Faith, Grace, Peace, and the 23rd Psalm

We’ve been speaking of faith, and discovered that precisely what we have long thought of as faith is, in fact, what I call antifaith. The notion that through our efforts of prayer, piety, devotion, and what I call the exercise of our faith we can influence the God of the universe to act on our behalf is not true faith, but antifaith. What then should faith produce if it’s not to leverage God to act on my behalf? Or as Carolyn put a few weeks ago, if God doesn’t do the things we ask for, what are we left with? What should we then pray for? How should we pray?

We’ve seen that the promise of faith is peace and contentment and freedom from fear. We’ve seen that the opposite of faith is fear. How then should we pray? What can we pray for? What should we pray for? And what good is God if we don’t expect help when we call out in our times of trouble?

Looking at the many stories of faith that we’ve studied over the last nine months, we’ve seen that when Jesus compliments an individual faith, it’s always associated with their sense of unworthiness. Take the centurion in Matthew 8 we’ve discussed before: Jesus says that he has not found faith like that in all of Israel. But what is the key component of his faith? It is, as he says in verse 8, when the centurion said “Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof. Just say the word and my servant will be healed.” The key component of his faith, again, is the sense of unworthiness. This is the true sense of the faithful. You may have hope, you may have expectation, but in the end, you know that you are not worthy for God to do something on your behalf, that you deserve nothing from God.

In Mark 5, we see the story of the woman with the issue of blood. This lady is a mess. She’s been menstruating for 12 years unrelentingly. She’s ceremonially unclean. She has been isolated from society, from her family. She’s completely alone. She was metaphorically dead to others—to us. She is shrouded with unworthiness. She wants simply to touch the tassel of the garment of God. She does this secretly, barely grasping the edge of the robe, entirely unable to predict what God’s response will be. Jesus commends her faith and she is restored.

We want, and we teach, that our faith should be muscular and unrelenting, strong and persistent. With such faith, we think we might influence God. But Jesus commends humble, unworthy, tentative faith. Why is that? When the disciples demand that God work on their behalf to save their sinking ship on the stormy Sea of Galilee they are exercising muscular, demanding faith. “Lord,” they proclaim, “save us.” Jesus rebukes their faith. He condemns their fear, and he censures their faith. This, he says, is antifaith. What are the keys, then? And how should we understand faith? And what is it that we should pray for? How should we pray?

First of all, we must understand that the difficulties we have in life are a result of our fallen human condition. We are sick, we are destitute, we are lost, because we are part of the condition of the lack of oneness with God. What we experience in this life is directly related to that loss of oneness. Our disease, our separation, our brokenness are all symptoms of our fallen condition.

In the Gospels, the many healings and restorations recorded as part of the ministry and the message of Jesus are not to be seen as simply bodily healing alone. After all, all those who are healed, even those raised from the dead, all died again. The link between disease and sin and between forgiveness and restoration is a common theme throughout the Gospels. The mission and the message of Jesus was not just to heal, but to extend grace. This, it turns out, is the key to our understanding of faith, and to answer the question: “What is it and how should we pray?”

Grace is to make us whole again, not just in our bodies but in our whole being, in our souls. But we are so unworthy, undeserving, and unable—and are then the very product needed to be the recipients of God’s grace. Faith is the mechanism and the medium that makes us reach out to touch the fringe of the garment to get that grace, even though we know we are unworthy and undeserving.

The very condition of faith that we’ve always thought of as authentic faith is in fact precisely the opposite. Bold, muscular, intractable, unrelenting, persistent faith places emphasis on me, and my work and my prayer and my piety and my effort. More, more, more, more is needed to influence God. This faith is centered around me and what I do. This is not true faith. This is antifaith. True faith is linked to grace and what God does. True faith is linked to my unworthiness, my submission to God’s will. And faith is the hand that reaches towards God’s grace.

Grace is the medium of God’s salvation. It comes without condition and without cause. Faith is the hand that reaches out to grasp the grace. This is why the end product of faith is peace. It is not linked to my effort or to conditions that I set. When our faith—true, authentic faith—allows us to appropriate God’s grace, that brings the ultimate peace. In Ephesians 2:8-9, you see the prepositional phrases “by grace” and “through faith”:

 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

These two prepositional phrases are key. “By grace” indicates that grace is the agency; “through faith” is the method. “By grace” is God’s work. It is his mission. It is the mission and the message of Jesus. It is free and undeserved and available to all. “Through faith” is our “work.” God’s plan is to save us. It is “through faith” that we recognize and accept that we are unworthy, that we are nonetheless restored by God’s grace. God does not need our muscular, leveraging faith to extend grace to us. He needs the humble faith of reaching out. Grace will find you unless you try to hide from it. Grace will find your hand unless you stubbornly withdraw it. In the words of my old professor: “Don’t just do something; Stand there!” This is the way that God has with us in grace as well.

