Positive Faith: How do we DO it?

Many traditions approach faith by starting with the negative: humanity is essentially bad unless God intervenes. A great deal of stress is put on the “humanity is essentially bad” part.

Now, I don’t fully disagree. I would just phrase it differently. Here’s a few options. Humanity is not naturally all that it can be. Humanity needs to rely on God in order to find its purpose and to achieve its full potential. We could say it a few different ways. We’re not naturally inclined to do God’s will, or to put his characteristics on display…/and/ God is perfectly happy to give us what we need so that we can get there. This isn’t really a theological difference, it’s a presentation difference.

The presentation matters because we don’t want to shut people down and push them into fight, flight, or freeze mode (aka survival mode). We want people to live as the best, most generous versions of themselves.

How do we do that?

We’ll spend a few days talking about this but I would suggest starting by looking for the good in others. If this whole conversation about positive faith is offensive to you, then think about it like this: Look for the God in others. In other words, look for the characteristics of God that are on display in that person’s life, knowing, believing, and trusting that some aspect of the image of God can be found in that person.

Jesus Wept. Why?

In John 11, Jesus does an amazing thing: he raises Lazarus from the dead. But not fast enough for Lazarus' sisters Mary and Martha. When Lazarus falls ill, the girls call on their good friend for help. Jesus EVENTUALLY shows up but by that time Lazarus is buried and Jesus is four days late for his funeral. The girls are royally pissed.

They still believe that a miracle is possible but both would have preferred to have simply had him healed, not raised. Interesting isn't it? That Jesus, who will be the next to die a horrible death, chooses this particular time to teach his community that for those who trust him, they can begin their eternal life right now - in real time. He is not promising some future great deal - entrance into heaven - so much as he is opening a door on earth to walk into - a new life, a new way of living.

Jesus of course knows that this is going to happen and he will call Lazarus out of his little hole-in-the-wall tomb to rejoin him on earth. But everyone else is weeping and wailing - focused as they are on preventing death.

Jesus cries too. But according to Barbara Brown Taylor his tears are for a different reason. He realizes that these, his dear friends, still do not understand who he is and what he is offering. He is teaching them that trust in him results in "outliving" death (again, according to Taylor). This is a very different way of seeing.

No one knows, except for Jesus, that the rising of Lazarus will guarantee the death of Jesus. The power brokers in Jerusalem could not allow Jesus to continue to reveal his way of seeing and being in the world. This would break the system, the system that preyed on people's fears and focus on not dying. Surely if people understand that Jesus came to relieve of us our obsession with survival, our lives might become so much more abundant as we choose to cast off those chains and live a life of meaning and purpose.

Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life." Now, to quote Mary Oliver, "What are we going to do with our one wild and precious life?"