A New Robe of Faith . . .

1st Sunday after Christmas Day

1st Samuel 2:18-20, 26

Well, Happy New Year to you all. This is the weekend when we celebrate the beginning of a new year in our world. It is a natural time of new beginnings, new hopes. Many of us will be making resolutions – did you know that the #2 most popular resolution is to lose weight? That surprised me a little – the #1 most popular resolution is to get a better job. Hmmm. We could talk a little about the chicken and the egg, there, don’t you think?

Anyway, one of the things that catches my attention on the television this time of year, in between football games, are those news stories that list the highlight news events of the year, and especially the passing of important people in our world. My nephew this past week couldn’t get over the fact that James Brown didn’t live as long as Gerald Ford. I don’t know why that struck him so – but it did. I’m always amazed to see which celebrities have passed that I had forgotten about over the course of the year . . .

My mind this week turned again to the Old Testament scripture. I had about decided that I was through with the prophets and the Old Testament for a while – Advent about wore me out. But I was struck by a phrase in the Samuel passage that really jumped out at me, and that’s where I got the glimmer of an idea for the sermon this morning.

It was that second verse in the passage Mary just read for us – verse 10 of 1st Samuel, chapter 2. “His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.”

The story of Samuel is another of those stories of the bible where we have to step outside our contemporary moral judgments, and it is also a story where we get a real look at real life problems – how people try to handle them, and what God does in response to the pleas of his people. Here’s the short version. Hannah was married to Elkanah – interestingly enough out of the same country near Bethlehem we looked at last week. Elkanah actually had two wives – wait a minute – I thought this was the Bible we were studying?!?! Anyway, the other wife was named Peninnah, and she had lots of children – which wasn’t so much of a problem, except Hannah was barren. Another biblical “barren woman” story. Peninnah would rub it in from time to time – especially when Elkanah would go up to the temple for sacrifice. The first chapter of 1st Samuel tells us that he would sacrifice for Peninnah and each of her sons, but that he would offer a double sacrifice for Hannah, because he loved her. This really irritated Peninnah, and so she would go out of her way to make fun of Hannah and her barrenness. Hmmm.

So, Hannah turned to God with her pleas, and eventually promised God that if God gave her a son, she would give him back to God in God’s service. The priest, old Eli was watching her offering this prayer to God one day, and he approached her about the whole matter, and Eli rather prophesies that her wish will be granted. And so it was. Samuel was born to Elkanah and Hannah, and she did as she had promised – when the child was old enough, she took him to the temple, they offered sacrifices, and after he was weaned, she left him there to minister with old Eli.

In my mind’s eye, I’m just trying to imagine any woman I know leaving her newly weaned child with the old priest at the temple, and then going home, only to make yearly visits to the temple to see her son. I’m trying to imagine . . .

And I could also just imagine Samuel’s mother trying to figure out what size he had grown to over the year – did she measure the robe up against other little boys in her town to get an estimate of Samuel’s size and height? I’m sure she picked out the best cloth she could find for this new robe. He obviously needed a new robe – he was a growing boy, and you know how they go through clothes, especially if they only have one robe to wear!!

Well, that’s the story. But it got me to thinking about our own growth – especially our spiritual growth – growth in our faith. We talk a lot about growing in faith, but I don’t think we’ve ever really tried to define what we’re talking about. One of my favorite Pauline verses comes from Romans, chapter 1. Verses 16 and 17 – “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’” From faith to faith – as a result of those growth spurts in our faith, the righteousness of God is revealed through the power of His Gospel.

Just how does that growth in our faith occur? Well, I don’t think we can narrow it down to just one method. It probably happens a number of ways. I’ll suggest two. Sometimes growth in our faith happens as a result of moving through life’s difficult circumstances; and secondly, sometimes our growth comes as a result of choosing to step out into new ventures.

