The best-selling vehicle in the United States for the past 46 years is not a sedan. Not a van. Not an SUV. It’s a pickup truck: The Ford F-150.
About one million new trucks hit the road each year.
According to various websites, the F-150 is popular because it has an all-aluminum body, and available 10-speed automatic transmission and turbocharged engine. The truck has great fuel efficiency and incredible hauling capacity. The website says that it is “a symbol of American tenacity, grit, and honest
There’s also been a big change: the F-150 Lightning. The Ford F-150 is going electric.
Given the sales history of this truck, you might wonder why Ford would want to mess with success. You know the old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Ford executives knew that they would need to win over some serious skeptics with the electric version. “We wanted to make sure that we built a truck that would be accepted by truck owners today,” said Linda Zhang the chief engineer for the new electric truck.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That’s what a lot of folks were saying about good works back in the first century. Within the Jewish faith, there was a long tradition of people being “justified by works” (Romans 4:2). They would study the laws of the Bible, including the Ten Commandments, and then do their best to follow these laws by remembering the Sabbath day, honoring their father and mother, and refraining from murder, adultery and stealing. When they did these good works, they would be justified — which means being put in a right relationship with God and their neighbors.
The model for being justified was Abraham, a righteous man who was the ancient father of every Jew. He was held up as the symbol of Jewish righteousness, just as the Ford-150 has been “the symbol of American tenacity.” Those who followed Abraham saw him as the finest example of being justified by works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
But then the St. Paul came along and saw something that needed to be fixed.
Paul made an important discovery when he studied the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis. He realized that it was simply not true that Abraham was justified by works. “What does the Scripture say?” he asked in his letter to the Romans. “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Abraham was made righteous by believing God, not by following the law. He was justified by his faith, not by his good works.
This was a radical innovation, along the lines of a pickup truck going electric. No one saw it coming, but then it revolutionized the industry. If we are going to follow Paul, we need to choose faith – the good works will naturally follow. From St. Paul we discover that our “faith is credited as righteousness.”
The Ford Lightning is the winner of one of Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards. This electric truck can pull 10,000 pounds of cargo up steep hills, and it can accelerate faster than a gas truck. It can also be a handy source of electric power. On a work site, a construction crew can plug into the truck to recharge cordless tools, power air compressors, and supply electricity for larger equipment. And if power goes out at home, you can use the truck to keep your lights on for up to 10 days. Oooook!
In a similar way, Paul’s focus on faith is a world-changing idea. Suddenly, a person can be made righteous by believing God, not by following religious law. Anyone and everyone can be justified, not just the people who follow the law and do good works. “It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world,” says Paul. That was the old F-150.
Abraham and his offspring received the promise “through the righteousness that comes by faith.”
We don’t have to be Jewish. We don’t have to be circumcised. We don’t have to follow every religious law. All we have to do is show “the faith of Abraham.”
And what exactly is this faith? Paul says that Abraham believed in “the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.” He believed in the same God who raised Jesus from death to new life, and who calls into existence what may seem to be impossible. In Abraham’s life, this means that he trusted God to give him a child, even though “his body was as good as dead.” He believed in the promises of God and was “fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”
Abraham had faith in the God who gives life to the dead. He trusted God. He believed in the promises of God and that God had the power to fulfill those promises. And because of this, his faith was “credited to him as righteousness.”
What a powerful faith. Stronger than the charge in a Ford Lightning. Do any of us have this Faith? Do we want this faith, or are we afraid of the responsibilities that come with it?
This kind of faithfulness makes us right with God and gives us power to do God’s work in the world. We should all desire this level of faith!
For starters, we believe in the God who gives life to the dead, the God seen most clearly in Jesus Christ. The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther made Paul’s insight the center of his theology, one that asserted we are saved by the grace of God through our faith in Jesus. Luther wanted to be a good and righteous person, so he confessed his sins frequently, often daily, and for as long as six hours at a time. But after confessing his sins, he would leave the church and remember other sins that he needed to confess. He tried the path of good works and discovered that he could never do enough to save himself.
