For Sunday, October 2, 2016 – Luke 17:5-10
Many are the ways we become trapped. Last week’s gospel lesson showed us the bondage of being separated from one another, not seeing, not reaching out or caring. Each time we walk past the needs of our neighbor or ignore the cries of our own diminished humanity, we move away from communion and go deeper into lock down. The apostles, it seems, are beginning to wake up to the darkness of their own dungeon depths because now they plead with Jesus, “Increase our faith!” If lack of faith—in God, in ourselves, in each other—is what creates our isolation, then surely more faith will be the key to our release.
Jesus says we might not need what we think we need. A bigger bucket of faith is not the answer. Even the tiniest speck of faith has more power than we have dared yet to call upon. What we need most is simply this: to get busy doing what we ought to do. Asking for more faith can be one of our delay tactics—oh, what amazing feats we would accomplish if only God would give us more faith! In the meantime, we sit back and wait for “it” to happen. Doing what we ought to do, on the other hand, is for right now, this moment, whatever the condition of our hearts, whatever the quality or capacity of our faith and trust.
To do what we already know we ought to do—watch out for our neighbor, do good to those who do us wrong, give abundantly of our resources, pray without ceasing, welcome the stranger, love our enemies—is how we grow in authentic faith. Faith is not a commodity God pours into us but a condition that wells up in us as we go step by sometimes fearful step into the steady practice of the Jesus way. The bigger the step, the weaker in faith we are apt to feel. And the weaker we feel, the more apt we are to experience God’s capacity. Doing what we feel we cannot do, but doing it anyway, proves that what ultimately matters is not so much our faith in Jesus as his faith in us. We can do what is ours to do because God has the capacity to see us through.
