Love has been a theme for Drunk Pastor. There’s a lot more. The second to last love post was about the Apostle Paul’s statement that love (agape) is more than faith. Most recently was about love being the marker by which an “antichrist” is denominated in 1 John. Both posts got expected reactions about doctrine, faith, and politics.
So, let’s talk about faith. In the Bible, it’s pistis in Greek and emunah in Hebrew. It’s often used as “amen” in Old Testament prayers. We don’t need to tear these words apart too much etymologically right now. For now, words come and go. Language changes. After 2000 years of Christianizing, a word like “faith” can be recycled and adapted so many times that it’s difficult to assign a working definition to it.
Language changes over time. Words that meant one thing yesterday mean something different in a generation. “Faith” is one of those words that all humans understand in some fashion, or at least I hope to show that. I think we all already know what it means, even without the nerdy stuff I love to get distracted by.
Church’s Fear of Faith
If you’ve been in church long, you’ve heard sermons on what faith is and what it looks like. Our English definition of “faith” will say something like, “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” This is already a problem. This isn’t faith. This is trust. Not that faith doesn’t require trust. They just aren’t the same. The emphasis is on the subject of our trust – it doesn’t put the emphasis on the owner of the trust. We trust the thing because it’s trustworthy. We don’t have to change.
When Christians say faith, we mean agreeing to the divinity and salvific result of the cross and resurrection, as that church teaches it. Then there’s the assumed, implied, and unspoken. There’s the whole life that a good Christian must conform to after saying the prayer and turning in their connection card. Afterward, there’s the Bible reading, devotions, church attendance, tithing, and ultimately becoming a disciple of the “faith” that they were re-born into.
Faith, then, is about complying with an organization’s teachings, expectations, and existence in exchange for our personal lives seeming like they improve. Christians stuck in Jesus-cults cut off and demonize all other humans, including other Christians who don’t conform to how they teach Jesus. If faith in Christ is the only means of salvation, then which Jesus do we choose?
When we invite a non-Christian to have faith, churches usually imply the whole package, not just “faith in Jesus.” If it were just faith in Christ, much of everything else we preach in our Gospel presentations would have to fall away. It’s normally, however, a type of Jesus and the other church things we have to have faith in.
This is not faith. It’s compliance and conformity. It’s easy and lazy. It’s slavery and control. It’s letting other humans dictate, on behalf of God, reality for us so we can feel safe within a tribe. It’s a social agreement for validation, like a fan cheering from the couch.
Defining Faith
A working definition of faith is easy. The first person verbal adjective of “to believe” is “to be believable,” of “to trust” is “to be trustworthy.” To have faith looks like “being faithful.” Put it in the context of a marriage and we understand quickly what “faith” means.
One more time with different words: Faith looks like being faithful to X. This is different than trust, confidence, or belief. It’s the kind of thing we say to a partner when they’re having doubts about the relationship or when a career path seems like it’s falling apart. It’s what a coach says to an athlete who has the skills and capacity but doesn’t see it themselves. It’s sitting on the couch next to a friend when the only thing they can believe is suicide.
Faith is about committing to a way of life, living differently than what you and I assume to be true now. Let’s say this another way: It’s believing and trusting a different “story” just enough to try it and stick with it. It’s believing I need to stick with a different narrative than the one I’ve been letting play out in my mind. Faith is Hebrews 11 – sure, the nice definition the writer of Hebrews gives us in verse 6 is nice. Not what I’m talking about.
Faith is the people and stories. It’s Abraham, without a systematic theology and clear confession of the trinity, trying to figure out his family’s future with decades of no children. It’s Samson, after a life of selfishness, finally having a moment where his life isn’t just about him anymore. It’s Barack, a man with no faith unless a woman was a part of the battle, letting a woman get the glory. It’s Noah drunk after the flood, cursing his grandson. It’s Jacob’s dysfunctional “blended” family. It’s Gideon, a man we use as an example of not trusting God, finally doing what he was called rather and then letting his head get so big that he slaughtered his people and led the nation into idolatry. And it’s all parts when things got better and changed. It’s Exodus, Redemption, and Hope. Faith is messy because it head-on crashes into our current narrative.
Faith is not an acknowledgment of truth or trusting in an eternal destination. It’s much simpler. Faith is about this world and now. It’s the story you decide to write. It’s holding to a narrative and acting in such a way as if it were already true. It’s those moments when you feel a natural reaction, ignore it, and choose something different. When you decide to drop your hard-ass parent ego and instead are warm and open to your kid – they might ask what’s going on. They notice because they just saw faith. Children are at least aware of the narrative we parents have because they have to live in our story. When a parent acts in faith where they weren’t before – the kids notice…and their narrative starts to change.
