creation care

Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 22C), October 3, 2004
Delivered by The Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas at Grace Church, Amherst, Ma.

Habbakuk 1:1-16, 12-13, 2:1-4
Psalm 37:3-10
2 Timothy 1:6-14
Luke 17:5-10

Increase our Faith!

My first word to you must be thank you. Thank you for giving me the privilege of serving at your altar and preaching from your pulpit. Thank you for welcoming me so warmly as your new Priest Associate. I am delighted to be here and looking forward to discovering the many ways that God is at work in this very lively parish. Above all, thank you for sharing with me in the sometimes marvelous and sometimes daunting enterprise of living by faith.

You know as well as I do that faith is sometimes hard to come by. This country is going through a time of uncertainty and turmoil, a time when many of us are understandably weighed down by worry and stress. How do we keep our faith alive – much less help it deepen and increase – when we consider the conflicts in our lives and in the world around us? You can pick up any newspaper and make your own list of woes – the increasingly polarized rhetoric of the Presidential campaign; the escalating bloodshed and chaos in Iraq; the brutality of beheadings, car bombs, and kidnappings; the torment of ethnic and tribal warfare in Sudan; the shock, closer to home, of five people in three weeks being stabbed near the Cathedral in Springfield.
It is not only human violence that makes us uneasy; it’s also the violence that human beings carry out against the natural world. Take, for example, what we’re doing to the weather. Remember that string of hurricanes that recently battered Florida, four monster storms in only six weeks? There have always been hurricanes and as far as I know, no one is claiming that Charley and the rest were caused directly by global warming, but tropical meteorologists do say that global warming is likely to produce more catastrophic hurricanes like these. Burning fossil fuels produce gases – principally carbon dioxide – that blanket the Earth and heat up the oceans, as well as everything else. Warming seas increase the energy of tropical storms, and, as one writer puts it, “Hurricanes are essentially heat engines” [Mark Lynas, “Warning in the Winds,” Washington Post, 9/19/04]. Global warming is real, a fact that even the Russian government acknowledged this week in its grudging decision to sign the Kyoto Protocol, though I wonder when political debate in this country will catch up.

Pile on the troubles and many of us cope by going numb. We space out. We push away the unread newspaper, turn off the radio, and go in search of a snack, a smoke, or a quick run to the mall. Or maybe we glue ourselves to the TV set, mesmerized by every last detail of every last bit of bad news, and feel increasingly helpless and upset. Look too long at injustice and violence and it may be tempting to grow bitter, shrugging, “What do you expect?” or else to rush around in a frenzy of ineffective activity that is mostly fueled by anger and fear. There’s got to be a way to face the pain and horrors of this world without becoming overwhelmed, without becoming hard-hearted or numb, a way to stay connected to the Source of love so that what we do, what we say, how we act in the world, springs from compassion and in some way contributes to healing.

Where do we begin? We can begin as the apostles began: by asking God for help. “Increase our faith!” they say to Jesus. His reply is startling. “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” he says – and according to commentaries, what he means by the conditional clause “If you had faith” is that the apostles do have that much faith, they do have faith as big as (or bigger than) the tiny speck of a mustard seed. “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” [Luke 17:6]. Who knows why someone would want to use his or her faith to uproot a mulberry tree, much less to plant it in the sea, but that’s not the point. What Jesus seems to be saying is, “Don’t worry about the faith that you don’t have. The faith that you do have is enough. It’s big enough to connect you with the power of God, big enough to work wonders, big enough to produce results that you may never have imagined and may never even know about. Trust the faith that is in you. You have everything you need.”

Today’s Gospel invites us to take hold of our faith, however small it may be, to affirm it and to bless it as Jesus affirms and blesses the faith that is in his apostles. And then to live it out, to act on it with all the clarity and singleness of heart that we can. I hear the same word of assurance in the reading from Second Timothy, which urges us to “rekindle the gift of God that is within [us]” for “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” [2 Tim. 1:6-7]. Let me say that again. “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” That’s the spirit that God has given us. That’s the faith that God has planted in us.

If you want to see someone make a breakthrough in faith, someone who’s been deeply troubled by the prevalence of violence and injustice in the world, take a look at today’s reading from Habbakuk. In fact, take a look at the whole book of Habbakuk, which is only about four pages long. No one seems to know much about this Hebrew prophet except that he probably lived in the 6th century B.C. at the height of Babylonian power. The text that he left us is short, but it lays out some of the elements that go into a vital and living faith.

Here’s one: faith in God is honest. It doesn’t pretend that things are any sweeter or more pleasant than they really are. Real faith in God throws away the rose-colored glasses. It names the pain; it expresses the anguish; it makes plenty of room to express our doubt. “O Lord,” says Habbakuk, “how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you, ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise” [Hab 1:1-3]. Real faith – not the fake stuff, not the piety that just glosses over our actual response to hardship – real faith is honest with God about what we feel and need and fear. Real faith dares to tell God the truth. That’s where intimacy with God is born: in our willingness to tell God the truth of who we are.

