A picture can hold you captive, said a famous philosopher. Ludwig Wittgenstein meant that when you think of something abstract, you nonetheless create some picture, some explanatory image in your mind. Consequently, your comprehension will be as broad or as limited as your picture.

So, for example, we should not presume that my picture of liberty or wealth or happiness looks just like yours. And those who disagree with each other would make much greater headway in trying to understand the other if they each spent more time describing to the other what they picture when they say these words.

We should not presume that my picture of liberty or wealth or happiness looks just like yours.

In terms of personal pictures, here is a passage from Anne Tyler’s newest novel Clock Dance (2018), a winsome story of self-discovery and second chances. At the funeral of her husband, who was killed in an automobile accident, Willa listens to some muddy whining from the organ. Sharing her disappointment with her father, who is seated next to her, she makes a startling discovery.

“Makes me wish for Bert Kane Presbyterian,” she said. (Bert Kane Presbyterian had just an upright piano.)
“Well, we could have held it there,” her father said dubiously.
“Be a little hard to explain why all these Californians should have to fly to Pennsylvania, though.”
“Yes, well, and then there’s the matter of my not belonging to Bert Kane anymore.”
“You don’t belong?” she asked, turning to look at him.
“I haven’t for quite some time,” he said. “I wrote Reverend Sands and told him I was resigning on grounds of disbelief.”
“Disbelief! What made you stop believing?” Willa asked.
“Well, I’ve never believed, actually.”
“You haven’t?”
“Reverend Sands came to call at the house and asked if I would reconsider. Not reconsider my disbelief, he said, but reconsider my resignation. He said, “Many of your fellow members probably don’t believe, either, but at least in church you put yourself in position for belief. Otherwise you reduce the possibility.”
“Good point,” Willa said thoughtfully.
“Yes, it was a good point. But I’d given it sixty-some years by then and I figured any further developments were unlikely.”

How does Melvin Drake, Willa’s father, picture belief? It is something irreversible that changes a man for the rest of his life. Something like facial hair. A boy does not have it, and once it starts to grow, a man always will. Obviously, belief is not a physical characteristic, but Willa’s father clearly sees it as inner transformation that takes place once and for all, as we say.

It is not unlike the image that the Scriptures paint. The eyes of the blind need to be opened and the ears of the deaf must be cleared, “then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing” (Is 35:6). And St. Mark insists that the only one who can effect this transformation is the Lord himself, which is why his scene closes with:

They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well.
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak” (Mk 7:37).

Knowing all of this, the Reverend Sands rather helpfully adds more color to Melvin’s picture when he points out that belief is a transformation that we must await because it is a gift of God—as all branches of Christianity have always taught. That being so, don’t we have an obligation to put ourselves in a position to receive the gift? And isn’t it more likely to be received in the presence of other believers, celebrating what God has done in history?

We would do better to picture unbelief as an infection that only makes us grow stronger when it is defeated.

But our picture of belief is still too one dimensional. It certainly does not do justice to the plea of the father, in this same Gospel of Mark, who begs Jesus to free his son from a mute spirit. This encounter occurs just after the truly “eye-opening” transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount. Jesus tells the distraught man that “Everything is possible to one who has faith.” And the fearful father responds with one of the bravest and briefest prayers in all of Scripture. “I do believe. Help my unbelief” (Mk 9:23-24).

So perhaps the picture of belief as a boundary line passed once and for all is inadequate. Maybe we should say that belief and unbelief grow within all of us like flowers and weeds in a garden? Or that belief and unbelief struggle endlessly for mastery, only to yield ever again to the other like night and day? George Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” did the Gospel a great service when he suggested that even as the force grows stronger within a person, it can, at whatever level of strength it has reached, turn instantly from light to darkness—or from the dark side to the light.

Maybe we would do better to picture unbelief as an infection that only makes us grow stronger when it is defeated. Then the saints are not those who have never struggled with unbelief. They have simply grown stronger after each exposure.

We’re not hypocrites if we come here each Sunday, admitting, as we do, that we are sinners.

If belief were something as final as a young man’s voice dropping in adolescence, it would not be a struggle, would it? It would not be a capacity that grows with each new crisis faced. It would not be the confidence that follows our doubts about God and God’s love for us.

Some of those who do not come to church love to label those of us who do as “hypocrites,” especially those who hold an office in the church. Could you find a collection of more sinful, more unbelieving, more unreliably good human beings than the motley crew that fills the pews each weekend? And you can start with the fool up front!

 

The presumption is that we would not be hypocrites if we did not sin, if we believed fully and if we were all and always wonderful human beings. Yet we must admit, even to our critics, this is not going to happen on this side of the grave.

It is not that we are complacent in the presence of evil. We do not say that this is what we expect of our leaders and ourselves. But we also do not believe that evil will be eliminated from the world through the adoption of some progressive agenda.

How can we be so sure of that? Because we’ve always known that programs don’t save souls. The human heart can’t be redeemed by anything less than the love of God revealed in Christ. We’re not hypocrites if we come here each Sunday, admitting, as we do, that we are sinners, knowing, as we do, that we are assailed with doubt. Sadly, we are all too aware of how far we are from being wonderful human beings. Beginning each Eucharist with a confession of sin and a cry for God’s mercy isn’t just a pious practice. It’s the “God’s honest” truth about us and about God.

St. James tells us who we are. And we do run the danger of becoming hypocrites when we forget it.

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? (2:5)

Readings: Isaiah 35:4-7a James 2:1-5 Mark 7:31-37

The Rev. Terrance W. Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.