Worship: Sundays at 8:15 am | 9:40 am | 11:00 am, Wednesdays at 6:35 pm, Fridays at 7:00 pm


Faith in Four Parts

 

SCRIPTURE: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:  Love your neighbor as yourself. - Matthew 22:37-39

 

We give thanks for people who've helped us along our journeys of faith.  Marcus Borg, who passed away in January, is one of those people for me.  In his writings Borg helped me on my walk in many ways, including how to think about faith in four parts - one part a "matter of the mind" and three parts "matters of the heart."  What are these parts of Faith, and how do we give meaning to them?

 

There is Belief - It's what we give our assent to, not in complicated theology but in deep and humble affirmation.  Like saying yes to the reality of God, accepting Jesus as the Word of God and the light of the world, and affirming the Bible as our story and foundational text.  Belief is primarily of the mind, but the other three parts of faith are of the heart.

 

There is Trust - This is where faith is like floating in deep water, and we're trusting on the buoyancy of God to hold us up.  It's hard, but we learn somehow and some way not to be bound by anxiety and we trust in God's radical grace.

 

There is Faithfulness - This is our moment by moment walk in faith, following that still, small voice within us.  This is where we are committed to our heart-relationship with God - whether in worship, prayer, selflessness, compassion, or justice.

 

And there is Vision - This is the "way of seeing" part of faith.  It's not seeing the world as hostile (where we're preoccupied with security) and it's not being indifferent (where we miss the presence of God around us).  This is faith that sees "what is" is filled with grace while at the same time letting our hearts be broken by what breaks God's heart.

 

Faith is the way that we try to walk in Jesus' footsteps and, however we might approach its parts, we know from the Greatest Commandment that faith is richly relational, between God and us and between each of us and one another.

 

PRAYER:  Thank you Lord for those who've helped us on our walks of faith, thank you for the season of Lent and our renewal along the way, and thank you for the community of faith that is Trinity.  Amen.

 

Ward Simonton

 

 

Trinity United Methodist Church
4000 NW 53rd Ave | Gainesville, FL 32653
352.376.6615
TrinityGNV.org

Office Hours: Monday - Thursday, 8:30 am - 4:00 pm | Friday, 8:30 am - 1:30 pm