9th Sunday after Pentecost
Hebrews 11:1-3 & 8-16
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised.
Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, God has prepared a city for them.
The Long Darkness
For the past few years, whenever the topic of faith has come up, my mind has been drawn to the life of Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa is considered by many to be a paragon of a life lived in service, and her name is synonymous with selflessness, generosity, and kindness, even evoking a sense of sainthood, well before her death in 1997. She was only 12 years-old when she decided to dedicate her life to God, and she left her home in Albania at 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland. She arrived in India a year later in 1929, and took her first religious vows two years after that. In 1937, she took her solemn vows, adopting the title of “Mother”, and taught in Calcutta, India for nearly twenty years. But, she became increasingly concerned about the poverty in Calcutta, and in 1948, she began her legendary missionary work to the poor. By 2007, ten years after her death, her Missionaries of Charity had grown to 5,000 sisters and 450 brothers, operating 600 missions, schools, and shelters in 120 countries around the world.
Mother Teresa was canonized, or recognized as a saint, by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016, but this was not without controversy. There are those who did not see her work as good or charitable, and some people had questions and concerns about the way the poor and the dying were cared for by her organization. I’m not sure what to make of all that, I only mention it because I want you all to know that I am aware of the controversy, because despite all of that, she is still a well-loved and admired figure. And, before I knew any of this, I knew about another part of her life that is considered by some to be pretty controversial as well.
For most of her adult life, Mother Teresa struggled with doubt over the very existence of God, because, for most of her life, she did not feel the presence of God with her. She called this “the long darkness”, and it grieved her that she did not have that same sense of faith that the believers around her seemed to possess.
Now, I’m not trying to say that I am anything like Mother Teresa, but there was a time in my own life when I had that doubt. Growing up in the 90s, even in California, it was impossible to not hear the rhetoric about how homosexuality was a sin. It was part of the culture, part of the atmosphere. And, when you grow up in that kind of environment, when a specific kind of information is just all around you, it seeps into your skin and takes root in your mind. It distorts the way that you see the world, and what you believe.
I always knew I was different, and when all of the kids had to go through sex ed in the 4th grade, I suddenly realized what that difference was, and I was scared. I had grown up in the church, and had read many parts of the Bible, but never the whole thing. And, after a few years of dealing with this “problem”, I decided I needed to read the Bible, cover to cover, and find out for myself, exactly what it said about gay people.
Over the next few months, I started to read, and I found out that the Bible actually does condemn homosexuality, in 1st Corinthians and 1st Timothy, at least in the translation that I was reading. But, I had at least enough self-esteem at that point in my life to know that I wasn’t sin incarnate, that intrinsic part of who I was, something that I did not choose, was not inherently evil, so if the Bible said that, that meant the Bible wasn’t true. My understanding of the Bible at that time was that it was the inerrant word of God, so if the Bible had something so profoundly untrue in it, then God wasn’t real, and my world started to fall apart.
Within a matter of minutes, I started to spiral. My entire understanding of the world, of the entire universe, was grounded in my belief in God, and without God underpinning everything, none of it made any sense. The world was suddenly this scary chaos of light, and matter, and sound, where nothing mattered, and nothing had any meaning, and I really felt like I was about to lose my mind. But, the Holy Spirit was with me, and after a few minutes, I calmed down, and I realized that I didn’t have to stop believing in God. But, I did have to change the way that I saw the Bible. I could no longer see it as the inerrant word of God, and instead, as a record of humankind’s attempts to understand the divine. It is our most sacred text and the most important record that we have of our interactions with God and how our ancestors in faith tried to understand who God is and our relationship to God and each other. But, I can no more worship the Bible than I can a stray cat wandering outside on the street. I was floundering, and I felt God reaching out to me through the turmoil. I was drowning, and God lifted my head up out of the water. But, everyone’s experiences of God are different.
When we talk about faith in the church, we often talk about believing in something that you can’t see or touch, but something that you feel inside. But, what if you can’t even feel it? What does it mean for someone to believe, to reach out for that sense of comfort and love, for that sense that someone is with you and watching over you, and find nothing there? This is why thoughts of faith always lead me back to Mother Teresa. That she did all that she did with her life, dedicated her life to God, became a nun, founded her own order, and ultimately helped countless thousands of people, all while struggling with the doubt of her own faith.
One of my favorite stories about Mother Theresa is about a mass that she was helping to prepare for, and the chapel was filled to capacity, with still more people trying to get it. So, she opened the doors, and added more rows of chairs outside so that people could sit and listen, because she wanted to make sure that everyone who wanted to be there could participate. And, the people who were there could feel the presence of God with her. They said that it was palpable, and powerful, and incredible.
And, I put these two stories about her side by side, and they don’t make any sense together. On the one hand, you have a woman struggling with her faith to the point that she’s not even sure if God exists. And, on the other hand, you have a woman filled with so much faith, that the people around her can feel it emanating off of her, as if it’s a physical thing. That was the power of Mother Teresa’s faith, that even though she was struggling to believe, she still believed, and behaved as if she believed, and was still able to manifest the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God here on Earth.
Faith means different things to different people. Some people feel it, some people don’t. For some, it’s emotional, spiritual, for others, it’s logical, they’ve reasoned it through, and it makes sense for them. For everyone, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. What is your faith like? What does faith mean to you? Whatever it is, my hope for you is that it is alive inside of you, and that you allow it to move you to do good in the world. That’s how you know your faith is alive, whether you can feel it or not. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
