Sunday 2 October: Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4, 2 Timothy 1:1-14 and Luke 17:5-10
W. H. Auden wrote:
And still they come, new from those
nations to which the study of that
which can be weighed and measured
is a consuming love.
It often seems that to be human is to measure things: to quantify everything in numbers: from birth weight to height, from calories to pass marks. We know we need accurate measurements when lending money, administering medicine, constructing buildings or even baking bakes. A mistake or miscalculation has consequences ranging from the mildly inconvenient to expensive or even fatal.
Yet in other ways perhaps we over rely on numbers to make things real or to make good judgements: interpreting data to quantify performance, health and growth. Even the church is not immune from the study of that which can be measured - counting Sunday attendance at certain times of the year.
Yet, what we are call to is a consuming love - not of that which can be weighed and recorded, but an alternative metric of value and purpose: for example, the sincerity of faith shared across the generations by Lois, Eunice and Timothy. A faith that is quantified by life lived with love and thanksgiving, not by works alone.
And yet, in today’s Gospel we hear the apostles saying to Jesus: "Increase our faith!"
In the verses before they express this longing or request, Jesus has shared with his followers words of demanding teaching: he has presented the challenge and responsibility of guiding others; he’s spoken of broken relationships, and the patterns of repentance and forgiveness.
In response, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the disciples want ‘more faith’. They aren’t seeking short cuts or an easy life - but somehow wanting more, wanting to measure up, or to quantify that they’re up to it.
This can’t be weighed in numbers or quantity, but perhaps we too want to know if we have faith that is genuine or sufficient.
Commenting on today’s Gospel Pope Francis says: Jesus explains this by indicating what the measure of faith is: service.
Jesus’s response might seem strange, dramatic or impatient; he deploys bold or exaggerated imagery to make a point. The smallest seed is enough to follow him in ways we feel are impossible. For as Paul reminds Timothy, we need not fear or be ashamed because we trust in the power of God - and the help of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus doesn’t end there: he continues with a parable which grates and disturbs us - it presents an overbearing or perhaps indifferent master - and ends with a line inviting us to see ourselves as worthless slaves.
Elizabeth Johnson writes that the master-slave relationship, now totally abhorrent in human society [is] no longer suitable as a metaphor for relationship with God.
It’s an image which might remind the wealthy and powerful of their privilege and remind them of the need for humility; but for others, for whom the present experience of servitude or the legacy of slavery is real, it sounds as if that denial of dignity is being locked in.
To our ears, the questions and responses jar. Yet Jesus is leading us to a point of acknowledging that however small or great our achievements, we are ultimately dependent on God, fulfilling obligations of love.
To recognise the offence of the imagery, reminds us that we are not the centre of the world. Somehow, we find freedom in this duty to live with a consuming love we cannot measure or quantify.
Recognising the risk and offence of the imagery, Pope Francis leans into the attitude of being willing to serve. He says: Jesus wishes to say that this is how people of faith are with regard to God: they completely give themselves over to his will, without calculations or pretexts.
More faith then is not a matter of what we want - something manipulative or dramatic; it isn’t a matter of removing all doubts or fears; or even having all the answers to challenging questions. It is not something that we can quantify, weigh, measure or count - there is no ‘more’, ‘better’ or ‘stronger’ in this life of faith.
Rather, faith is a way of life. It’s an attitude, a posture, an alignment of wills in love and trust. It’s a matter of engagement and hope - something that we live out in our lives. Something which brings strength and blessing in the sharing of this consuming love.
Small is significant. Every word and gesture; the dignity of every human person. In the words taken from a linocut by a New Zealand priest, Divine significance usually looks like insignificance.
As Paul reminds Timothy, faith is a matter of turning to Jesus. Coming to him in hope and trust - leaning into his mercy and love and goodness; finding justice and mercy and challenge; bringing to Jesus the pain, vulnerability and risk.
Jesus is telling them that they have faith - in relation to him. There isn’t more to be measured out or bought.
Faith as trust and relationship.
Faith as living out what we have encountered.
Ordinariness of loving and forgiving, serving and caring.
As straightforward, intuitive or committed as when someone pulls a pint, fulfils a day’s teaching, comes to the end of a shift in hospital or in the supermarket, or feeds a child, bakes a cake or walks the dog.
Faith is the business of living out not so much an employment contact but a covenant of love.
Even against the backdrop of destruction, violence, strive and contention, the prophet Habakkuk reminds us that we are to live by faith: we stand at our watch posts seeing what is happening, the Spirit crying within us for an end to wrongdoing; we stand at our watch posts, rekindling the gift of God that is within us.
As Paul reminds Timothy, this rekindling is the basis of daily living. Embracing the gift - committing to habits, to the discipline of this consuming love.
Resting in the assurance of God’s creative and recreative love; and taking that into our lives. Faith is being who we are and doing what we do - inspired, equipped, sustained by love.
This love was revealed in Jesus - the one who through the cross abolished death and brought life. We can trust in him - in faith and love - with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Having faith is to trust in and lean on God: there will be struggles, doubts and worries; there will be questions and moments when things don’t make sense. Yet, we continue to walk this way - seeking God’s ways and knowing God seeks after us.
Faith deepens as we live it; lean into it. We give much of it away in love - rather than clinging on to it ourselves in the hope of increase we can weigh and measure. As we are fed by a wafer of bread, we receive and become Christ’s body - living and breathing, walking and serving in the world.
God comes to us in a way that looks insignificant; God comes in an overwhelming love in small things; Divine significance usually looks like insignificance. And there is ultimate value in that.
