Sermon for October 2, 2022 – 17th Sunday after Pentecost
Lamentations 1:1-6; Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10
Who among us doesn't want more faith? When I was seventeen years old I made my first pilgrimage to the Holy Land. To be perfectly honest, I do not think I understood the sacred journey that I was about to undertake. In the lead up to the pilgrimage I was told that it would be a transformative trip that would deepen and expand my faith. So, the entire pilgrimage I kept looking for that revelatory experience that would give me more faith. I think I was honestly expecting the clouds to open up and to be bathed in light. Needless to say, that did not happen. After two weeks I returned home disappointed that I somehow missed my faith experience. It was precisely because I kept looking for a moment that would give me more faith, that I missed the bigger picture. I missed the opportunity to be fully present, to be open to receiving that gift of faith in the moment. I did not understand then that God and faith does not work that way.
So it is that we should not be surprised at the disciples’ plea to Jesus to be given more faith. There is a part of us that should not be particularly surprised at Jesus’ scoffing reply. “If you have even this much faith,” he tells them “you would be able to do anything you wished.” It is hard not to hang our heads with the apostles, suffering from the scold we know we deserve. If there is one thing we have come to expect from Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, it is the constant reminder of how we fall short, especially when we should call ourselves “worthless slaves.”
If you have come to church at any point during these last three or four weeks, you heard have stories and teachings from Jesus that quite frankly sound harsh.
“No slave can serve two masters…You cannot serve God and wealth.”
These are heavy readings, yet even in the midst of these prophetic warnings and stern messages from Jesus to his disciples there is Good News. There are threads of hope woven into the narrative that Luke offers us.
What if Jesus is not scolding the disciples at all? What if he is not shaking his head over their lack of faith, but instead was speaking these words from a place of love and encouragement? If we listen again to this exchange with new ears, we hear Jesus answer the disciples with maybe even a bit of a smile. “Why, you do not need more faith, my friends,” he says. “Even this much faith is enough!” If we hear Jesus speak with the voice of love, we hear him telling the apostles, and us, that we already have enough faith to do whatever is required.
The Good News in our gospel today is that faith is not to be cast in quantitative terms, as if it were a commodity doled out in stingy or generous amounts. You do not need more faith. There is no “more” or “less” in faith. There is just faith. Faith is the openness to God’s power and presence in and around us. Faith is about being open and aware to the majesty and mystery that is God. Our job is not to have more or less faith, but to be open to God and to have the courage to follow where the Spirit leads us, trusting in God’s mercy and grace.
Our faith cannot be separated from the One we believe in, especially if we think about our faith as our faith. Faith is not of our own working as if it is somehow divorced from the source and contingent upon our own doing. The western mind is about agency and autonomy, about the ‘me,’ with a deep sense of responsibility to move and change the world. We are inundated with the noises of our culture and voices in our head pushing us further, motivating us to move the dial just once more. If only we had more faith, we can save the world. But that is not faith.
Jesus is telling us and his followers that faith and its growth cannot be gained by human efforts but given by God alone. The true miracle in Jesus’ saying is not about overcoming natural laws, like the movement of a tree from one place to another; it is about the presence of true faith, a faith that takes hold of the God with whom and in whom anything is possible.
When the disciples ask for greater faith, knowing that difficult times lies ahead of them, Jesus responds by asking for something small: a trusting faith the size of a mustard seed, so that the followers of Jesus might not look at themselves, judging their own faith, relying on its strength not being scared by its weakness, but look instead at the One we follow. Faith then is not ours, but the work of the Holy Spirit binding us to Christ. By our faith we relinquish any illusions of self-reliance, acknowledging that it cannot be measured, only enacted; to be lived out boldly.
Our stories these past weeks have been stories of contrast; those who have set against those who don’t; more money, more action, more faith. These stories may hit us as hard lessons of what faith and discipleship look like in a world that seeks to lift up material possessions above our spiritual needs. Jesus is telling us that what we need is not more, but to be open to being in relationship with God. My prayer for you this week is that you take a moment, enter into the silence and stillness of your heart to know that your faith, no matter how big or small it may feel to you right now, can do infinitely more than you can imagine.
