Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them.  Take our minds and think with them.  Take our hearts and set them in fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

Have you ever noticed that pop culture seems captivated by making lists?  I don’t know how many of you watch music television, but several years ago now MTV bought VH 1.  Since the acquisition, VH 1 has changed its format from showing music videos to showing reality TV shows that include various lists ranking people and things, such as, the 100 greatest songs of the 80’s, the 40 awesomest bad break-up songs ever, the 50 greatest hairstyles of the 70’s, and Maxim’s 100 hotest women (FYI, I read about that one on their website.  I didn’t actually watch it).  Now they have a show called “Web Junk 20” that generates a monthly list of the top 20 most entertaining videos on the internet.  Popular culture seems crazy about lists.

Entertainment Weekly and Premiere Magazine each publish an annual list of “The Most Powerful People in Hollywood.”  People magazine introduced its list of “Best, Worst, and Least Dressed” in the late 90’s, hoping to duplicate the success of its “Most Intriguing People” and “Most Beautiful People” issues.  Perhaps this craze all started in 1955 when Edgar Smith of Fortune suggested that the magazine publish a list of the largest U.S. companies.  At that very moment, the Fortune 500 was born.

Today Fortune not only prints up the 500 list, but “The Forty Richest People Under 40,” “The Fifty Most Powerful Women in Business,” “The 100 Best Companies to Work For,” “The 25 Most Powerful Lobbyists in Washington”, and “The Best Companies for Minority Employees.”  You're likely to find a new list in every issue.  I must admit that I have actually peeked at Texas Monthly’s list of richest Texans just to see if I might be rubbing elbows unaware with Texas’ most rich and famous.

Even Christians appreciate a good list.  Paul Wilkes, a Christian writer, published two books listing “Excellent Protestant Congregations” and “Excellent Catholic Parishes.”  Ship of Fools, the online magazine of Christian unrest, published two lists after asking for readers to submit their votes.  Heading the list of “The Least Embarrassing Christians” was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, followed by Jimmy Carter and Billy Graham.  Topping the list of “Spiritual Leaders Least Likely to Be Confused with Jesus” was Fred Phelps, the Baptist minister from Westboro, Kansas, who devotes his life to attacking homosexuals and the perennial Protestant bigot Ian Paisley was a close second.

Believe it our not even some of the authors of the New Testament create lists of heroic biblical figures and heroic acts of faith though thankfully they don’t usually rank them.   Today, our Old Testament lesson from Genesis introduces us to one such character—Abraham.  Now, if a faith 500 list was compiled such as the Forbes Fortune 500, Abraham would have to be at the top of the list.  Abraham is held up in scripture as the quintessential example of a faithful person.  In fact, the author of Genesis writes that Abraham’s faith made him righteous before God.  Genesis reads, “Abraham believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”  In other words, Abraham’s righteousness, which is being in a meaningful and life-giving relationship with God, is achieved through faith.  This is Good News for Abraham, and it is really Good News for each of us, as well, because if righteousness, being in a right relationship with God, is dependent on how we live our lives we are all in real trouble.  

I think if we are honest with ourselves, and we take our Lenten call to examine our lives seriously we would all have to readily admit that our lives could use a little improvement—to say the least.  If you disagree with me, give this a thought.  Imagine if everywhere you went a giant movie screen followed you around, and, on that screen, was projected every single thought you have good, bad, or ugly about everyone you know, meet, or simply pass along the way.  Everyone can read the screen—think about that.  It is a frightening thought.  Now there is no doubt that there are people in this world who live more degenerate and destructive lives than you and I, nonetheless, if we are willing to be really honest with ourselves, and I hope you will this Lent it is good for the soul, you will find that we are broken and imperfect people.  It’s for this reason that I say it is very good news that being in a meaningful and life-giving relationship with God is rooted in our faith and not our capacity to live righteously at all times.

Even Abraham, like so many of his fellow faithful compatriots found in scripture, led less than a perfect life.  Other top ten members of the faith 500 would include Noah the ark builder who in his drunkenness passed out naked on his tent floor much to his son Ham’s dismay.  And, certainly David would be in the top two or three most faithful servants of the Almighty God, not only did he enter into an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, but he signed off on her husband’s death warrant.  This phenomenon of faithful people leading less than pious lives is not only relegated to the Old Testament.  In the New Testament, there is Paul the first and greatest theologian of the church—the man responsible for writing or inspiring much of the New Testament.  He persecuted and tortured the followers of Christ before his own conversion on the road to Damascus.  And, don’t forget Peter, the prince of the Apostles, who denied his relationship with Jesus three times on the night before Jesus’ crucifixion.  At times, these people’s lives seem closer in temperament to Jerry Springer than Jesus Christ.  They make the Faith 500, but not because they were all role models of moral fortitude (at least most of them). 

And now back to Abraham, the faith 500-list topper.  In order to save his own skin, he lied and told the Egyptians that his beautiful wife Sarah was his sister because he was afraid they would kill him in order to have her as a wife.  So the Pharaoh thinking Sarah was Abraham’s sister and, therefore, lawfully available to wed proceeded to take her as his wife, not exactly commendable behavior.  And, guess what, he did that twice.  Nonetheless, Abraham had faith, faith in the promises of God, faith in the protection of God, faith that at the end of all things stands God’s love forever.  Abraham had faith despite his imperfections, his doubts, and in the midst of a life that at times, as we all know, is far from fair.  Abraham had faith and for God that was enough to be in right relationship.  God was in a meaningful and life-giving relationship with Abraham because of his faith.     
 
So what does it mean to live a faithful life?  I hope I have made it clear that faith in God, the thing that makes us in a meaningful and life-giving relationship with God has nothing to personal piety or moral perfection.  It has nothing to do with how religious we are.  It has nothing to do with hanging out with the right crowd.  And it has nothing to do with the number of hours we log on our knees or in the soup kitchen (though both are admirable).  

Every person making the Faith 500 list, including Abraham understood faith as a verb.  Our biblical superstars and each of us is called to faith our way through life.  People who are faithing their way through life are willing to act on a God given vision even though the fruit of that vision is not readily apparent.  That is what we call trust.  People who faith their way through life are willing to risk being vulnerable to another person in order to be in an intimate and authentic relationship.  That is what we call love.  Faith begins with what we believe in out hearts and profess with our lips, but faith is lived out each day as a lifestyle.  A lifestyle characterized by a willingness to trust God and other people even though trust assumes risk.  A lifestyle characterized by unconditionally loving the people who move in and out of our lives despite their differences and the chance of being hurt.  The two words that best describe faithful living are trust and love.

Beginning with Abraham, The common denominator between those biblical heroes whose names might appear on the Faith 500 list is that they actionized their faith.  God gave each of them a unique vision of a world characterized by His beauty and peace, and they chased after that vision trusting that the world could be so.  God poured his love into their lives, and they shared that love unselfishly with the people He placed in their care.       

Those who live by faith accept that life is mysterious and full of danger and temptation to which we often fall.  And yet those who live by faith carry on, still trusting in the promises of God and still loving the people of God despite all the difficulties we face.  Faith does not guarantee power or beauty or riches or even influence.  Faith is merely—and miraculously—the capacity to journey through life placing our trust beyond ourselves and loving generously both God and those people He has placed in our lives.  Amen.

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