What if this story from Luke isn't about not having enough faith, but it's about God's absolute and abundant faith in us? What if this story isn't about being worthless, but it's about God's absolute and abundant love for us? What if these stories are about obedience? What if these stories are about the awesome wonder of God's grace, the grace that makes us feel a might bit small in comparison.
Have you ever felt alone? So alone that you just sit down and weep. So alone and so afraid and so alien, that you feel like you are backed against a wall and there are no choices, no options, and that you are in a kind a prison, you can't see a way out. The Psalm especially, and Lamentations as well, are incredibly sad songs about being separated from God. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept, when we remembered our home and those who love us. These songs remind us about our own condition when we feel so totally isolated, and alienated, like we just don't fit in, like there is no one in the whole world who understands the pain of our own life.
God calls to us in that place. The Good News is that no one is cut off from God's love, God's grace, God's forgiveness, God's healing, no one. No matter how horrible, or insignificant, or disenfranchised we think we are, we are not cut off from the love that wins. Sometimes, we, as did the apostles, say to The Lord, "increase our faith!" And the Lord's response is even with faith the size of a mustard seed, which is mighty small, hardly even enough to see, you have enough. Indeed it is not even about how much faith you have at all, the story we embody, the story we enact, the story of Love, is the story of God's faith in us.
You see, our relationship with God is never about us at all, so it is not about how much faith you or I have. Our relationship with God is about God's faith in us. And God does have faith in us, that is shown in the pattern of the sacred story. God creates and blesses all of creation, creation turns away from God and we wander in the wilderness, God calls us back into relationship and comes into our lives in a real and incarnational way, there is forgiveness and reconciliation and transformation.
We know the truth of this relationship in the reality of death and resurrection. God accompanies us through the pain and the suffering and the joy of this life. Jesus is God in the flesh, and walks this journey with us, Jesus suffers through pain, hangs on a cross, and through Jesus God shows humanity what new life looks like. Jesus is broken, and wholeness looks nothing like life before death. It is all about death and resurrection. Talk about faith, God has faith in us.
I don't get up in the morning and ask God for more faith, I get up in the morning and know that because God has faith in me, God is faithful, I can do the work God calls me to do. Sometimes I wonder where God is, sometimes I wonder what God is up to because I sure can't figure out the plan, but that doesn't change God's faith in me. With that, some semblance of faith returns. And that faith looks like love. Love as an act of the will, love as mercy and compassion, love as justice and peace. Lord, help me to be your love in my part of the world today, Lord, help me to treat each person whose path I cross with mercy and compassion, is my prayer. Lord, help me to get on board with what you are already accomplishing in the world today. Lord, you have faith in me, help me to have faith in myself.
This world is broken, most of us are broken, and Jesus, in flesh and blood, in the bread and the wine, seeps into our very being and heals us, we are made whole in the bread and the wine. We are made whole by the love that is shown forth in this community, love that is Jesus in our midst. Jesus prepares supper for us, Jesus invites us to the table for food and drink, Jesus gives Jesus' very self so that we may be put back together, we are re-membered in a meal, in a community, that is Jesus' body.
It doesn't take much faith at all, indeed, it doesn't take any faith at all, to see the truth in these stories. We are humans, broken and loved back into wholeness. We are humans, worthy of God's love, the love that wins. And that reality causes us to give thanks and praise. That reality causes us to be awestruck, that reality cause us to fall on our knees and pray, how can I be a part of the kingdom that is yours God, how can I be a part of the new creation you envision?
We are humans called to get busy with God's work of healing and reconciliation in the world. What is it that God is already up to in the world today? How can you get on board with God's work of healing and reconciliation?
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