Walking with God - Living with Integrity

Isaiah 50: 4-9a & Mark 8: 27-30

Roger Lynn

September 23, 2018

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We like to talk about faith in terms of the gifts we receive through our participation in this way of living – the support and the joy which comes from following the path of faith. But the truth is that this business of faithful living is not always easy. Walking with God and seeking to follow where we think God is leading us can take us into some rather unsettling, and even frightening, territory. This is true not because God leads us into harm’s way, but because the world is not always ready to receive the gifts which faith prompts us to offer. The good news of love and acceptance and forgiveness and peace and generosity and compassion can seem threatening to those who only know how to experience the world through a filter of fear. And frightened people sometimes lash out at whatever they perceive to be the source of their fear.

And so, we would be less than honest to talk about faith only in terms of the gifts. The writer of Isaiah understood this. “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6) For Isaiah, faith included suffering. Jesus understood this. He told his disciples that he “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected . . . and be killed.” (Mark 8:31) Those of us who seek to be followers of Christ need to remember that the one we are following ended up on a cross. The path of faith can be a risky one.

At the same time, however, we would also be telling less than the whole truth if we talk about faith only in terms of the risks. While it is true that living faithfully can lead us into the shadow places which are filled with life’s pain, that is never the whole story, and certainly is never the end of the story. Isaiah knew this as well. “God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; . . . I know that I shall not be put to shame; the one who vindicates me is near. . . It is God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?” (Isaiah 50:7-9) Jesus knew this also. In the face of determined, and in the end even violent, opposition, from both outside and inside his circle of friends, he stayed the course and remained true to his vision of life because of his confidence that God would be with him come what may. 

So what do we do with this understanding? Why would I preach about it? Call it truth in advertising. Suffering is sometimes a part of faith. We are called to live life with integrity, where our actions and our choices and our patterns of living all bear witness to the truth that love is the first, last, and only word that matters. We are called to live in that reality no matter what. And because some people find that truth threatening they sometimes react in dangerous ways. We need to know that going in. And we need to go in anyway. Because finally it is the only thing that works. Fear just creates more fear. Hate just creates more hate. Violence just creates more violence. And all of that fear and hate and violence leads only to death. God is love and therefore God is found in loving. You want God to be with you? You want God to be in the world? It’s already true. But it becomes real for us – it becomes real for the world  – when we love, even in the face of fear and hate and violence. 

It doesn’t always seem to make sense, at least in the ways the world makes sense of things. What did Jesus accomplish by facing his death the way he did? He found himself hanging on a cross because he would not compromise his message of love and acceptance and mercy. He died for what he believed in. And by the standards of the world that makes him a loser. Except that 2,000 years later we’re still talking about what he did. 2,000 years later he’s still having an impact in the world. The truth as he came to understand it is that God is love. His whole life reflected that truth. And so it was that he found God’s presence in every moment of his living, right to his very last breath. And we are called to follow that path.

Faithful living, rooted in love, can be a dangerous thing. And because that love is rooted in God, it is the only thing that can heal the world. We can hesitate and hold back because of fear. Or we can seek to walk with God and live with integrity knowing that we are never alone. When we do that there is no place we cannot go and nothing we cannot face, because we are never alone. Where is God calling you to go? How will you respond?