Faith is the absence of control

Psalm 27

Faith is the absence of control.

            That was the sermon.

Now spend fifteen minutes thinking about that.

            Or I guess I can talk about it some more; I’m just worried that the more I say the more I will distract from the message: Faith is the absence of control.

            I had those words written down after text study on Tuesday, feeling pretty confident that that was where I was going after reading Psalm 27: wait on the Lord, the Lord is the stronghold of my life—whom shall I fear? What I didn’t know is what would follow; how that idea would reverberate in my head as I reflected on what happened in Charleston, S.C. this past week and what I could faithfully say about it.

            Most of the time I don’t preach on the news. I tend to find it contrived and pretty easily transparent when pastors do that, like you can see what my agenda pretty clearly is. So, I hope that reluctance to preach on the issue du jour buys me a little bit of credibility when I say that I feel compelled to talk about Charleston today. That this isn’t just an issue for people across the country; it’s an issue here, and we need to be reminded of the specter of racism in this country all the more because we live in a place that is so homogenous.

Wait for the Lord, says the Psalm, but those of us who have a measure of power have a tough time doing that, and so we make it harder on our brothers and sisters who have even less. “The Lord is my stronghold of my life—whom shall I fear?” says the Psalm. Well, whom shall I fear? Because there is plenty to be afraid of here. Our brothers and sisters in Charleston know that a church is not a safe place—not from hate crimes and prejudice. The same is true of the Church of Loaves and Fishes on the north side of the Sea of Galilee, the site of Jesus’ multiplication of bread and fish, burned down this week by arson.

            We live in a world that teaches us to differentiate and stereotype—sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. And if there are no big differences apparent we’ll create our own. How is it that we still have ethnically Norwegian and ethnically Swedish churches in America in the 21st century when we all speak the same slow Minnesotan version of English? How is it that the person who killed these men and women grew up and was confirmed in an ELCA church? That, more than anything, gave me pause this week, and I know why, because part of me is not the least bit surprised. I see the potential for hate in the fears people have voiced about taking young people to Detroit. I want to ask “What are you afraid of, really?” All of it reminds me how badly we are stuck waiting on the Lord, totally out of control.

The only difference with faith is that it admits it. We are all of us completely out of control.

            Here’s what I mean by that: I mean that every time you try to exert your will over somebody, to show how impressive and powerful you are, you are acting out a righteousness that will die with you; it is a self-righteousness that has its rewards: status, wealth, even happiness. It can be vindictive and terrible or it can even be attractive. You may be remembered for being great, or remembered for being terrible; many words may be written about you in the history books and a fitting epitaph on your grave, but all of this is in contrast (or perhaps direct opposition) to the life of faith. You cannot be impressive and powerful while being meek and humble, while admitting you are out of control. You cannot lift yourself on a pedestal while clinging to the cross.

            For those of us earnestly waiting on the Lord this absence of control is a strange kind of freedom from trying to justify everything on our own. It’s freedom to look at the people martyred at that church in Charleston and not only cry out in pain but also point there and say, “That is what it means to be a Christian, standing with one another in the presence of hate (whether they knew it or not).”

Wait for the Lord, because we are all of us out of control, and faith is just honest about that. And to die living out our Christian vocation should remind all of us that this life is not our own. Wait for the Lord, because that’s what we do.

            But it’s easy to calmly say “Wait for the Lord” when we don’t feel threatened. In fact, it can be just another power move. Wait for the Lord while we regroup and continue on as if nothing has happened. We need to read that second verse of Psalm 27 from a different perspective. This time put yourselves not in the place of the victim but in the place of the perpetrator and listen:

When evildoers assail me
   to devour my flesh—
my adversaries and foes—
   they shall stumble and fall.

            That verse is not only a promise for protection but also a conviction that in many ways we are the evildoers. We are the evildoers when we do nothing. We are part of the principalities and powers of this world. We are promised to stumble and fall. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God—yes—but who is doing the assailing today?

            The primary examples of our faith are people who were (and are) at the mercy of principalities and powers but who stood up and lived their faith anyway with an attitude that said you can take away my things, you can take away my family, you can even take away my life, but none of those objects or relationships are why I say “the Lord is my stronghold.” The Lord is my stronghold not because he keeps me safe from everything in this life, but because he makes safe for me the only place that ultimately matters, which is a place in a world where all this brokenness is fixed. So that, “whether I live or whether I die, I am the Lord’s,” as Romans 14 (v. 8) tells us.

            There is nothing more powerful than someone who gives their life for the sake of the good news of the Gospel, because it is living (and dying) out of control. We might recognize the faithfulness in this, but for those of us not called to be martyrs for the faith we are called just as strongly to die to ourselves and become examples of humility and compassion in a world that values other things. In this case, we have to take a good long look at ourselves and ask what we are doing to meet a world that looks different from us with the kind of love those men and women showed to the person who ultimately killed them.

            Until we become the ones at the mercy of others I’m afraid we’re going to remain the ones enabling the violence to continue. The harder we grasp onto our need for control the harder it is to be faithful. I’m a straight, white male, 20-something. I have a ton of cred for those reasons alone, and not only did I not earn any of it, those attributes that society finds attractive are detriments when it comes to the life of faith. Every advantage I have gives credence to my voice among people and tempts me to use it for my own gain. Add to that this pulpit and I have more influence than a person should have, especially one as fallible as me. This is why I have to remind myself again and again that it is the Holy Spirit who does anything with me, and I am far more useful empty than I am full. On my own, my words that might be wisdom may also be controlling; they are spin. They ultimately favor whatever my agenda might be, even if I don’t realize it. Without the Holy Spirit I’m no different from the cable news anchors.

            And it’s the same with you.

            We can’t get away from it. We need to humble ourselves to this power that so many of us have to state our opinions, to be heard, and instead we need to use that power to combat all the little silly ways we see hate. Waiting on the Lord requires patience and humility before God, but as a person in authority it requires action for the most vulnerable. More than that, it means giving up control—honest, actual submission. Not the kind of submission we expect of someone else, but the only true and good kind of submission, which is submission of your own sinful self. “The Lord is my light and salvation, whom shall I fear?” It’s right there in the question. Fear the Lord. If you fear your fellow human beings you’re doing it wrong. Sure, human beings can hurt you. We are reminded of this daily. But worse than opening ourselves to danger is closing ourselves off from one another.

            It’s easy to sidetrack the conversation when it comes to a story like this—to make this about ways in which these people were not protected—but that narrative is absolutely wrong. These people who died were protected; they were held in God’s hands and they still are. And they were living out their faith in the only way that God expects, which is to say their faith pushed them into a place outside of their control. God’s protection didn’t save their lives; it just guaranteed that their lives meant something; that, because of them, we turn to God in a deeper way today, confessing our own complicity and waiting on the Lord. Still waiting.

            As a church we are going to continue doing what we do: proclaiming resurrection and humbly confessing where we have done poorly, especially that we must grow closer to our sisters and brothers in faith who have different skin tones than us, which is a heckuva challenge in a place like this. Which is why today we need a bit more than words. We need to search ourselves for the disconnect between what we confess to believe about being one people created in the image of God—that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, white nor black; not in the eyes of God—and all the thoughts and opinions we have about people who are different from us. We are called as sisters and brothers, and though it is natural to connect with those who look like us we need to fight for something better. It’s hard. It’s awfully difficult. It will feel like we are losing control.

But faith is the absence of control. It’s losing control for the sake of our love of God and our neighbor.

            We have a long way to go.