by Angie Fischer
“Do you believe in God?” Matt asks as he sits next to me before history class.
I look at him to see if he’s serious. I mean, I’ve known Matt for six years and the closest he has ever come to talking about faith was telling a joke about an agnostic dyslexic insomniac who lies awake wondering if there really is a dog. Matt and I talk about trumpet players, jazz albums, and marching configurations: we’re band geeks. But I can tell from his eyes that he honestly wants to know.
“Yeah, Matt, I do.”
He thinks for a minute, then asks, “Why?”
Class starts before I can answer, so I spend the hour thinking about how to explain my faith. Maybe it’s weird, but I think my faith in God has something to do with music. It’s like sometimes when I play my trumpet, I lose track of time. When I know a song really well, I don’t have to focus on the notes or fingerings. I just play.
When that happens, I feel like I’ve unlocked the real music beyond the page of notes. It’s like the secret world behind the wardrobe door. It’s calming and exciting; it’s full of mystery yet everything makes sense. In those moments I know there’s something bigger than me, but also in me.
The bell rings for the end of class and Matt looks at me, waiting for an answer.
“Matt, you know how we played that duet at the state contest?”
“Yeah,” Matt says, “we nailed it.”
“And something was different, like it was more than us playing the notes.”
“That was awesome,” Matt says, “It was a healthy, natural high.”
We both laugh, thinking about Nurse Sonja’s yearly don’t-do-drugs talk.
“Well, to me it’s God. When we played, I felt free in a deep way, do you know what I mean? It’s like when singers belt out the blues. It’s about expression, and great music comes from that. I guess I think that music comes from the soul, and we wouldn’t have great music without God.”
Matt nods, but says nothing. So I put the burden of proof on him.
“Why not believe that it’s an experience of God when we play like that?” The bell rings again, and it is his turn to think until the next class break.
Keeping Faith
by Sara Schulte
I have prayed to do well on math tests I didn’t study for, promising to be an excellent student in the future and live up to my full mathematical potential. Sometimes I have scraped together enough good guesses to answer my prayer. Sometimes I have really regretted not studying.
I have often driven too fast to school, praying and promising God all the way that if I get to school without a wreck or a speeding ticket, I will never be late again.
In Sunday’s gospel Jesus’ friends seem to seek special powers like those I have prayed for—power to get A’s without studying and to speed without paying. They ask for an increase in their faith.
Jesus insists that faith does not come in medium, large, and extra large. In fact, he seems to poke fun at his apostles when he describes what faith the size of a tiny mustard seed can do. Perhaps he suspects they want to do wonders and show off. “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be uprooted and transplanted into the sea,’ and it will obey you.”
Why would anyone want to transplant a sycamore tree into the sea? Such an act might dazzle spectators, but what is the point? The tree won’t survive. What kind of faith throws big shade trees into the sea?
If faith is a gift that gives us power over things, then of course we want more of it. We might want to be like the master in the gospel, who orders his servant around instead of ordering trees into the sea.
But our faith isn’t about having power over trees or people. Faith moves us, not trees, or servants, or math grades.
For example, suppose I am about to try rock climbing for the first time. If I don’t trust my teacher, I won’t move off the ground. If I trust the teacher, I begin to climb. Neither the rope nor the rock changes. I have no magical control over things around me. My faith in my teacher changes me.
Faith changes us because it is about relationship. Babies learn to trust their parents because moms and dads return again and again to feed and change them. Babies live and grow because of their parents’ care without knowing it.
Before I have words to describe it, I have a relationship with God. I find the world into which I am born trustworthy. All of us live, breathe, and enjoy the world. As we grow, we raise questions about where we come from and where we are going. We recognize that the world is good, and we sense we are not alone in it. Someone sustains us. God is with us.
Sometimes tragedies like disease, earthquakes, accidents, hurricanes, or wildfires happen through no one’s choice or action. What does faith mean when things go wrong, whether from our own choices or simply the way things happen?
Wouldn’t the world work better if faith meant we had power over circumstances to change them when we mess it up or when it just goes wrong? Faith doesn’t give us super powers; it gives us relationships.
God doesn’t stop loving us when we are angry or suffering. We live in a deep, underlying relationship with God that connects us even when we don’t feel it. The Church calls this the faith by which we believe, a total adherence to God whom creation and Jesus reveal as good and loving.
Faith also means what we believe—the content. What we believe grows and changes as we develop more capacity to express our relationship with God and to understand our Christian traditions.
Our relationship with God moves us to work for justice and to build up community with others. But it isn’t just for show.