So honesty is one element of faith. Here’s another. Real faith is receptive. It is willing to listen, learn, and wait. You’ll notice that Habbakuk doesn’t do a kind of hit and run with God. He doesn’t just leave a quick message on God’s answering machine and then fly off into his busy day. Instead, he stays put. After he pours out his anger and sorrow, he decides to “stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what [God] will say to me, and what [God] will answer concerning my complaint” [Hab 2:1]. This is the stance of contemplative prayer, the kind of silent, steady prayer that makes a space for concentrated listening. Our minds are jumpy, so it may be useful to learn some simple techniques for helping it focus, so that, like Habbakuk, we know how to wait and watch and listen. Habbakuk is being receptive, making himself available for whatever God wants to say to him, be it a message of insight, rebuke, or consolation. He comes to God in prayer with open hands. “Speak to me,” he is saying to God. “Show me what you want me to see.”

And he is bold, as well. That’s probably another element of faith: boldness. With a kind of fierce urgency, as if he’s on fire with longing, Habbakuk turns his attention to God and he keeps it there. He stands at his watchpost, determined and persistent, waiting in silence and refusing anything less than God.
And what happens then? Like a flower that bursts open in sunlight, like a melody that brings tears to the eyes, Habbakuk suddenly becomes aware that is God is present, and he is filled with a vision of God’s mercy and power. “Write the vision,” he hears God say, “and make the message as clear as if you were painting big letters on a wall, so that even someone running by will be able to read it! For there is still a vision,” God tells him, “it will surely come, it will not delay.”

Maybe you’ve had moments like that in your life, moments when suddenly you can see through or see beyond the troubles that beset you. It’s as if you are filled or surrounded by a love that nothing can destroy, and you are free to look ahead with hope, committing yourself to God and putting your trust in God’s justice and care. Experiences like that can’t help but spill out into our lives. Faith leads to action, and one of the great tests of prayer is whether we’re growing in our capacity to engage in compassionate action and service in the world.

That, I think, is what happened to Habbakuk, and his experience suggests some of the elements that can help faith grow: honesty about our pain and the world’s pain, a willingness to wait and see what God wants to show us, and the courage to be bold both in our prayer and in our action as we look forward to the fulfillment of God’s purposes in the world.

That’s the kind of faith I pray for and that I pray we will encourage in each other. I must read you the last lines from the book of Habbakuk, because they ring in my ears like a song. “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet” – do you hear it, that ‘yet’? That ‘yet’ is the triumphant word of faith – “yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; [God] makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.”

We turn this morning to the One who loved us into being, and with humility and confidence we pray, “Increase our faith!”

Sermon for the Annual Gathering of Recovery Ministries of The Episcopal Church (held in North Falmouth, MA), Saturday, June 5, 2004. Delivered by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas.

Isaiah Isaiah 42:5-9Psalm 30
Luke 5:17-26

We have seen strange things today

“We have seen strange things today” [bbllink]Luke 5:26[/bbllink].  No kidding.  The story we’ve just heard is strange from start to finish.  It begins with a paralyzed man – along with his bed, for heaven’s sake – being lowered to Jesus through a hole in the roof.  It ends with the man being able to stand up and walk, his sins forgiven.  We’re not told very much about the fellow, but for all we know, when the story begins, his physical, emotional and spiritual condition is completely hopeless, a desperate case.  And yet here he is at the story’s end, standing on his own two feet, restored to health in body, mind and spirit, heading home and praising God.  “Strange,” the people say to each other, seized with amazement.  “We have seen strange things today.”

Do you want to see something strange?  Just take a look at the group of us gathered here today.  You and I were paralyzed once – maybe not in body, but definitely in mind and spirit.  One way or another we were trapped by addiction, powerless, immobilized, and stuck, overwhelmed by our obsession.  There was no way to move, no way to get past the endless craving for the next drink, next bite, next hit, next toke.  What a small world we lived in, you and I – a world completely centered on ourselves, a world riddled with fear, doubt, and insecurity, a world haunted by shame.  Maybe we flailed around for a while – perhaps a very long while – looking for answers, searching for some way out.  We made vows, you and I, earnest New Year’s resolutions.  We promised we wouldn’t do it again – this was it, we told ourselves.  This time we meant it.  We weren’t going back.  We wouldn’t fall for temptation again. 

But we did.  We couldn’t help it.  We were in the grip of something we couldn’t shake, no matter how hard we tried.  Our own efforts availed us nothing – we might as well have been paralyzed, helpless in our own small bed, a basket case.