So how then should we pray? To pray the prayer of true faith is to recognize and to accept God’s grace. It is to further recognize that God is interested in your total salvation and total restoration; not just your body, but your soul. The prayer then is for restoration, not simply healing. The restoration is the work of God by grace. It brings a peace which passes all understanding, it is incomprehensible peace.

If you think about all the stories of the great men and women of faith that we studied from the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, the key is that faith is about what God does, not about what Man does. True faith is centered on God’s work, not our work. So it is not fair to say that God doesn’t or won’t help us in times of trouble. It’s just that we may not get the help that we ask for. God gives us what we need, not what we request. He gives us his grace, which is the condition for total restoration. And he gives us peace and freedom from fear. We should never underestimate God’s grace. We should never underestimate the value of the peace that comes with that grace as well.

So then, how should we pray? The truth is that we don’t know how to pray. This is elaborated in Romans 8:26:

 Now in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;… (Romans 8:26)

The content of our prayers is not nearly as important as our prayerfulness. Reaching out to God is the essential element of prayer. It is the conduit for his grace. What we say in the moment is immaterial. The idea of saying the right thing, the right prayer, is somehow related to me and what I do. This is antifaith. True, authentic faith reaches toward God—not with the right words, but with the right spirit, even if it is only with incomprehensible groanings.

So let me suggest something which came to my mind this week as I was studying. If someone walks up to you and says: “Please pray for me, I’m ill,” or “Please pray for my brother who is ill,” what should you say? Let me offer the 23rd Psalm as a prayer of true, authentic faith. This is from the Easy Translation of the Bible:

 The Lord takes care of me, like a shepherd with his sheep. I have everything that I need. He takes me to green fields where I can rest. He leads me to streams of water where I can drink. He gives me new strength in my life. He is my guide to the right paths. He does this to show that he is good. I may walk through a valley that is as dark as death. But I will not be afraid of any danger. This is because you are with me, Lord. Your stick and your shepherd’s pole make me feel brave. You prepare a big meal for me while my enemies watch. You put olive oil on my head. You bless me so much that my cup is completely full. I am sure that you will always be good to me. You will love me all the days of my life. That will never change. I will live in the Lord’s house for as long as I live. (Psalm 23)

Here we see a prayer of restoration, of true faith. We see a prayer also of anointing of peace and freedom from fear. We see the picture of a metaphorical adventure of a life which is full. It is reaching out to God for grace through faith. This is the author and the finisher of our faith. All of the elements of faith are here: Undeserved rest, undeserved restoration and peace, guidance and companionship in the dark times of life, undeserved freedom from fear. This is sustenance, even an anointing which is a sign of kingly blessing and selection passing all understanding. This is an undeserved promise for now and for the future.

Who would have thought that it would take us nine months and all this effort to find the definition of faith in the 23rd Psalm? And also to find the prayer that we must pray, the song that we must sing there too? So if someone asks you to pray for them, you can offer them the 23rd Psalm, a prayer of true, authentic faith.

What are your thoughts about the potential of the 23rd Psalm as both the definition and the prayer that we need for an authentic and true type of faith?

David: We’ve talked in the past about the fact that we often ask why there is so much evil in the world when, if we just look around, we might wonder instead why is there so much good in the world. We can certainly observe lots of good things happening. Yet here we are berating ourselves for being so irredeemable, being such sinners, being so bad, when there’s this wonderful Psalm, doing the very opposite and shouting: “My cup runneth over!” There is no beating of the sinful breast, just an acknowledgment that goodness reigns supreme and exists in us as the Holy Spirit inside us. It presents this as a cause for celebration, not a cause for beating the breast.

The problem comes when you are really down and you stop feeling that presence of goodness within you, when you lose that sense of the Holy Spirit. You wouldn’t be reciting the 23rd Psalm at that point because you wouldn’t feel that your cup runneth over. So perhaps part of the solution is to stop beating ourselves on the breast and saying “Woe is me, what a sinner I am” and instead saying “Thank God for being here with me.”

