Sermons

Faith is a firm and certain knowledge. John Calvin introduced this definition of faith nearly 500 years ago. Although he wrote extensively on all things theological, commented and preached on nearly the entire Bible,  and wrote essays and considerations on political, moral, and practical matters it was this definition, this simple claim that changed the world, shaped the Reformed tradition. Faith is a firm and certain knowledge.

What changed, shaped us, continues to shape us is the relationship between certainty and knowledge. How can you know for sure; what makes something beyond doubt; where does certainty come from, from within or from without?

              If you take these questions and look to the time just after Calvin, you find Rene Descartes who took up this consideration in earnest.  Descartes was looking for absolute certainty.  He wanted to find something beyond denial, something we must all believe. If we could just find a proof about God, about what is good and right, if we could find a firm and certain knowledge beyond doubt, then maybe we would stop fighting, being oppressive, stop persecuting each other.  Descartes sought such a definition, such a claim so to base everything else.  He wanted a beginning point, a singular clarity, a particular knowledge.

              If you take his attempt and move just beyond him, you find David Hume and Immanuel Kant.  The first, Hume, simply suggested this is all folly.  There is no certainty to knowledge.  Your perspective is simply yours.  There is no way to know if your knowledge is true.  Hume was a skeptic. Believe what you want, claim what you want, but don't speak of certainty, proof, undeniability.  Immanuel Kant came a long and said, "easy David.  Things are not as ambiguous as you believe."  Kant worked out a system of certainty where knowledge could be trusted and common, but at the same time honest about how limited we are.  In the end what you know is what you know. God is God, this is certain. But you are not God, and what you know about this God is what you know.

              It was at this point that a pastor and theologian in Berlin suggested a radically different possibility.  The Berlin pastor suggested, perhaps we try again, try a new definition of faith, one that doesn't rely upon knowledge?  What if we define faith without a firm and certain knowledge?  Friedrich Schleiermacher is perhaps the one person who made the greatest impact on our lives and faith and religion, he is the greatest person of influence that you never heard of or considered.  Schleiermacher said, what if we consider faith as a feeling, a sense, an intuition; and, what if this feeling was the sense of absolute dependence? Faith is being utterly dependent upon God.

              For a century, theologians took up his question: how could faith be other than knowledge; how could it be a sense of dependence, absolute dependence?  This is, to this day, one of the most profound and challenging theories of faith.  It is because it is not based upon humankind being bad, wrong, evil, fallen.  We can be all those things, but there is something profoundly good in us, a sense, an impulse, an intuition of trust beyond what we understand.  How many times have you said or heard someone say, I don't know why I believe; I just do.  I not sure how God exists, or why God loves me, I just trust it.

              From Schleiermacher's new definition came the search for the historical Jesus; from his sense of dependence came most of our notions of morality and compassion.  His reach, influence is mind blowing.  Once you know what to look for, what he did, it is everywhere.  His definition of religion, his claims about Jesus and how he lived, as well as the way we are to pursue truth, all of these, guided the Reformed tradition for generations.  It was not until the First World War, eighty years after he died, that his influence began to wane. 

              After the shock of World War and the dissolution, the despair of such mass destruction, only then did we begin to once more doubt we were good, that there was good in us.  The scale of suffering so profound we no longer trusted the feeling of absolute dependence.  We needed to seek a new definition.  Schleiermacher's feeling of absolute dependence didn't fit in a world where you could no longer trust anything, where life itself was no longer trustworthy.

              We need to be like Schleiermacher today.  I love to say Schleiermacher.  It is such a great name.  We need not resurrect his theology or philosophy.  Plenty of his writings bear the fatal flaws of his time.  We don't need to, nor can we, go back to him as if we can return to a better time. What we must do is ask his question: how are we to trust God, trust ourselves, trust one another when knowledge is so uncertain?

              Be it alternate facts or tribalism or gaslighting or echo chambers of rage, our information age is not bearing good fruit.  Divisions deepening, civility left behind, a sense of betrayal about anyone in power.  We know so much but trust so little.  This is what Schleiermacher was faced with.  He too lived in a time when religion was a bad word, despised.  He too lived in a time when independence was the most cherished, but also the most destructive course.  During his lifetime he saw the War of Independence, the revolutions destroying ancient regimes only to be replaced with new forms of abuse.

              We can't go back to Schleiermacher, but we can ask his question anew.  Beyond knowledge, what do we trust; how can we trust each other; how can we depend upon God and our self? 

