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“When
Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are
forgiven’” (Mk 2: 5).
Faith has many dimensions. I suppose that most of us have a notion of
faith as a reliance on someone or something outside of ourselves: the
“higher power” of the Twelve Step movement, if you will. People show
faith when they realize that the solution of their problem lies beyond
their own power; they show faith when they understand that the blessings
they have received are not produced by their own efforts.
Faith is also a guide into an unknown future. Here’s an important
distinction: there are “the things we know we don’t know”, and then “the
things we don’t know we don’t know”, the totally unknown things we have no
intelligence of. They’re not like the unidentified “blips” on the radar
screen that we might puzzle about; these events are not even on the radar
screen. The events of September 11, 2001 brought this distinction home to
a whole host of people. The wreck of the Columbia
a few weeks ago is perhaps another instance of “the things we don’t know
we don’t know”. Perhaps these possibilities were “blips” on the screen of
the CIA or the Department of Defense or of NASA, but for most of us, they
weren’t even there.
In such a world, faith is the prerequisite for maneuver; the sign that
points the way on the road ahead. In the face of “the things we don’t
know we don’t know”, faith is the only thing we have to go on. When we
kid ourselves that there are only “known unknowns”, then we can keep the
illusion of control by anticipating and acting. But this isn’t in fact
the case. Faith doesn’t mean closing your eyes as you move ahead (which
is, I think, the way many people imagine it); in fact, faith is the only
means of opening them to the reality of a world of “unknown unknowns”, and
continuing in spite of them to go forward.
These senses of faith are amply backed in the New Testament. Faith is
what distinguishes the miracles of Jesus from magic. He’s not a sorcerer;
“presto change-o”, “now you see it, now you don’t”. He’s not a magician,
but the Son of Man. People recognize him, and not themselves, as the
source of healing and forgiveness; it is his death and resurrection that
makes this possible. Faith is also what allows believers in Jesus Christ
to move forward; as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says,
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not
seen” (Heb. 11:1). Faith means staying
“on mission”, convinced by the truths of the “things not seen”
and moving ahead on the basis of them.
Our Gospel reading today adds another dimension to faith, another piece to
the puzzle. Jesus commends the faith of the paralytic’s friends; faith
which is manifested in the story by boldness and determination. Now the
friends may indeed have had a deep trust in Jesus, but this is not what is
highlighted by the story. What stands out in high relief is the friends’
willingness to try something different; their determination in the face of
obstacles and their ability to overcome them. The way is blocked, so they
go around; if a door or window won’t work, go through the roof! This,
apparently, is what faith is about, for this is what Jesus commends.
If faith is anything, it’s not something passive; though faith requires us
to look to the higher power of Jesus, it never disables us. Again, I
think that a large part of the time we think faith means sitting down and
waiting for God to act. Well, indeed: sometimes this is exactly the case,
but not always. It’s a significant detail that the man in the story is
healed, not of just any disease, but of paralysis. He’s not moving, but
he should be; though the paralysis is real and the healing miraculous,
it’s also a deeper metaphor that expresses what happens when faith is not
present. Passivity and paralysis are overcome by faith; the knowledge
that there are “things we don’t know we don’t know” convinces us that
faith is absolutely essential if we ourselves are to move ahead and not to
become paralyzed.
It is this determination and confidence, this willingness to go the extra
distance that we see in our Gospel, that is faith. It’s arguable that
this faith is the sort we will need in a world of uncertainty, newly
conscious as we are of how uncertain it precisely is. This is true on
every level: personally for us, as we make decisions in uncertain times;
nationally, as our country contends with great issues of war and peace;
and corporately, as a faith community, challenged to have faith and to
stay on mission. The alternative to faith is paralysis, a refusal of the
forgiveness and healing that we need. Forgiveness means a fresh start,
while healing leads to movement and growth. Faith is the guide on the
road ahead, and its source is Jesus Christ.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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