C-J: I think it’s on a spectrum. On a good day, I feel great. On a day that’s not so great, I’m like: “What’s going on here?” The faith of somebody who has maturity has an expectation of perpetual growth in that relationship with the divine. I think that growth is the grace. The faith is always abiding, but the growth is the grace. If the cup is running full, or if the cup is just satisfied being half full, it’s like, it’s a good day!

It’s a spectrum, and it has its purpose on that spectrum. Without enduring pain, we don’t know that we have strength, not of our own creation or fortitude, but the grace of God that says, “You will not only endure, you will thrive.” It is a process. I think that’s the whole point: To make us aware daily, that it is a process.

Donald: Since we discussed the concept of peace and began inverting what we had thought of as faith, it’s been difficult to pray, because I am reminded that my prayer is supposed to be different than this. We’ve been trained since childhood to ask for our needs to be cared for as part of our prayer. That’s the grist, if you will, of our prayers. Our new understanding is very acceptable and reassuring but it makes things more complicated because our whole life we’ve been thinking of the purpose of prayer, and our idea of what faith is, as something different.

I just learned that the father of a dear friend passed away. So what do I write?… “Our prayers and thoughts are with you”…? What am I actually praying for? I want them to have peace, obviously. The father was 93 years old, so he had a good long life, no question about it. Other friends of mine have a serious problem with their alcoholic son, and all I can do is be supportive. To tell them the 23rd Psalm is going to work for them seems to come up a little bit short for people who feel like their cup is half empty. What do you say to somebody like that? “You’re suffering a difficult journey”? That’s not good enough.

C-J: Grieving is part of life. We have loss throughout life to varying degrees. When we can identify the awareness of the loss that we either feel entitled to or expect or would desire, what covers it is grace. It is waiting, it is standing. It’s not trying to do anything, but allowing the work of healing, which comes from the inside out, to occur. There’s nothing I can do to rationalize that—”Go run, go out and do some community service, it’ll make you feel better. Remember the good days,…” all the bargaining, all the internalized things we do. Sometimes we just need to exhale and wait for grace.

In American culture we hide the things that hurt us. We protect people from understanding that the process of death and dying or loss is equally important in life. It teaches us empathy, it gives us skill sets for service. It does so many things that can only come by that venue. When I pray, I pray for grace. I don’t know what the divine wants, I don’t know the history of that person. I only know how I feel when I experience loss. I pray that God will extend grace and healing that you would know that you were loved greatly. Anything beyond that is preempting God’s perfect will.

That’s safe, sincere and powerful. Our words have power. And the word grace is really identifiable. We know what grace should be. We understand that the presence of peace is fleeting. But the part of grieving and understanding its purpose and timing… are we grieving for ourself? Or are we grieving that this valuable life has come to an end, and I no longer have that vessel to give me messages through love, friendship, kindness, proximity…? That’s also very real. They’ve transcended to a different dimension.

Don: When you offer to pray for a neighbor with an alcoholic son are you happy just praying that God will restore him, will heal him, will give him freedom from his addiction, and leave it at that?

Donald: A man I know in that situation has lost everything—wife, children, all the rest of it—but this is his life. And it is his parents’ life. And so if I can spend the occasional hour to bring any level of joy or comfort to them, that’s all I can do. We don’t sit and talk about it, because it’s not changing. Nothing’s changing for them. So I walk out of my blessed life and into theirs, trying to bring blessings we can share as human beings. But when I leave, they’re still caught. They’re still in it.

Is your cup half full or half empty? Sometimes it’s perspective, but sometimes it’s a matter of just not having been blessed with the grace that one would hope for. I don’t want to use the word expect because we shouldn’t expect anything.

C-J: The thing about addiction is it changes the chemistry in your brain and when you’ve done it for long enough, there’s really no turning back. Cancer is perceived differently, because addiction is a choice and cancer isn’t. But it’s still a disease you may manage but cannot cure. Parents who take responsibility for the situation of their child are impeded. We have to go as healers, through our spirit that we carry with us, but the choice has been made and this is the residual effect—this is what we live with.

If you can accept that you are not responsible for the choice of another individual, not responsible to be the sole caretaker because you have a family obligation to this individual, if you can accept that you are not alone, and show your acceptance not with platitudes but with an understanding…. They’ve probably heard it all: “Have you tried this? Have you tried that? If you could just try a little bit harder, take breaks…. etc.” But the truth is, they’re trapped.

