October 6, 2019

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