Pentecost 19

Oct. 7, 2007
The Rev. David R. Hackett

From the prophet Habakkuk, “…the righteous live by their faith.” From the Psalmist, “Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him.”

From St. Paul, “But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust.” And from the apostles, “Increase our faith!” Do you suspect a theme in today’s scripture readings?

Rabindrinath Tagore, the Indian poet who wrote with such great insight and beauty, tells of a man who lived in a house on the edge of a great forested valley. Very early one morning he looked across the valley and saw a blazing golden door on the far side. Greatly excited, he set off from his own small house, made his way down the side of the valley, crossed the river that flowed through it, and then climbed up the other side, eagerly searching for the golden door. Eventually, late in the day, he arrived at a small, tumbledown shack, very much like his own house. Its solitary window was dark. Disappointed and very tired, he sat down to rest before beginning the long journey back home. He knew he had to hurry to beat the darkness that would quickly fall after sunset. Then something caught his eye. There on the far side of the valley from him, where he knew his own shack with its solitary window to be, was a great golden door blazing and beckoning and calling him home.

Most of us are like that seeker when it comes to how we understand, or misunderstand, our faith.

The apostles said to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” That’s the way St. Luke remembered and recorded it. Somehow I think it sounded something like, “Golly, I wish I had more faith!” Haven’t you said that? I have. Like the rest of us the apostles must have thought, “If I only had more faith, then I’d be able to do what the Lord says.” Peter, drying off in the boat, surely said, “If I only had more faith, I’d walk on water…longer!” Don’t we sometimes say to ourselves, “If I only had more faith I wouldn’t be anxious”? “If I only had more faith I wouldn’t lose my temper.” Or, “…I’d be more patient with the kids, or my wife, my husband, my partner.” And when the apostles ask him to increase their faith he doesn’t give them the answer the way you might expect. He doesn’t say, “Why sure, there you go, have some more faith!” He doesn’t give them a crash course on “getting and keeping more faith.” He doesn’t say read the Bible more, worship at the synagogue regularly, give more to they synagogue when you get your pledge card. He didn’t say any of those things. In effect he said, “Start where you are, with what you have.” As the seeker of the golden door came to realize that the golden door was set in the shabby walls of his own shack, so we need to discover that we start with the faith we have. Even if it is small, like a mustard seed, it will be enough. Start with what you have. You just might have more faith than you think. And God will use what you have.

Sometimes we don’t think we have much faith because we’re operating out of a wrong idea of faith. Faith is not knowledge. Faith is not standing up and saying the Creed after this sermon. To have faith is not to give assent to a certain set of propositions about God. For example, I have faith in my wife. My faith in her isn’t because I know things about her: her height, weight, age…; I know those things, but that’s not why I believe in her. The reason I have faith in her is that I trust her. To have faith means to have trust. To have faith in God means that you trust God.

Faith does not consist in the belief that we are saved. It consists in the belief that we are loved. Do you believe that God loves you? If you do, then you have the beginning of faith. That’s where you start.

And something else: recognize that faith is a gift from God. Nobody comes to deep faith by trying to believe in God. Faith is the movement of the soul, open to and caught up by grace. Faith isn’t forced, it is received. It is given by the Spirit who arouses in us the desire for God, and then leads us to Christ. So, faith is a gift. And that gift begins being given in baptism, because it is in baptism that we receive the Holy Spirit who gives us the gift of faith. And just as in baptism we start small and grow in faith, faith itself starts small and grows within us.

And know this: faith is not just an act of an individual. Faith grows and flourishes in community. We are art and parcel of the collective faith of this community called Church. To be “in Christ” means to be in his Body. It is within the church that my faith grows and is nourished. I’m sure you’ve had the same experience as I have. There are times when my trust, my faith is less than strong. And it’s at moments like that when I lean on another fellow Christian. That’s why we are here in this congregation called St. John’s. Your faith feeds my faith; and I pray my faith feeds your faith. The Christian community calls members of the body to a mutual interdependence, to a solidarity, to a mutual commitment to the Gospel of Christ, and a common reverence for one another as sisters and brothers in Christ.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed something I do when I’m administering the bread to you at Communion. I hold the bread before you as I say, “The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.” I’m doing that, not just to show the Body of Christ to you, but to imprint on me that I see you through Christ and I reverence you as my sister and brother in him.

The first article of the Christian faith, the Christian trust, is “God loves you; God loves me.” That is the foundation of faith. Everything else stems from God’s love of us. As St. John said, “We love because God first loved us.” Do you believe that? If so, that is the faith, that is the trust to begin with. You are worthy of God’s love. You are beloved.

Let that sink in this morning. You are worthy of God’s love. You are his beloved. Let that sink into your soul. And then let that faith, and its consequences, grow. Ask God now, and each day, to renew your faith, to experience afresh God’s love, and your loving response.

Start with what you have. Even with a tiny bit of trust, a tiny bit of faith, God can do wonders. And then rejoice over the gift you’ve been given. And live your life in thanksgiving for the gift of faith. Amen.