Not a Thing

Scripture: Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary 27), A.D. 2013 C

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

Our readings this morning all deal with faith—not so much what faith is, in a philosophical sense, but rather what it is to live a life of faith.

And right off the bat, with the words of the prophet Habakkuk, one thing is made clear:

the life of faith is not easy! “O Lord,” calls out the prophet, “how long shall I cry for help, and You will not listen?  Or cry to You, ‘Violence!’ and You will not save?  Why do You make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?  Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.  So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous—therefore judgment comes forth perverted.”

Now that all ought to sound rather familiar.  Not only does it accurately reflect the state of our world today—still broken, still violent, still unjust after all these thousands of years—but it also seems to be the most oft-repeated criticism of Christianity. “If God is good, then why do bad things happen?” demand the godless of the world.  Habakkuk demands this as well, but with a notable difference: Habakkuk trusts that God will answer.  And answer, indeed, He does. “There is still a vision for the appointed time,” sayeth the Lord.  “If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come. It will not delay.  Look at the proud!  Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.”

All people suffer in this broken world.  All people know, deep within, that Creation is not as it ought to be, not as it was meant to be.  If we have no faith, then our only recourse is mockery, despair, and nihilism.  But this is not so with the righteous. The righteous have been given faith enough to trust the promises of God.  And those promises unceasingly insist that God is not deaf to our pleas, nor indifferent to our plight, but that He is at work even now restoring Creation. The day shall come—is coming as we speak—when Death and Hell shall be no more, when God shall wipe away the tears from every eye, when even Heaven itself shall descent to Earth and God will dwell with Man.  That’s how it was in the beginning; that’s how we were intended to live; and that’s how it will be again.

Until then, the righteous live by faith, knowing that God is with us in Jesus Christ and in His Church.  Bad things will happen; they always do.  Injustice will run rampant.  We will suffer terrible losses, and we will mourn.  But we are never alone in this. Nor do we believe that such sufferings will have the last word.  Ultimately, we know that God wins, Creation is healed, and the dead all rise from the grave!  The end of our story has been written.  And this gives us the strength to live every day until the last rejoicing even when there seems nothing over which to rejoice. Indeed, the life of faith is the life of delight in God—even when we must endure disaster, disease, and uncertainty.  God is with us in these things, is with us even now, hard at work in Jesus Christ, Who is resurrecting all Creation.

The Psalmist agrees with Habakkuk.  “Do not fret because of the wicked,” he sings to reassure us.  “Trust in the Lord and do good… Take delight in the Lord, and He will give to you the desires of your heart… trust in Him, and He will act… Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices.  Refrain from anger and forsake wrath.  Do not fret—it leads only to evil.”

The life of faith, for the Psalmist, is again the life of patience, trust, and gratitude.  It is a life lived knowing that God will act, God is acting, and that God has the final say. And remember that these are the words of a psalm, so that they are not simply written for us, but they are sung to us.  The faithful sing happily even in the midst of trouble, and our world finds this quite baffling indeed.  But we find it quite delightful.

Continuing with our readings, we see that it is the same in every age.  A thousand years after the Psalmist’s lilting verses, St. Paul the Apostle writes a letter to his friend and fellow-worker Timothy extolling this very same life of faith. “Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner,” encourages Paul, “but join with me in suffering for the Gospel, relying on the power of God, Who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His own purpose and grace.

“This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, Who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. For this Gospel I was appointed a herald and apostle and teacher, and for this reason I suffer.  But I am not ashamed, for I know the One in Whom I have put my trust.”

Isn’t that remarkable?  Paul, writing from prison, speaks of captivity and persecution in union with life, immortality, and the light of the Gospel.  It’s almost as if eternal salvation and temporal troubles are inextricably intertwined. Not that we have to earn Jesus by being persecuted, mind you—Paul makes it clear that we are called not by our own works but according to Jesus’ purpose and grace.  Yet even the sufferings we have here and now have been transformed, resurrected, into reasons for celebration, simply knowing that our futures are assured and that our God loves us today and always!

