What God can do

The Rev. Alissa Newton

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

text: Luke 17:5-10

Listen to this sermon here.

"I am told God loves me--and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul."

These are the words of Mother Theresa, believe it or not. Yes, that Mother Theresa. The one who was just this month made a saint by the Roman Catholic church, the woman known for her relentless desire to serve the poorest of the poor in the streets of Calcutta, India, the nun who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Several years after Theresa’s death, the church decided to publish a book comprised of her private writings – journal entries, letters between her and the priest who heard her confessions, and letters she wrote to God. The book, called Come be my light, revealed that for almost all of years that Mother Theresa spent establishing her order of nuns and working with the poor in Calcutta she had also been in a deep crisis of faith. As a younger nun Theresa had often felt the clear presence of Jesus with her. She had experienced a very clear call to go to Calcutta to begin her ministry. But soon after she started working in Calcutta, her sense of God’s presence went away. “Jesus has a special love for you,” she wrote in a letter to a confidant just weeks before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, “as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see,–Listen and do not hear–the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak.” It was a shocking thing, this revelation that during the most productive and influential time in her life as a nun in the church, Mother Theresa felt abandoned by God and alone in her work. It is amazing to consider that she did that work anyway. Or, as she would say, that God worked through what she did, anyway.

I never really felt connected to Mother Theresa, before I read about this book and her crisis of faith. It is hard for me to imagine the sort of selfless life that she appears to have led. But I totally understand wanting more of God than I seem to be getting. I can absolutely relate to the desire to have a faith that is big and feels strong and immediate. I know what it’s like to imagine a robust, mystical and certain connection to God and then to face the reality of my own loneliness, fear, and discouragement instead. Theresa wanted more of God’s presence in her interior life than she got. I can definitely relate to that.

So can the disciples, in our gospel reading this morning. In fact they appear to start in this place of wanting more than they have. “Increase our faith!” they demand in the text – and the word that is translated “faith” is an interesting one. Because it could also legitimately be translated as “trust” or “commitment” or “confidence.” We’re not told why they make this request – why these men who have already given up everything they own and abandoned their professions to follow Jesus suddenly want more faith or trust or confidence or commitment. But what is clear is that Jesus doesn’t give it to them. Instead he tells them two odd little parable – like stories that are hard to makes sense of, and quite frankly a little disturbing to hear.

Lord, increase our faith, trust, confidence, commitment. Jesus’ first reply to this demand is to tell his friends that even with faith the size of a mustard seed, they could do unlikely and miraculous things. Uproot a mulberry tree and throw it into the ocean, even. Mustard seeds are known for being small, and tough. So this thing they want more of, Jesus is telling them they don’t need more. All they need is a little. Whatever faith is, it is a tough thing, hard to destroy even in tiny quantities.

Jesus follows this up with a bit of allegory that compares his disciples to “worthless slaves” who shouldn’t expect to be thanked for doing what they are supposed to do. Or, as a friend of mine pointed out, for what they were born to do. After all, Jesus lived within a society where people didn’t often leave their social classes. His disciples’ culture would have considered people in slavery meant to be there. That’s how they got around the horror of owning other human beings – it is how racism works in our culture, as well. The idea is, people don’t need to be thanked for doing what they are meant to do.

So the disciples ask for more faith or trust or confidence or commitment, and Jesus says, basically, no, that's not how faith works. Keep on doing what you are doing, and don’t expect to be rewarded for it with more faith, trust, confidence, or commitment. Or, another way of putting this might be – the disciples ask to feel something bigger, or to have something more in themselves and Jesus tells them that what they have is enough. Because faith is ultimately not about how much they trust, or how confident they feel, or the depth of their personal commitment. Faith is about what God does with them, with the ups and downs of who they are, with what they already have.

It would have been so much easier if the disciples could have just felt that trust and confidence and commitment, unwavering, for the entire time they were close to Jesus, and beyond. They are about to go through some horrible things, as just a few chapters from now Jesus turns toward Jerusalem and faces his death. And we will see that their faith and confidence waxes and wanes. These men, who have given up everything to follow Jesus, will doubt themselves, they will abandon their cause, they will huddle together frightened in a locked upper room. They don’t get to always feel confident and committed, even though they have done and will do amazing things for and in their world. But their faith doesn’t have to be constant, or big, and it doesn't have to feel amazing for it to work, because their faith is about God, not about them.

Just like with Mother Theresa, it is at this moment of wanting more and not getting it that I find the disciples most relatable. I have never given up everything to follow Jesus – I have never walked away from home, job, or family for a religious cause. That's not everybody's call. But I have faced moments in life when I didn't know if whatever I had inside of me was enough to make it through what I was facing. I have felt alone, wondered if God was dead, and have felt just, bottomed out on my capacity to trust God, to have confidence in the future, or to feel committed to love and hope and justice in the face of tragedy and despair. I can relate to that, deeply. Maybe you can, too. Our gospel this morning says that these feelings and experiences are not signs of failure, just signs of regular Christian life.

Our gospel this morning offers us this promise: our faith is not about what we do, or how we feel, it is about what God does and what God promises to do. Our job, the small mustard seed of thing that we are called to do, is to stay in it, whatever "it" is in our life of faith. There are things in this world – the devastation of the poor in Calcutta, the loss of a friend and teacher to the cross, the injustice that persists in killing people in Syria, in Sudan, here in our own country, that will cause our confidence, our trust, our faith to shrink and struggle and waver. There are things in this life that each of us will face that will make us wonder if whatever we have is enough to make it through. And this morning Jesus tells us that it's not about what we have, it's about who we are as Christians, and it's about what God has. We are beloved children of God, throughout Luke's gospel and all the stories we have of Jesus we are shown a God who loves the ones that society rejects best, a Jesus who prefers outcasts and sinners, a Messiah who is a friend to no one more than the one who suffers and struggles. The disciples had their ups and downs but they did not walk away from the suffering in front of them or the suffering inside of them. Even when they were devastated by the loss of their friend and teacher they stayed together. They had that much, and God showed up for them. I don't think it's that odd that Mother Theresa's crisis of faith started when she started working alone on the streets of Calcutta, caring for the unwanted poor. I can understand losing confidence, trust, faith in God, when facing what she did. But she did not walk away from the suffering in front of her or the suffering inside of her. She was faithful, even when felt like she didn't have any faith at all.

So this morning we are also invited to show up with what we have. We are invited to show up, even if we feel like our faith is not enough, even if we lack the trust, confidence, or commitment that we long for. We are invited to bring our tiny mustard seeds to this world, because that's what we were born to do, and because God is big even when we are small. We are invited to face whatever it is, inside of us or out in our world that makes us feel small, afraid, or worthless, and to do the work that is there for us to do. This morning as we feast at God's big table, and enjoy the company of all God's creatures in our midst – our gospel tells us that whatever we have to bring, it is enough for what God is calling us to do. Because all of this – it is about what God can do, with whatever we bring to the table.