We have all seen or heard or read the story: Someone—typically a completely ordinary person—does something heroic and then is surprised when treated like a hero. Here’s one I remember, minus some details I don’t remember, like the kid’s name and where it happened.
There was a flood. A woman is in a car that is sinking as it is being swept away by a river where no river was supposed to be. Some people see it and race after the sinking car in a boat.
A young man jumps out of the boat, grabs onto the car and pulls the struggling woman out through the driver-side window. But instead of praising God and thanking him, she begins screaming, “MY DOG! MY DOG!”
The young man looks back at the car and sees the face of the dog in the last bubble of air trapped behind the rear window of the convertible, which is now rapidly sinking. With the superhuman strength that often comes in a moment like that, the young man hangs onto the sinking car with one hand, beats a hole with the other, presumably by ripping a seam between the window and the ragtop, scoops out the dog and gets back to the surface gasping for air.
Later on, when he is rightly honored as a hero and profusely thanked by the woman and his community, he says, ‘I’m not a hero. I just did what I had to do in the moment,’ or words to that effect.
And so say the “worthless servants” in today’s Gospel parable: No need to thank us, we have done only what we ought to have done.
That, my friends, is faith in action: Being in the moment, doing what needs to be done.
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| In the Moment, by Bette J. Kauffman |
Perhaps if Jesus had known
convertibles and floods and precious pets like we do, he might have used
beating a hole in a sinking car to save one… as his example in this teaching! I
say, transplanting a mulberry tree into the sea pales in comparison.
We are so often like the disciples in this story. We think of faith as a kind of elixir, a miracle cure, or maybe a steroid, and we long for someone—well, Jesus, of course—to inject us with a bunch of it. Or open up our skull and dump some in, because we really think it is a mental thing, a thing of belief—of believing all the right things and never questioning or doubting.
Once a number of years ago, I was struggling with questions of belief and sort of bouncing between moments of great faith, at least as I understood faith then, and moments of great doubt.
And so I said to a priest friend one day, I can’t decide whether Christianity makes no sense whatsoever, or if it’s the only thing that makes any sense at all. Actually, I said to him, I really think both are true.
I’m sure I expected to be admonished, or at least instructed in how Christianity is “the answer” to all questions. Instead he just chuckled and said, “Yup, that about sums it up.”
Believing “the right stuff” is not faith. Believing all the “right things” and never questioning or doubting is more like magical thinking. And the more certain we are in our “right beliefs,” the more magical our thinking.
In the small Iowa town where we grew up, a couple of my siblings got involved in a small, charismatic, non-denominational church. They became very devout and very “certain” in their faith.
Then the beloved pastor of that church was diagnosed with cancer. The congregation took this passage we are talking about today (and a few others) to mean that if they just had enough faith and asked God to heal their pastor, their pastor would be physically cured of the cancer.
And so they prayed mightily, and often and loudly proclaimed their “faith” that the pastor was being healed, it was just a matter of time. Sadly, the pastor died of the cancer.
Not too surprisingly, the congregation was thrown into a crisis of faith. Had they not had “enough faith”? Was there one among them who doubted? How could this be? It was “faith” as magical thinking and it almost destroyed that little church.
Jesus does not equate faith with what we think or believe. In this teaching as in others, he likens it to a seed, the tiniest of seeds. Oh, the lessons that can be drawn from a seed!
We are so often like the disciples in this story. We think of faith as a kind of elixir, a miracle cure, or maybe a steroid, and we long for someone—well, Jesus, of course—to inject us with a bunch of it. Or open up our skull and dump some in, because we really think it is a mental thing, a thing of belief—of believing all the right things and never questioning or doubting.
Once a number of years ago, I was struggling with questions of belief and sort of bouncing between moments of great faith, at least as I understood faith then, and moments of great doubt.
And so I said to a priest friend one day, I can’t decide whether Christianity makes no sense whatsoever, or if it’s the only thing that makes any sense at all. Actually, I said to him, I really think both are true.
I’m sure I expected to be admonished, or at least instructed in how Christianity is “the answer” to all questions. Instead he just chuckled and said, “Yup, that about sums it up.”
Believing “the right stuff” is not faith. Believing all the “right things” and never questioning or doubting is more like magical thinking. And the more certain we are in our “right beliefs,” the more magical our thinking.
In the small Iowa town where we grew up, a couple of my siblings got involved in a small, charismatic, non-denominational church. They became very devout and very “certain” in their faith.
Then the beloved pastor of that church was diagnosed with cancer. The congregation took this passage we are talking about today (and a few others) to mean that if they just had enough faith and asked God to heal their pastor, their pastor would be physically cured of the cancer.
And so they prayed mightily, and often and loudly proclaimed their “faith” that the pastor was being healed, it was just a matter of time. Sadly, the pastor died of the cancer.
Not too surprisingly, the congregation was thrown into a crisis of faith. Had they not had “enough faith”? Was there one among them who doubted? How could this be? It was “faith” as magical thinking and it almost destroyed that little church.
