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Faith

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A Sermon for 6 October 2019 – World Communion Sunday

A reading from the gospel of Luke 17:5-10. Listen for God’s word to us.

“The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? 8 Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

            If I asked you to rate your faith on a scale from 1 to 10, what number would you assign? 1 would be terrible. No faith at all. 10 would be amazing! Your zinging along all day with a depth of connection, an intensity of joy, a peace that palpably surrounds your entire being. One reason I so love the 16th Century Spanish mystic and nun Teresa of Ávila, who routinely was seen levitating by the sisters at daily prayer with her. Is that for all the rapture for God that Teresa experienced in her body and soul, she also admitted there were times each day when God, who she referred to as her Beloved, felt so incredibly elusive. She knew the spiritual life was about ecstatic connection with the Divine. AND (as she said) doing the work of washing the pots and pans in the kitchen. The highs and the lows and every day in between. Teresa counseled Christians to expect and welcome it all. So that if I asked you right now to assign a number to your faith, I hope it wouldn’t be 1 – though some moments it might be. And maybe it’s 10 – but I highly doubt it’s that way 24/7 for anyone, though hopefully it’s close at least sometimes for most.

The gospel of Luke records this funny little scene where the disciples of Jesus ask him to increase their faith. They want a number closer to 10 and further away from the no faith of number 1. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ saying about the mustard seed of faith comes right after his time on the mountain when he transfigured into the glowing rapture of God alongside what appeared to be Moses and Elijah. Then, when Jesus and his disciples Peter, James, and John come down from that experience; a man falls at Jesus’ feet begging his son be healed. The father explains that Jesus’ disciples were unable to help. So, Jesus reminds of the power of even a mustard seed of faith. But in the gospel of Luke, Jesus just had finished teaching his disciples about the seriousness of their role. The weight of their responsibility as his followers so that they dare not cause another to stumble. The magnitude of graciousness he expects so that any who turn from their wrongdoing are released through the gift of forgiveness. Jesus is going to go on to tell them a parable about slaves, servants as the Greek term more typically is translated, just doing what’s commanded. Getting on with the work their Master tells them to do. ‘Cuz that’s what servants do! As a result of all Jesus is teaching, the disciples gawk: “Lord, increase our faith!” They might as well have been saying, “You want us to live in this world how? To be mindful day in and day out of the effect we may have on those who surround so that none of them ever stumble because of us? Not expecting some great reward but getting on with it all anyway? Like, seriously Jesus, following you is like that???” He better increase their faith! And while he’s at it, be sure he gives an extra dose too to each one of us. Because in light of that vision for his disciples, most of us likely feel like we’re going to need a whole lot more faith!

Faith is a curious thing. In the Greek of the gospel, the word we translate as faith is πίστιν (pisten). Though many often think more of faith as a body of content we must know about God, pisten connotes trust. The Apostle Paul reminds beautifully in his first letter to the Corinthians that his own proclamation was not in lofty words. Not in some huge body of human knowledge. He writes that he wanted their faith to rest not on that of his own doing, but on the power of God (1 Cor. 2:5). It’s the same direction Jesus points his disciples when they ask for increased faith. Alluding to the power of God which spoke creation into being, Jesus tells his friends: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (Luke 17:6). In other words, what we do for God as a result of our faith is not dependent on how much of it we have. It’s about who God is. One biblical commentator puts it like this: “The true miracle of Jesus’ saying is not about overcoming natural laws (by doing things like uprooting mulberry trees), but about the presence of true faith, a faith that takes hold of the God with whom ‘nothing [is] impossible,’ [Luke 1:37] (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4, Margit Ernst-Habib, p. 142). One tiny shred of faith is enough for us to do the amazing! Not because of our tiny shred of faith. But because of God!

I received an email this week from a film publisher who took a moment to update his subscribers about what’s been going on in his ministry and life. This dedicated soul, who so creatively expands others’ hearts and minds with the content he makes available for spiritual formation, poured out the personal challenges of his past several months to let subscribers know the experiences that will impact the direction his future publications will take. He closed his update with two jarring little words. He wrote: Stay Weak. “Stay Weak,” I thought! Who wants to do that?! The culture all around us is about strength. Power. Might. No one wants to be a weakling. Those who are weak are pushed to the side. Trampled. Kept out. We pump iron to feel strong. We stockpile missiles to feel strong. We swagger over others in order to feel strong. Stay weak? In a doubletake, what the film publisher’s challenges must certainly be revealing flashed in my mind.

