“The Offensiveness of Faith”

Scripture: Matthew 15:10-20

Master preacher John Killinger begins his book “You Are What You Believe” with the story of a woman who phoned a seminary president one Saturday night. “Dr. Miller, what do I believe?” she asked.
“What do you mean”? Miller was not sure he had heard her correctly.
“I mean”, she said, “what do I believe? You see, I've just come from a party where several people got into a discussion about various beliefs. One woman was Jewish, and she told us what she believes as a Jew. Another was Roman Catholic, and she told us what Catholics believe. One person was a Christian Scientist, and he talked about what they believe. I was the only Protestant in the group, and frankly, I didn't know what to say. What do I believe?”

That woman, said Dr. Miller, must have come into the church on a “confusion” of faith, instead of a “confession” of faith.
-Killinger, You Are What You Believe: The Apostles Creed for Today (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 1.

I truly believe that this is the main reason for the decline of mainline Christianity today. We just don’t know what we believe! It’s not that folks don’t go to church, although lack of worship is a big part of it. It’s not that folks don’t read their Bible, but that, too, is a major issue. But many who do go to church and many who do read their Bible only do so in a cursory manner. There is no reflection on faith, there is no personal thought as to what faith means and requires, and there is no effort to go beyond the norm in searching for God’s truth in this life.
We let others tell us that faith isn’t all that important, and that if we live a good life, that will be good enough. (It's a lie, you know!) We fail to look for the truth of God, and we never learn what is truly important for a life in faith.

Read Matthew 15:10-14

The woman in our opening story was one of those “blind” people that Jesus was talking about. She was not only confused about her faith, she didn’t have a clue as to what it is all about.

In the verses immediately preceding our text for today, (Matthew 15:1-9) we find Jesus in a discussion with the Pharisees over what their faith meant to them. For these learned men, faith meant that they painstakingly adhered to the law and to their understanding of how the law was to be lived out. Jesus quickly pointed out that it had nothing to do with what they thought the words meant, but rather what God had intended them to mean. He then quotes Isaiah 29:13, but let me read a few more verses (Isaiah 29:13-16)

Left to its own devices, it would seem that human wisdom isn’t such an all powerful thing after all! And that is exactly what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees. In this instance, they were hung up on what caused a person to be clean or unclean, or in a more contemporary term, what is there in this life that makes us unrighteous, that makes us sinful. What is it that creates separation between us and the Lord? These men were telling Jesus that his disciples were “unclean”, unworthy, because they didn’t wash their hands before they ate.
When I was growing up, I wish I knew how many times I heard “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”! The implication was that I had to be physically clean if I wanted God to like me, and apparently this wasn’t a new thought! This is exactly what the Pharisees believed! And Jesus was about to take them to task for the entire “clean / unclean” controversy. The Lord tells them that it isn’t about what we eat, or what we touch, or how we appear
that destroys our relationship with the Almighty – it’s what we say and do that really matters. And for the intellectuals, the scholars of Jesus‘ day, this was blasphemy. Scripture tells us that they were offended! Offended by God?

And some folks seem to still be offended, even today! Have you ever known someone who said that they were embarrassed by some passage that they have read in the Bible? They are all around us. They don’t like the call to tithe – it’s too much to expect from them. They don’t like the description of Israel as the Chosen People – it too exclusionary. They don’t like the limitation of salvation for only those who accept Christ Jesus – it isn’t fair. They don’t like the condemnation of homosexuality or abortion or drug and alcohol abuse or many other issues – it flies in the face of “personal decision”.
And the list goes on and on. And they are so opposed to the aspects of faith that they describe as “cold and indifferent”, that their Bible is reduced to about 10 pages in length. The rest of the pages have all been torn out.
And Jesus replies “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.” – which means that if the concept isn’t of God, then it will never survive. And one day, it won’t be God’s word that will be thrown away, it will be the word that comes from the world!

Read Matthew 15:15-20

Is it wrong to say “I don’t understand this.” Or “I don’t know why God would want us to do this.”? NO! It isn’t a sin to wonder, or even to question why God does or doesn’t do things, and I might even say that it’s OK to get angry at the Lord. But at the core of every issue, whether we are comfortable with them or not, we have to believe that the Lord’s ways and the Lord’s commands are the only ones that are true and righteous.

Dr. Holmes Harshorne writes:
Faith without doubt is dead; but doubt without faith is death. Doubt that is not grounded in an ultimate confidence in the Cross of Christ is doomed to skepticism, cynicism and despair, for it cannot see that in the loss of our certainties there is given to us the greater certainty of God's redemptive presence. It cannot see that through doubt we are delivered from the great lie that we are gods and our truths are eternal truth and our standards timelessly valid. But where doubt is rooted in faith, it becomes the source of honesty, humility and joy.
--M. Holmes Hartshorne, Faith Without Doubt Is Dead, Religion and life (April 1956), 69-70.

It would seem that doubt within faith is not an unclean aspect of our lives. Doubt only joins that rather extensive list of uncleanliness when it is fostered outside of faith. And what a list it is. The first 2, as well as the 5th, are, for the most part, generally accepted as sins by a majority of people. However the others are up for grabs. The concept of sexual immorality no longer exists for many – since the 60’s, the phrase “If it feels good, do it” has become the prevalent watchword in our society. False testimony, or lying, has become a way of life for many, including government officials, media moguls, Wall Street tycoons, and even some folks who claim to be Christians. Slander, the demeaning of another person’s character, has become the norm in politics and business.
And when we include this list with that in Galatians 5:19-21, it pretty much includes all of earthly life. For many, these condemnations of life hold little influence,and for those in the church who subscribe to the less “restrictive” lifestyle, scripture has become an embarrassment to them.

Ashamed of the Gospel? Offended by Christian principles? Luke 9:23-27 tells us that if we are ashamed of Christ and his words in this life, then he will be ashamed of us on the Judgment Day. The Pharisees were offended by Jesus’ words because they went against their rigid legalism, and so Jesus denounces them as blind guides who will lead others into the pit of eternal darkness. And the phrase “the blind leading the blind” is born.

Light or darkness? Faith or shame? Glory or condemnation? What do we believe? Do we believe that the Lord has planted many things, but that the Satan has planted even more? Do we believe that God created us in perfection, but that we have been corrupted by the lies of the ruler of this world? Do we believe that because of our sinfulness, the Lord of Glory willingly took our place in torture and death so that we might live with him in eternity? Do we believe that if we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe that God raised him from the dead, that we will be saved? (Romans 10:8-9) Do we believe that there is only one path to salvation, and that is through Christ Jesus?

What do we believe? May the word of Almighty God never stick in our throat, may we never be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and may we never hesitate to speak and live the Word simply because it may offend someone else.
Live in faith, and never look back.