Luke 17:5-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14
2 October 2016
20 Pentecost (Proper 22)
Church of Our Saviour, Charlottesville
The Rev. David M. Stoddart
It is great to see you all and to be back among you. And it’s great to
be back at the altar. I’m out of practice siting in the congregation during
worship, so these last few months have been a learning experience for me. Apparently
there are rules, such as “You shall not be too loud in your responses.” Lori
Ann likes to remind me of that one. When we actually sit together in the pew, a
typical liturgical sequence goes like this: “The Lord be with you.” “And also
with you.” Shhhh! And if it wasn’t
Lori Ann shushing me, it was stern English women glancing at me with
disapproval. While on retreat at a Trappist monastery a couple weeks ago, I realized
at the first Mass that everyone else was murmuring the responses and I quickly toned
mine down. So after four months of being suitably subdued, I can now be as loud
as I want to be.
So forgive me if I have an abundance of enthusiasm this morning. And,
actually, having an abundance of anything gets right at this Gospel, where the disciples
do not perceive any abundance at all: they are in scarcity mode ― again. This
happens a lot in these stories: there is not enough bread to feed these people;
there’s not enough time to deal with that beggar; there’s not enough mercy to
show tax collectors, prostitutes, Romans, Samaritans, and all those others
beyond the pale. And in today’s passage, there’s just not enough faith: Increase our faith! Give us more! We don’t
have enough! Jesus plays along with their spatial imagery ― if you have faith the size of a mustard
seed, you can do wonders ― but he does so to make a greater point. Faith is
not a thing that can be measured; it’s not a thing at all. Faith is trusting,
and while we can use trust as a noun, it is primarily a verb ― it is something
we do. In fact, it doesn’t make any sense to talk about having trust unless we
are actually trusting someone. In other words, we don’t have faith ― we do
faith, we live it. And as Jesus taught those disciples, we already have
everything we need to do that right now.
Our reading from Paul’s second letter to Timothy underlines this very
point. Timothy was a protégé of Paul, and is apparently struggling with fear
and uncertainty as he tries to carry out his ministry. So Paul writes to him
and says, Rekindle the gift of God that
is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a
spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of
self-discipline. Timothy may be going through a tough time, but he has what
he needs to thrive. The Spirit of God already lives in him. He doesn’t need to
go out and look for it; he doesn’t need to ask for more of it. He only needs to
rekindle the gift that is already his.
So often we think that the answer we need is somehow outside of us,
that God is outside of us. If we could only find the right program, the right
method, the right church, then we’d be okay. If the God up there would only
give us that certain something we lack, then we’d be fine. But that is not the
message of the Gospel. The Good News given to us through Jesus is that God is
with us, that the Holy Spirit poured at our baptism is in us. We are loved,
forgiven, empowered each and every moment. You know, I thoroughly enjoyed being
on sabbatical: my family and I visited some marvelous places and I was able to
do things that really nourished me spiritually. But I have to tell you that
sabbatical also showed me how true the old adage is: wherever you go, there you
are. I was no closer to God on the island of Iona or at York Minster than I am
sitting in traffic on 29. The basic call of faith is the same whether I am
taking a seminar in theology in Oxford or trying to fix the kitchen sink at
home. And that is true for all of us. No matter where we are or what we are
doing, God is ― not just out there, but in here, within us. Always.
Rekindling that gift first means remembering that we have it, which is
why daily prayer and weekly worship are so essential: they remind us of who we
are: embers of the Body of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit. The gift of God’s
self to us has already been given: we don’t even need to ask for it. So all
that is left for us is to give thanks and use it ― and use it in the ordinary,
daily circumstances of our lives.
And using the gift means trusting. And trusting means letting go:
letting go of our obsessive need for control, letting go of our relentless criticism
of ourselves and others, letting go of our fear, letting go of our incessant
tendency to set ourselves up as God.
I admire the poetry of Rumi, a 13th century Persian mystic
who wrote many moving poems about God’s love for us and our need to let go and
trust in that love if we are to live our faith. One short poem reads as
follows:
The way of love is not
a subtle argument.
The door there
is devastation.
Birds make great
sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn
this?
They fall, and falling
they’re given wings.
This week, today, I invite you to fall into whatever the present moment
holds for you, whether it’s just sitting by yourself at home or undergoing
surgery for cancer. Whatever it involves, to fall into it is to trust that
God’s Spirit of love fills us and gives us all that we need to do whatever the
moment calls for. Sometimes we may feel exhilarated by that; sometimes we may
feel like we’re just managing to get through the day. No matter. It is in
trusting that we rekindle and rediscover the gift of God within us. It is in
trusting that we learn that grace is forever abundant. Trying to assess how
much faith we have won’t get us there. My preaching on it won’t get us there.
It is only by doing it, by actually trusting that God is closer to us than our
own breath, that God’s love enfolds us no matter what, that we will experience
the truth. It is only in falling that we are given wings.
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