Unless you’re immune from life’s problems, you’ve had something happen to you this past year that has been hard to handle. It was a troubling event – something you didn’t ask for, but it came your way nonetheless. Perhaps you had a death in your immediate family. Perhaps some member of your family was ill for some period of time. Maybe you lost a job and had to find a new one. Those are the big things we usually think about. We call them the “stress” points in our life. Psychologists consider the stress factors that come our way, and they’ve devised a scale that allots points to each kind of stress we experience, and then suggests how much stress any one human can live with before they are at risk for health related issues – by one scale I looked at, they think the average person can live with 150 points of stress in their lives without facing significant risk to their health. Some of the things on the list are the biggies in our world – death of a spouse, divorce, death of family member (parent or sibling) – those kinds of things. But other stressors in our lives are the things that are common to all of us every year of our lives – a mortgage or loan over $10,000 is worth 31 points all by itself. A vacation is worth 13 points, a traffic ticket is worth 11 points, and Christmas, just the event of Christmas, is worth 12 points. We’re probably nuts to ever consider taking a vacation at Christmas, huh??

We all live with these kind of life circumstances, but many of us thrive during them, or at least as we move through them. Ed Vineyard sent me a thought provoking e-mail yesterday which serves as something of an illustration here. Sometimes we wonder, "What did I do to deserve this?" or "Why did God have to do this to me?" Here is a wonderful explanation! A daughter is telling her Mother how everything is going wrong, she's failing algebra, her boyfriend broke up with her and her best friend is moving away. Meanwhile, her Mother is baking a cake and asks her daughter if she would like a snack, and the daughter says, "Absolutely Mom, I love your cake." "Here, have some cooking oil," her Mother offers. "Yuck" says her daughter. "How about a couple raw eggs?" "Gross, Mom!" "Would you like some flour then? Or maybe baking soda?" "Mom, those are all yucky!" To which the mother replies: "Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake! God works the same way. Many times we wonder why He would let us go through such bad and difficult times. But God knows that when He puts these things all in His order, they always work for good! We just have to trust Him and, eventually, they will all make something wonderful!

Friends, our faith can thrive as a result of trials in our lives. I suspect – no, I know that every person in this room is testimony to that truth.

But trouble and difficult aren’t the only ways we grow in faith. All of our growth doesn’t come as a result of problems. We can also choose to grow in our faith.

I offer as illustration my upcoming mission trip this next week. People have been asking me if I’m excited about going to Romania. Honestly, and I’ve been answering them honestly, not so much. Neither am I especially dreading it. Truth of the matter is I don’t really like long flights, and I know that I’ll miss my bed and my pillow. But I know that I will grow in faith – at least in some small way – as a result of this mission trip. I virtually expect it. That has been my experience in the past, and I suspect it will always be my experience in the future.

We didn’t read the epistle this morning – it comes to us from Colossians 3, verses 12 and following. Just the first verse is pretty good all by itself – “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.” Were we to resolve to do anything in the coming year, we could do worse than to resolve to live our lives with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. I know that I could do worse.

I have had one other thought about growth in our faith. By its very definition, the word faith assumes some level of naïveté. I know that my choice of illustrations here is somewhat dated, but I hear that even the younger folks are watching “All in the Family” reruns. Old Archie once waded in on the subject of faith. I’ll delete the expletive, but basically he said, “Faith is believing what any ______ fool knows ain’t so.” He was correct in this respect - faith suggests naïveté – or at least some level of simplicity or innocence – certainly a lack of sophistication in the way we see and know our world. I really beg to differ with that way of looking at faith. Over the years, I think my faith as become anything but simple, while at the same time remaining quite simple. To pull that off, I think faith requires something rather sophisticated – the ability to see and know in multiple ways, according to the variety of situations in which we find ourselves. Whether or not that’s the case for you in your life, we would probably agree on this – we don’t wear the same robe of faith that we wore when we were children, or when we were of youth age, or young adults, or even the same robe of faith we wore last year. Our capacity to faith has changed – it has grown, and we are better for it. Perhaps we need a new robe of faith for the coming year.

By the gospel of God, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. You and I have the opportunity to grow in our faith this year. Spiritual, faith growth. Such a noble opportunity. I suspect as we approach these opportunities, we will have to take off the old robe of faith, and don the new robe. How will it fit us? Will there be room for a little growth? Same gospel – same gospel message in our lives – but somehow, as each year comes, it fits just a little differently, doesn’t it.

And I say, “Thanks be to God” for the growth – for trials and difficult circumstances, and for new opportunities.

Richard W. Dunn, Ph.D.