Authentic Faith

Deuteronomy 34:1-12 & Matthew 22:34-46

Authentic faith is lived in tension. Today in Deuteronomy the Hebrew people finally make it to the threshold of the Promised Land and Moses is told he will never cross over. We can't quite believe after Moses leads these stiff necked people for forty years that God will deny him the final crowning achievement. It is true though and Moses does with the epitaph that there was never another prophet like him in all Israel. This is a story of authentic faith because there is tension between life and death, between worldly power and Godly power. 

These tensions sometimes lead to sway where we trust our own way forward, our own way th do things, our vision. It is tempting to be caught up I doing what we think is right and forget about where is Go in the midst, what is the path God would have me take, and where is God leading?  Those are the much harder questions to ask, the ones that require good listening skills, the ones that ask us to quiet and hear deeply. 

Authentic faith lives in tension and we forget that. We like to live assured of tomorrow, positive of where we stand because we are uncertain of who we are. Authentic faith invites us to live into our fears and find ourselves. Think of the journey we have been on in Exodus. The people have had to confront the fear of their most basic needs not being met in food and water. What they find instead is one mans faith, one persons turning to God for the answers provides for them all. 

We encounter that tension today in the young lawyer who comes to Jesus. He knows everything there is to know about Mosaic law and yet he cannot answer Jesus' question about who the Messiah is the son of. Jesus is living into faith too because he knows by his bold words and actions of criticism to the religious leaders the end result is his death. Yet his death does not close the door to faith. Instead something new is born on Easter morning. 

Can we live into an authentic faith? One that does not hold all the answers, one that demands us to listen and question everything we think we know? Do we dare to really step out on faith trusting that somehow God will lead us forward? Do we dare to live?