17th Sunday After Pentecost
Habbakuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 Psalm 37:1-9 2 Timothey 1:1-14 Luke 17:5-10 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord Amen. Today our lessons are talking about faith, which is one of those things that can be hard to talk about or even define and yet each year I have the students about to be confirmed write statements of faith, I give them a pad of paper and say go for it, write about your faith, and each year they stare back at me for a few moments unsure of where to begin but after a moment and a few prompts they figure it out and each statement truly reflects the person who wrote it. This weekend I met with our two 9th graders who will affirm their baptisms at the end of the month and As Mira and Aiden were writing I went back through and read the faith statements from the past years and while each had their own particular flair common themes emerged, The theme of Family as crucial to faith, acknowledging that their faith grew out of parents who got them baptized, read them the bible and made them go to Sunday school The theme of belonging and acceptance showed up again and again, both as relates to God and community, faith means knowing you belong to God and that you belong to a community. And lastly the theme of trusting God, trusting that God will guide and be present in hard times and in the way forward, trusting God by following God in how life is lived. All these expressions and definitions of faith are found in our readings for today but the readings go a step further, they also address the times when faith is difficult, Times where we cry out with the prophets “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?” because it seems like God is not listening, that our prayers are going unanswered, or even worse that not only do our prayers go unanswered but that bad people, the ones doing evil are succeeding in life where we are failing, they are prospering while we are left in the dust and while the psalmist urges us not to be provoked by evildoers, that they will fade away like grass, that holds little consolation now in the midst of suffering. Why don’t you just snap your fingers and make it all go away God? We ask at times, or we starting thinking, maybe it’s not God, maybe it’s me, my faith isn’t strong enough, and we stand with the disciples from our gospel for today and demand of God “increase our faith.” Jesus has just told them by the way, that they should be continually forgiving those who sin against them and the disciples feel that perhaps they don’t have enough faith for that momentous task, Jesus responds to their request with his odd illustration of faith the size of a mustard seed being able to replant a mulberry tree in the ocean which is a little different from the mustard seed parable in Matthew then goes on to talk about expectations for servants, and what he’s saying is that faith is not magic, and further more faith does not equal greater things happening, the existence of any faith is enough, even the smallest amount is sufficient, and this goes against everything that living in the world has taught us, that more is better, and not only is more better but that we are responsible for acquiring it (whatever it is) in the first place and then it is possible to work to increase it based on our own hard work and merit. That’s not how God works, Jesus says, and it’s definitely not how faith works because faith at its core is a gift from God, we only have faith because God has given it to us. Paul, writing to Timothy reminds him that God “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” God has done all the work and given us the gift of faith freely and so we are tempted to wonder, what’s our role? Well, what do we do with gifts? What does a kid on Christmas afternoon do? They play with the toys they opened that morning, take them out of the box and try them out, and yes sometimes interest in the toy will wane and it ends up on a shelf or more realistically in a pile in the closet but just because the toy isn’t being played with doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist or was never given, it just means that it’s waiting to be taken out, dusted off and played with again. And even if the kid forgets the toy exists, Mom knows it’s there and keeps it safe until it’s time to play with it again. Our faith is a gift from God, and though there are times when we lose interest or put it on a shelf, or even times when we fear we’ve lost or broken it it is still ours Paul writing to Timothy reminds him that he’s been given the gift of faith by God, and now it’s time for Timothy to reclaim it as his own, much as our confirmands will do as they take over responsibility for the promises made on their behalf at their baptisms. Paul uses the image of fire, urging Timothy to rekindle the gift of God that is within him and just like the mustard seed image the fire image shows that the smallest amount is enough, it only takes a spark to light a forest on fire, it is sufficient, a little faith is sufficient to change our lives. And yes a fire that is tended will grow just as faith that is tended will also grow and we may at times feel like we’re responsible for that growth and our faith but we also have times in life when our faith seems insufficient no matter what we do and these are the times when the community steps in and takes care of faith for us, because we’re not in this alone, those times when we have a hard time praying, the community prays for us, when we have a hard time waiting, the community waits with us, when we have a hard time believing the community believes for us, they take care of the gift for us because faith, trust in God is not just an individual thing, it is also a communal thing, And yes, there are times when the faith of a community seems insufficient and in those times, Christ takes care of faith for us and the faith of Christ is sufficient, it is enough, it is for us. Paul says “I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.” Ultimately faith is from God and that is enough, it is always ours, even when we may not feel like it, it is always held in trust by God even when we feel responsible for it. We are God’s, we are enough. Amen
0 Comments
|
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
March 2022
Categories
All
|