October 3 Sermon (Proper 22)

“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.” – St. Augustine

These words of some 1600 years ago from St. Augustine, one of the pillars of Western Christian faith, remind us that faith is forward looking, hoping, ready to see before us what we believe in our hearts. But our first reading from Lamentations is depressing. It is a lament for the fall of Jerusalem and a loss of faith…

How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!

It is a writer’s reflection on what has befallen the chosen people. As we hear in the reading, it is a voice filled with desolation & despair…

Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place; The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter.

Indeed it is a bitter reflection on what has come to pass and it would seem that God has let it all happen. But in the midst of this is another voice, a faithful voice, a voice that says all is not bleak, God is still here. It is what we read together this morning from another part in Lamentations, words of waiting & hoping

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

They are familiar words to us. Often read as the first lesson at a funeral, they remind us that God is faithful & just. It is where this author has placed his hope. For with the Lord is salvation and with God we must wait for our redemption. But it is hard work. We look around and sometimes its hard to see God’s work, God’s mercies, God’s faithfulness. We see destruction & death, we see debt & hate, we feel in our bones that things are unsettled and we look to the future with nervous anticipation (much like the first author in Lamentations).

It was also true of the disciples, who eagerly asked Jesus to increase their faith. They had an inkling that rough times were ahead. But Jesus, as Jesus so often does, makes them see things in such a different light. Mustard Seed. Tiny specs. A good wind like we had just the other day would have easily scattered this seed. But if we had faith as tiny as this seed, we could move mountains said Jesus. For we are both called to live such faith as faithful servants, and we can with that faith do such things as would seem impossible. It reminds me of the words from a Franciscan Benediction,

"May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done."

It is that last piece that really resonates with this mustard seed faith Jesus is talking about, the faith of the voice in Lamentation full of hope and the words of St. Augustine: “Faith is to believe what you do not yet see…” And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

The difference we make is in living with our faith, which will lead us to life, to trust in that faith, reach out with that faith, even when we struggle to keep it when others cannot or will not see such faith in us. I think of Leo Tolstoy with his struggles with his own faith and as we hear from his Confession, it is on a journey of faith that he found it & life. In his words:

“"What more do you seek?" exclaimed a voice within me. "This is He. He is that without which one cannot live. To know God and to live is one and the same thing. God is life." "Live seeking God, and then you will not live without God." And more than ever before, all within me and around me lit up, and the light did not again abandon me… I returned to a belief in God, in moral perfection, and in a tradition transmitting the meaning of life. There was only this difference, that then all this was accepted unconsciously, while now I knew that without it I could not live. What happened to me was something like this:

I was put into a boat (I do not remember when) and pushed off from an unknown shore, shown the direction of the opposite shore, had oars put into my unpracticed hands, and was left alone. I rowed as best I could and moved forward; but the further I advanced towards the middle of the stream the more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my goal and the more frequently did I encounter others, like myself, borne away by the stream. There were a few rowers who continued to row, there were others who had abandoned their oars; there were large boats and immense vessels full of people. Some struggled against the current, others yielded to it. And the further I went the more, seeing the progress down the current of all those who were adrift, I forgot the direction given me. In the very centre of the stream, amid the crowd of boats and vessels which were being borne down stream, I quite lost my direction and abandoned my oars. Around me on all sides, with mirth and rejoicing, people with sails and oars were borne down the stream, assuring me and each other that no other direction was possible. And I believed them and floated with them. And I was carried far; so far that I heard the roar of the rapids in which I must be shattered, and I saw boats shattered in them. And I recollected myself. I was long unable to understand what had happened to me. I saw before me nothing but destruction, towards which I was rushing and which I feared. I saw no safety anywhere and did not know what to do; but, looking back, I perceived innumerable boats which unceasingly and strenuously pushed across the stream, and I remembered about the shore, the oars, and the direction, and began to pull back upwards against the stream and towards the shore.

That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God. And so the force of life was renewed in me and I again began to live.” (Part 12)

Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. It was true for St. Augustine, it was true for Leo Tolstoy. It is true for us too & that is mustard seed faith. And its in you and in its me. So we need not worry about increasing our faith, or if we have enough, we just need to live it, get in our boat and row. Amen.

Sermon: October 7

We could begin with the biblical plague that seemed to drop down on the Yankees pitchers on Friday night, or the salvation of the Red Sox by a child who caught a foul ball but instead I have a couple of images for you…

Superman's "S"

Batman's "Bat"

Just holding up the symbols and you knew the superheroes. We know them from childhood and they become part of our memories (comics, cartoons, TV). We watch new films of them and we still love them. Even with everything against them, the superheroes are able to stand up against evil and save the day. But as much as our culture loves the superhero, the warrior who wins the day, we don’t need superheroes.

