Pentecost XIX

By The Rev. Martha Frances+
Year C, Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 22
7 October 2007 

Text: Luke 17: 5-10; 2 Timothy 1: 1-14; Other Readings: Lamentations 1: 1-6; Psalm 137

      I realize I'm dating myself now, but when I was a girl, my friends & I wore around our necks a chain with a clear little plastic ball containing, right in the middle, a seed which we took for a mustard seed.  Some of us even knew today's biblical passage & that somehow, that crystal ball had to do with faith & the hope that it would grow in us.  In today's gospel, we hear the apostles pleading to Jesus to increase their faith.  

      At this point, Jesus has turned from the larger crowds to his disciples traveling with him toward Jerusalem &, in the passage just prior to today's, has just told them they should not be cause for anyone else to stumble.  Then he gives instructions that they should forgive their sisters & brothers 7 times a day.  Thus, it's not surprising that the disciples cry out to Jesus, "Increase our faith!"  Afraid such exemplary behavior is close to impossible, they plead for enough faith to fulfill Christ's expectations of them. 

      Who among us thinks we can behave in a Christ-like manner unless we are given some measure of strength or faith that we don't already have?  When we sing this morning, "My faith looks up to Thee," we say "May thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire." Indeed, we've already sung in the sequence hymn, "Who trusts in God's unchanging love builds on a rock that nought can move."  As one parishioner told me this week, it's awesome what we proclaim in the hymns we sing; God give us grace to trust the faith we proclaim through song.

      Yet how many of us are also secretly relieved when we feel like we don't have what it takes to do God's will?  How many of us think to ourselves, "Whew!  I'm sure glad I don't have the brains or the money or the time to go be a minister or a missionary!"  Well, the message in all the lessons today is that we're ALL called to respond to God's love & mercy by behaving like Christ 24/7.  And it's not about what we think we're capable of doing.  It's about God's equipping us to carry out his plans.

      How does Jesus respond to the disciples' plea to "Increase our faith"?  He holds out a mustard seed to them & says, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed (which you do), then you could uproot that big old tree over there & plop it down in the middle of the lake so it will grow there!"  OR  as Eugene Peterson puts it in his paraphrase, "But the Master said, 'You don't need more faith.  There is no more or less in faith.  If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a poppy seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, "Go jump in the lake," & it would do it.' " 

      Jesus is telling his disciples—& he's telling us today—that we already have what it takes.  We don't have the luxury to sit around on our be-hinds & be-moan the fact that Hope is not the size nor does it have the wealth of St. Martin's.  Nope!  If we're gonna call ourselves Christians, we have to get up, brush ourselves off, & start exercising the gifts that God gives us.  After all, Jesus' disciples started out as a little band of men & women who took only their knapsacks with them as they began spreading the gospel throughout the known world.  Persecution & dislocation were often the means God used for the rest of the ancient world to hear & heed the Gospel message.  In contrast to the despair of the Israelites who lamented their exile in Babylon in the Lamentations' passage & the psalm today, those disciples—equipped as they were with the gifts of ministry which Jesus was teaching them in today's Gospel passage—changed the world as they knew it.  

      As an aside, I shudder as we read the last part of Psalm 137 today for the retributive justice the psalmist recommends in paying the Babylonians back for what they have done by dashing their little ones against the rock.  Such revenge is a far cry from Jesus' admonition that we must learn to forgive one who has wronged us 7 times daily, isn't it?  Yet, when terrible things happen to us, we often have to get through horribly vengeful thoughts before we can come to any kind of forgiveness.  The psalmist gives us permission to cry out to God who is big enough to take our most desperate cries of pain as we work our way through to loving our enemies.  God loves & accepts us even in our worst moments.

      I've heard it said that such faith as we're urged to develop in our scriptures is a verb.  Well, I think in this passage, faith is more like a muscle.  If you don't use it, it'll atrophy.  It'll just die, or at least shrink 'till it's no use.  I'm not as young as I used to be, & each morning, I have to get up & do some stretches so I'll be limber enough to get ready to come up here for worship or for other work.  I have to get out & walk with my little dog Sebastian each evening so we both get our exercise.  Faith is like that; we have to use it regularly, to behave like we have faith in God in order to expand that faith. 

      Further, I don't think Jesus used the mustard seed image by chance.  Remember that he's moving toward Jerusalem at this point in his life, & he has a pretty good idea he is facing death when he gets there.  When we think about it, a seed when it is planted has to end its career as a seed before anything new can come of it.  Likewise, Jesus had to die before the resurrection could occur & the messianic age could arrive.  Trees are often related to death & resurrection biblically.  Humans got in trouble at creation by means of the fruit of a tree, we are saved by the death of Jesus on a tree, and we live in the New Jerusalem under the shade of the tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.  As long as we're just hanging on to life, Jesus can't do anything for us.  We have to let go, give up, & give it over to Jesus in order for our new creation—even more creative than the first—to begin. 

