I suppose I haven't much excuse for not writing here lately. I have had some thoughts kicking around in my head about a variety of topics, and actually have a post in draft that's not ready yet.
But in the meantime, I thought I would share some thoughts on faith generated by Matthew 21.21. The text is problematic to me because it seems to imply that faith is some sort of lever we pull on the slot machine that is God, and if we have enough of it, or the right sort, it'll drop all sevens and we'll get what we wanted.
Since a fair number of people (present readership excluded, I'm sure) treat God like a genie in a bottle, I guess that such interpretations aren't surprising.
But I think perhaps that we might better reconsider the definition of faith; it is not simply believing (whether you think of it as belief in the head, or some emotionally gripping response to God's grace, or whatever), but also conforming our own wills to God's.
This is probably no earth-shattering perspective, but as I think about it more, I find it an attractive view of faith for several reasons.
First, because it immediately resolves the issue at hand: my faith no longer prompts God to do something I want, it simply confirms his will. This seems to jive nicely with the understanding that the phrase "in my name" is not a formula to end prayer but actually means "with my authority."
Second, because it speaks most dramatically to the submission of Christ to the will of the father. We read in Psalm 22 that Jesus "hoped {i.e., trusted, had faith} on his mother's breasts." It's interesting to me to consider the faith of Christ, as he also believed in his father. If we're willing to accept the notion that faith is not just a mental or emotional agreement with some proposition, but a description of how we conform our will to God's, we can see most readily in the Scripture the faith of Christ.
I like that in particular because it clarifies the link between his faithfulness ("from faith" in Romans 1) and our own ("to faith").
It's certainly something I'd like to mull over for a little while, but this could be the start of a fruitful area of study.
Regardless, I am so...so very relieved that it doesn't say, "if you have enough faith..." Quality or quantity, that would be a kind of scary thing to measure against. That is, if mountains were flying into the sea on a daily basis...or once.
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