Release candidate of the sermon on "Faith comes from hearing".

1 files changed, 138 insertions, 76 deletions

diff --git a/faith/faith_is_from_hearing.rst b/faith/faith_is_from_hearing.rst
index c76ba42..947bee1 100644
--- a/faith/faith_is_from_hearing.rst
+++ b/faith/faith_is_from_hearing.rst
@@ -10,70 +10,69 @@ Faith is from hearing
 :category: faith
 :tags: sermon, english, listening
 
-    So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of
-    Christ.
+    So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
 
     -- Romans 10,17 ESV
 
-This is one of the very famous verses in the New Testament, and
-if you were among Christians at least for some time, I am quite
-sure that you have heard a sermon on this verse at least once. In
-the missionary oriented churches, like ours, we have a sermon on
-this always every year.
-
-A warning and disclaimer first. I have to warn you, this sermon
-won’t probably be harsher and more negative than it is usual in
-this church. There won’t be any names used, but there will be
-criticism of some things I really don’t like. I apologize to
-anybody who tends to be offended, please, don’t. Take it as my
-one-time repayment for all time when I had to suffer through
+This is one of the famous verses in the New Testament, and if you
+were among Christians at least for some time, I am quite sure
+that you have heard a sermon on this verse at least once. In the
+missionary oriented churches, like ours, we have a sermon on this
+almost every year.
+
+A warning and a disclaimer first. I must warn you, this sermon
+will probably be more negative and critical than is usual in this
+church. There won’t be any names used, but there will be
+a criticism of some things I really don’t like. I apologize to
+anybody who may feel offended, please, don’t. Take it as my
+one-time repayment for all the times I had to suffer through
 sermons which I didn’t like.
 
 I would be willing to summarize those sermons on this verse into
 one certainly exaggerated schema: faith to our poor unbelieving
 neighbours comes from hearing of what you should be telling them.
-In order to be able to provide them the word of Christ you need
-to study the Bible more. And to put it mildly, the fact there are
-so many unbelievers all around is your fault, because you are too
-lazy and too ashamed of God to move your behind and share the
-most important news of your life with them despite the danger of
-being ridiculed by them. Shame on you, and get up from that chair
-and go spread the gospel!
-
-People who have personally found being a missionary their
-all-life calling usually preach such sermons, and they are
+In order to be able to provide them with the word of Christ, you
+need to study the Bible more. And to put it mildly, the fact
+there are so many unbelievers all around is your fault, because
+you are too lazy and too ashamed of God to move your behind and
+share the most important news of your life with them, despite the
+danger of being ridiculed by them. Shame on you, and get up from
+that chair and go spread the gospel!
+
+People who have personally found being a missionary as their
+life-long calling usually preach such sermons, and they are
 cheered by those in the audience who feel likewise. Rest of the
 congregation feels dutifully ashamed of themselves. Some of them
-are ashamed to the level that they actually try some a one-time
-desperate action, which being one-time desperate one, will fail,
+are ashamed to the level that they actually try some one-time
+desperate action, which being a one-time desperate one, will fail,
 and so the total result is that those who were already persuaded
 are enjoying their persuasion, and the rest are even more ashamed
-of themselves. Next year, the whole exercise repeats.
+of themselves. Next year, the whole exercise is repeated.
 
 To ease the atmosphere a bit, let me show you this video, which
 is very relevant to this verse, and let me then continue with
 some of my thoughts on it.
 
-`It’s Not About The Nail`_
+`It’s Not About the Nail`_
 
 I. Hearing
 ----------
 
-So, the first thing is that the faith is from **hearing**. That
-such huge area, which I think is very important and under-covered
-in the Protestant practice, that I could talk hours just on each
-of these sub-areas: hearing of God on the personal level,
-silence, and the tradition of the Desert Fathers in Egypt,
-hearing and listening in the pastoral care and interpersonal
-conflict resolution, or hearing as the foundation of the mission.
-We don’t have those hours, so I will just remain on a very high
-level and I will have just a few notes on the subject.
-
-Let me just another self-defence disclaimer: I am very proud to
+So, the first thing is that faith is from **hearing**. I believe
+that "hearing" is very under-valued in Protestant practice, that
+I could talk hours just about that. Or even these sub-areas:
+hearing God on the personal level, silence, and the tradition of
+the Desert Fathers in Egypt, hearing and listening in the
+pastoral care and interpersonal conflict resolution, or hearing
+as the foundation of the mission. We don’t have those hours, so
+I will just keep my sermon on a very abstract level and I will
+have just a few notes on the subject.
+
+Let me add another self-defence disclaimer: I am very proud to
 be a Protestant. I am proud to stand in the tradition of Martin
 Luther, Pilgrim Fathers, Czech Brethren, and many others who
-lived radically their lives of faith. It doesn’t however stop me
-from seeing weaknesses of our tradition.
+lived radically their lives of faith. However, it doesn’t stop me
+from seeing the weaknesses of our tradition.
 
