All Saints Episcopal Church of Greensboro· The
All Saints Episcopal Church of Greensboro·
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 2, 2016 A sermon by The Rev. Paula C. Rachal Lamentations 1:1-6; Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10 May all that we say and do, O Lord, be to your honor and to your glory. Amen. How many older siblings do we have here today? Or maybe you had younger cousins, or neighborhood kids hanging around to look out for. I’m guessing somewhere along the line each of us has been responsible for someone. Well, Jesus has just told the apostles that they are accountable for each other. That it would be better for them to tie a millstone around their own neck and drown, than to let a brother or sister in the faith go astray. The apostles are shaken up by this. So they come to Jesus asking for more faith. Obviously if a little is good, more must be better, right? Not so, says Jesus. When it comes to faith, how much you have doesn’t really matter, because faith isn’t about quantity it’s about relationship. Our understanding of faith has been skewed by the world in which we live. We often think of faith in terms of a set of beliefs. When we say the creed in a few minutes we’ll say “we believe in one God…”, and most of us understand this as giving our assent to the following list of statements. Marcus Borg, in The Heart of Christianity, describes this as faith that comes from the head, as head belief, and suggests that until the age of enlightenment this form of belief didn’t exist. It was the Enlightenment’s emphasis on human intellect and reason that formed our current understanding of belief, and therefore faith. It put the emphasis on our individual ability to understand and assent to what was being said. When we look at today’s reading in this light, faith the size of a mustard seed at first seems easy. One must just believe as one believes in Santa, at least as a child. I remember hearing this passage in Sunday School, looking at that tiny seed, and thinking, “great, I can have that much faith!” I scrunched up my little face, and thought really hard, “tree, jump into the sea.” Of course, I had no way of knowing if it happened, but I did have my doubts. Because even then I knew such a thing would be reported on the news, especially since I couldn’t be the only one testing it out that day. Imagine, a forest of trees suddenly uprooting themselves and jumping into the sea, as children throughout the BCP lectionary tested out their faith! But the word that has been translated as believe in our creed is credo, and it more accurately means “I give my heart to.” It’s a heart based faith. It is based on our relationship with God, not devotion to words on a page. Borg describes three aspects to heart based faith:
First, “faith that comes from the heart” is characterized by trust. To have faith implies a radical trust in God, a willingness to rely on God as “our support and foundation and ground, as our safe place” (p.31). Second, it’s characterized by fidelity, or faithfulness. It’s similar to what we mean when we say we have faith in a spouse or partner or friend; we believe that person will be faithful in their relationship to us. “Faith as fidelity or faithfulness” means “loyalty, allegiance, the commitment of one’s self at the deepest level” (p.32). Third, “faith that is rooted in the heart” is characterized by a positive vision of the world and of reality. When we have this quality of faith, we tend to see reality as life-giving and nourishing, rather than as hostile or threatening. To live in faith requires “a radical centering (of our lives) in God that leads to a deepening trust that transforms the way we see and live our lives” (p.32). 1
Now, considering the difference between head faith and heart faith. Which seems more in keeping with our understanding of God? Do we think God is more concerned with whether we assent to a list of statements, or that we enter into a relationship of trust and fidelity that leads us to a positive vision of the world? As Jesus told the apostles, faith the size of a mustard seed is all we need. Because when it’s a heart faith, it’s a relationship with God that is sustaining and life giving and opens us up to God working in and through us. And that is a faith that can uproot trees, and change the world. Amen.
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The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 2, 2016 A sermon by The Rev. Paula C. Rachal Lamentations 1:1-6; Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10 May all that we say and do, O Lord, be to your honor and to your glory. Amen. How many older siblings do we have here today? Or maybe you had younger cousins, or neighborhood kids hanging around to look out for. I’m guessing somewhere along the line each of us has been responsible for someone. Well, Jesus has just told the apostles that they are accountable for each other. That it would be better for them to tie a millstone around their own neck and drown, than to let a brother or sister in the faith go astray. The apostles are shaken up by this. So they come to Jesus asking for more faith. Obviously if a little is good, more must be better, right? Not so, says Jesus. When it comes to faith, how much you have doesn’t really matter, because faith isn’t about quantity it’s about relationship. Our understanding of faith has been skewed by the world in which we live. We often think of faith in terms of a set of beliefs. When we say the creed in a few minutes we’ll say “we believe in one God…”, and most of us understand this as giving our assent to the following list of statements. Marcus Borg, in The Heart of Christianity, describes this as faith that comes from the head, as head belief, and suggests that until the age of enlightenment this form of belief didn’t exist. It was the Enlightenment’s emphasis on human intellect and reason that formed our current understanding of belief, and therefore faith. It put the emphasis on our individual ability to understand and assent to what was being said. When we look at today’s reading in this light, faith the size of a mustard seed at first seems easy. One must just believe as one believes in Santa, at least as a child. I remember hearing this passage in Sunday School, looking at that tiny seed, and thinking, “great, I can have that much faith!” I scrunched up my little face, and thought really hard, “tree, jump into the sea.” Of course, I had no way of knowing if it happened, but I did have my doubts. Because even then I knew such a thing would be reported on the news, especially since I couldn’t be the only one testing it out that day. Imagine, a forest of trees suddenly uprooting themselves and jumping into the sea, as children throughout the BCP lectionary tested out their faith! But the word that has been translated as believe in our creed is credo, and it more accurately means “I give my heart to.” It’s a heart based faith. It is based on our relationship with God, not devotion to words on a page. Borg describes three aspects to heart based faith:
First, “faith that comes from the heart” is characterized by trust. To have faith implies a radical trust in God, a willingness to rely on God as “our support and foundation and ground, as our safe place” (p.31). Second, it’s characterized by fidelity, or faithfulness. It’s similar to what we mean when we say we have faith in a spouse or partner or friend; we believe that person will be faithful in their relationship to us. “Faith as fidelity or faithfulness” means “loyalty, allegiance, the commitment of one’s self at the deepest level” (p.32). Third, “faith that is rooted in the heart” is characterized by a positive vision of the world and of reality. When we have this quality of faith, we tend to see reality as life-giving and nourishing, rather than as hostile or threatening. To live in faith requires “a radical centering (of our lives) in God that leads to a deepening trust that transforms the way we see and live our lives” (p.32). 1
Now, considering the difference between head faith and heart faith. Which seems more in keeping with our understanding of God? Do we think God is more concerned with whether we assent to a list of statements, or that we enter into a relationship of trust and fidelity that leads us to a positive vision of the world? As Jesus told the apostles, faith the size of a mustard seed is all we need. Because when it’s a heart faith, it’s a relationship with God that is sustaining and life giving and opens us up to God working in and through us. And that is a faith that can uproot trees, and change the world. Amen.
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