Faith Works 3-24-23

Faith Works 3-24-23
Jeff Gill

Faith in the journey, faith of the journey
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"But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?""

If you've been following the Gospel readings through Lent, you know there are people who said Jesus either didn't heal a man born blind, or if he did it was inappropriate. Then after that fellow is clearly seeing clearly who Jesus is, and what the cynics are up to, they pivot from him to accusing Jesus of not having healed a fellow in advance.

It's like Jesus can't win, you know?

If you don't know what happens next with Lazarus, check out John chapter 11. If you don't know what happened next to Jesus, just stay tuned: we will be hearing a great deal more about that.

Could not churches be doing more? I get asked that in a wide variety of settings. Helping the poor, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring (as indeed the Bible instructs us to do) for the widow and the orphan. Wherever there is a gap, a social failing, an economic need, it's a place where people of faith can and should be found. Yet the needs continue, and our civic shortcomings seem to expand.

Could not a faith that claims to open the eyes of the spiritually blind also keep people from perishing on our streets and in our communities?

Here's what I think first, as a pastor, about needs. The problem with crafting your ministry around needs alone is that they are, in a very practical sense, never ending. If you decide to pursue faithfulness by going where the needs are greatest, you may find yourself going in circles, round and round.

This is where discernment comes in. A spiritually grounded process of the community to understand where God is at work, and what it means to follow faithfully.

Sometimes God calls people to feed the hungry, but that doesn't mean every church has to open a food pantry. Sometimes God calls people to build houses, but that doesn't make every congregation a chapter of Habitat.

I know a place where the members have an assortment of skills in construction, but they focus the time and energy they have to build access ramps for people in wheelchairs. Is that God's will for them? I believe so, for that congregation; that's not the same as saying now every church group should be building ramps.

All of which is to suggest that, practical though it may not seem, prayer is the first and foremost ministry of any church. To seek the paths of spiritual awareness and rootedness and roundedness that help people of faith figure out where they should be extending and expanding their ministries. We all should be constantly looking for where we can serve as God wants us to, but needs alone won't give us that guidance.

Should Jesus have kept Lazarus from dying in the first place? Could he have? As a Christian believer, I have no doubt he could have. Should he? Well, he didn't. Death is part of our story, too. We each have a role to play in God's plan before we reach that turning; we all would like God to smooth the path along the way, but we know that isn't promised to any of us, either.

We are promised comfort and company along the rocky, narrow way, and a secure destination. Until then, the work we have to do is not how we earn our entry to that final door, it's a witness to those around us of our faith in the way we have chosen to walk.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been wrestling recently with God's call to do less, not more. Tell him how you hear God's guidance at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.