Then Luther read the line in Paul’s letter to the Romans that says, “the righteous will live by faith.” In a flash, he realized that he was not made righteous by his good efforts, but by his faith in Jesus Christ. “I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise,” said Luther. “This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.”
On a personal level, Luther was reborn by this insight into the power of faith. He was touched by the God “who gives life to the dead.” But on a historical level, the Protestant Reformation began when Luther made this discovery about faith. “If you have true faith that Christ is your Savior,” he said, “then at once you have a gracious God, [and] you should see pure grace and overflowing love.” Luther was inspired to go out and preach the Gospel, a word which means “good news,” because he saw that the Gospel was “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”
After we begin to trust Christ to be our Savior, we make every effort to support God’s work in the world. As Luther himself said, “Good works do not make a [person] good, but a good [person] does good works.” Good works are naturally going to flow out of a person who has been saved through their faith in Jesus. Having faith in Jesus does not give anyone permission to sit back and refrain from doing good.
Think of the Ford Lightning truck. Yes, its electric engine makes it a truly innovative vehicle, one that can power a house during blackouts. But even though it is based on a world changing idea, the Ford Lightning still has to carry tools, building supplies, mulch and manure. If it didn’t tow heavy cargo up hills, it wouldn’t be a pickup truck.
It is no different for a Christian whose “faith is credited as righteousness.” Yes, our faith in Jesus makes us right with God, but still we are challenged to show each other compassion and justice and mercy. The heavy lifting of the Christian life involves feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, welcoming strangers, and visiting people in prison. If we didn’t do these good works, we wouldn’t be recognizable as followers of Christ.
Let us pray.
In today’s Gospel, with the transfiguration, we get a preview of the glorious presence of Christ which awaits the faithful following the trials of this world. We pray for the grace to remain steadfast in our faith so that we are worthy of being in that transfigured presence. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for those who have recently lost loved ones and ask the Lord to comfort them with the assurance that those who have departed this life are now in the company of the Christ who showed the infinite joy of his glorious presence to the apostles in his transfiguration. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for our Church that it may be a shining beacon of goodness, love and care throughout the world for all of God’s children. We pray to the Lord.
We pray that this season of Lent be a time of renewal for all Christians and that our efforts to draw closer to Christ draw us closer to each other. We pray to the Lord.
As we prepare to celebrate International Women’s Day on Wednesday of this week, we ask the Lord to bless all women, so that their important role in our society be recognized and rewarded. We pray particularly for mothers who daily strive to nurture their children and bring peace to their families, their homes and their communities. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for safety of refugees who risk the dangers of the Mediterranean as they flee from starvation, war and abuse. We pray that the people of Europe see the face of Christ in each of them and give them an opportunity for a new life of peace and freedom. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for the families of those who died so tragically in this weeks train crash in Greece that they may find comfort in the memory of loving and happy times with those they have lost. We pray to the Lord.
For those on our parish prayer list, that they may receive swift answers to their needs and that they may find consolation through Christ’s healing presence. We pray to the Lord.
We bow our heads and remember in silence our own personal intentions and the intentions of those who have asked for our prayers (pause). We pray to the Lord.
Lent arrives, and we are looking for direction. Our fragmented lives and self-concern pull at our intentions, unsettling our faith and diluting our commitment.
We want to change. Where do we begin?
We look to Jesus, how he lived and loved, what he said and what his followers called “the Way.”
O Lord, let this Lent be different as we examine ourselves, our faith, our hope. Guide us, Father, in the “way” of Lent and life.
Suffering God, you told us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus. We’re still not sure we want to go that far. We had hoped that becoming followers in this day and age would be a more rational business; we had hoped to fit our religion in the spare corners of our lives. It wasn’t supposed to be an inconvenience. Yet you continue to call us, and we squirm uncomfortably. Teach us to respond gratefully to your invitation. Teach us to sacrifice — not only for others, but for you. And take what we can give right now, transforming it into an offering of our deepest selves.
We need to change. We need to be the human version of the F-150 Lightning. Help us in our faith – or lack there of – that we may live in faith each day in the good we do. We ask all these things through Christ our Lord. Amen.
God Love You +++
The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Chapel
San Diego, CA.
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