              Our reading today has an answer to these questions.  The two parables.  The mustard seed and the yeast.  Two images of small things.  The mustard seed, Jesus claimed is the smallest of seeds.  And yeast is tiny when compared to its influence.  Jesus will speak of yeast in terms of warning, saying, it only takes a little. These small things, little things, though have big answers.

              The traditional interpretation of the mustard seed and the yeast hinges upon the small choices, the micro level actions.  You may remember the butterfly effect.  A butterfly flutters its wings and this tiniest of influence effects something tiny that effects something more, and then again, and again, until there is profound influence.  You know it in the phrase, it only takes a spark. People love to use these images to encourage random acts of kindness.  If you are just nice to a stranger and then that stranger is nice to another stranger and another and another and soon enough, we are teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony while drinking a Coke.

              Perhaps the most iconic is the story of the child on the beach flinging starfish back into the ocean.  The child is accosted by an adult who looks at the beach covered in stranded starfish and says, it is futile, you can't save them all.  To which the child hurls a starfish back into the sea and says, "I know, but I saved that one." This is a great story about fighting the good fight even when facing impossible odds.  There is a part of us that loves the David and Goliath story.  The shepherd boy who conquers the giant. The smallest overcoming the greatest.

              There is an innocence, a dreaming adolescence, we lose when we no longer toss starfish because we believe it is futile.  How often is this time of year, our Advent season, how much of this time is an attempt to reclaim innocence, or protect childlike wonder?  We cut down a tree and put it in our living room and erect miniature barns with sheep and cows and donkeys we wrap our houses in lights all to remember God was born of Mary, God became flesh in a child, the beginning of our salvation was in the most vulnerable, the tiniest.  This is the traditional interpretation of the mustard seed and the yeast.

              And there is nothing wrong with this interpretation.  From the smallest act of kindness, from the butterfly's wing can come a grand moment of beauty.  This is true, but not very parabolic.  By this I mean, it doesn't challenge us, contradict a cherish trust.  And parables must do such to be parabolic.  Jesus isn't encouraging us to admire the mustard seed or yeast; he says, they are like the kingdom of God.

              The challenge is seen when we consider the birds and the measures.  The birds of the air all make their nest together; the bread the woman is making is not for herself but for a community, for everyone.  Three measures is a lot of flour, think lots and lots of bread.  The challenge, or tension, in the parables is how the small, the insignificant, the simple, the individual must be for all, for everyone.

              Again, it is one thing to say, the mustard seed is good or the yeast is effective.  These things are true.  But Jesus says, these two are like the kingdom of God.  He says, the mustard seed becomes a tree for all the birds, the yeast changing three measures is so all can eat: this is like the kingdom of God.  Faith here is not what is small or tiny or the micro level act, faith is what can be a place for all, a home for all, food for all.  And herein lies the challenge.

              We know the basis of our faith is in a contradiction.  If you want to save your life, you must lose it; if you want to be in charge, you must be a servant; if you want to be first, you must be last; if you want to live, you must die.  In our parables today, Jesus takes this contradiction and adds a twist, for all.  If you want to save your life, you must lose your life for all.  Another way of saying this, our faith must be a trust we can share with all, trust in all, find in everyone.  Not impose on others, not share as in convince.  Share as in hold in common.  The mustard seed doesn't become a home to a bird, or a few birds, but to all.  The measure of flour effected by the yeast is not for a meal or a family; the measure is for a community, for everyone. 

              These parables beg a question: how is your faith for all, common, shared, a gift we all live?  This question contradicts one of our most treasured beliefs.  I believe what I believe; my trust is my trust; my faith is mine.  The great beauty of Schleiermacher's definition is that the feeling of absolute dependence makes no demand, does not specify how that trust is formed or defined or determined.  It is something everyone can experience.  All the birds can make their nest in this tree; everyone can be fed with the yeast of these measures. 

              There is much to be gained by imagining faith as the feeling of absolute dependence.  It is not as if it is no longer true.  But it is not our answer to the question: what is faith?  We need to find our answer.  We need to find our definition that is a common ground, something we share with anyone who believes, something transcending ourselves.  I have come to the believe faith is a memory of what is good in us, the image of God is our deepest memory and thus our greatest trust.  Remembering we are loved, we love. A small act.  But a memory has no limit.  What if being loved and loving all is the defining memory of creation? We trust God; we trust one another. The memory of love is the kingdom of God.  Amen.      

Speaker: Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

November 30, 2025

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