Pentecost 17C (Day after Mortgage Burning)
October 2, 2022
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10
INTRODUCTION
Our Gospel reading today will begin with the disciples asking, “Increase our faith!” This could summarize all of our readings today – all of them reflect on this concept of faith that we throw around with ease, but don’t always seem to fully understand. All of our readings will give us a little glimpse into what it means to have faith. So listen for what you can learn from each text!
One other quick note: I won’t be addressing this in my sermon, but wanted to mention it: the Gospel includes a parable about slavery, one that may grate on our 21st century ears. Indeed, this text was used as a pro-slavery text, used to keep oppressed people oppressed. I want to be clear that this was not Jesus’ intention! Rather, it is about how a life of faith is about doing good works, not in order to be commended or saved, but because that is just what we do, because it is who we are. I’m happy to talk more about that later, if you wish.
Okay, now let us hear what the Spirit is saying!
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Yesterday was a pretty exciting day for St. Paul’s: 17 years after taking out a mortgage to pay for a large addition and renovation of our building, we burned our mortgage! Plenty of people didn’t think we’d ever pull it off, that indeed this would break the church, but with faith and devotion, by God we did it. We celebrated the ministry that has been done in this place, and looked forward to the ministry we will do in it. Those of you who were here in the early 2000s and through that project no doubt remember that it was a huge undertaking, one that required a big step out in faith.
We often throw around that word – faith. We say it like everyone knows just what it means, just what it entails. But really, it is such an elusive word, difficult to define, and even more difficult to live. And, we can never seem to have enough of it. So we can resonate with the plea of the disciples in our Gospel lesson today: “Increase our faith!”
Who has not uttered that prayer at some point? When things seem not to be going our way – increase our faith! When we are confused about what is happening in our lives – increase our faith! When we really want to believe, but just can’t seem to find it in our hearts at this moment – increase our faith! When our church faces struggles, or conflict, or we are unsure how the bills will get paid, or how God is planning to get us through this or that trial – increase our faith!
It is a plea familiar to us all. As it turns out, it has been familiar to God’s people throughout history, and so the Bible has much to tell us about faith – what it is, what it isn’t, and how it might play out in our lives. Several of these insights are present in our readings today.
First, from Luke we learn that faith is not something that can be quantified. That familiar plea, “increase our faith,” doesn’t really make sense. It may sound like Jesus is admonishing the disciples for not having enough faith, but it is the opposite: Jesus is saying that the amount of faith is not what matters – indeed faith as small as a mustard seed can do very great things! To be someone of “little” faith, then, is commendable! And so it is unhelpful to think of faith as a thing that can be counted. Better to think instead of faith as a relationship – specifically a relationship of trusting God. And if we can enter that relationship of utter trust in God, then Jesus is exactly right: we can do anything, even uproot a mulberry bush and plant it in the sea, even undertake a $1.4 million building project in order to accommodate a growing church and her ministry, and to make the building welcoming and accessible to all who want to enter.
A friend was telling me the other day about when she was in college, and her roommate, who was a rock-climbing instructor, brought her to a climbing gym. My friend, who had never been rock-climbing before, harnessed up and tentatively starting climbing the wall. Partway up the wall, her roommate called out, “Okay, now let go!” “No way!” shouted back my friend. “I’ll fall!” “No, you won’t,” returned the seasoned instructor. “The harness will catch you! You won’t fall.” Finally, with fear and trepidation, my friend did as she was told and let go – and sure enough, the harness held her. As she dangled there, she felt liberated, the fear of falling totally gone, and suddenly the prospect of climbing was a lot easier. She scampered up the rest of the wall without fear.
And that is how faith-as-trust works. If we trust God, we might still fall, but we need not fear it if we do, because that faith, that trust, will catch us. With that assurance, we can step out in faith into whatever it is we feel God calling us to do.
The prophet Habakkuk’s lesson in faith is simple and all too well known: faith isn’t easy. His is a context wrought with injustice and violence, and so he cries out to the Lord for an accounting of this situation. He cries in words that are also very familiar to us: “How long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?” How long will I endure this illness or ailment? How long will my grief feel so crippling? How long will I be unemployed? How long do I have to pray for help, and get no reply from God?
And God’s answer to Habakkuk? The same answer we often seem to receive: wait. And that is what makes faith so hard. It requires patience. As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “We hope for what we do not see, [and] we wait for it with patience.” We have to wait a lot, don’t we? We wait for red lights to change, we wait in line, we wait for test results, we wait for a friend or family member to come around – so much of life is waiting! Having to wait for God’s promises to be fulfilled can be the hardest waiting of all, and that, more than anything, is when we need to understand faith as trust – trust that those promises will someday be fulfilled.
As we wait, it is hard not to have doubts. But that is what our Psalm tells us – that faith offers consolation when we find ourselves in doubt. You see, faith and doubt are not opposites. Indeed some of the most faithful people in history have been wracked with doubt. Martin Luther believed that struggle is not at odds with faith, but rather, struggle is a mark of faith – without struggle, he said, faith isn’t genuine.
Our culture would have us believe that faith and doubt are incompatible opposites. But faith is not so much an absence of doubt as it is a commitment to believe even when you are surrounded by doubt. Sort of like the relationship between courage and fear. I remember, when I was going through cancer treatments, people often told me I was courageous. But I sure didn’t feel very courageous! One wise friend told me that you don’t need to feel courageous to be courageous. Courage is doing what needs to be done even when you do have fear. Indeed, you wouldn’t need courage if you never had fear – and neither would you need faith if you never had doubts. Faith is continuing to trust and believe even in the midst of doubt.
And that is where the Psalm comes in. The Psalm each week is chosen to respond to the Old Testament reading. So today’s Psalm, in response to Habakkuk’s discouragement, is that even as we doubt and have to wait, there is joy and delight in being caught up in God’s promises. When we find ourselves in that wonder, and let ourselves experience the delight of God’s promises, we find ourselves free, even for just a moment, from our usual worrying about the future. When we have faith in God’s love, when we trust God’s love, it casts out our fears.
And finally, we have an encouraging word from this letter to Timothy, speaking to Timothy’s faith, and also hearkening the faith of Timothy’s mother and grandmother. This letter reminds us that faith is not something we do alone. It is something passed down to us by our family – as it has been passed down here at St. Paul’s for more than 150 years, and continues to be passed down every time we have a baptism, or teach Sunday School, or sing hymns together, or confirm young adults, or study the Bible, or eat together at this Table. It is something you may have shared with your family around your own dinner table, or during bedtime prayers, or even while you were out fishing with your grandchild. Faith is shared every time we talk with each other – with friends, children, or even strangers – about how our faith has shaped our words, thoughts, and actions, how it was present with us in times of joy and sorrow, times of waiting and times of satisfaction.
Faith is a gift, given to us first by Christ in baptism, and continually apparent to us through all the people in our lives who have shared faith with us through worship, prayer, song, sacraments, and conversation. As Timothy shows us, faith is and always has been communal, an experience of the risen Christ together and throughout time.
And so today we continue yesterday’s celebration: we celebrate the myriad ways St. Paul’s faith has increased in her encounters with God’s promises; we celebrate how those promises have been embraced and passed down in times of waiting and times of joy; we celebrate how we still come together to share in love, worship, song, and sacrament, surrounded in the promise of new life in Christ. Thanks be to God! In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
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