Notice also how Timothy received this Good News of promise: through his grandmother and his mother, through the women of the Church.  The Gospel promise is not found in isolation, nor is the life of faith meant to be solitary. We are a communal people, a gathering of families, who together make up the many members of Christ’s Body the Church. God does not beam faith down to us upon the rays of the Sun, but passes it through the hands and voices of loved ones.  If we live a life of faith, we are never alone!  God is always with us. And He comes to us, for us, embodied in His people.

All this brings us at last to the truest and fullest way that God joins us in the life of faith: and that is in Jesus Christ, Who is Immanuel, “God-With-Us.” In our Gospel this morning, Jesus says, “If there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” In response to this, the disciples—who live, mind you, in an honor/shame culture that simply cannot imagine forgiving sin, let alone forgiving it seven times a day—call out to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” for this is a hard teaching indeed.

When the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, He says to them, truly I tell you, “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.” Now, I have to say, that sounds pretty cool—sort of like MacBeth, right? “Till Burnam wood comes to Dunsinane!” But the point of Jesus’ story, it seems, is to illustrate our own ridiculousness.  The very request that faith be increased, Jesus says, is a misguided notion. I think we all want more faith in time of crisis.  “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” But faith, for Jesus, is not a thing.  If it were, it would be so potent that even the tiniest speck of it would uproot entire forests. But faith is not separate from us.

Faith is in fact relational.  It doesn’t come in containers but is birthed through our relationships with God and with others.  It comes through mothers and grandmothers, through letters and songs, through the laying on of hands and the life of Christian community. It spans generations before us and stretches out to generations yet unborn. God doesn’t hand faith to us as an object, but lives a life of faith with us.  To have faith in God is to have reverence and love and trust in God.  To live in a community of faith is to have reverence and love and trust in God’s people, one to another. Thus, it does not matter how much faith we have, as if relationships could be quantified. What matters is in Whom we place our faith.

We have faith today because God has come to us, lives with us, in Spirit and in Word, in the waters of Baptism and the feast of the Lord’s Supper. We have faith because we have Christ!  And Christ’s own presence is what allows us to sing as we suffer, to endure hardship as no one else can, and to trust that our tears will be dried and all we’ve lost given new life. Faith, we are told, is inseparable from hope and from love.  So it’s only natural that when Christ lives with us, as He does in family and community, in this gracious and merciful life of faith, we freely bear fruits of charity and hope to share with all.

So don’t worry about the size of your faith. Don’t worry about how you’ll forgive your neighbor. “Do not fret—it leads only to evil.” Rather, trust in God and love your community. Jesus takes care of the rest.

Thanks be to Christ, Who is our life of faith.  In Jesus’ Name.  AMEN.

Prayers of the Church:

With the whole people of God in Christ Jesus, let us pray for the Church, for those in need, and for all of God’s Creation.

Almighty, everlasting God, renew Your whole Creation

           Wherever swift disaster strikes, restore our sure foundation

Encourage people to rebuild, the field plants to bloom

           Set the beasts to flourishing, and close the hungry tomb

So in the midst of chaos’ storm, a calm shall fill the air

           We cling to You, O Rock of faith; in Jesus—hear our prayer

Support the work of trailblazers in diplomacy

           Mute the drums of war and let the prisoners go free

Strengthen all Your peacemakers and those of healing art

           Relief we seek for those at risk in countries blown apart

We pray for Coptic Christians; free them from the fowler’s snare

           They suffer for the Gospel, Lord; in Jesus—hear our prayer

Bind the Church together as one Body in one Lord

           We stand our watch as sentinel, with prayers and works outpoured

Urge us to announce to others all Your grace has done

           By bringing us abundant life through Jesus Christ Your Son

Unite us with the saints whose souls aloft You gladly bear

           For mercy, grace, and life anew, in Jesus—hear our prayer

Lord, we pray for those we lift before You, both silently and aloud: for Dave, Mike, Pat, Chuck, and Lon; for those living with unforeseen diagnoses; for those celebrating new weddings and new births; for good government, which helps its citizens to be good; for our bishops; and for all who dare not pray to You.

Into Your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray

Trusting in Your mercy to light and guard our way.  AMEN.