“Believing Is Seeing”
Advent 1/B/Mark13:24-37/11-27-2011
Rev. Phillip R. Fenton
I never started out to stand in a pulpit; never dreamed I’d be a spokesman for the Almighty. There was no precedence for such a thing – no wordsmith, not a single preacher in the family tree – only farmers, factory workers, oilfield laborers, and one who broke free and soared to become a banker. I was certain to go the way of the family – follow simpler plans, work with the tangible, the graspable. I would know the world like a blue-collar worker knows the smell of sweat and dirt and grease, or like a farmer knows the smell of the earth, or maybe, if I applied myself, like a banker knows the smell of currency. I never, dreamed of knowing the world the way a painter knows the canvas or a musician the notes of the score. I thought wanted what I could hold in my hands, measure with accuracy and consitency, see and behold with my very own eyes! “Seeing is believing,” I would say.
I never imagined I would come to know the world through open-ended proclamations like:
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)
And I sure never thought I would be standing in front of a congregation of people telling them that their lives are better understood through the evocative and enigmatic imagery of Advent:
… the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory to gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens … but you won’t know when, no one will know when - so be ready!
… a wild-eyed desert evangelist telling us to get straight with God
… a virgin singing of a world turned upside down, where the mighty are brought low and the lowly are raised to favored status
… conflicting messages leaving us wondering whether in these days we are to be celebrating or repenting, counting our blessings or cramming for the final, kneeling before a baby or cowering before our final judge
… and all of it leading us toward a story so unbelievable and unpromising, so upsetting and scandalous for the main characters, that it’s a wonder anyone remembered to tell it at all, much less believe it.
Early I said, "Give me a life without mystery, without ambiguity, without vulnerability!" But then life started happening, and with it so many experiences that could not be controlled or predicated on previous experience, or understood by “seeing is believing”. Life became too mysterious and ambiguous. I began to test living by faith, and moving into faith, I found another layer of meaning and truth that I previously could not see. I found life was fuller, richer, better and far more interesting by living with the attitude that “believing is seeing.” And I found the messages of Advent more believable and helpful.
St. Augustine put it perfectly. He said, "To have faith is to believe what you can't see and the reward of faith is to see what you believe."
That’s what will happen if you open yourselves to believing in this season. You will find that Advent has the perfect word for you – its texts will speak to the weird and wonderful world of you and me.
My life was never more weird or wonderful than when I was caring for two failing parents. Many of you have had the experience of living in that strange limbo of time, where none of the old rules apply, nothing fits together like it once did. You become parent to your parents – that’s not natural! You begin to treat them like children - take things away from them that could get them in trouble, harm them – their checkbook, their car keys. You scold them for making poor choices in diet and health. Their need becomes so great and their demands so exacting and intense that you begin to lose sight of them in their healthier days, in their vitality. Oh, and there were a lot of people who were willing to tell me what I should be doing, what I ought to do differently – after all there were rules for a time like this. But I finally figured out that those who had all the answers didn’t have the problem!
My dad had a number of degenerative diseases, and though his mind remained mostly clear, he chose to shut everyone and everything out – he interacted only minimally, grudgingly with his surroundings. For my mother it was Alzheimers. I was at the same time primary caregiver for my year older brother who had suffered a devastating head injury, leaving him totally dependent on others for even the smallest of functions. There was a time when all three were in a nursing home. My dad and brother shared a room – although, due to having no short-term memory, my brother was oblivious to the man in the next bed – or that there even was a next bed. Mom couldn’t tell you my name but knew me as a “friendly” and wanted to dominate my time when visiting. And if I didn’t give it all to her she would resort to cursing me in the most graphic language retained from an earlier and more colorful time of her life.
All of these dynamics came into play the night of my dad’s death. I sat on the side of his bed trying to coax a few last words from him: Instructions? Final wisdoms? Regrets? –Nothing. My brother, who could hear my voice, lay in his bed 4 feet away, saying over and over, “Phil, where’s Dad, I need to see Dad, I haven’t seen him in years!” And Mother was in the doorway, as mad as I had ever seen her, polluting the scene with profanities. In the midst of this, Dad quietly slipped away.
Who has rules for that? What can prepare you for that? But for Advent faith I couldn’t have coped. Advent faith has helped me find the grace at the heart of every moment of my life. And that crazy, surreal night – I didn’t have to add to it, create something different, pretend it wasn’t happening – all I had to do was believe that grace was there, and when I did, I saw it: I and they were in the presence of a holy God and none of this would be for nothing. None of this would be lost. Some of you have been through this experience and too have seen God spin gold from it, making of you a healing minister who has special eyes that instantly see others who are in the same pain and using you to bring much hope.
Believing is seeing. That night, and all of those strenuous, frustrating years of my family’s decline that led to that night, remain today as blessing. It’s all blessing. If you believe it, you will see it. God’s beauty is all around us all the time saying, “Hello! Hello! I am here! There is possibility beyond everything you can imagine!”
Say, if you wish, that seeing is believing, but if you do, you had better make up your mind that you will never be a scientist. That may be a strange thing to say, because surely the scientist is the one person who believes only what he sees. That is how we commonly think of them.
Is that how you think of a scientist? If it is, I think you sell him short. Scientists are far more creative and far more imaginative than that
Science isn't a matter of believing only what you see. Science is a matter of believing and seeing by believing. One of the greatest scientists of all, Albert Einstein, said that it all begins in an attitude, and the attitude is one of wonder, which is not far from faith. He said that astronomy began not when somebody looked at a star through a telescope. It began when somebody said, "Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are."
Believing is seeing. If you can’t pursue that, let yourself go into that, then you won’t grasp the God who became graspable, who wept, who got upset, who waited, to give new meaning to our weeping, our being upset,
our waiting. You’ll always be looking for the quick fix, the fast escape. You’ll always be trying to get away from anxiety, away from cancer, away from your neighbor’s poverty. You will see nothing of value in these. You will see nothing redeemable in waiting in faith.
But God says, “Wait. Wait just a minute. My power is made perfect IN these very things. In them is my grace and it is sufficient.” If you are waiting and anxious today, if you are confused or disoriented or uncertain about something, it may be that you’re about to grow. It may be that you need to wait on God and trust that He is doing something in you that is going to make you more hopeful and more helpful in this life.
Times of greatest change hold the greatest possibility. Has this been a year of great change for St. Paul’s? I don’t believe there is any one here who would argue otherwise. Can you see the great possibilities ahead of us? Can you see the open invitation for St. Paul’s to become, maybe not the best in the world but the best we can be for the world? Can you see it? If not, try believing it first. Then you will see it.
Well, whether it’s Advent or the pre-Christmas rush, these days are leading to December 25th. What will you see in these days? It depends in large part on what you will dare to believe, doesn’t it? I will believe that the God who became flesh back in Bethlehem is the very same God who right now, to real people, is speaking a word of grace. And no sale, song or family dinner can hold a candle to that. I will believe that if commercials can stimulate our desire for more, this is only a small indication that our souls are longing to grow toward their highest joy, and what happened in the stable will happen in your heart and in your home.
A blessed Advent to you. And remember … believing is seeing.
Amen.
