William Sloane Coffin, former pastor of the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan, New York, wrote in his classic work Credo, “I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.” Well, that explains it.

Faith is often presented as an ordered practice, a series of steps, a program even. Step one: Go to church. Step two: Confess Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. 

Step three: Be baptized and become a member of the church. Step four: Join a committee or work group. There doesn’t seem to be much jumping involved here—unless, of course, your baptism pool is at the local YMCA.  

The “Romans Road” is even neatly paved: Romans 3:23, 6:23 and 10:9-10. Step one: Accept. Step two: Believe. Step three: Confess. The bumps are associated with life before we accepted Christ, though he promised us there would be trouble (John 16:33). 

And while there are books in the Bible, like Job, devoted to the difficulties of belief and the testing of our faith, it is not often discussed. Instead, we would rather focus on the good parts, the happily ever after endings, for fear of being labeled faithless and a killjoy. 

We say, “Just jump. Things will work themselves out. Just jump. God will catch you. 

Just jump. We will be right here to pick you up when you fall.”

Perhaps, like me, you need a little more convincing. “Show me your hands, or better yet, let me see God’s net. I need to see it in order to believe.” 

But Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would push back here. “Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase,” he surmised. To believe, you have to move.  

Faith requires that we not only figure it out intellectually but flesh it out, embodying the conclusions we have drawn. And in some cases, we might have to jump!

Believing is not always seeing, but trusting the truth that possesses us will not let us fall. And the journey is not completed one step at a time.  

I cannot promise the way will be clear and the directions will make sense. Even with visions of an undivided “kin-dom” coming, I must admit I don’t know where I’m going next.

Still, we are reassured that the end is certain. This leap of faith will work out for our family- fellowship as that is the purpose, that we all land in the same place and on equal footing.

So, we jump. We take the leap for fear that it is far worse to stay on the ground, to play it safe and never dare to believe that the world can be different. 

Worse still, if we don’t jump, we won’t be able to see this visible reality. It’s there, but we’ll need to get a little higher to see it.

“The communion of believers thus is not something that is merely spiritual and intellectual,” Gerhard Lohfink, a German Catholic priest and theologian, believed. “It must be embodied. It needs a place, a realm in which it can take shape.”

It will likely require new eyes like that of Paul and Peter’s sea legs. We take the leap of faith like Peter rather than stay in the boat, though things are shaky as “nations rage and kingdoms totter” (Psalm 46:6).

We might throw up, so we put our heads between our knees first. Then, because of what we see, we do the impossible.

And it just makes sense for baptized believers who go down in the water to come up empowered to challenge the world as we have known it. Born again, what do you see differently now? 

What would you change about this human condition? What cause would you advance, and would you jump at it if given the opportunity?

Raised up together, “we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view” (Second Corinthians 5:16, NRSV). Yes, it’s a leap for me to proclaim the raceless gospel, but the view from up here is unmatched.

And I don’t ever have to come down because I took a leap, and with this faith came wings.