What We Hope For by Rev. Dr. Jay Marshall Groat on February 23, 2025, at Mount Vernon, Ohio based on Luke 7: 1-10

In January, last month, I was able to attend my annual gathering of United Church of Christ pastors at St. Pete Beach, Florida. As I say every year, this is an annual sacrifice I’m willing to make. Attending this event means I get to fly on airplanes. Traveling alone on an airplane is not something I especially like to do. I’m not afraid to fly, but sometimes the claustrophobia of the whole thing can get to me. It’s much better if I have someone to talk to. I am much better off if I distract my inner voice. Anyway, this year my inner voice told me to do something, so I did. As I entered the plane in Columbus I asked the flight attendant, the one who is always there to greet you with a smile, at least on Southwest, I said to her, “Can I please have a word with the pilot?” And of course the flight attendant said, “Sure,” and she immediately escorted me into the cockpit. I wouldn’t make this stuff up. (Laughter.) I introduced myself to the pilot and I said, “May I please see your credentials?” The pilot smiled at me, and said my name because I introduced myself, he said, “Mr. Groat, why do you want to see my credentials?” And I said, “Well, how do I know that you really are a pilot unless I see some proof with my very own eyes?” How do I know? How do I know? I need proof. The pilot said, “Mr. Groat, I do not have my credentials on me. I can fly the plane. I guess you are just going to have to go on faith. Do you have faith in me?”

This morning Luke writes to us about faith. He tells us about a Roman centurion, a natural enemy of the Jewish people, who had a problem. He had someone in his life he, quote, highly valued, maybe even loved, who was sick and close to death. Things, of course, then get complicated, and he says this word to Jesus, he says, “Lord, just say the word. You don’t even need to come. Say the word, and let my servant be healed.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed, and he said, “Nowhere, anywhere, have I found such faith.” Faith.

In our tradition, the Protestant Reformed tradition, most people agree that Paul Tillich literally wrote the book on faith. It’s called “Dynamics of Faith,” I have it, I meant to bring it this morning. This is a copy that I got in seminary, it’s not a long book, it’s short, “Dynamics of Faith” by Paul Tillich. It was published in 1957. And if you choose to read it it’s what one of my professors used to call black bread. It doesn’t digest easily; it’s really heady stuff, so you kind of have to take it a page at a time. “Dynamics of Faith.” In this book Tillich says things like this – “Faith is a state of being ultimately concerned. Faith is deep trust.” This means – my words now – Tillich says we can have faith in anything, and we do. We can have faith in our concept of God and Christ and the Holy Spirit. We can have faith in people. We can have faith in institutions. We can have faith in the stock market. We can have faith in good things, and here’s the kicker, we can also have faith in not so good things. Tillich was really the first one to write about this, he said faith transcends. And we live our lives, day to day, moment by moment, having faith in religious things and having faith in non-religious things. We are people of faith. Faith is deep trust. Is there anybody here but me who has ever been hurt by a friend? Am I the only one? No, I’m not. We have faith in our friend, and we’re hurt. It’s faith.

Tillich says an essential element of faith is risk. And the opposite of faith – this is the one that really helped me many years ago, Tillich was the first one to introduce me to this concept. The opposite of faith is not necessarily doubt. Doubt can be a necessary element of faith. Doubt can be a consequence of the risk of faith. Ironically, doubt can tell us if we’re on the right track. We’re thinking about it, we’re searching. That’s when doubt creeps in, it tells us to keep going. Tillich says the opposite of faith is indifference. Indifference, and by the way, this isn’t really about faith but it’s sort of a tangent about faith. Do you really want to hurt somebody? Tell them you don’t care. I’m indifferent towards you. Tillich said the opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s indifference. When we’re indifferent we don’t doubt, we don’t care.

Going on. Philosophers like Soren Kirkegaard talked about the leap of faith. For many of us, and I put myself in this category, our brain can only take us so far. We think and we wonder, and we think and we research and we think and we ask ourselves, “What is the best way to go here?” We ask ourselves because we have been taught to use our brains. We ask the ultimate question, “How do I know which way to go? How do I know I will make the right choice?” How do we know? And then Jesus and Tillich and Kirkegaard look us in the eyes and said, “You don’t know. You’ll never know. It takes a leap of faith. If you want to know whether you’ve made the right choice, take the leap of faith.” OK, thanks for that.

When I think of faith at the public level I think of the moral and political theory of, quote, the social contract. We don’t talk about social contract much anymore and I think we should. Philosophers and great thinkers like Rousseau and Hobbs and Kant and many others had much to say about the theory of social contract. Social contract concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. The social contract is a core concept of constitutionalism. Social contract arguments typically are that individuals have consented to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the majority in exchange for protection of the remaining rights and the maintenance of the social order. This means we need to have faith in each other. How’s that going these days? We need to have faith in each other.

