Faith:

The older ones left first.

(John 8:9)

Few certitudes now, just naked faith.

(Falling Upward, p. 165)

These two lines came together this morning during my fire pit reading. The line about how the older ones left first, comes from the story of the woman caught in adultery. One of my students is working on the textual problem of the story—does it really belong in the Bible? Chances are your Bible translation notes the problem. It’s a crucial question for him demanding certitude. I found myself not caring much about this technical textual question. Rather, the story itself once again captivated me. For the first time, I noticed that when Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone;” the first ones to put down their stones and leave where “the older ones.”

That was last night. This morning, around the fire pit, I read: “Few certitudes now, just naked faith.” It comes at the end of Richard Rohr’s book concerning the second half of life. You are in the first half rightly preoccupied with making something of your life—your job, home and family. It’s a pressure filled time. If I remember right, it seems like it took everything we had just to survive. But we survived, and from time to time, even thrived; didn’t we?

I’m well into the second half of life where what has been accomplished has been accomplished. What now? The author, Richard Rohr, observes that in the second half of our spiritual life there are “few certitudes now, just naked faith.” When I read it I thought about last night, and the story of the woman caught in adultery, and how the older ones were the first to put down their stones and leave.

I might not call it “naked faith”. Naked faith needs some clothing. It’s not faith in faith, or heroic faith; it’s just a settled confidence that the Gospel is true. We do well to celebrate Christmas and Easter. We have no choice, the bible tells us, but to follow the path of faith:

Without faith (pistis) it is impossible to please God,

because anyone who comes to him

must believe (pisteuō) that he exists

and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hb 11:6—slipped in

Gk word so you can see that “faith” and “belief” come from the same word.)