When we are trapped in a place, when we don’t know how we got there, when we think we didn’t ask for this, didn’t do anything to put ourselves or anybody else in harm’s way, it’s very difficult to look around and examine what we bring to the table that is not done in the flesh, what we bring to the table by the Spirit. I’ve learned, or at least became exposed to consider—living through the riots this past summer—that there was nothing I could do. I was trapped. And the impact that I had on what was happening in our government, and the people that were dying everywhere—people I knew, people who were sick.

I had no power or control over it. My prayers were how we’ve been taught to pray. But when I let go and started to ask those big questions that we’ve been discussing, in terms of what is the requirement of me spiritually—am I supposed to take care of myself, is this about me at all?—it changed the paradigm for me. I saw the relationship with God as being “Thy will be done, for good or bad.” What is the lesson? What is it that I’m supposed to garner? How is my vessel being transformed? What is the energy in me being called to do?

It really was, and is, very liberating, because I no longer had a responsibility to do all those “supposed to’s”. I could do in the spirit as I was led, not run through a list of to-do’s that didn’t change anything. Because it really isn’t us. It is the creator. We are only the vessel, the instrument, for what will be done.

David: The big issue here is hope. In some situations there is always hope that the situation might get better, that somebody might be cured. But the situation for the alcoholic son and his parents is a situation where there seems to be no hope.

I’m reminded of an article in the New York Times by Maureen Dowd about a young Catholic priest called out at night to go to a hospital where a Mexican American family was grieving over the death of their little girl. The whole family was grieving. They didn’t speak English. He spoke a little bit of Spanish but he said whatever he could have said was nowhere near enough. Essentially, there was no hope, there could be no hope. The little girl was dead, and that was that. And yet he went, and he found that by his mere presence as the representative of God he brought a measure of peace, of comfort, to the family. He helped to begin the healing process for them.

In a situation where there is no hope, there can only be acceptance of God’s will being done. And with that comes great peace. I guess it’s much more difficult for the alcoholic and his parents. It’s hard not to have hope. Isn’t prayer basically about hope? And is faith about situations where there is no hope?

Donald: The role of a physician is quite unique in humanity, because the ultimate, the greatest thing we fear is sickness and death. A physician is perceived as someone who can overturn the sinful world and effect a cure. From the patients’ perspective, they are at the mercy of their doctor—and their maker. Doctors can offer hope by being kind, and considerate, and compassionate. But they can also literally change things for the better.

Don: From a physician’s perspective, the important question arises when there is no hope, when there is nothing to be done, yet the expectation is always that something can be done. With cancer patients there often comes a time when nothing further can be done, and that is the most difficult conversation to have—the most troubling and soul searching. It happens with enough frequency that it puts the doctor in a very humbling position.

So physicians tend to think about their unsuccessful cases much more than about their successful cases. Most patients who experience something good view their experience as some kind of other-worldly event. They don’t see it simply as the skill of the surgeon or the physician, but that somehow God’s hand was in it. They rarely say “Thank you. I know it’s your great skill and training and experience that brought me through.” It’s almost always the thinking of God.

In my own personal experience, not being able to do something is very much more troubling and I wish I never had to tell someone that we’ve come to the end of what we can do.

Janelin: In the last three weeks I’ve lost two patients and have just found cancer in another. It always surprises me when I go into a room and patients seem to know the diagnosis already and I’m just kind of there to wrap things up. I’m always surprised how comfortable patients can be. Sometimes that makes me more comfortable. I was always hesitant to go into these rooms. It always surprises me that I’m actually okay talking to them about it.

It is COVID time, so it’s hard to hug. But when a patient hugs you and thanks you for being their provider, it’s pretty touching. They know I probably won’t see them again. But to be part of that, to be part of their care, to be part of the end of their life is part of our experience, part of our human experience. I’m trying to learn more about it. We always want to try to help extend life, but at the end of the day, just giving them quality of life and not trying to do too much is enough, because that can cause so many problems.

Carolyn: Jesus said: “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” As well, we have angels to protect us. We tell our children so. And we may not ask for God to do something. I can’t imagine how this is all run in heaven, but there is something about a one-on-one with my God and allowing his will to be done. But he also said he would send ministering angels to us. When two or more are gathered, are our prayers more effectual?

