Sermon for Proper 22C RCL October 6, 2013
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our
faith!" 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.
"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'? 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'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 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!'"
“The apostles said to the Lord “Increase our faith!”” How many of us have said the same thing or
something very similar. Such as “Lord give
me strength to get thru this rough spot.”
And of course most of us add a bargain into the mix and promise to do
something in return. If I get strength/faith/courage
– then I will go to church/give money to the poor or some other promise. This passage from Luke does nothing to
comfort us in those moments when we lack faith.
Look at Jesus’ answer to his closest followers. ““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.” It is not
the answer we want. It sounds like Jesus
is telling the Apostles that they have no faith. After all the mustard seed is very small and
apparently they don’t even have that much faith because they can’t uproot the
trees. One of the preachers I follow
commented that he feels that this is Jesus being sarcastic.[1] Perhaps so. But either way it is not what we modern day
apostles and disciples want to hear in the gospel. Where is the good news in that response. We want Jesus to reassure his followers that
they have faith. We want to read of
Jesus giving them the secret of faith.
In this age of self help books and google we want answers. We do not want sarcastic responses or put
downs.
This is hard. Especially
as it comes after a series of hard sayings and parables that we have been
reading the last few weeks. We, like the
apostles have been traveling with Jesus the past few weeks on the journey to
Jerusalem and we have heard the answer to the rich young man that the must give
away all that he has. Jesus told us
several weeks ago that we must hate mother and father, brother and sister to be
able to follow him. We heard the crazy
parable about going after the one sheep and throwing a party after finding a
lost coin. Then we had the parable of
the dishonest steward who is praised by Jesus for being dishonest. And just last week we had the story of the
rich man and Lazarus and the great uncross-able abyss between the damned and
the saved. So it is no wonder that the
apostle’s want an increase in faith. All
that Jesus has been saying seems to set the bar very high to be one of his
followers. It is not easy. So too it is with us. It is not always easy to follow God and to do
the right thing. We want faith. But what
is faith? Faith is not the opposite of
doubt. Faith is not about believing
every clause in the Nicene Creed that we will recite after the sermon. Faith is being in relationship with God. And the disciple have that relationship with
Jesus. They don’t need more. They just
need what they have.
There is good news in the story.
The good news is that Jesus is telling them that they really
do have enough faith. Faith is about
relationship and trust.
The second part of our gospel reading is the good news but
it is hard for us to unpack. When we
hear stories of slaves and masters our automatic response is to recoil from
slavery. So this story of Jesus telling
us to be faithful slaves makes us recoil.
Here again we want Jesus to come to the slaves rescue not to tell us
that the slave needs to be a good slave.
So how is this good news???
If we can get past our own reaction to slavery and unpack the story we
can hear Jesus telling the Apostles and us that we don’t need to have super
faith. We don’t have to be super
heroes. When we go about our daily lives
and acknowledging our relationship with God and with each other we are showing
that we do have faith. Faith that truly
is strong enough to uproot trees. I
don’t always believe that I have enough faith but I do.
Several years ago when I helped facilitate a series on
spiritual gifts the class took a spiritual gifts assessment test. It is like the personality tests that some of
you may have taken. It asks a series of
questions and the answers are supposed to help you identify your spiritual
gifts. One of the people who took the
class said that the test was wrong. That
they did not have the gift that the survey said they did. When I asked what was the wrong gift was the
answer was “Faith”. We all said “no it
is right. You have more faith than anyone
we know.”
Faith can be one of those attributes that we can’t see in
ourselves. Others will see our faith
before we can. When we look in the
mirror we have a tendency to see our faults and not our gifts. We are too critical. Just like the apostles could not see their
faith. On the journey to Jerusalem Jesus
seems to set the bar high. But that is
not what is happening. Jesus is pointing
out that we can do more than we think we can especially when we are in
community. When we are in communion with
God and in community with each other we can do more than we think we can. Each of us has a different mix of gifts and
talents. Our call from Jesus is to
exercise our faith and trust that we have the gifts to transform our
world.
Whether we recognize it our not we do
have faith. The people of St. Paul’s
have shown over and over again that we have faith. Like the Letter from Paul to Timothy we too
can be grateful for the faith of our spiritual ancestors. When we look around
this church there is a wonderful tapestry of faith. The faith of the early pioneers of our state
and of our church. The Stanford’s and
the Crocker’s. The power of the early
years of the railroad. The church had
the faith to keep going in the 60’s when
a prior Bishop put a priest in-charge here to close the place down because all
we were good for was a center for social programs that would be better off in
other buildings.
More recently this congregation showed faith
that we could find a way to do ministry without a full time clergy person. The congregation – with some mix of fear and
trepidation – had faith that we are meant to be on this corner of 15th
and J streets as a beacon of God’s love to the community that surrounds us and
to those who come to us. And we do that
with each of us claiming our spiritual gifts to help bring God’s loving reign
to fruit in full partnership with the clergy.
We are embarking on a scary and
wonderful chapter where your vestry and other leaders of this congregation have
faith that we can bring the resources to continue and expand our ministry
thorough the New Dollars/New Partners program.
Yesterday the group of us that are taking the New Dollars/New Partners
training worked at looking at the assets that we have to offer to others and
the relationship assets that we – as individuals and as the church can offer to
others in order to expand our ministries.
We can see a time when we have partners
who cherish this building and the work we do just as much as our members
do. They may cherish the musical
acoustics, or the historic nature of our building and our relationship to early
California history, or our ability to welcome all people – and I do mean all –
into our midst. These partners can help
us continue to be a beacon of God’s love to his creation. It is the faith that we can open our doors to
people as a sanctuary of peace, prayer and love in the midst of a crazy and
sometimes destructive society. We can do
this because we are in relationship with God.
A God who sees good in all of creation and has faith in us to be
partners in bringing God’s loving reign to fruition.
I invite you to see the faith that you
have and to exercise it! Next time you
look in the mirror see that faith glowing within you. It is there.
I see it in you. And then join
God in helping to bring his reign of Love to fruition. And help us in making St. Paul’s a beacon of
love and hope and a sanctuary for all of God’s people.
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