Increase our faith
A deeply devout Christian woman died. Her
son had inherited none of her faith. In his grief, for the first time, he wanted
the comfort and strength that only faith can provide. So, he took his mother's
glasses, her prayer book and sat in her favorite chair. He opened the prayer
book and tried to hear what she heard. He put on the glasses and tried to see
what she saw. All to no avail.[1]
We may chuckle at that story, yet at least occasionally
most of us wish that our spirituality was stronger, deeper. Similarly, Jesus' disciples
approached him and implored, “Increase
our faith.”[2]
The early history of Jesus’ teaching about
the mustard seed highlights one way to increase our faith. Scholars believe
that Mark’s gospel was the first gospel written. In Mark, Jesus teaches his
disciples that faith is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds that
grows into the largest of shrubs.[3] In Luke’s
gospel, as we just heard, Jesus says that faith the size of a mustard seed can
relocate a mulberry tree. And in Matthew’s gospel, faith the size of a mustard
seed can move a mountain.[4] Christians
used hyperbole and similes to remember and to interpret Jesus’ teaching about
the power of faith, comparing a tangible seed to power able to move trees and mountains.
Imagination makes these figures of speech intelligible and memorable. Spiritual
guide and Episcopal priest Morton Kelsey described imagination as “the key that
unlocks the door to the inner life.”[5]
With art as a catalyst, our imagination may
awaken us to God's presence by evoking a sense of awe, beauty and majesty. Illustratively,
you may recall that the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, a
monastery outside Castile, Spain, produced an unexpected best-selling CD in
1994, Chant.[6]
The monks recorded chants sung in their monastery for a millennium. I listened
to the CD as I prepared this sermon. The haunting quality of the chants quiets my
spirit and evokes a feeling of the sacred. Perhaps you have had similar
experiences listening to the music of Christmas, Handel’s Messiah, modern
praise music or other music. Architecture and the visual arts sometimes have
the same effect.
Imagination can also transform hope into
reality. Possibility thinkers and self-help gurus have packaged and sold this
message for a century.[7] Athletes,
public speakers and countless others routinely use visualization techniques to
help achieve their goals. The disciples’ plea to Jesus, increase our faith,
expresses the hope of genuine desire. Jesus' response invited them to use their
imaginations to transform nascent hope into reality. We walk in the disciples’
footsteps when we visualize ourselves and others in God's presence. Create imaginary
scenarios in which you, your loved ones, and others seek to trust and to obey
God more completely. Such visualizations are hopes, prayers, God uses to
transform hope into reality. Without hope, faith stagnates and slowly dies.[8]
Additionally, imagination can function as an
ear with which to hear God speak.[9] Apocalyptic
literature, including the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation, exemplify a
genre of literature through which God has spoken to the imagination of many. Likewise,
a birth in a manger, walking on water, crucifixion, and resurrection are all
images our imagination can use to listen for God to speak.
When you feel tense, over stressed or bereft
of inspiration, learn to relax in God's loving embrace. Read the Bible or another
book, listen to music or simply sit and daydream. Allow images, words, people
and feelings to become vehicles through which God occasionally speaks.
The second part of today’s gospel read may appear
unrelated to the disciples’ request for Jesus to increase their faith. Imagination
is a key aspect of the interior path to an increased faith. The reading’s second
part emphasizes the external path to an increased faith. This exterior path is
the way of love, serving Jesus with our time, talent and treasure. Both in this
passage and elsewhere, Jesus identified his disciples as God's servants.
Hopefully, your attendance at Holy Nativity facilitates
your interior journey. Concurrently, participation here also involves treading
the external path of love by which you increase your faith. This fall’s stewardship
campaign invites your support of Holy Nativity’s mission to be a place in which
people of all ages and backgrounds experience God, a place where the needs of
the hungry and other persons are met and the spiritually homeless discover a welcoming
community. Priests alone cannot achieve this mission. Holy Nativity can achieve
its mission only through your collective and generous gifts of time (whether to
the altar guild or the outreach committee), talent (whether to the choir or the
vestry) or treasure (money). Give not because Holy Nativity needs your time,
talent and treasure. Give because in giving God draws you close and your faith increases.
Sermon preached
the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 6, 2019
Church of the Holy Nativity, Honolulu, HI
Church of the Holy Nativity, Honolulu, HI
[2] Luke
17:5-10.
[3] Mark
4:31-32.
[4] Matthew
17:20/
[5] Morton
T. Kelsey, The Other Side of Silence (New York: Paulist, 1976), p. 178.
[6] The
Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, “Chant,” Angel Records, 1994.
[7] Norman
Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (Pawling, New York:
Foundation for Christian Living, 1978) and Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant
Within (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991).
[8] David J.
Bryant, “Imago Dei, Imagination, and
Ecological Responsibility,” Theology Today, April 2000, pp. 36-40.
[9] H.
Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation (New York: Macmillan, 1941),
pp. 67-79.
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