We remember those whose heroic acts changed our world or saved the day, and so often did it in quiet, and simple acts. Those that paved the way for our better days. I think of…

Alvin York, a simple farmer from Tennessee, whose bravery in World War I, led him to become the most decorated soldier of that war, he helped turn the tide of the battle of Argonne Forest in France and whose nearly single handed bravery captured over 130 German soldiers and allowed the allied forces to continue the battle toward victory. He is best known because of the classic film, Seargent York, when Gary Cooper played him in the movie.

Or a Rosa Parks whose tired feet, led her to sit down and refuse to give up her seat to a white woman andgo sit in the back of the bus. Through this simple action of civil disobedience, she helped start the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and is often called the mother of the Civil Rights Movement.

Heroes of America who were not born in the limelight but who had a profound effect, and whose faith helped them in the struggle. We might think to be like them that we have to have a great faith that we need to ask like the disciples did, increase our faith, Lord. Let it be huge so we can do great things.

But when Jesus talked of faith, he doesn’t talk about it using the mighty sequoia or the redwoods of California, the great cedars of Lebanon or the great charter oak of CT.

No. He talks about faith as a mustard seed…

Jesus said, “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.”

Mustard Seed. Small. Tiny.

It is as if Jesus is not expecting huge faith from us, from which we would do superhuman feats of faith and goodness. There is no superhero faith because Jesus knows if we strive for that, then we will lose the faith we have.

We all have faith and doubts, struggles with our faith. Alvin York gave up Christianity after his father’s death, lived a rather immoral life but came back to the faith a few years later.

Its easy to have faith when all is going well, the struggle occurs when all is not well, too often we find our faith wanting and we lose any sense of it.

But Jesus wants us to have faith, as simple and small as a mustard seed, for then we can live in the midst of struggles and tragedy, in the midst of good and bad times, believing that good will come again, that there is a deeper meaning for our lives on the journey we each take.

“Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is
on-again--off-a-gain rather than once -and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you're going but going anyway. A journey without maps.” (Frederick Buechner)

A great description: faith is something we rely on but sometimes lose, having faith is taking a journey without maps. It is why we come back here, each week, to be with one another, to pray and celebrate and give thanks, to taste and see that the Lord is good.

Alvin and Rosa acted with the faith they had in them, that small mustard seed faith, that led them down paths they did not know but they followed…

I think of a story…

After church one Sunday, a parishioner pulled the pastor aside. He was a dedicated member of the parish’s ministry to the sick and homebound. Just the day before he had visited the local hospital and discovered that a young couple in the church had just had a baby: a little girl with Down Syndrome. “I didn’t know what to say,” the man said to the pastor. “We visited for a few minutes. They let me hold her and I told them she was beautiful . . . I didn’t know what
to say.” He went on to describe how he had prayed with the couple, thanking God for their child and asking God’s peace and blessing on the family.

The pastor assured the man that he had said exactly the right thing and that his words and gestures were appropriate and kind. The pastor said he could not have done better
himself.

A couple of weeks later the man again pulled the pastor aside and showed him a note from the young mother. She thanked him for his visit and prayer and then concluded her note: “Thank you for not saying what so many people said and telling us how sorry you were. We are so happy to have our baby. Thank you for sharing our family’s joy.”

“That’s great,” the pastor said.

“But can you imagine people telling them how sorry they were?” the man wondered. “Well,” the pastor replied, “I guess they just didn’t know what to say."
[From “Living by the Word: What to say” by Patrick J. Wilson, The Christian Century, June 26, 2007.]

The visitor allowed his mustard seed faith to guide him to give thanks and to ask for God’s blessing on the family when he didn’t know what to say…

It is that reliance on our faith, when don’t know what to say, when we don’t know what to do, when we don’t know where we are going, but to go on our journey of faith, trusting that God indeed walks with us in the bad times and the good and with the hope and the faith that God will lead us through our deserts, through our storms to places of peace and refreshment.

I want to leave you with one last image…

Pictures of the Monks of Myanmar

These Buddhist Monks, clad in red robes, marched in protest to a brutal military junta, hoping for life and to move that mulberry tree (that is the government) with their faith, even when they knew there could be crackdowns, there could be repression. And of course, there is, as the regime has stepped in and brutally stopped the protests.

But they went anyway, not quite knowing what would happen, but with the hope for better days…

That is mustard seed faith.

And its in you and in its me.

We don’t need to increase our faith, we just need to live it. Amen.