      When Danita, Cornelius, Melanie & I were in Los Angeles for the multicultural training in August, we kept being confronted with these images of the necessity of death before new and healthier life could occur, & I really didn't want to hear it.  After all, I've coped with death quite a bit over the past couple of years—both my husband Bill's & many other kinds of loss—& the idea of the old having to pass away for the new to come here at Hope seemed awfully radical.  Yet the past several months have been just that movement for Hope as well as for me.  Even the old air conditioner had to die in order for us to "get" that it's time to invest in the future with a new one. 

      We at Hope are examining much of "the way things have always been" to decide if the tried & true ways still serve us well.  In many cases, we're seeing that we must find new ways of being church in order to bloom forth as a 21^st Century creation.  In coming out of my own denial, I realized it was time for us to grieve whatever our past losses are that we can't go back & reclaim in order for there to be space in our hearts & heads & souls for Christ to plant new things.  Thus, we began the Growing Gracefully through Grief series last week.  It's not too late for you to join the good-sized group which has already begun.  Grief facilitator Dixie Mullins will begin a 7-week series on Tuesday evening the 16^th at 7:00 p.m. to gain peace with our past & open us to new possibilities, personally & as a church community.  Please come & be part, no matter what your grief or griefs may be.

      As I began to look at the promise of new life in the gospel, the pain of that which was lost described in Paul's letter to Timothy.  Paul tells his young disciple that he can't slack off just because the excitement & glow he received when Paul laid hands on him has faded some.  Timothy has experienced persecution just as Paul has, so he encourages Timothy not to lose heart.  He commends Timothy's mother's & even his grandmother's faith, urging him to "rekindle the gift of God that is within you." What do we rekindle? A fire—right?  We take a stick & stir the embers so the fire will flame back up. 

      You have several other opportunities at Hope this fall to receive fuel for the fire of rekindled spirituality.  We already had Sunday & Wednesday worship, Sunday morning Christian formation for all ages including adult Bible Study, prayer & study with our Daughters of the King & Brotherhood of St. Andrew & most recently with our newly reorganized Episcopal Church Women.  Elizabeth provides Bible Study for the Youth About Christ weekly as well as other activities for them.  Also, THIS Wednesday precisely at noon we'll begin a Brown Bag Community Bible Study, lasting about an hour & giving those who prefer daytime the opportunity to personalize the scripture for the following Sunday.

      What Paul told his disciple Timothy, he also tells us today.  Paul says, "God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power & love & self-discipline."  You see, what Paul is telling Timothy, Jesus also told his disciples.  Paul says, "God saved us & called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose & grace." 

      One of the questions in the Catechism is "What is the ministry of the laity?" The answer is, "The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ & his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be;  &, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world; & to take their place in the life, worship, & governance of the Church."  (Book of Common Prayer, page 855)

      First, you're to represent Christ & his Church, to bear witness to Christ wherever you go.  If you re-present someone, it means that you act as much like him or her as you possibly can.  To bear witness to Christ is to behave as much like Christ as you know how to do.  I think this is one place Paul's advice to Timothy fits our situation entirely.  Paul asks Timothy to join with him in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God.  Do we really believe we can rely on God's power in our everyday lives?  If so, we need to act like it 24/7.

      Next we're told we're to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world according to the gifts given to each of us.  Reconciliation means we're to find ways to be at peace with one another, breaking down the barriers between us & other people, even those people who are very different from us.  Reconciliation means we're to listen to each other, trying to see someone else's viewpoint, or at least to accept that they have a right to their own opinions.  Reconciliation means we're to pray for those people who trouble us the most as well as for those whom it is easy to love. 

      I think it's interesting that the lay people's ministry in the larger world is mentioned even before taking "their place in the life, worship, & governance of the Church."  Participation in church activities is certainly important, but our behavior out in the world should be consistent with our work in the church.

      Since we are a Christian community, we are called to be part of the development & the mission of our church.  It takes all of us to reach out to those who most need our mission &, in so doing, we also grow in our own faith, sort of like we were talking about in the first part of this sermon, exercising our faith muscles, trusting that mustard seed of faith we've been given as gift from God.  So we're called to be Christ-like regardless of whether we are rewarded or even if we're persecuted.  Why?  Because acting on our faith is how we're created to behave.  This month we're hearing a lot about our giving our whole lives to Christ—time, talent, & treasure.  May we act boldly & then say, "we have done only what we ought to have done!"