Sunday, July 10, 2016 | 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 a.m.

Help My Unbelief

Matt Helms
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 89:1–8
Mark 1:14–20
Mark 9:30–35

None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have faith.

Paulo Coelho

Before reading the Second Lesson, it’s only appropriate to start with a word concerning the horrific violence that took place within our country this past week.

Even by the grim standards of 2016 this has been a shocking and heart-wrenching week for all of us, with two more instances of African American men being killed by police and, on Thursday night, the murder in Dallas of five police officers who were faithfully protecting and serving their city in response. As I read about each of these tragedies this week, I felt disgusted and heartbroken—disgusted at the senselessness of each death, and heartbroken for all of the victims’ families and their friends and colleagues. I felt angry—angry that our country has become so fractured and polarized that someone would see killing police officers as an acceptable response to tragedy, angry that gun violence continues to plague our country, and angry that race continues to divide us. And I felt uncertain—uncertain about what this means for us as a country moving forward; uncertain about how to put words to such an unspeakable tragedy; uncertain about how to proclaim the presence of God’s love and healing without it sounding hollow.

I do believe that God is always present with us, even in the midst of tragedy, but in times of pain and hurt and old wounds being opened, there are times when it can be hard to truly feel and believe that God is with us. In the story that takes place just prior to our Second Lesson, Mark writes of a father with a sick child coming to Jesus and asking if Jesus is able to heal him. When Jesus replies that all things are possible for the one who believes, the father cries out, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Perhaps that is the spirit that many of us bring to worship today: believing in a God whose love and peace transcends but still needing help in our unbelief. And in our Second Lesson from the ninth chapter of Mark, verses 30 through 35, we see the disciples begin to struggle in their unbelief as well—wrestling with who Christ is and what he has come to do. So let us continue listening for God’s word to us this day:

The disciples and Jesus went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:30–35, NRSV)

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them”—a phrase that sums up the disciples’ initial response to Jesus quite well. In our First Lesson, when Mark first introduces us to the disciples, they are shown to be eager to follow Jesus wherever he might lead them. Perhaps you’re like me in that I’ve always wondered how they could let go of their lives and believe in Jesus so easily. Surely we must be missing some sort of context or dialogue in that first chapter, because all Jesus says to these strangers is “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people,” and they apparently immediately dropped everything they were doing and followed him.

Psychology studies have consistently shown human beings to be both risk-averse and loss-averse, meaning that when given a choice, people will almost always stay with what they know and have. I’m not sure that I could have left my boat with just one simple call. It would have meant giving up control and certainty. Letting go in order to trust and follow Jesus would have meant not knowing what was next. But I have a hard time believing that the disciples knew what was coming next when they let go of their nets, and yet they went anyway. Were they really so willing to let go and trust while the rest of us would just stay there hanging on?

It’s much easier to identify with the disciples of the Second Lesson today, I think, as we see them begin to wrestle with the realities of what this belief in Jesus would mean. Our two lessons present the disciples in very different lights: the first shows their eagerness to believe and trust and their willingness to let go of their past in favor of an unknown future, but the second is instead about their doubt, hesitation, and confusion about who Jesus is and who he is calling them to be.

Jesus tells the disciples that he will eventually be betrayed, arrested, and die—only to be raised up three days later. It is a message that he had shared with the disciples before, but we are told that the disciples did not understand what he was saying. And in the scene immediately after, Jesus catches the disciples arguing about whom among them is the greatest—a stark contrast to the message of humble servant leadership that Jesus came to bring. So what happened to the disciples in between our First and Second Lessons today that shook their initial fervent belief and left them feeling confused and uncertain?

We don’t get a full picture from Mark or any of the other Gospels, but it’s not hard to imagine that the vision of the world that Jesus was casting for the disciples may have been far different than the one for which they had initially thought they were leaving their boats. We know from sources in first-century Judea that many people believed that there would be a messiah who would bring about salvation through either military or political means. This messiah would lead righteously and with justice, but ultimately his leadership would be based on strength as he worked to overthrow Roman rule. It was a view in which the only way to defeat the force of Rome was to meet it with an equally violent force; that violence would be the only way to achieve salvation. It is impossible to know to what degree many of Jesus’ disciples may have desired that type of leader, but at least one of the disciples—Simon, the Zealot—probably held that view.

When Jesus tells the disciples that he as the Messiah will be betrayed and killed by human hands, he is speaking directly against the idea that salvation will come through force and violence. And, indeed, Jesus continues to subvert the disciples’ expectations when he chastises them for arguing over who is the greatest, telling them that anyone who wishes to be the greatest must instead be servant of all.

Being a disciple, or being a leader, does not mean somehow being elevated above the fray. It means being called down into the difficult places, into the places of pain and hurt, and leading from within them. This is likely not what the disciples wanted to hear, but in order to bring about the world they believed in—the vision of the world that led them to follow Jesus in the first place—they would need to let go of the idea of salvation through violence, of effecting change from a safe distance, and of arguing amongst themselves about who was the greatest. They would need, instead, to risk, to recognize in humility that they did not hold all the answers, and to advocate for love even in the face of hate, pain, and death—things that feel vital for us as disciples today, perhaps now more than ever.