Jesus wants us to know we do not have to be strong to do God’s work. Remember the Apostle Paul’s great affliction? The thorn in his flesh never fully revealed to history, but that kept him from “being too elated?” (2 Cor. 12:7). He begged and pleaded and prayed for that weakness to be taken from him. Finally he heard: “My grace is sufficient for you, for (my) power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). At last, Paul came to know what Jesus had been teaching all along. We know too – though sometimes we forget. God chooses the weak to work in this world. That which is last according to culture’s standards is first with God. Little is enough. So that who God is, not who we are, will shine. So that how God is able, not how we are, will be magnified. A mustard-seed-of-faith is plenty for the work of God to be accomplished! Not because of us. But because of God! One biblical commentator writes: “When the disciples ask for greater faith, knowing that difficult times lie ahead of them, Jesus responds by asking for something small: a trusting faith the size of a mustard seed, so that the faithful follower of Jesus might not look at herself, judging her own faith, relying on its strength or being scared by its weakness, but look instead at the One she follows” (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4, Margit Ernst-Habib, p. 142). Consider instead: God.

The next time you wonder if the amount of faith you have is enough for anything much to happen, remember the lesson of the mustard seed. It’s not about us and how much faith we might have. It’s all about God.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (All rights reserved.)

I Hope You’re Praying

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A Sermon for 28 July 2019 – 7th Sunday after Pentecost

A reading from the gospel of Luke 11:1-13. I realize this version might sound unlike what we pray each week; but listen for God’s word to us in this reading that tells it a bit differently than the other gospels.

“Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” 5 And Jesus said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. 9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

How do you pray?

Do you get up really early in the morning to get a little quiet time with God before all the noise of the day begins? Do you lie in bed at night and tick off a list of loved ones who need God’s help? Moments in the day for which you know you need grace. Cares you want to lay down so you can drift to sleep in peace. Do you pray while you walk – each pound of the pavement a prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty of this world, a shift in your circumstances, the people in your lives for whom you are absolute grateful? Do you steal away to a favorite spot during lunch to leave the mess of your job behind – if even for a few quick minutes? Do you say the same thing every time – or vary it, at least a little? Maybe even reveal greater concerns as you go deeper in your life with God? Do you pray through music? Movement? Or maybe even paint? Allowing the creative impulsive of your body to open up before the Great Creator of it all? Do you pray through the words of Scripture – using the Psalms or prophets? Or do you just turn your heart and mind inward in silence to connect deeply with the God residing within?

In Feasting on the Word, one commentator describes his experience of prayer. He writes: “In Catholic school I learned four reasons to pray: to praise God, to thank God, to ask God’s pardon, and to ask God for what I needed, or even wanted – provided the prayer ended with ‘however, not my will but yours be done,’ like Jesus at Gethsemane. Later, while becoming a member of the Redemptorists, a Roman Catholic religious order,” the commentator writes: “I was taught mental prayer, to meditate and contemplate. . . . More recent voices that influenced my attitude toward prayer,” the commentator continues, “are Thomas Merton, who spoke of prayer as the communion of our freedom with God’s ultimate freedom; and Anne Lamott, who wrote that she has two basic prayers: ‘Thank you, thank you!’ and “Help me, help me, help me” (Feasting on the Word Yr. C, Vol. 3, James A. Wallace, C.SS.R.; p. 287, 289). The commentator’s words bring to mind Lamott’s book: Help! Thanks! Wow! The Three Essential Prayers.

Boy Erased tells the story of one young man’s persistent prayer. “Lord, make me pure,” the boy fearfully would pray every time a thought came that his religious community had taught him was sinfully wrong. Even though the Apostle Peter learned the lesson way back in the first days of the Church, as is recorded in Acts of the Apostles: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 10:15b). Still, “Lord, make me pure,” the boy erased would pray in trepidation when he did things that seemed natural to his body, but he knew were considered perverse to the deacons and elders of his small, deep South church. I’m not sure the major motion picture, released last year, as clearly paints the boy’s fervent, fright-filled prayer as does the biographic memoir written by Garrard Conley, the boy whose parents sent him off for the conversion therapy that today is considered by most not only unethical but entirely unscientific. In fact, while Garrard only endured about 8 days of the brain-washing therapy, at the release of the book nearly fifteen years later; Conley reports he still has been unable to connect with any sort of loving God. The experience of being raised in such a constricting, fundamentalist church then shipped off by those very same people in order to be changed from something God had made him to be has robbed Conley of faith. It’s left him, and so many others who were made to undergo the fear-based therapy, isolated in abiding ways. Garrard’s anxious prayers were persistent. But never answered as he desired; for he got prayer all wrong.