 Painting with a very broad brush and drawing just a very large
 picture, I would suggest that the strongest part of the
@@ -92,7 +91,7 @@ are certainly the leaders, who spoke God's message to the world,
 and we should reflect on the outcome of their lives and imitate
 their faith (He 13:7) However, when the spirituality turns only
 towards one tradition it can stop being an asset and a challenge,
-and it can start to be also a burden.
+and it can also start to be a burden.
 
 What would you do if you were a deacon in your church charged
 with managing donations of the congregation for the various
@@ -103,46 +102,45 @@ Not building a hospital or hospice, just hugging them. Or what
 about the missionary who failed in his mission because of his
 mental illness, but he wanted to start painting pictures
 completely different from anything anybody painted before him?
-How high would these stand on the list of the church sponsored
-missions? My deep suspicion is that they would probably never get
-much if anything from your congregation. Congratulations, you
-have just rejected the support for Mother Theresa of Calcutta and
-Vincent van Gogh. Many people don’t know, but because of his
-madness he had to leave the mission field and thus he became just
-one of the most influential figures in the history of the Western
-Art.
+How high would these stand on the list of the church-sponsored
+missions? My deep suspicion is that they would never get much if
+anything from your congregation. Congratulations, you have just
+rejected the support for Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Vincent
+van Gogh. Many people don’t know, but because of his madness he
+had to leave the mission field and thus he became just one of the
+most influential figures in the history of Western Art.
 
 Vincent van Gogh is just one of many representatives of how
 Protestantism completely missed on art. I was saying that the
-biggest Protestant tradition is the one of purposeful action. The
+biggest Protestant tradition is one of purposeful action. The
 problem is that true art doesn’t have any purpose. It is much
 closer to the Jewish (and Catholic!) idea of sacrifice. Artists
 give to God his best without much knowledge of what God will use
-his gift for. If ever for anything. From the first class masters
+his gift for. If ever for anything. From the first-class masters
 who really changed the history of art and who were openly
 Protestant I can think perhaps just about Johan Sebastian Bach,
 and he was a Lutheran (who are much closer to the Catholicism
-than any other branch of Protestantism perhaps except for the
+than any other branch of Protestantism, perhaps except for the
 Anglicanism) and most of his commissions were from the Catholic
 German princes anyway. And since then the relationship between
 the greatest Protestant artists and Church was usually tight at
 best. One example of many. When they asked Johnny Cash in his
 last interview before his death (who would certainly qualify as
-deeply believing Protestant Christian and first class artist
+a deeply believing Protestant Christian and a first-class artist
 breaking new ground in his field), whether he was a Christian
 artist, he resolutely rejected the idea saying “I am not
 a Christian artist, I am an artist who happens to be
 a Christian.” I believe he meant by the Christian art that which
 is purposeful, music and other forms of the artistic expression
 which are meant to serve to help Christians to worship, to create
-beautiful churches, but which is not true art in above mentioned
+beautiful churches, but which is not true art in above-mentioned
 terms of the purposeless sacrifice.
 
 I could talk about the avoidance of pain in the so-called
-Christian Art, but that would be another very long digression,
-which I will spare you.
+Christian Art, but that would be another awfully long digression,
+of which I will spare you.
 
-What I mean is that by avoiding hearing we lose one huge part of
+What I mean is that by avoiding hearing we lose a huge part of
 the Christian spirituality, which could lead to our voice being
 more authentic in the rapidly changing new world we are entering.
 
@@ -154,7 +152,7 @@ How many times I have heard in the sermons on our leading verse
 that we need to study the Word of God more to have more to spread
 among unbelievers. That is just not simplistic and overly
 didactic, but flatly wrong. When the verse says “hearing [comes]
-through the word of Christ”, it doesn’t use the Greek word
+through the word of Christ,” it doesn’t use the Greek word
 :language-el:`λόγος`, which could really represent the Holy
 Scriptures, it uses the Greek word :language-el:`ῥῆμα`. The
 latter is much less frequent in the Ancient Greek texts and there
@@ -165,12 +163,12 @@ paper (which is :language-el:`λόγος`), but more the God’s
 utterance, God speaking to the specific situation, specific
 moment, and for the specific person. Another way to explain this
 distinction is to point to what’s normally called “knowledge in
-one’s head” and “wisdom in one’s heart”. It is rather simple to
-increase the amount of knowledge in our heads, it just requires
+one’s head” and “wisdom in one’s heart”. It is simple to increase
+the amount of knowledge in our heads, it just requires
 well-developed what our German brothers call :language-de:`das
 Sitzfleisch`, the muscle used for sitting.
 
