At the ELCIC National Church Council meeting a few weeks ago, Bishop Leila Ortiz of the Metro DC Synod, was a guest from our partner church in the US, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Bishop Ortiz is the first and only Latina Bishop in the ELCA. When reporting on life in her church, she referenced the gospel story of Jesus walking on water to meet the disciples struggling in their boat against a storm. In Mathew’s version, Peter says to Jesus, “…if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And Jesus does, and Peter walks to Jesus. But seeing the strong wind, Peter is frightened and begins to sink and cries out to Jesus to save him. Jesus immediately reaches out his hand and catches Peter. And then says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt.”
Bishop Ortiz said, in the tradition in which she grew up, this story was told as an example of doubt and fear, and the call to have more faith in Jesus. But now she hears this story differently. It is a story of Peter’s faith in asking to join Jesus out of the boat in the storm, and Jesus’ catching Peter. Jesus’ words, “You of little faith, why did you doubt” call Peter to be accountable for his doubt and fear. But Bishop Ortiz said, “there is grace in being accountable.” And an invitation to step out again and again into the storm with Jesus who is inviting us to join him, and ready to catch us when we are sinking. It is a story of grace, she said, for the many storms they are facing in her Synod, including addressing racism that she has experienced directly, and social and economic inequality and exclusion, and trying to hold on to what is, against what God is calling us to be, storms we are all facing as churches and societies and a world together. Her words were inspiring and full of hope in the faith we are graciously given in Jesus, and honesty about the challenging storms before them and us.
In the gospel reading today, the disciples ask Jesus for more faith. And Jesus seems irritated by their question, saying the smallest amount can do impossible things. We might understand the disciples’ request of Jesus, wanting more faith ourselves. And as pastor and author, Debie Thomas writes about these words, the desire for “more” may be more about what I want – more faith to believe what seems unbelievable much of the time, God’s/Jesus’/the Spirit’s presence, help, healing for us and others and all creation. Or more faith to deal with my anxieties and fears, meaning more certainty to face any number of storms personal and collective that are before us. Is Jesus saying, it isn’t a matter of more. We have all we need.
Luther, in the preface to his commentary on Romans, wrote, faith: “is a work of God in us, which changes us . . . and makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our powers.” To confess this, that faith is a work of God in us, and then ask for more, questions if God has given us enough? Jesus’ response seems to say, more than enough.
In words from Debie Thomas, One of the most damaging messages the Church communicates to people struggling in their spiritual lives is that faith is somehow antithetical to doubt, fear, ambivalence, or confusion. That when it comes to faith, our problem is scarcity. This is a cruel and deeply damaging lie. Having faith — even having enough faith — does not mean that we will never struggle with unbelief, distrust, or anxiety. Having faith means leaning hard into God’s abundance. Having faith means pursuing God and the things of God even when the pursuit feels painful or pointless. Faith is “not” deciding once and for all to follow Jesus. Faith is living within God’s extravagant decision to love and pursue “us.” Faith is trusting Jesus one step at a time, day after day after day. For the long haul.
At the Orange Shirt Day/National Day for Truth and Reconciliation gathering in Centennial Square on Friday, one of the original organizers of Orange Shirt Day in Victoria in recognition of Phyllis Webstad’s story, Eddie Charlie, spoke at the gathering. He spoke boldly and powerfully of the impact of residential schools on survivors and their families, and on families and communities of those who did not survive, all of whom experience trauma that is passed down from generation to generation. Mayor Lisa Helps, who spoke later, said to him, “Your voice gets stronger each time you speak.” Eddie Charlie shared the words of an elder, who when seeing a child with a cut on their knee, asked the child what happened, and the child started to cry. Each time the elder saw the child, repeatedly, the elder asked the child what happened. Until the last time, when the child no longer needed to cry. The story reminds me, as an uninvited settler on these lands, of the need to humbly and actively listen to the stories of survivors of residential schools, until, as the MC for the gathering said, not that the pain goes away, but that we grow bigger than the pain, and that is healing.
I could only be impressed by the “faith” of Eddie Charlie and others in their hope and commitment to this healing journey together. And by faith, I am not imposing my Christian beliefs on Indigenous neighbours as we once did in residential schools. But acknowledging the “resilience” of Indigenous peoples so evident that day in the presenters and the drummers and singers, in the children dancing, and the sea of Orange Shirts, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people standing together. And even more and again at the Pow Wow that followed at Royal Athletic Park. Maybe the smallest faith Jesus speaks of, that can do the impossible, is exactly this resilience that we also witnessed in Cari and Diane with us last Orange Shirt Sunday, expressed in truth telling and remembering and listening, and acts of reconciliation and redress and seeking right relationships together, especially in the day to day to day duty to do as we are called, to serve the wellbeing of every neighbour in love, in God’s abundant grace.
This doing faith, this practise of faith gifted to us, is passed down through the waters of Baptism, as they are for Isla today. Nourished at the table of Jesus who serves as host to all his servants. And first lived by the generations before us, like grandmother, Lois, and mother, Eunice, for Timothy. This faith gifted and lived and passed on, a “spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline,” is within you, as in Timothy, through the power of God “9who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to God’s own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. …14Guard this good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.”
The humble duty of living this faith is captured in the parable of Jesus today about masters and servants. Although the images should disturb us in their analogy to slavery, their purpose is to remind us of the day to day duty of loving service.
Again, from Debie Thomas, I believe the invitation in this (reading) is for us to go forth and live in light of what we already see, sense, hear, and know. In other words, the invitation is to “do” faith. To do the loving, forgiving thing we consider so banal we ignore it. Why? Because the life of faith is as straightforward as a slave serving his master dinner. As ordinary as a hired worker fulfilling the terms of his contract. Faith isn't fireworks; it's not meant to dazzle. Faith is simply recognizing our tiny place in relation to God's enormous, creative love, and then filling that place with our whole lives. In this sense — and I know how unpopular this sounds — faith is simply showing up when we’re expected to show up. Faith is duty motivated and sustained by love. (“If You Have Faith” - Journey with Jesus, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2384-if-you-have-faith)
Maybe in our time, of division and tension real and amplified, of short-fused readiness to be angry or enraged, of white and male fragility, of post pandemic but-not-yet anxiety and fear of crises too many to count, of climate and everything else uncertain for the future; maybe the gift of faith, the duty motivated and sustained by love, and the most subversive of acts now, is to do the gracious thing at every opportunity, the self-discipline of sharing a loving word at every opportunity, the power of doing simply what we are called, what we ought to do, at every opportunity, rekindling the gift of God that is with us – faith, in Christ Jesus, by the Spirit, faith even the size of a mustard seed, to do the impossible, to create a world of God’s love, peace, justice and joy together. In simple acts of faith, day by day by day, in all our relations. Amen