Jesus is clear on that. His disciples want to know how to pray and what does Jesus teach them? We’ll never know why the version told in the gospel of Luke is shorter than the version told in the gospel of Matthew. What we do get from the whole of the gospel of Luke is almost a continuous reminder to pray. To ground our lives in deep communion with God, as does the Jesus portrayed throughout the gospel. What’s more, though Luke’s Lord’s Prayer jumps right from “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come” to the needs we have for daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from difficult trials; the gospel of Luke paints the picture of a way to pray that is all about communion with Love. “Father,” Jesus says. “Abba,” in the Greek which is more like addressing God as Daddy. Tender. Dear. As his follow up stories declare, the Presence of constant care that is way better than any example of the most gracious parent who certainly would provide every last need for their cherished child. That’s how to pray, Jesus is teaching – at least as the gospel of Luke presents the Lord’s Prayer. In the attitude of – while using words that underscore our full trust in the God who would do anything for us to know the depths of Love, that is indeed God.

Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, tells of a great saint of the church who knew exactly how to pray. If you’re not familiar with Teresa of Ávila, she’d be a great woman of faith to meet. She’s accredited as saying: “The important thing is not to think much, but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love” (Wild Mercy, Mirabai Starr; Sounds True, 2019, p. 17). Teresa was born in the early 16th century in Spain, not too long after the Spanish expulsion of Jews and Muslims in 1492. Her own paternal grandparents dared to convert from their ancestral Jewish upbringing to the church-enforced Roman Catholicism that was to be practiced if families wanted to remain in their homeland. These were the early days of the three-hundred-and-fifty-year span of the Spanish Inquisition. When it was discovered Teresa grandparents secretly still clung to the Jewish practice of welcoming the Sabbath, the whole family – including the boy that would grow to be Teresa’s father – was drug through the city every Friday for seven weeks as others spit on them and hurled anti-Semitic insults while church officials forced the whole family to kneel at every Catholic shrine in the city. As a result, Teresa’s father became a staunch Catholic who would never give a shred of suspicion for his own children to undergo such shaming humiliation. Having endured the death of her mother at 12 years of age, Teresa grew into a bit of a wild young woman. At long last, her father sent her away to a convent in hopes the sisters would settle her down, then return her home as a proper civilized woman who’d be ready to marry and begin having babies. To the shock of all, Teresa discovered refuge in the quiet spaciousness of contemplative prayer during the liturgy of the daily offices. She declared to her father she was staying and determined to make her vows among the sisters.

Decades would pass – the routine of monastic life a challenge for Teresa – until one day late in her thirties, Teresa deeply connected in the convent hallway with a statue of Christ. The figure was bound and crowned with thorns. With eyes fixed upon the eyes staring back at her, the floodgate of Teresa’s heart opened. She saw the unconditional love of Christ. The vulnerability. The intimacy. It’s told: Teresa flung herself on the hallway floor and refused to get up until promised that Christ “would never let her forget how deeply she loved him” (Ibid., p. 20). Thus began Teresa’s profound union with God. What she went on to describe as the highest form of prayer. “’The Prayer of Quiet,’ in which the soul simply rests in the presence of the Friend and any trace of separation between them evaporates” (Ibid., pp. 23-24). Isn’t it beautiful? For Teresa, God had become the Beloved. Her own soul the lover.

Teresa’s way of prayer seems like what Jesus was teaching in his prayer. That we enter into communion with the tender Parent whose name even deserves praise. Whose reign of Love we long for most. Who we can trust fully to provide all we need: food for our bodies. Nourishment for our souls. Forgiveness for our failings. Deliverance in times of our deepest distress. Dropping any need for moralizing our own and others behavior, we’re reminded. Whether we have the proper words to define God and God’s demanding Way. Jesus teaches us to pray simply, as Teresa does. By stepping into the arms of the Beloved to allow the intimacy discovered there to inspire us “to harvest the fruits of love and feed the hungry world” (Ibid., p. 24).

No matter the manner in which we do it, I hope each and every one of us prays like that. Steeped in communion with God, the Lover of our soul; the Divine Parent waiting to hear us all.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (All rights reserved.)