To have faith

Some people have the idea that faith means that with your brains you believe something to be true beyond any doubt. That is of course a problem in our culture in which everything is said to be relative, in which perception is reality, and fake news seems to be the standard. It would be wiser to remain open to correction. The Greek word for faith has nothing to do with rational or irrational beliefs. It has everything to do, however, with faithfulness, loyalty and trust.
When asked about faith, Paul referred to Abraham as the father of all faithful people: “Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7). This is how Abraham is remembered by billions of Jews, Christians and Muslims across the earth. A friend of Paul, in the letter to the Hebrews, describes faith as the thing that is the ‘support’ or ‘substance’ of hope, and as the ‘test’ or ‘(dis)proofing’ of things that cannot be seen. He gives Abraham as one of his examples:

Abram's faith

In the book of Genesis, Terah, the father of Abram (his name would be changed later) wants to migrate to Canaan. Not for himself, for he is already old, but to find a better future for his children. We don’t know why they thought they had to leave Ur, but we do hear that Abram’s brother had died there. For a family with children and animals there was no way to cross the desert. Rather they walked step by step along the large rivers of Mesopotamia, - millions of footsteps. Halfway, in Haran, the family gives up. Perhaps the old Terah could not walk any further. They settle there and the family does well. They acquire new wealth. But after Terah’s death, Abram still hears the call. The dream of Canaan has not died. His brother Nachor disagrees, he wants to stay in Haran. He is comfortable there. But when Abram listens to his inner voice, he knows that he has continue his father’s journey. Staying is not good for him, for he cannot find rest in it. He trusts that he will be blessed if he follows that call and also that he will be a blessing to others. Abram does not know why that voice is within him. But over time he recognizes it as the purest voice. He calls it the voice of God. Although his name Abram can be interpreted as ‘super-father,’ he has no children of his own. Lot, the son of his deceased brother, goes with him.

Later, when he has settled in Canaan, Abram has reasons to doubt. They may have left Ur to find a better existence for future generations, but he is still without children and Lot decided to go his own way. Abram is rich, but the purpose of his life seems lost now that his family line ends with him. But then he has a dream. God speaks again to him and shows him the stars above: this is how many descendent you will have. And Abram takes courage from this vision or dream to carry on. Canaan is his home now, for him and his family.

Something else happened as well: he sees the pattern of his life in God’s hands: Even though it was his father who had taken the family out of Ur, Abram now understands that already in that point in time, through his father, it was God who had started to call him.

Paul refers to this text, when he writes that righteousness is not about being without sins or mistakes, but about having faith. In this way, he says, those who are faithful like Jesus are all descendants of Abraham, regardless of their race or religion. This is why Abram’s name was changed to Ab-rah-am: father of many nations, for in him all people from all nations, if they dare to trust like he did, are blessed.

To have faith like Abraham

If you have faith like Abraham, it is because you allow yourself to listen to that inner voice. So test it: is this the purest voice within me? Let it take you out of your comfort zone to discover the place where you will be blessed and will be a blessing to others. That is why faith can be characterized as ‘obedience’ to your purest inner voice. Even Jesus, so the author of the letter to Hebrews writes, had to learn ‘obedience’ from what he suffered. In the garden of Gethsemane he told God about his fears and doubts. Nevertheless, he got up again and freely chose to go with Judas and the arrest team. He feared death but entrusted himself to what he believed to be his calling. Likewise, the New Testament letter in the name of James, the brother of the Lord, stresses that Abrahams’s faith went hand-in-hand with his acting upon that faith (James 2:23).

Faith is not about being without doubt. You only need a little faith to start acting on it. Imagine you are standing at a river that is frozen over in wintertime, and you hear that life is good on the other side and that the ice is thick enough to carry you. Do you believe that to be so? And will you cross? There are people who believe that the ice will hold, but who prefer to stay on their side for whatever reason. There are also those who believe the ice will not hold and therefore stay on this side. Doubt or certainty does not make a difference: they stay on this side. Then there are those who trust the ice and go across, and those who still have doubts but nevertheless go across one step at the time. Again, the certainty and doubt don’t make the difference. The difference is whether you heed the call and try to cross over. You could even say that doubt has a function, as it forces you to carefully move across the ice, to observe its colour and its crack. In other words, your faith makes you move forward, while your doubt helps you to remain open to correction. Only this way our faith can test what we hope. Only this way can we grow in faith, while we are pruned of our false assumptions.

The apostle Paul made a great point when he said that Abraham was proven right by his faith and not because of what he did (Romans 4:1-3). But when James answered that Abraham’s faith was proven through what Abraham did (James 2:18), he made a good point as well. It makes me think of marketing experts who say that consumers vote with their feet: Abraham did not believe with a creed, but with his feet.

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Was Abraham the father of monotheism or father of the faithful?

The story in Genesis is about Abraham’s faith. About two thousand years after his assumed life, Jewish rabbis described him as the first zealot for monotheism. They pictured his father Terach as a maker of idols who tasked Abraham to sell them. But Abraham got disgusted by the idea that people worshipped the clay from the potter’s wheel. He turned clients away and smashed the idols to pieces. His father was incensed with rage and drove him out. He handed him over to king Nimrod (a name from Genesis 10). Nimrod worshipped fire. But he could not defeated Abraham in debate nor kill him in fire (a story modelled on Daniel 3). The story can be found in a writing called Genesis Rabbah, chapter 38, from the 4th or 5th century CE.

The bad relationship with his father does not fit well with the Genesis story. In Genesis, there is harmony between Terah and Abraham on their way to Haran. Also, when Isaac comes of age, Abraham asks his most trusted servant, Eliezer (“God is my help”), to find a wife for him among the granddaughters of his brother Nachor in Harran. This happens again with Jacob, a generation later. There was no quarrel between Abraham and the rest of his family (Genesis 24:50-51).

The story about Abraham as a destroyer of his father’s idols is also referred to in the Quran, written down in the 7th century CE. The same Quran teaches that Abraham went further south to build the Kaaba in Mecca as a centre for monotheistic worship. These stories must have been a point of identification for Mohammed and early Muslims who tried to root out idolatry and polytheism from Mecca and the Kaaba.

This more recent version of Abraham as the ‘father of monotheism’ fitted the struggle of Jews, Christians and Muslims against polytheism. It brought a lot of injustice against other faiths and nations. But when Paul, and the authors of Hebrews and James thought of Abraham, they referred to the story in Genesis, where Abraham does not fight against other religions, but acts on his calling. As the one who listens to God’s voice he is the “Father of the faithful” in whom all nations will be blessed.

Suggestions for dialogue

A moderator can explain the dialogue steps and invite people to contribute:

• Check in with yourself. Share with each other how you are in this moment. Then take a moment again to seek stillness, humility and openness. 
• First round: Share something from the text or image(s) that stood out to you and that you would like to explore with the group, briefly indicating the thoughts and feelings that it evoked within you. Listen to the others do the same: what resonates with you? Responses in this round should be limited to questions for clarification.
• Second round: Name one or two things that resonated with you from the things that others just shared. 
• Third round: Having heard the group, the moderator names the main topics for exploration. The moderator may also propose a common thread that emerged in several topics. The exploration normally starts with asking the person(s) who brought up the topic to expand on it.
• Leave room for silence and contemplation. 
• Check out by sharing what you take home from this dialogue.

These suggestions are an adaptation of the Estuary protocol. Look for more at https://www.estuaryhub.com