Sometimes I have faith. I feel settled and grateful and connected and even sure. And sometimes I am amazed at my unbelief. That is to say, I have a shocked moment when I realize I have been swamped by fear and I am just treading water in it as thought this is all there is. Or I caught in anger and breathing it in and letting it fill me and feed me. Or I am cut off from anything beyond myself, my worries, my projects, my interpretations of things, and I am just existing as though this is all there is, completely forgetting there is someone that holds me and this whole world. I can go on this way for days. Detatched from my deepest self, from God, from others. And then suddenly I wake up and remember - or am re-membered - to my belonging, invited back into trust, feeling my heart open back up to transcendence, widen back out toward God. And I am “faithing” again.
What does it mean to have faith? To be a person of faith? Is it to attend religious services regularly? Or to do good things in the world? Is it to believe in something beyond what can be seen and touched? Is it to have certain strong convictions? To work for justice and peace? Certainly it can include any and all of these things as expressions of faith.
But at it’s core is trust. But it’s not a fully-developed and airtight trust that never wavers, it’s more like inching toward trust, learning to trust, being open to trusting and entrusting your life to God. It’s turning toward someone, letting your heart open toward God, letting God turn your heart toward the real.
Faith is a hemorrhaging woman reaching out from a crowd and grasping the edge of Jesus’s cloak hoping it will heal her, and Jesus blessing her for it. It is a dying girl’s father tracking down Jesus and begging, please come and heal my daughter, not knowing that by the time he reaches Jesus it will already be too late, but Jesus goes to his home anyway and brings his daughter back to life.
Faith starts the moment we turn whatever it is within us back toward God – even if we don’t know who or what God is. It begins in our human longing, Help me, Jesus! It’s My little daughter is dying!, or just reaching out with a tiny shred of hope and grasping the edge of a garment. Like the disciples in the boat asking in the storm, Don’t you even care? faithing can start in doubt and anger, with despair and fear. It’s turning toward Jesus, however that happens. And when Jesus commands nature and the storm responds, the disciples’ faith is stirred up, who then is this? And they are drawn in deeper, turned more fully toward Jesus.
Jesus has just been with these people, in this place of faith – where people are facing their deaths, reaching toward God, learning to trust, acting on what hope gives them.
But now Jesus has left that place, and has come off the road with the band. He’s back in his mom’s kitchen with his newfound fame and reputation and his gaggle of disciples. This is his hometown with his home people, the world of brothers and sisters and long memory: mischief and mudpies, first steps, forged friendships, lost teeth and puberty, for the love of God. This is the town that still holds both the whispered scandal of his origins, and the tangible results of his professional labor, “Wait, Jesus, the carpenter? Mary’s son, Jesus?”
The people who heard your voice change are going to have a hard time taking your prophetic preaching seriously - especially when the claim is that you’re from God and everyone knows you come from right down the street.
But more than amused, when he comes speaking with authority and they see the deeds of power that he does - they take offense.
Just who does he think he is? What is he trying to pull?
And Jesus is amazed at their unbelief, their untrust, their lack of faith.
And, scripture says, he could do no deeds of power among them – except lay his hands on a few people and cure them. (which sound like deeds of power to me- and felt like it to the sick people who got cured). But it wouldn’t have mattered what he did. He could do no deeds of power among them. There was no curiosity or openness. They weren’t holding up their longing, daring to hope for the impossible. They weren’t wondering who he could be, they knew who he was - he was one of them. And they were offended that he had the arrogance and audacity to pretend to be someone different, and to insist that God would act among them in unexpected ways.
Those people he “healed” were probably getting better anyway. Their illness must have just run its course. It was all in their heads.
As far as they were concerned- it simply couldn’t be. Period. He was limited by their unbelief.
Does faith allow God to do more in our lives? Very possibly.
Does faith allow us to see the things God is already doing in our lives? Absolutely.
Because without faith- without that question bubbling within us, without the act of holding up our longing, reaching out in hope, (or even simply honestly inhabiting our own deadness), the encounter can’t really happen. We won’t be open to it, or recognize it when it does.
Faith is not a closed conclusion. It is an open awareness. It’s turning toward God with whatever is in us and watching expectantly for what will happen next.
And now, from that place, the disciples are sent out, and ironically, doing deeds of great power. Doing more, it seems, than Jesus himself could do in his hometown. But the disciples don’t go out bearing great power to dispense to others. They go powerless–needing a place to rest, needing coats for the cold, a bathroom, food and shelter. They go to receive the hospitality of strangers.
Jesus sends them out needing fellow human beings. And not just for what they provide, or as a ready audience for their message. The disciples are sent out into the world forced to rely on other people’s compassion and openness. They must allow others to step up to meet their needs. And the disciples will need to stay with folks- to form relationships, not just bounce around getting what they can from people. So not only do they need fellow human beings, they also need to join fellow human beings. And the longing, the action, the“Help me Jesus!” gets pointed toward others, where Jesus meets us in one another. We turn toward God by turning toward each other.
Through the love and generosity of strangers, God will provide. And through sharing ourselves and our story of who Jesus has been for us, God will act again right now between us. And maybe he is talking as much to himself as he is to them when he says, if they don’t welcome you and refuse to receive you, shake the dust off your feet and move on. This is about connecting with God and each other. Keep seeking that connection.
We cannot give healing to others as a self-assured dispenser of goodness; we must come to goodness and healing together with someone. We must allow ourselves to be seen, not in our shiny strength and aptitude, but in our sweaty, dusty, hungry, cranky, awkward humanity.
It’s a lot easier to give than receive, but receiving keeps us human. It keeps us connected. It keeps us encountering God in our lives, again and again. This is what Jesus wants for the disciples. They must receive care to give it. They must come vulnerable to share their lives with those who can care for them. It’s how Jesus himself came. Vulnerable and needy, learning to be human with humans, sharing life with those who cared for him. We know who he is – he’s one of us.
We belong to God, and in Jesus, God belongs to us.
This is how God arranged it, so we may know the interdependence of all life. Faith presses us into this relationship, to live out our belonging to God and each other.
May we have the courage to keep turning toward God together with whatever is in us and watching expectantly for what will happen next.
Amen.
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