-It is much more difficult and painful to get the wisdom in one’s
+It is much more difficult and painful to get wisdom in one’s
 heart. In fact, it is one of the most important parts of our
 whole-life Christian growth. It requires living through God’s
 ordained experiences, to overcome one’s pain, hurt, let-downs. It
@@ -179,29 +177,93 @@ requires asking for forgiveness and forgiving others.
 What shall we say then? Is the study of the Bible useless, and we
 just need to live through our life and learn by the school of
 hard knocks? By no means! I am the last person in the world who
-would discourage any academic effort. Son of the university
+would discourage any academic effort. Son of a university
 professor, with two university degrees, always type 5 (head-head)
 on the Enneagram, proud Ravenclaw in the Harry Potter universe.
-Of course, we need to have the head knowledge of the world from
-the Bible. We desperately need to get true God’s view on the
-world, what’s right and what’s wrong, and we can get those only
-from the Bible, because certainly the world won’t teach us from
-God’s perspective.
+Of course, we need the head knowledge of the world around us
+based on the Bible. We desperately need to get a true God’s view
+of the world, what’s right and what’s wrong, and we can get those
+only from the Bible because certainly, the world won’t teach us
+about God’s perspective.
 
 Moreover, I believe, that studying of Bible is one of the
 pre-eminent God’s methods how to speak to us, how to give us
-:language-el:`ῥῆμα`. Many times when struggling with some problem
-in life, when I don’t know what to answer to somebody who asks
-me, when I am lost and desperate, a verse from the Bible suddenly
-shines to me as :language-el:`ῥῆμα` and illuminates my way. Or
-even more often, some verse from the Bible shines on my past ways
-and shows how I screwed up and what I did actually wrong.
+:language-el:`ῥῆμα`. Many times, when struggling with some
+problem in life, when I don’t know what to answer somebody who
+asks me when I am lost and desperate, a verse from the Bible
+suddenly shines to me as :language-el:`ῥῆμα` and illuminates my
+way. Or even more often, some verse from the Bible shines on my
+past, and it shows how I screwed up and what should be my lesson
+from that experience.
+
+Did I say that the study of the Bible is the pre-eminent method
+of acquiring :language-el:`ῥῆμα`? That’s not exactly true. There
+is a better one.
+
+In the past couple of months, PCF led a sheltered life, because
+there were no public services, and even the small groups were
+hurting a lot because people were not willing to go out much.
+However, that’s a big problem! I believe that truly the best
+method to obtain :language-el:`ῥῆμα` for your own life and your
+own situations is to listen to others what they’ve got as
+:language-el:`ῥῆμα` for their situations. Of course, that’s what
+sermon is supposed to be, and that is certainly also what happens
+a lot in the personal environment of the home groups. So, let me
+challenge you here and now: “And let us consider how to stir up
+one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet
+together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another,
+and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
+Hebrews 10:24f. It is important because we are literally starving
+our spirit of its most important nutrients.
 
 
 III. Just for evangelization?
 -----------------------------
 
-xxx
+Let us return to those stereotypical sermons on this verse
+I dislike so much. So far, I have listened to at least ten of
+them, most likely more, and all of them were preached by somebody
+who devoted their lives to the missions. There is no surprise
+then that all of them considered this verse only in terms of
+evangelization as if the faith which should be a result of that
+hearing (or speaking for most of them) was the salvation moment
+of the pre-believer going from death to eternal life.
+
+And yes, the whole chapter is focused on Paul’s laments about his
+fellow Israelites not knowing Christ, but let me suggest here,
+that in Paul’s time the division between the Jewish community and
+Church was by far not as great as later, truly, that what Paul
+talks about here is more talking about the pastoral care, about
+leading his fellow brothers back to the right path, and less
+about the missions to heathens. Consequently, let me suggest that
+the faith Paul mentions here is not just the saving faith but
+faith in all its manifestations. Paul later talks in the Epistle
+to Ephesians that
+
+    […] he gave [to the Church] the apostles, the prophets, the
+    evangelists, the pastors, and teachers, … (Ephesians 4:11
+    ESV)
+
+I don’t want to dive into the discussion whether this list is
+exhaustive (and we truly should talk about the Fivefold Ministry
+of the Church), or whether it is just a demonstrative list and
+there are many more ministries given to the Church by Christ.
+Either way, I am persuaded that the final product in the hearts
+of believers for all these ministries is the same: renewed (or
+new) faith and closer relationship with the Lord Jesus. And for
+all of them, it applies that such faith comes from hearing: both
+hearing of those who are receiving the ministry as well as
+hearing God’s voice to the situation. And for all of them
+certainly, it is true that it is necessary for
+:language-el:`ῥῆμα`, the living utterance of God, to come to our
+hearts and truly make the change which restores our life and our
+faith.
+
+Let us pray that we will hear the Lord more every day of our
+lives and that we will be able to share :language-el:`ῥῆμα` with
+those who need it.
+
+Amen.
 
-.. _`It’s Not About The Nail`:
+.. _`It’s Not About the Nail`:
    https://youtu.be/-4EDhdAHrOg