For example, last Sunday for me driving to and from church there was ice and there was snow, and I counted. I saw four vehicles, two each way, struck and stranded in culverts off the side of the road on Route 36. A couple of them were like that (holds hand up vertically); they weren’t going anywhere. Every time last Sunday, on 36 and 3, every time I saw another car or truck coming at me on this two-lane highway I said a little prayer. In my imagination I stuck my head out my window and I started yelling, “Remember our social contract.” (Laughter.) I said a little prayer. I said, “God, please remind the person driving that car at me that they are participating in a social contract with the rest of us, to drive legally and carefully, especially in the ice and the snow.”

So what do we do? We take a leap of faith. We are very faithful people. It’s not whether we’re faithful or not, it’s what we’re putting our faith in. Sometimes, lots of times, maybe every time faith means we don’t get to know everything. I have learned this as a father. Vicki and I got to be parents, so far, we’ve gotten to be parents of one child – I don’t know why I said so far. (Laughter.) Parents of one child, so this means as a father I got to do a lot of things one time. I’m speaking in the past tense now, I guess, because our son is 29 years old. I’m his dad, but I’m trying very hard consciously to be more of his friend. This means I got to do a lot of things one time. Many of these pivotal father moments snuck up on me over the years all of a sudden. They just appeared. I had and I continue to have a social contract with my son. What do I do, how do I act? For example, when our son Jackson got his driver’s license in high school one of those pivotal moments happened to me. I said to myself, “Self, I can’t let my only child drive around. These people are crazy out there. I have to do something to protect him.” So, for his own good, I tricked him. The very night he got his driver’s license he was asleep in his room – he of course had his own room. While he was asleep, I locked the door on the outside and I never let him out again. He’s still in there. (Laughter.) Right? No. I took a leap of faith. I can’t tell you how many times, and so far, I think I’ve resisted it every time – the exceptions are if it’s a family member or a dear, dear friend of decades. For example, Vicki, she’s lost her mother, and I haven’t said this to her, and I haven’t had the need. I wrote this sermon on Thursday and Joanne died on Friday. I can’t tell you how many times in a pastoral care situation when I’m with one of you and it’s a terrible tragedy that’s occurred, I’m so tempted to say, in the softest voice I can conjure up, “Look, you’ve got to take a leap of faith. You have no choice; it’s your only choice.” Right? It’s your only choice. And I pray to God I don’t have to hear somebody say that to me today, but it’s true. 

So I didn’t lock my son in his room and I took a leap of faith. And as I shared with the children and I share with you now, I have a great job. This week I got to look up really smart people and read what they said about what faith is, and this is my favorite definition. Faith is a journey without maps. Frederick Buechner wrote that – writer, Presbyterian minister. He said faith is a journey without maps, and here’s what he wrote in his book “Wishful Thinking,” one short paragraph, Buechner wrote this – “Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is an on again, off again rather than a once and for all.” I love that, faith is on again, off again, it’s not a once and for all. “Faith is not being sure where you are going but going anyway. It’s a journey without maps.” Paul Tillich said that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith, it is an element of faith.

I’ll finish with this. The Letter to the Hebrews – it’s in the New Testament – the Letter to the Hebrews is one of those pamphlets. One of my professors in seminary called them those pamphlets, stapled at the end of the New Testament. Some were only a couple pages long. The Letter to the Hebrews is one of those pamphlets stapled to the back of the New Testament. And listen to why biblical scholars believe the letter exists at all. One of those biblical scholars says this – “The Letter to the Hebrews, title and background. The first-century church underwent much persecution, and this Letter to the Hebrews was written in that setting. The persecution had not yet resulted in martyrdom, but it was severe. The intended readers seem to have been Christians who were thinking of abandoning” – what? Abandoning their faith. For centuries we thought that Paul wrote the Letter to the Hebrews. Most of the scholars agree now it probably wasn’t Paul, it was one of his followers. But whoever wrote it, in Chapter 11, in Hebrews, they wrote this, you’ve heard it. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We know what we hope for, and we make a leap of faith. Faith is a journey without maps. “Lord,” the centurion said, “just say the word.” Just say the word. And can you hear the living spirit of Christ saying to us this morning, “Just get on the plane, just get on the plane?” Faith is a process. Some days are better than others. Get on the plane called faith. Strap on your seat belt. At times it will be bumpy. We put our faith in the pilot the living spirit of Christ. Amen?