What happened next?  Someone carried us to Jesus.  Someone – and perhaps many someone’s – cared enough to carry us, or accompany us, or finally to push us into what today’s collect calls “this fellowship of love and prayer” in which we “know ourselves to be surrounded” by those who witness to the power and mercy of Almighty God [Collect of a Saint, BCP, p. 250].  Who knows how we got here, what conspiracy of grace was required to make us finally find our way into the 12-step program.  It may have taken a lot of effort on someone’s part – maybe a court order or an intervention, maybe someone’s ultimatum, someone’s tears, or someone’s prayers – but even if it meant climbing up on the roof and tearing away the tiles and lowering us bodily into the presence of Christ, something made sure that we got here – that’s how urgently God wanted us healed.

As the paralyzed man is lowered into Jesus’ presence, does he really believe that meeting Jesus will make a difference?  The story doesn’t say.  Maybe he wants to see Jesus and maybe he doesn’t.  Maybe he’s convinced that nothing and nobody can heal him, that his sins are too great, his past too bleak, his character too weak.  But here’s the thing: his friends believe in Jesus.  They know, as our text puts it, that “the power of the Lord was with [Jesus] to heal” [bbllink]Luke 5:17[/bbllink].  And isn’t that how it was for us, too?  When we first came into the 12-step program, we probably limped in with only the faintest of hope, if we had any hope at all.  We’d failed in every other effort to change our lives – why should this be any different?  But the people around us believed – if not in us then in the power of the program, in the power of a Higher Power, in the power of God.  They had faith when we did not and for a while – maybe a good long while – we had to trust in their trust.  We had to have faith in their faith. 

That’s where healing begins.  Sometimes it’s the faith of friends that saves us, the faith of our sponsor, the faith of the person sitting beside us in the meeting who simply refuses to believe that sin and death should have the last word in our lives.  When Jesus sees the faith of the people who’ve struggled so hard to carry the paralyzed man to him, he responds on the spot with words that heal.  Right then and there the man’s sins are forgiven.  Right then and there the man receives power to stand up and walk.  Our own healing may not take place in an instant, but when we come into his presence, Jesus speaks the same words to us that he said to the man who was paralyzed: “I say to you,” says Jesus, “stand up and take your bed and go to your home.”

Stand up and take responsibility for your life.  Stand up and face who you are and what you’ve done.  Stand up and tell the truth – about your pain, your guilt, and your need for a fresh start.  Stand up and claim your dignity in Christ, for however far you’ve fallen, however long you’ve been lost, the one who loved you into being has not given up on you and summons you now to fullness of life. “Stand up and take your bed and go to your home.”

What a poignant phrase: “Go to your home.”  Isn’t that what we addicts have always wanted, to find a home inside ourselves, to find a home inside our skin?  All that running around, all that restlessness and craving, all that greed to grab the next thing, all that anxiety that we wouldn’t find what we were looking for, that we’d be lonely and desperate forever, forever aching, forever wanting – doesn’t that express our soul’s longing to be at home, to find peace and fulfillment at last, to know on some deep level that we belong, that we’re wanted, that we’ve finally found our place?  As psychiatrist Gerald May once put it, we are all children of God but we keep running away from home [Addiction and Grace].

When – one day at a time – God puts our addiction behind us, we stand up and we head toward home.  Like the once-paralyzed man, we are released from the burden of guilt and the clutch of shame.  Like him, we make peace with ourselves and with our past.  Like him, we praise the God who set us free and whose home and dwelling-place, we are amazed to discover, turns out to be within us (c.f. John 14:23, Luke 17:21). 

And so our lives begin to bear witness to God, the one whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine [bbllink]Ephesians 3:20[/bbllink].  We find ways to serve, ways to reach out beyond ourselves and to offer other people what we’ve been given.  We become people who bring others to God – maybe not by lowering them through a roof, but by inviting them to worship with us in the sanctuary or to join us in the 12-step fellowship that we find even lower in the building, in those church basements where we share our experience, strength and hope.

Here in the Eucharist we meet the God who says to us, “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.  Quit chasing your idols, whatever they may be – booze or food, sex or drugs, fame, power, or possessions.  None of these,” God says to us, “none of these can satisfy you the way that I can.  For I have made you for myself, and your heart will be restless until it rests in me.”

Here in God’s presence, here at God’s table, we put down our idols.  We lay them down right here.  And then we stand up, we come forward and we offer God our empty hands, an empty space that only God can fill.  We receive a little bread – it seems hardly enough to take our hunger away.  We receive a little juice or wine – it seems hardly enough to quench our thirst.  And yet it is the Body and Blood of Christ that we are taking in – it is God’s very Self.  The love for which we’ve always longed, the home that we’ve always sought and so often fled – here it is, being offered to us, just waiting for us to accept it. 

And so another paralyzed man gets up and walks.  Another addict puts down her drug and learns how to love.  Yes, we have seen strange things today.  Thanks be to God.