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.In our society that for generations has held the season of our youth as the apex of our mortal existence, it may seem a bit out of step to give thanks for being older. I cherish where I am at this particular time in my life. I trust that I will cherish the years yet ahead. Next year I will celebrate being mortal fifty years. I am older and I am wiser. I live with a faith that has been tested, with a God that I have tested, and if certain passages of life are tests, I have moved ahead.

     "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." While a person in their teens and twenties can certainly identify with this text, my life has come to depend on it. Having faith is the only reason I am alive. Faith, trusting in those things and powers we cannot see, yet we cling to anyway. In my youth, this trust fall was paralyzing. What if no one, God specifically, is there to catch me? What if my faith is really a game of mirrors and trusting means falling. Falling where? I don't know. I just don't want to fall. There must have been baby steps, falls with spotters and falls of increasing distance because I don't remember those early letting go, letting God moments. I remember being scared and I remember pleading with God to keep my mother safe. I remember emotionally clinging to the witness of my teachers - Catholic nuns that knew God and Jesus in a way that I envied. It was their faith I trusted. 

      Many years later in a paper for a seminary class, I was trying to explain my faith and what I believed. In it, I shared how sometimes what got me through was the faith of others. It was one of those times that you don't realize what you said until someone points it out to you. I wish I could find the paper and read the note the prof. left in the margin. It was something to the effect of celebrating our ancestors. It was an ah-ha experience. Suddenly I was intimately linked with generations, with centuries of people who dared to live by faith. It wasn't the "Faith of Our Fathers" that came to mind. It was glimpsing how normal and profound it is to trust someone else more than oneself and God. Now, taken out of context, what I just said could be trouble. Our inability or unwillingness to trust God leads to all kinds of crud. That was last week's sermon! And undoubtedly, all my sermons. 

     It's not easy to believe in a God we cannot see, hear, and feel in the ways we commonly recognize. No matter how many bible stories and testimonies we hear, in order for faith to radically matter, it must be personal. When I prayed as a frightened ten year old and despairing teenager, I prayed to the God of my teachers, of Sister Connie, Sister Margaret Angela, and Sister Denise. I trusted who they trusted. And - I was not betrayed. I slowly became acquainted with a spirituality that recognized the divine that dwells within. God was looking out for me, I could sense it. Trust it? Well, that's where being older has its perks. 

    There have been enough trials and crisis' in my life that I can now let go let God with full knowledge and expectation that I will not fall into some fatal abyss. I arrived at this place around age forty. Alas, life is not so much about arriving as it is keeping on keeping on. Not with our head down and back bent. With our head up and arms open! Life happens. I have since weathered excruciating storms and there will be others. I pray that the worst are behind me. Don't we all pray this prayer? Having tested and genuine faith does not mean life becomes easy or that pain is no longer life threatening. But having a past, long or short, to recall tells me, God is. God is also a keeper of promises. When my faith has pleaded to quit, has hurled its anger and has agonizingly waited for God to respond to my "So, whatcha gonna do about it?" demand, I consistently hear/sense God's reassuring, "Trust me." I ultimately do because I know I can. I have before. Surviving, enduring, it ultimately leads to life. Life with God in charge.

     "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible." Tagore writes, " Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn cannot yet see the light.

     " I'd like to share a story from a favorite book of mine, The Compassionate Rebel. Energized by Anger, Motivated by Love.* It's a collection of true stories about Minnesotans active in peacemaking. I share this story because faith is not empty. It not only allows us to survive, it motivates us to find ways to bring God's kindom on earth. 

     "Mary was born on the Upper East Side of New York City right after World War I. Her parents were well-to-do-liberal children of clergy. Her father was a lawyer for J.P. Morgan, who worked on Wall Street. Neighbors and friends were all part of the ruling class. Mary was brought up as one of five church going, protected daughters. She attended Vassar but left after her sophomore year in 1939 to marry a business executive and move to Minnesota. 

