is leaving the security of the boat and stepping upon the most uncertain foundation imaginable. It is walking on the abyss. No answers. No security. It is walking in risk and in hope of an upholding for which we might see no clear sign, no sure token, only a hint, perhaps just the memory of yesterday’s hint.

Faith is dependance upon a mysterious divine benevolence that we can only discover in action. God is not one object among many on a fat list of beliefs. The divine reality is rather a power, a power to be tested only in experience. To try and freeze God into a “belief” only means the Spirit has departed. It has slipped through our fingers. What remains is just a human notion and name, an idol. God can only be ventured upon in the risk of uncertainty, only known in the present, as a fresh surprise. As the Apostle Paul put it, “The kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power” (1Cor. 4:20). Faith is our act of dependence on the divine when the critical moment asks it of us. Insofar as we venture in dependence we can find we don’t sink into the watery chaos. Insofar as we venture in dependence, we can make the surprising discovery that nothing is impossible. 

Hymn: "Give To Our God Immortal Praise"

Sue Sparks

Give to our God immortal praise;


Mercy and truth are all His ways;


Wonders of grace to God belong;


Repeat His mercies in your song.

He built the earth, He spread the sky,


And fixed the starry lights on high;


Wonders of grace to God belong;


Repeat His mercies in your song.

Through this vast world He guides our feet,


And leads us to His heavenly seat;


His mercies ever shall endure,


When this our world shall be no more.

Announcements

Weblog Holiday Shutdown: Steve and Ernie are taking a two week break from the McPhail weblog beginning July 20. This means there won’t be a blog for two Sundays, July 26, and August 2nd.  

Offerings: We are excited to now offer an e-transfer option for McPhail offerings. If you would like to make use of this option, offerings can be sent via online banking to offerings@mcphailbaptist.ca If possible, please include your envelope number in the memo line. A special thanks to Steve Sparks and Samantha Helman for setting this up for us! For those who would prefer mailing in their offering, funds can be sent via post to: McPhail Baptist Church, 249 Bronson Ave, Ottawa, ON. K1R 6H6 We are deeply thankful for your ongoing support of this ministry! 

Benediction

Ernie and Lynda Cox 

Postlude: "Recessional On Hymn to Joy"

Sue Sparks