Donald: To children raised in a church community, the role and protection of angels is significant. But as we become more mature, I’m not sure we talk about angels much. What is the role of angels, of prayer, of numbers gathered? I think Carolyn’s question brings us to a point where we have to reconsider what we’ve being saying. We’re seeking something. We want our prayers answered!

David: Jesus was saying that wherever there’s a gathering of believers, he will be there. It’s not a promise that he will fix a cancer. It’s just a promise that he will be present. But what a presence! If Jesus is with you in the boat on the stormy sea of Galilee, why would you not feel at peace, knowing that Jesus is there in the same boat with you?

C-J: The book The Life of Trees talks about the biochemistry of a forest that has been burned and how it comes back to life. Chemicals are released throughout the soil and the roots help literally sustain the weak. When the Sufis chant and the Dervishes dance, or when we listen to beautiful music in a traditional church, what happens (if we do that for a period) is that a synergy develops, a balancing out where all of the heartbeats become the same. The wavelengths of the brain (they’ve done neural studies on this) sync up. Those that are hurting take on this rhythmic energy.

That’s where the “two or more” come in. It goes beyond the presence of the Holy Spirit. If in fact we are spirit beings and we’re communing with the divine, and we put ourselves outside of the realm of the temporal, amazing things happen. Because where we are weak, the other energy—like a mother picking up a child, “Honey, are you too tired to walk? Come to mommy, and I’ll lift you up”…. I’ve seen that so many times, at the bed of somebody’s dying, with people in crisis, people violently ill as they’re vomiting their guts out, as they’re detoxing.

Yes, there is power in numbers and angels, though we can’t measure them. It’s not in our purview. If they’re perceived, I think they’re in a place in our brain that we haven’t learned to tap. They are a gift, they are vision, they are a presence we can’t sense; but I know there have been times where I’ve been broken and I’ve prayed and I felt like something different in the room touched me. I don’t know what that is but I certainly feel peaceful towards it. It’s not something I can induce.

We are our most vulnerable when people surround us in the presence of the Holy Spirit and we allow for this incredible exercise of presence in a different domain. I’ve seen it so many times that I just step back and I walk away with this sense of peace. Nobody even speaks. There isn’t anything that a doctor or any other mortal can do. It has to be the divine.

Donald: It must be really, really difficult to go into a patient’s room to communicate to them the challenge of any further possibilities—when the patient is alone. It connects with what we’ve been saying, that there is something very, very valuable to be surrounded by. But if it’s just you and the patient, that must be awfully painful.

Don: It’s the most difficult, but there is no question that being surrounded is a key element of any kind of bad news or any kind of illness facing us. That is really important. I think most people sense that and, whenever possible, try to surround themselves with some support system—whether that’s angels, the Holy Spirit, mom, dad, brother, sister….

Kiran: When I see people who are in similar circumstances to me, but things are not working for them, I realize that it could have happened to me. But I seem to have protection. It is beyond my understanding. All I can do is feel my unworthiness and be thankful. That’s all I can do.

I have friends—a husband and wife, with an infant daughter. Both are good people but they have such bad marital problems. They’re destroying each other. It’s beyond reason. Comparing their life with mine, we’re in the same position. I had an arranged marriage, just like them. They share the same religion, like me and my wife. They have a similar family situation to ours. Yet their marriage is a massive failure while we enjoy peace. I don’t understand why. I feel I’m so unworthy to have such peace and I feel guilty.

Yet Psalm 23 is so true: God leads us into these things. Why? We don’t know. And there’s no guarantee that the peace that I have right now will last forever. I could face some trial. I could go through a dark valley. And I may cry, but for now I have peace and I’ll enjoy it and thank God. I think that’s all I can do.

Adaure: That comment just tied together the thoughts I’ve been struggling with throughout the class. As we talk about peace and acceptance and faith and hope, it seems that to have acceptance, to have peace, there’s some some level or layer of apathy associated with it that numbs you to whatever is giving you no peace. That induces guilt but also confers hope. Maybe you don’t need to be apathetic to have peace. Is the thought itself antifaith—that there is apathy associated with peace? The contrast between the prayer of hope in Psalm 23 while acknowledging the valley of the shadow of death, versus the resignation or acceptance of Jesus’s praying in Gethsemane, is striking.

Don: We have a tiny bit more work to do on peace, but we’re coming to some ends.


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