Faith Without Works is Dead

Have you ever felt a call to act…but stopped short, because you didn’t know what to do about it?

Or weren’t sure if you were the right person for the task?

Is your faith journey asking more of you than you’re prepared to give?

Do you want to make your community better but don’t know where to start?

If you can answer “yes” to any of these questions, it might help to know that you’re not alone!

In fact, many people in the Bible had the same sort of misgivings you had when they got the uncomfortable sense that God was calling them to do something difficult. Take Moses, for instance.

There he was, just minding his own business, which happened to be tending sheep out in the wilderness. And that’s when God got his attention with a bush that seemed to be burning, but was not being consumed by the flames. 

“Whoa,” said Moses to himself, “I need to check this out.” And off he went to investigate.

Pretty soon he felt compelled to take off his sandals, because he heard a voice telling him that he was on holy ground. And not only that, but the voice assured him,

“I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their suffering, and I have come down to deliver them.” (Exodus 3:7-8)

So far, so good. It’s heartening to hear that what happens on earth is of concern to God. God is not deaf to human agony. This is remarkable news! 

Then God said, “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”  (Exod. 3:8)

Um…what?        

For Moses, things suddenly took a nasty turn: God intended to involve him!

Moses sensed his complete inadequacy for the job.

 “Who am I,” he blurted out, “that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

There follows an intriguing give-and-take between Moses and God. God is certain that Moses will get a hearing from his own people, but Moses is not so sure:

“But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” (Exod. 4:1)

Moses is well aware that an appearance by God is a rare occurrence, and that not everyone who claims to have a word from God, has, in truth, had one. 

 God gives Moses assurances and some flashy tools with which to impress Pharaoh, but Moses still has his doubts. He’s as resistant as any modern skeptic: 

“O, my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past, nor even now that you have spoken to your servant, but am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” (Exod. 4:10)

Is Moses bargaining for more tools he knows he’ll need to carry out his mission? Or is he merely terrified at this call to public life? He’s not used to public speaking. Recent surveys show that, next to death, people are most afraid of public speaking! How could he, a tongue-tied loner, get up and make speeches, particularly the kind where established authorities are confronted?

But God is not buying it: “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” (Exod. 4:10)

But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else.”  

I love that the Bible is so honest about our human tendency to diminish our own gifts, to think of all the reasons we can’t take on a new role, even when God is directly calling us to do it. It’s nothing new. It’s as old as Scripture!

How do I make my faith public for the greater good in a troubled and confusing world?

Your story is told in the Bible, too. And believe me, the struggle is real. Moses got a burning bush message directly from God and still dragged his feet when the time came to act! 

In my four decade career as a minister, I’ve been called upon numerous times myself to take on new roles I wasn’t sure I could handle. And I’ve seen many other conflicted Christians wrestle with the best way to respond to God’s call. 

To be clear, God has never spoken to me out of a burning bush, but I have had discussions with community members that burned in my brain hours after we finished talking. 

Maybe you’ve had them too? A gentle nudge from your sister, or a gnawing internal sense that somehow, some way, God is leading you away from a life of faith without works and toward a public life.

But then what happens? For many people I’ve worked with over the years, that tiny fire burns out quickly because it doesn’t have any larger logs to catch on, or is dampened by everything going on in the world around us.

As a minister, I’ve often wondered why God would call us to do brave and incredible things, but leave us with such doubt about our ability to do them. Have you? 

Our church was looking for a new community ministry to take on. We surveyed the congregation about many alternatives.  Sure enough, the one I was most afraid to take on–establishing a shelter for abused women and children–was the one the congregation chose. 

 I felt strongly that their sense of discernment should be honored, but I could think of all sorts of reasons I did not want to take on this particular ministry: I had no personal experience to draw upon, a previous effort of this kind had been a flaming failure in years past,  we had not the slightest idea of how to begin, it would surely be expensive, we had no idea who our allies might be, and on and on.  

Oh, Lord, please send someone else…  

As I mulled over these misgivings, I remembered that the Bible has lots to say about what to do when we feel a strong calling to act, but know that the path ahead may be difficult.

The more I looked at Biblical examples, the more I was blown away by the number of times Bible characters are called by God out of private life into the challenges of public life–from enslaved people to prophets, from shepherds to judges, from peasant girls to beauty queens, from learned rabbis to unlettered fishermen. Most of them did not go willingly! 

I realized I had done what my fellow congregation members often do in our private conversations–think of people from the Bible as impossible ideals that we can never live up to. At that moment, I felt like my struggle was almost exactly the same as what had been going on with people of faith for thousands of years!

Going Public: How Biblical People Help Us Find Our Voice for Public Life is a book born out of that realization. My hope is that it will help you ask the right questions about taking your faith from a set of privately-held beliefs into the realm of public activity. I believe it will give you resources to help you and your community take the next steps to expressing your faith perspective publicly and authentically.  

It’s been one of the most fulfilling aspects of my life to share these stories with my fellow church members over my years in public ministry. 

I’d love to share them with you too! They’re hidden in plain sight all throughout the Bible, just like the God-inspired strangers we meet unawares throughout our daily lives.