Reading: 1Cor 12:1-11 While on holidays it`s a great time to read. I read lots of books while away, some complete trash and some not. One that wasn`t, was a little book by Mitch Albom called `Have a little faith`. He is the author of `Tuesdays with Morrie`, if anyone has read it. It is a great little book looking at the life and faith of an elderly Rabbi and a Christian minister working with the homeless, contrasting and comparing faith journeys. In the end it is a book about how faith and life are intertwined, or should be if we are to be committed to it. Yet this type of commitment is somehow lacking in our speedy, throw away society. Nothing lasts so there is little reason to commit for the long term. As the Rabbi in the book observes,

The word commitment has lost its meaning. I am old enough to remember when it used to be a positive. Once, a committed person was someone to be admired, loyal and steady. Now a commitment is something you avoid, you don`t want to tie yourself down. It is the same way with faith, by the way. We don`t want to commit to God. We`ll take him when we need him, or when things are going well. But real commitment, that requires staying power. But if you don`t commit, you miss the happiness that you cannot find alone.

But what do we mean when we say a faith commitment - what does it entail? I would suggest far more than attending Church, or following some rules or even feeling the presence of God in some private moment. Paul spells it out in one line from today`s reading from 1 Corinthians. `To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good`. Not for him spiritual gifts or experiences that do not link with the love and compassion of God for others. What matters most to Paul are people and relationships. The real sign of the spirit of God for Paul is not the ability to sustain spiritual highs, or to speak in tongues but the presence of love and compassion in our lives, which we would see if we read on to chapter 13. So even though he lists a number of gifts in this reading, the gifts exist only to bring love to others. For Paul there is one God and one spirit, and the true and central gift is love.

Therefore we are moved by the spirit of God to go much, much further than a personal faith. We are to make visible in the world the love of God for all, with a commitment to it in word, in deeds, and in our general behaviour. All three in harmony, not one in opposition to another, and not doing one today and the other tomorrow or never. This type of faith is not a part time activity or one that can be done only on a Sunday. It is a life time activity, a life time commitment. And by practising this committed version of Christianity we enter a place where God becomes more real to us, his message clearer, and our ability to discern it more acute. It is a place where real faith can be found, a transforming faith, both for believers and for the people who they care for and love. This is the happiness you cannot find alone that the Rabbi was talking about.

Yet as the Rabbi in Albom`s book rightly suggested it is easy to have this commitment when things are going well. But what about our commitment to each other when times are not so good, or when our life is threatened? This is when our faith and commitment is really tested.

The other thing one does on holiday is read the paper from cover to cover. Recently I read an article about the death of the last person who helped hide the Jewish Frank family in Amsterdam for 25 months during the Second World War, and who recovered Anne`s diary after she and her family had been discovered by the Nazis. It is this diary which has become such a symbol of the holocaust for thousands of people. The woman, a non Jew, helped keep them hidden and brought food and supplies all that time. T

Regardless of what faith she subscribed to, if any, here is an example to us all of commitment, not to an ideology, but to people, humanity and life. She displayed the only spiritual gift that matters, one of love. Can we do any less?