When I began reading through news reports from the past few days, trying to make sense of the carnage, I was worried that most of what I would find on message boards and social media would be voices advocating for salvation through more violence or voices trying to claim the moral high ground, arguing amongst themselves about who was the greatest. I was worried that some of the angriest voices in our polarized country would tempt us into pitting movements like Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter against each other, as though believing in one somehow invalidated the other. But the truth is that after this week both movements are vital for us to engage in the difficult task of rebuilding trust and unity as a country—and that goes beyond just saying that “all lives matter.” Black Lives Matter was started as a call for dignity, justice, and respect for our African American brothers and sisters and to acknowledge that the numbers bear out that something is broken about the way our justice and law-enforcement system treats people of color. Elie Wiesel, one of the great human rights defenders of our time and who sadly passed away last week, once said that “wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.”

In each instance of tragedy, we are called once again to look inward and have the courage to demand something better. And that call, too, rings just as true for Blue Lives Matter—a movement acknowledging that every day hundreds of thousands of police officers are putting their lives at risk for the sake of keeping their communities safe. Those who claim that all police officers are part of the problem are categorically wrong, and that type of thinking does nothing but sow division and suspicion within communities, putting the lives of good, hardworking officers at risk—like the twisted logic that led someone to open fire on the officers in Dallas.

I believe it is possible to hold both of these movements together—to acknowledge the brokenness within our justice and law-enforcement system without demonizing all those within it, and to celebrate the faithful service of police officers all across our country—so that we all can engage in the vital work of reforming both communities and departments that are broken while also rebuilding trust.

Both groups are angry, as we should all be. There is much to be angry about when faced with the needless death of innocent lives. But although that anger can spur us into action for a time, eventually we as a country need to be able to let that anger go before it subsumes us. Jesus told his disciples that salvation would not come through violence, and that message is passed down once again to all of us today. Instead, we will only see our world transformed if we are willing to be called down into difficult places of pain and hurt, to participate in healing from within them, to voice and show love when surrounded by hate, and to believe and trust that God somehow is there in the midst of it all.

It’s never easy to let go and trust in God, particularly when everything in the world around us seems to loudly proclaim the exact opposite of that belief. It wasn’t just the violence in Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, and Dallas this week; it was also terror attacks throughout Dhaka, Bangladesh, at the start of Eid, and our city seeing its 2,000th victim of gun violence in 2016 this past week as well. In the face of all this tragedy, a sermon saying that we need to let go and trust might seem trite at best or an opiate at worst. But I believe advocating for letting go does not mean a letting go of responsibility, and trusting is not an excuse for passivity. If we believe that God is in the midst of tragedy, then trusting God and following Christ means letting go of the fear, apathy, and paralysis that can grip us in the wake of tragedy. If we believe that God is making all things new, it means letting go of our nagging cynicism that our world is irreparably broken and instead taking whatever steps we can to help repair it. If we believe that God is with us no matter where we are, it means letting go of our desire to stay in the known and having the courage to change our attitudes or laws in the face of tragedy. If we believe that all people are children of God, it means letting go of the false divisions we’ve created between race, class, gender, religion, or sexual preference. If we believe that God’s love is greater than all, it means letting go of the hate, anger, and resentment inside us and doing whatever we can to erase those things from the hearts of others.

One of the most powerful images I saw in the wake of the Dallas shootings was a picture someone had taken of a group of strangers gathered tightly around a baby stroller that was out on the street at the time of the shooting. These strangers were men and women, black and white, risking their lives to protect a stranger’s child even as shots rang out around them on the street. That is the type of love that I believe in—the type of love that tears down walls and tears down hate. I believe that that type of love is all throughout our world—more common than we ever know or hear about—but still present nonetheless.

But even though I believe that to be true, there are still plenty of moments when I need to ask God’s help with my unbelief—when doubt creeps in in the wake of tragedy and uncertainty—and I know that I am not alone in that respect. After Jesus was arrested, we know that the disciples all fled in fear, leaving as quickly as they had initially come, with Peter going so far as to deny that he knew Jesus. Rather than being able to let go and trust God to be with them going forward, the disciples’ fear led them to hold on, going back to the safety of what they knew. Our world, too, is gripped with fear—not just with terror attacks and gun violence claiming innocent lives, but with concerns about our economy and a fear of the “other.” Faced with all of that fear, we might think the safe thing to do would be to hold on as hard as we can to what we know. The safe thing to do would be to deny being one of Jesus’ disciples and to deny our responsibility. The safe thing to do would be to worry about our own welfare or just that of those around us. But the Spirit’s voice is calling us to let go of our fear—to trust in God even in the midst of unbelief.

So, friends, how might that voice be calling you to let go and to trust? Is it to let go and shake yourself from apathy or paralysis, trusting that you have a part to play in spreading God’s love? Is it to let go of cynicism, trusting that what you do and say does indeed matter? Is it to let go of divisions that you’ve made, both consciously and unconsciously, trusting that there are others who are seeking to do the same? Or is it to let go of any hate or resentment that has found its way into you, perhaps even against your will, trusting that God’s love is greater than any pain we may inflict on one another?

Doing these things is no guarantee of safety or security for ourselves, and even when we truly believe them we will always be wrestling with our unbelief. But ultimately I do believe that God is present, even in the midst of heartbreak, anger, fear, and uncertainty, and that God calls each of us—even if our words and actions are imperfect—to bring about healing in whatever way that we can. So speak out when you might be inclined to stay silent. Advocate for changes to our state’s and country’s laws that they might promote life instead of death. Bring down divisions wherever you see them being built up. Share God’s love with someone else today because you believe, deep down, that love is stronger than hate.

We cannot change the world on our own—but, then again, we do not believe we are on our own. Instead, trusting in God’s grace, may we let go of all that might hold us back and live lives that proclaim what we truly believe. Amen.