LENT 1 - 21/02/10

What is Faith?

BIBLE READING

Romans chapter 10 verse 11 only.
"Scripture says, 'No-one who has faith in him will be put to shame'."

PREPARATION

Materials needed:
a) A sheet of paper
b) A paper airplane, (one that flies reasonably well)
c) Some prescribed medicine that you have taken.

INTRODUCTION

Ask the question, 'What is Faith?', or 'What does it mean when someone says they have faith in you?', and if you are lucky you will get some responses about belief or trust. Guide these towards the required answer which is 'believing in something you have no way of proving'.'

Talk about scientists who claim that everything can be explained - the beginning of the world and so on - yet how many of them still are fervent believers in God.

Show the medicine. I have to take this medicine. I haven't the faintest idea of how it works or what it actually does, but I have faith in the doctor who prescribed them, and so I take it.

Take the piece of paper and drop it - it floats to the ground. Without help this just falls out of the sky.

This child's toy is heavier than air yet it flies, I hope. Throw paper airplane and comment that it is made from the same type of paper as that just dropped. The planes we see every day are many times heavier than this piece of paper yet they stay up for many times longer than this one did. Drop the piece of metal and explain that modern aircraft are made of just such material. I vaguely know the theory behind flight but I still don't really understand it, yet I have faith enough in the designers and operators of aircraft to have travelled many miles in them.

Obviously with these simple examples, there are those who can explain what I lack in understanding but I am equally sure that there are things that they do not understand yet accept as facts.

So, Faith enables us to accept that which we cannot explain or understand. Scientifically, we cannot explain the resurrection or how God can be three persons in one, yet christians say that we believe in them, in the words of the Creed, at every church service they go to.

Our Godparents and parents express their faith by saying "This is our faith", when a baby is baptised and believers say it again when they become full members of the church at Confirmation. All Christians continue to reaffirm it each Sunday. It is faith that sets Christians apart.

PRAYER

Suggestion from a New Zealand Prayer book,

Holy and eternal God,
Give us such trust in your sure purpose,
that we measure our lives
not by what we have done or failed to do, but by our faithfulness to you.