Jesus does not equate faith with what we think or believe. In this teaching as in others, he likens it to a seed, the tiniest of seeds. Oh, the lessons that can be drawn from a seed!
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| Live Oak on Highway 65 South, by Bette J. Kauffman. |
Here’s one: I stand on my deck and
gaze in wonder and consternation at the live oak tee in the middle of my back
yard. Wonder, because I know it grew from an acorn smaller than the tip of my
thumb. Consternation, because the limbs are down to the ground again! I
have just retained a tree man to come and trim it, again, at no small
fee.
Likewise, heroic achievements hide in small acts of faith, in moments of being present, aware, vulnerable… to people, to creation, to the world around you. Pay attention! And respond. You are the home of the Spirit. God is within you. And that is all you need. Respond out of that indwelling Love with a capital L and you will do what needs to be done in the moment.
And never underestimate the ripple effect—the intensity, the reach, the consequences—of small acts of faithfulness. Consider Anne Frank, faithfully writing in her diary, having no idea her words would be read by and inspire millions.
Likewise, heroic achievements hide in small acts of faith, in moments of being present, aware, vulnerable… to people, to creation, to the world around you. Pay attention! And respond. You are the home of the Spirit. God is within you. And that is all you need. Respond out of that indwelling Love with a capital L and you will do what needs to be done in the moment.
And never underestimate the ripple effect—the intensity, the reach, the consequences—of small acts of faithfulness. Consider Anne Frank, faithfully writing in her diary, having no idea her words would be read by and inspire millions.
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| Greta Thunberg |
One more thing about seeds: They die
in order to be resurrected as a live oak tree, as a head of grain, as a
gorgeous orchid that grows from a microscopic seed.
Thankfully we don’t have to physically die—at least not most of the time—in order to respond out of faith and do what needs to be done. But we must hold our own wants and needs, our egos and occasionally our very lives somewhat loosely in order to be vulnerable and available to the needs of the moment, the people and the situation in front of us.
If we are caught up in doing a cost-benefit analysis, or assessing potential legal liability, or risk, or protecting our own ego from possible rejection or embarrassment or failure or whatever, if we are fearful and anxious, we cannot be fully present to others and respond out of faith and love.
In short, we must get out of our heads to do what needs to be done in the moment.
In her book Practicing Resurrection, Nora Gallagher observes that we “spend so much time in church ‘believing’…or ‘not believing’ (six impossible things before breakfast) that we…lose the point.” Regarding the resurrection appearances of Jesus, what matters, she says, is what we do with them. Do we turn them into exotic beliefs? Or use them as stepping stones to new life and new growth in our relationships with God and others.
And finally, Sarah Dylan Breuer wrote this for her online blog:
The word 'faith'…is often spoken about as if it meant trying to talk ourselves into intellectual assent to something, with "increasing our faith" meaning that we are successfully persuading ourselves that we have adopted an idea we think is ridiculous. That's not faith; it's self-deception, and usually a pretty unsuccessful kind of self-deception that results in our feeling a little guilty and hypocritical, as we know that we don't actually believe what we say.
But faith is not about intellectual projection and assessment... Faith is relationship -- a relationship of trust, of allegiance. When Jesus talks about "faith," he's not talking about what you do in your head; he's talking about what you do with your hands and your feet, your wallet and your privilege, your power and your time. Faith in Jesus is not shown by saying or thinking things about him, but by following him.
Thankfully we don’t have to physically die—at least not most of the time—in order to respond out of faith and do what needs to be done. But we must hold our own wants and needs, our egos and occasionally our very lives somewhat loosely in order to be vulnerable and available to the needs of the moment, the people and the situation in front of us.
If we are caught up in doing a cost-benefit analysis, or assessing potential legal liability, or risk, or protecting our own ego from possible rejection or embarrassment or failure or whatever, if we are fearful and anxious, we cannot be fully present to others and respond out of faith and love.
In short, we must get out of our heads to do what needs to be done in the moment.
In her book Practicing Resurrection, Nora Gallagher observes that we “spend so much time in church ‘believing’…or ‘not believing’ (six impossible things before breakfast) that we…lose the point.” Regarding the resurrection appearances of Jesus, what matters, she says, is what we do with them. Do we turn them into exotic beliefs? Or use them as stepping stones to new life and new growth in our relationships with God and others.
And finally, Sarah Dylan Breuer wrote this for her online blog:
The word 'faith'…is often spoken about as if it meant trying to talk ourselves into intellectual assent to something, with "increasing our faith" meaning that we are successfully persuading ourselves that we have adopted an idea we think is ridiculous. That's not faith; it's self-deception, and usually a pretty unsuccessful kind of self-deception that results in our feeling a little guilty and hypocritical, as we know that we don't actually believe what we say.
But faith is not about intellectual projection and assessment... Faith is relationship -- a relationship of trust, of allegiance. When Jesus talks about "faith," he's not talking about what you do in your head; he's talking about what you do with your hands and your feet, your wallet and your privilege, your power and your time. Faith in Jesus is not shown by saying or thinking things about him, but by following him.
In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.
