Sermons

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 7th October at 10am

Lesley Ashton
Readings: 2 Timothy 1. 1-14, Luke 17. 5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, 'Make our faith greater'

We might understand this request better if we had read the previous verses in this chapter. In them Jesus has warned his disciples to do nothing that will cause another to fall into sin, to rebuke a another Christian who does sin but also to forgive each sinner who repents even if they sin against you seven times in one day. These expectations that Jesus has laid down demonstrate how demanding our calling is as Christians.

No wonder the disciples cry out 'Increase our faith,', The disciples are being asked to follow a path that demonstrates their ability to love the sinner, a willingness to be unpopular and to rebuke those who are sinful, a self awareness that enables them to think before they speak or act and to be aware of anything they might do that would cause another to stumble or fall into sin.

All of these demands made by Christ must have felt impossible to live up to and they remain awesome to us today. So the cry of our hearts goes up.' Increase our faith give us the strength to follow this path of radical obedience'!

In many situations and circumstances I am sure we long for more faith, we watch others whose faith appears to be stronger or deeper than our own and wonder how they have managed to acquire it. We would like to collect up a reservoir of faith so that when the dry or challenging times come we have a resource to draw upon. It a bit like stocking up the freezer so we are ready for the unexpected guest or when we are busy we know that there is something on standby that we can go and access.

The danger of this approach is that we believe it is all down to us, if we only have more of or enough of the commodity of faith then we shall be fine. After all life is like that isn't it? Savings in the bank help us to feel secure, work hard and we can play hard, we get out of life what we put into it. In the end it's all up to our effort.

Jesus said, 'If you had faith as big as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree. Pull yourself up by the roots and plant yourself in the sea and it would obey you.' What Jesus is saying is that faith is not about quantity. Its not like an exam when after the event we might say 'I didn't revise enough or after a football match, we didn't keep our eye on the ball. In Luke's gospel, faith is always related to God and God's actions in Jesus. Faith is being open to God's power. And so we actually only need the tiniest amount of faith, faith as minute as a speck of dust because our faith is not in ourselves but in God.

This is why the smallest amount of faith can accomplish amazing things. This is the sort of faith that is trusting in God's strength and in God's power. The way Jesus phrases his question, 'If you had faith' suggests that the apostles still had to acquire even this tiny amount of faith. But when they have it they will understand its sufficiency, for the economics of God's kingdom are not those of the world..

What a relief, we don't have to dredge up enough faith for amazing things to happen, we don't have to hanker after the depths of faith that others seem to have acquired, we simply need to have enough faith to trust God and to believe that it is in Him and through Him that we will be able to live and behave as people who belong to his kingdom.

But as Jesus suggest to his disciples actually having that tiny bit of faith is something that needs to be acquired. In the second letter to Timothy, Paul reminds him of his faith, a sincere faith, the kind of faith that his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice also had. Timothy had obviously been brought up within a family of faith and what a gift that is, for when this is part of our experience we learn by example. I have a number of friends who travel very lightly having learnt from family example that God does and will provide. But the faith we have, even mustard seed sized faith must be our own faith, in the words of Paul, not by anything we have done but through the grace that has been revealed to us through Christ. Mustard sized faith also needs to be nurtured by regular prayer, by reading God's word, by receiving the holy sacraments of bread and wine., by spending time with others who love Christ and in whom Christ dwells.

Some of us have not been brought up in a family of faith and we have had to learn by experience to take that trembling step of faith and to trust God for the future. It is often when the chips are down when we have exhausted our own resources and strength that we have to simply turn to God.

Faith, mustard seed sized faith is I believe that turning towards God. It is not about signing up to a long scroll of what one should or must believe but of turning towards God who is already turned towards us and who has made room within Himself for us to dwell.

I don't know about you but some days I find the creed hard to say, what do all these words really mean when I am asked to affirm my faith. Can I really say all I am asked with deep conviction and sincerity? One wise vicar once said to me. There are some days when all I can say with real honesty is 'I believe'. But maybe these 'I believe' days are the days when God uses us and works through us most powerfully and profoundly because these are the days when we have to trust utterly in God's strength.

And I think these simple 'I believe ' days are also perhaps ones when we suddenly recognise that God believes in us. God believes in us not in any great list of our characteristics or in a long list of our accomplishments, nor in our wealth or our status. God believes in us, simply because he loves us, God believes in us because he has made us for himself because he longs to be in relationship with us.

I believe that these are the days, days when we recognise how beloved we are to God, that we will be longing to work for his kingdom and when those hard things he asks of us become not a burden but a joy.

Mustard seed sized faith our beginning and our end, our sufficiency and our liberation. It is all God requires of us; it is all He needs to bring in his kingdom. Amen

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay