Path to Belief

JER 20:10-13

PS 18:2-3A, 3BC-4, 5-6, 7

SEE JN 6:63C, 68C

I was all prepared to go off on a tirade (of sorts) about how we are meant to see ourselves in the people condemning the righteous man rather than identifying with the pursued righteous man today.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the gospel.

Here we see the failure of rational, legal argument to bring the Pharisees, etc. to true faith.  Even when Jesus wins the argument handily, they do not change their ways.  I think it's rare for someone to change their ways because of an academic, logical, philosophical argument.  It's too easy to challenge the premise.  Everyone's too careful about getting pinned down to the absolutes that can tie your hands argumentatively.

Any good debater knows how to argue both sides.  They know that the end of the day, you pick your side no matter what else has been said.

It's the attitude I fight so hard with my freshmen students.  Because they're JUST young enough that the good habits can set.  There's a chance, anyway.  Most of us are too far gone.

Most of us aren't like the last paragraph of today's gospel -- the people who look at Jesus's works and John's testimony and draw the obvious conclusion.  Less philosophy and historical minutia needed.  They look at the evidence before them and dare to draw a conclusion.  And it's words more than miracles, notably.  John predicted things about Jesus, and then they came true.  And that was enough for them.

They looked at the world without having made up their minds.  And they came to the truth.

It's amazing how rare that is.  Not going looking for evidence to support what you think already should be what's true.  Not going out looking for things that confirm what you think, to help you win the argument with someone who's done the same thing.  No -- looking at the facts on the ground neutrally and coming to a decision ONLY THEN.

Faith is in that leap -- not in holding dogmatically to pre-conceived ideas in the face of opposing facts.  That's what makes the atheists jeer.  What they would recognize in us would be the ability to take that intuitive leap off the evidence, to see the pattern suddenly -- all and once and miraculously -- and act on it.  Change our lives because of it.

Faith is the leap to look at words, see their truth, and change who we are because of the truth they reveal.  Not to hide our heads from strange things that confront our assumptions.