Was It Really That Easy?

Was it really that easy? We’ve left the Gospel according to Mark for this week and are hearing another story from early in Jesus’ ministry from the Gospel according to John. In John’s account, following his baptism, Jesus called Andrew and Simon as his disciples. Jesus then decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Apparently Philip tagged right along with Jesus in the walk back to Bethsaida, in Galilee. No questions asked, just followed Jesus. Then he found his friend Nathanael and enthusiastically declared, “We found him! He’s the promised one, Jesus of Nazareth!” Nathanael wasn’t buying at first. He was more skeptical than Philip, and he knew his Scriptures. He knew that the messiah was to come from Jerusalem, not Nazareth. But apparently it didn’t take much to convince him otherwise. Once he met Jesus, all Jesus had to say was, “I saw you under the fig tree,” and Nathanael too enthusiastically declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” Was it really that easy? Didn’t he struggle at all? Didn’t he wonder about this young rabbi? Were all his doubts really gone, so that he could go on to follow Jesus for the rest of his life? Was it really that easy?

For most of us, faith often isn’t that easy. For most of us, faith is often a struggle. In the book of Genesis we hear the stories about the patriarch Jacob. Do you remember them? Jacob’s coming to faith involved awe, terror, and even physical struggle. While camping out in the wilderness after having cheated his brother Esau, Jacob dreamt of a ladder joining heaven and earth on which angels ascended and descended. He heard God renew the covenant that God had made with Jacob’s ancestor Abraham, and he heard God’s promise that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.” Struck with terror, all Jacob could say was, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." Jacob spent another night in the wilderness as he was returning home to confront Esau. That night he wrestled with an angel of God who dislocated his thigh. At daybreak the angel blessed him and gave him a new name. Despite his pain, Jacob realized that, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

The first Sunday of October we blessed our animal companions in honor of the 13th century saint Francis of Assisi. Francis too struggled to accept God’s call. The heir of a wealthy merchant family, Francis had from early on wanted to serve the poor. But he also liked his adventurous and exciting life as a soldier and a rich man’s son. One day he heard Jesus calling to him in the church of San Damiano near his home town. Three times an icon of the crucified Jesus said to him, "Francis, Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." Thinking this meant the ruined church in which he was praying, Francis sold his horse and some cloth from his father's store and gave the money to the priest at San Damiano. Of course, his father was furious. Nevertheless, Francis defied his family, renounced his inheritance, and embraced a life of poverty and service to the poor.

Even for people like us, coming to faith can be a real struggle. A friend of mine in graduate school – let’s call him Joe – went to a Eucharist in an Episcopal church with one of his friends. Although Joe had never been baptized he admired his friend and was curious about what Episcopalians did in church. Although Joe could not receive communion, his friend invited him to kneel at the altar rail and receive a blessing. As Joe knelt there, he had such an overwhelming sense of God’s presence that he knew he had found his spiritual home. However, that wasn’t the end of Joe’s struggle. It took him another nine months of reading, talking with a priest, thinking, and praying before he was ready to be baptized and confirmed. For many people, faith is a struggle – it isn’t that easy.

And so too for you? Are you struggling with your faith? Perhaps you are wondering whether you ought to be baptized or confirmed. Perhaps you have already been baptized and confirmed. You know that you have been empowered by the Holy Spirit, and you know that you have been transformed and sent by God. But you are still struggling with God’s call to you, with what you think God wants you to do next. “OK, God, what is your plan for me?” Or perhaps you think that God has abandoned you. “I’m here, God, every week, but where are you?” Perhaps you wonder about this parish. “What’s next for us in this place, Lord? What ministry do you have for us?” No, it isn’t that easy.

We’re in good company when we struggle with our faith, if we struggle to make out God’s call to us. We’re in good company if we wonder if God will truly stay with us. Jacob, Samuel in today’s Hebrew Bible lesson, Nathanael, St. Francis, and Joe all had trouble hearing God’s call in the first place and then following through on what God seemed to be asking of them. So, should we even bother? Is the reward for responding to God’s call worth the struggle? The answer to that question has to be an emphatic “yes.” For, as our examples suggest, God promises that ultimately our struggles to trust God will be bountifully rewarded. And God always delivers on God’s promises. In his first encounter not only did God grant Jacob a vision of heaven and earth coming closer together, God also gave Jacob a promise: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” God kept God’s promise. As Jacob limped into Canaan, he encountered not the battle that he had expected but a peaceful, generous reception from Esau. And indeed, Jacob did go on to become a great nation, so great that God was obliged to deliver the nation from slavery in Egypt.

Similarly for Nathanael. Whatever internal struggle he had, Nathanael overcame his initial skepticism. He let Philip bring him to Jesus. Once there, he heard Jesus promise him a rich life, a richer life than anything he had known to that point. He heard Jesus promise him that he would see what Jesus himself had seen, “the heavens opened.” He heard Jesus promise him a life in which through Jesus he would see the visions that Jacob saw, that he would know God in a deeper, richer way.

And similarly for Francis. Empowered by God, Francis gained acceptance from the pope for his new order and established many houses of friars devoted to the poor. He attracted to his work a wealthy young woman friend named Clare, who founded a parallel Franciscan order for women, the Poor Clares. Both orders, and a third order for lay associates, still exist to this day, indeed still serve the poor right here in southern Ohio. Two years before he died in 1226, Francis had another vision of God. As the brother with him described it, "Suddenly he saw a vision of a seraph, a six-winged angel on a cross. This angel gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ." Having blessed so many and been blessed richly by God, Francis was declared a saint of the church in 1228. He is remembered and honored to this day on October 4th.

Even my friend Joe experienced the fulfillment of God’s promises to him. Having finally been baptized and confirmed, Joe married, had a family, and pursued a successful career in government service. Like most of us, his spiritual life had its ups and downs. In his early ‘50s, Joe went through another struggle as he sensed a call from God to ordained ministry. Joe wrestled with God for several years, but finally God won, as God always does. Today Joe is a deacon and is serving God and the people around him in ways that he could never have imagined the day he first knelt at the altar rail in his friend’s church.

We’re in good company if we struggle with our faith. We’re in good company if wrestle with God’s call to this parish. It isn’t that easy. Struggle with God is part of an adult spiritual life. Struggle with God is part of the lives of all the great saints and of all ordinary Christians who take their relationship with God seriously. But we also have God’s promises. We have God’s promise to be with us forever, no matter what happens to us. We have Jesus’ promise that through him we will grow into a deeper richer knowledge of God. We have the Holy Spirit’s promise to us in baptism that we have been transformed and empowered, that we are different and can make a difference in the world. Can we acknowledge our struggles? Can we open our ears and our hearts to hear God’s response? Can we believe God’s promises to us?