Learning to Trust in God’s Faithfulness

Faithfulness / Parashat Emor: Leviticus 21:1-24:23

Ben Volman, Vice-President, UMJC

I will never forget the first time that I saw Canon Andrew White at our 2017 summer conference in Chicago. His assistant, Esther, had pushed him on stage sitting in his wheelchair wearing a dark blazer with a silk bow-tie. After he was introduced as the famed “Vicar of Baghdad,” I still wasn’t sure what this smiling gentleman with the British accent could say to a room full of Jews in kippas and jeans. But he held us spellbound.

Canon White had navigated between the highest offices in Israel and Yassar Arafat. Because he was a singular man of faith, equally trusted by Palestinians and Israelis, he negotiated peace in the most dangerous situations, including the siege of the Church of the Nativity in 2002. He’d seen the power of Yeshua transform lives as a beacon of hope while under fire in the worst days of the war in Iraq. He had wept over the bodies of families who loved Yeshua and committed himself to being a father for the children who survived. His talk at the conference had no particular theme; no pressing ministry to promote. He was living the message of God’s faithfulness. I wondered if I could be privileged to know this man as a friend.

When I was leading my first congregations, I often struggled to explain what it means to live by faith. People would want to know, “How do I get more faith?” They would read Hebrews 11:1—“faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (NIV)—and feel convicted, but no closer to walking confidently in their convictions. And then I heard a simple phrase that I have since often repeated, especially to new believers: “Faith is trusting in God’s faithfulness.”

All that I know about faithfulness, I learned from following Yeshua. I easily recall my own early experiences, trying to be a “spiritual generator” and trying to muster up the determination to believe when things seemed hopeless. Instead of calmly entrusting myself and the situation into God’s care, I would get tied up in an emotional, or even physical, knot that only left me more anxious and wondering if I really had faith at all. Learning to focus on God’s faithfulness allowed me to step back and see what John Bunyan once described as the Lord’s “great ocean of grace.” Perhaps that is the greatest blessing of seeing God’s faithfulness over time, as James promises, “the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:3–4 NIV). We keep learning to trust in the sustaining reality of his faithfulness day by day and through the seasons of life.

This is a unique aspect of this week’s parasha, Emor. Here in Leviticus 23, God lays out for Moshe the mo’adim, those “designated times” of festivals that God has given us to honor, celebrate, renew, and restore the sacred covenant relationship that binds us together with him.  That word, mo’adim, first appears in Genesis, as God puts lights in the heavens and declares they will be “for signs, seasons [mo’adim], days and years” (1:14 CJB). It’s fitting that the miracle of Creation is celebrated by the very first and foremost of our mo’adim, the Shabbat and its wonderful attributes of rest from labor and focus on God’s covenant faithfulness and blessings. Once again, over the years I have come to understand that my own education in faithfulness has come through marking each one of these holy days. Each festival, as the great modern prophetic teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel explained in his book on the Sabbath, is like “a cathedral in time” and we learn to be faithful as they teach us “to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year.”  

I look back and realize that, as a child, these holy days were my first education in faithfulness, and a comforting reminder about God’s continuing presence in my life, even through the most difficult seasons. When we restore these sanctuaries in time, we are keeping faith with those whose faithfulness gave us this legacy. The candles we light, the traditions we share around the table are a reminder that God has been faithful to those who entrusted their faith and hope to us.  

Those first lessons are the beginning, but when I think of faithfulness, I think of Yeshua. I have been privileged to share the confidences and the struggles of brothers and sisters in ministry over several decades. But we are also blessed to be witnesses to Yeshua’s faithfulness. How many times was Yeshua so wonderfully present to sustain our community? How many times did a word come through the Spirit when our leaders sought his direction? How many times did Yeshua in his grace bless me when my own faith had fallen short? Above all, I can look back on so many gracious answers to prayer that kept us growing in our trust. I believe that this is what Rav Sha’ul means when he writes in Romans 1:17: “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (NIV).

Years ago, a member of my congregation had been a missionary in North Ontario with a young family. They were struggling financially on a meager salary and at one point had run out of money. His wife told him that they didn’t have enough food to feed the family that evening. He decided to lay out the dishes and confessed that he was not all that happy as he turned toward heaven and said aloud, “Lord, you know, it’s five o’clock and this is when my family eats supper.” His prayer was interrupted by a loud knocking and commotion at the door. It was a neighbor with his hands full. “Look at that!” he said, pointing to a group of friends who were getting into their cars. “I invited them over for roast beef dinner and they all want to go out to the local restaurant. Can you possibly use this meal?” 

As my wife, Sue, and I left the Chicago conference, we considered ourselves fortunate to have gotten to know Canon Andrew’s remarkable assistant at the time, Esther, and grateful for the chance to have connected with Andrew briefly. We got to the airport for our flight back to Toronto only to find that our flight was not only delayed, but might not even leave that day. We were surprised and confused, but decided to head back to the conference hotel where we were most likely to get a room. The next morning, at breakfast, as we were entering the dining room we met Canon Andrew and Esther. We shared a wonderful time together and Andrew told me that he has families that he visits in Toronto, and it was the beginning of a friendship that was also a blessing for his ministry and certainly a great blessing for us. And my lessons in faith and faithfulness continue.