August 7, 2022 + Lectionary 19c + Pr. Craig Mueller
Are you a risk taker? Or do you play it safe? Maybe it depends on whether we are talking at home or at work. Whether we are talking the about the stock market or dating.
Some people actually have jobs as risk managers. They analyze data and assess risk for an organization.
Taking risks seems like faith to me. Faith is at the heart of religion and spirituality. It’s a big biblical word. And our reading from Hebrews has a classic definition of it. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not unseen.”
One of our greatest ancestors in faith is Abraham. He’s in both our Genesis and Hebrews readings. Abraham is the ultimate spiritual risk taker, an exemplar, a forebear in faith for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. These three are even called Abrahamic religions.
Abraham is promised descendants as many as the stars. And he just goes forth. He puts one foot in front of another. Walking into an unknown future, not knowing where he is going. No map. No GPS. No crystal ball.
Maybe taking risks can seem like blind faith. Which makes me think of Ted Lasso. I’m a little late to this streaming show as is often the case. How many of you have watched Ted Lasso, perhaps during the pandemic?
If you haven’t seen it, here is the one-line summary: “An American football coach, Ted Lasso, is hired to manage a British soccer team. What Ted lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in optimism, determination . . . and biscuits.”
We could say that Ted Lasso has a high appetite for risk. He’s not afraid of novelty or the unorthodox. He comes to his job with little experience in what we call soccer. And he tries to win over the skeptical English market with his optimistic, folksy and quirky manner.
To quote Ted: “Now it may not work out how you think it will, or how you hope it does, but believe me, it will all work out. Exactly as it’s supposed to. Our job is to have zero expectations and just let go.” Maybe that’s one definition of faith. As a result, Ted Lasso puts more stock into the emotional well-being of his team than in understanding the fundamentals of the enterprise or in winning and losing.
At the end of season one, the players are discouraged, doubting they will prevail in an upcoming do-or-die game. As one character quips: “It’s the hope that kills you.” In other words, don’t get your hopes up too high.
Ted Lasso then gives an emotional speech to the team in the locker room. “I’ve been hearing this phrase y’all got over here that I ain’t too crazy about. ‘It’s the hope that kills you.’ Y’all know that? I disagree, you know? I think it’s the lack of hope that comes and gets you. See, I believe in hope. I believe in belief. Now, where I’m from, we got a saying too. A question, actually. “Do you believe in miracles?”
It seems faith is often about facing an unknown future. Jesus speaks to that in today’s gospel. “Have no fear, little flock. It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Live like it is always Advent. Be ready. Take risks. You never know when life could end.
Or as this little ditty says: “Accept what is. Let go of what was. And have faith in what will be.”
Life is hard enough the way it is. Pessimism about the future reigns. Taking risks may seem like crazy talk.
Yet theologian Carter Heyward reminds us that faith, by definition, is uncertainty. Faith is full of doubt, steeped in risk. Faith is about matters not of the known, but of the unknown.
Abraham responds to God’s promises, the covenant, with his feet, not his words. This wandering man does what he knows best. He walks. As one writer puts, it, “Only now he walks with God. And by doing so, Abraham leaves an indelible set of footprints. He doesn’t believe in God. He believes God. He doesn’t ask for proof; he provides the proof.1
But the journey is not simply going from point A to point B. Rabbi Rami Shapiro notes that it is also an inner journey. We are called to set aside the narratives of nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, race, parental bias, and the like. These things promote what Albert Einstein called the delusion of consciousness: how we experience ourselves apart from the whole. Instead, our spiritual task it to widen our circle to embrace all living creatures and the whole of creation.2
In other words, through Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed.
The faith of Abraham, then, isn’t a set of beliefs, but a trust in a future yet to be revealed.
What about the future most freaks you out? What kind of fears do you carry about your future, the future of the country, the future of the world, the future of the earth?
Sometimes to play it safe means to get stuck in the cycle of negativity. And extreme caution. And the belief that nothing can ever change, that we can never change. Ted Lasso says that the happiest animal on earth is a goldfish. Because it has a 10-second memory.
Soren Kierkegaard once said: without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith.
What kinds of risks might God be calling you to take? How might Abraham inspire you to venture in faith, putting one foot in front of the other, not knowing where you are going? But only that Christ journeys with you.
What kind of risks is God calling this community to take? The doomsayers and naysayers would say that the church has no future. That people are done with religion. Yet there is a growing spiritual hunger among many for meaning, for hope, for community.
Are you willing to take the risk of inviting your friends and neighbors to worship with you, because you treasure what is offered here? Are you willing to continue to journey down the path of justice, repairing and healing the wounds of hatred, exclusion and racism in our country and world?
God promised Abraham descendants as many as the stars. At this table God promises to accompany you as you go forth, not knowing what the future holds.
Maybe this call to go forward in faith, to take risks for the sake of the gospel, is too hard to do on our own. Exactly! That’s why we are here together. Singing, praying, hoping. Then going forth to be a sign of God’s dream for our world. Risk takers for the common good.
1Bruce Feiler, Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths, pp. 44.
2Rami Shapiro, “Wandering the Pathless Land,” in Presence, 28.2 Summer, 2022.