Ted Lasso on Faith
I love Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso embodies ego-less leadership. People love the show because it was about an honest, good guy who wouldn’t let this world’s pessimism and selfishness get to him. It was a popular show in no small part because we all wanted to have faith in that idea. In the last season, Ted’s team is struggling and turning on each other. In the locker room after losing a tough match and their star player, his players are doubting.
It’s a warm and fuzzy moment. Ted’s first point is that his team needs to “believe.” There’s a BELIEVE sign that falls at this moment and the team is panicked. Ted responds, “Belief doesn’t happen just because you put it on a wall.” He mentions that belief happens in our heads and our gut. Our selves get in our way of believing with things like pain, envy, and fear. To those, Ted says, “I don’t want to mess around with that shit anymore.”
As he keeps going on, Ted Lasso says what he wants to believe in. He wants to “mess” with things like love, change, and hope. He wants to believe he and we can change, that things can change. The clip is below:
What do we want in life?
It’s a TV show. It’s packaged nicely in entertainment. However, it captures what faith is. Lasso uses the word “believe” but the way he uses it is spot on. It’s faith. Instead of allowing his team to hold to one narrative, Ted invites his team to consider other ones. When we are stuck and overwhelmed, it’s not because of the things in our lives but because of how we see and feel about it all. What needs to change is not everything else. It’s us.
I don’t want to mess around with things like fear, ego, depression, pride, distractions, and hopelessness. I want to be done with feeling insignificant and incapable. I want to be done with worrying about how I fit and where I belong. I don’t care anymore about so many of the things I found comfort in. The stories in my head keep me going on such things. I create the reality around me that I echo inside.
I want to live in love and goodness, not in control and fear. I no longer want how I have seen for over 30 years – I want to see things differently. I am tired of hearing about things like love, purpose, and goodness but watching us humans disassociate from it. I don’t want to just hear any more about self-actualization, enlightenment, rebirth and sanctification, courage and strength, freedom and joy, peace and serenity. The Sermon on the Mount and the Fruit of the Spirt – It’s time we start becoming it, not “believing in” them like Santa.
God’s Part
Faith is about me, not God. I am the subject of faith – God does not bend to my will. God is not a means to an end – just as people are not meant to be a means to an end, so is their Creator. I align my life with reality – not reality to me.
God is not our daily office assistant. He isn’t our high school guidance counselor. He isn’t our codependent partner or our dysfunctional parent. He isn’t a boss or a national leader. He isn’t as concerned with the things churches are fixated on. He isn’t as freaked about things as you and I get. He may not have to control everything like you and I do. His perspective on our situation could be surprisingly different/bigger than ours. God is not about getting everyone else to agree with us. Life does not work that way. We are in His image and God gave us this life to live. It takes faith.
We all have faith. We all believe in something. We all have a narrative happening right now in our heads. If you’re reading this now, it’s happening in between the pages of your story. Counseling, teaching, parenting, education, and training all require that we engage with narrative, that we introduce something different into someone’s preexistent stories. We see what our faith is in our moment-to-moment actions and in the inner dialogues behind them. We change our faith by trying something different.
Western faith is about God and what He does (for us so we don’t have to do anything but it comes at a price) – biblical faith is about you, how you live in every moment. We sometimes think faith happens in big moments, within the church, as if God was “more” there. That is not the right starting place to define faith. Faith, instead, is what you wake up with in your head and how you deal with it. Faith is choosing to let go and forgive. Faith is choosing not to react but to try something different. Faith is wrestling all night with God about the thing you’re going to face the next day. Faith starts with the mustard seed and then moves mountains. It doesn’t start with systematic doctrines and then work down. It is in the daily, the present. If it isn’t, then there’s a different faith there.
I think this is partly why the Apostle Paul said Love matters more than Faith. You can’t love in the way Jesus commanded without faith. You have to choose a different “you” if you want to love like that. It’s confusing in this world. That kind of love inverts the perspective and drops all the normal social defenses. It requires changing the why, how, and what of everything you do. You and I still exist but just as we are – there are no more layers, shells, defenses, charades, and outward control. To love this way shifts the entire focus from the subject of our love to the subject of the one loving. This takes faith.