     A turning point in Mary's peacemaking career came during the Vietnam War, while she was a homemaker, raising four children in her Mendota Heights house. 'I would sit and watch TV, and my friends would tell me that the war was winnable - that we were doing the right thing. My children were subject to the draft, so I found out everything I could. I was a Republican who chaired the platform committee plank on Vietnam at the 1968 convention. We deliberated for months. The horror was revealed. We came up with a good campaign plank that said we should get out of Vietnam. We pointed out that Vietnam always wanted to be a democracy and what we were doing didn't make any sense. But when I introduced the plank to the convention, I was practically booed off the stage, and the plank was eventually defeated.

     In the meantime, I had seen poor kids being drafted and sent to Vietnam while our friends' kids were being kept out by proper colleges and medical deferments. Friends who had children subject to the draft helped in the peace movement for a while, but after their personal crisis was over, they walked away. I was disillusioned.'

     Rather than give up, Mary organized. . In 1979, as the Iran Hostage crisis exploded, Mary traveled to Iran with members of Clergy and Laity Concerned to meet with students who were holding more than fifty Americans hostage in the capital city of Tehran. .'The visit had a tremendous impact on me.  

    Unfortunately, the church groups I worked with weren't as active in the peace movement as I would have liked them to be. I worked for Clergy and Laity Concerned for about fifteen years as a fund-raiser and church organizer. To my surprise, they weren't at all interested in the religious foundations of antiwar organizations. Generally, churches were a disappointment. People never got out of the pews to do anything. 

   My peace and justice work is faith based, so the reluctance of churches to act has been difficult for me. I'd have little hope and wouldn't care so much if it weren't for my faith. Many in the peace and justice movement have become contemptuous of the religious establishment. Most were brought up to go to church, and they became bitter and disillusioned by the Church's attitude toward them. 

     The peace and justice community may have given up on established church organizations, but they have been finding spiritual grounding for their work elsewhere. I used to go to an Episcopalian church during the Vietnam War but was not happy there.' . Mary worships with a small group of people in a rented space near the U of M West Bank campus. [west bank of the Mississippi.] 'We have a social Christian community that isn't a geographical community. We meditate on Saturday morning and worship every Sunday morning, We read the Gospel if it moves us and discuss what it means to us. The core of our worship is the liturgy of the Episcopal prayer book, although we have changed the language to make it more inclusive and have incorporated variations contributed by such people as Native Americans and the creators of the New Zealand prayer book. We are part of the Episcopal Church at large, but we don't have a priest, except those who visit.'.

    Whether it's finding alternatives to war, church worship, or establishment government and media, Mary has used her wealth and privilege for the benefit of things and people she believes in. 

   'I know my money has saved human lives and made a difference in other ways. I put it to good use. But I feel I can do more than give money. I also am committed to taking action in other ways. It's a difficult struggle. A huge majority of human beings have to fight each other for the crumbs left over while policy makers laugh their way to the bank. The public at large has lost its innocence. The American dream is not there. What troubles me is that people go from innocence to cynicism without anything in between. 

    We can change the system. We need to turn it upside down and reward generosity, sharing, and inquisitiveness. We have to believe that the system can be made to work. It's possible there will be peace. 

      We'll have it when enough people want it, and , instead of keeping their power and money, will redistribute their wealth. Without that kind of justice, there can be no peace." Without that kind of lived faith, there can be no peacemakers. 

     Having tested, genuine faith does not mean that life becomes easy or pain is no longer life threatening. It does mean we recognize that there is a power greater than our own. That we understand the call we hear as the one sounding out throughout the millenniums. Faith, the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen, needs the gathered community. Here we remind one another that we do not trust in vain. Here we say, "Today I cannot believe. Will you believe for me?" Here we are encouraged to keep the faith; to keep on keeping on figuring out, how to live in faith.

Amen