Help My Unbelief!

PPLP Pentecost + 17 Proper / Lectionary 27

2 October 2022

Lamentations 1:1-6

Psalm 137

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Luke 17:5-10

God,

you weep with those who are oppressed,

with those who are uprooted from their homeland

and with those who are without shelter or security.

Grant that your faithful love may reach out through us,

so that your healing mercy may rise like the dawn.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, your Son. Amen.

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Today’s readings are ones that we’ve heard before. This gospel reminds me of a prayer that I pray, often.

Especially when, in my own life, I’m feeling low, or whelmed will I pray “I believe, help mine unbelief,” as it’s worded in the Lutheran Book of Prayer.

In our lives of faith, we all hit highs and lows, as we do in life and in our confidence in Jesus, in the working of the Holy Spirit. Yet, we are often with the apostles who wish for greater faith. We are with Timothy who struggles with his faith, although he comes with the encouragement of both his mother and grandmother.

Paul talks to us of struggling. He mentions bouts of tears. He recalls and adds to the encouragement that we’ve all received in our lifetimes, and which we continue to receive as we grow in our lives of faith, into our identity as children of God.

After all a life of faith isn’t like a high school graduation, something that only happens once in a lifetime. Instead, its a something that we nurture, and into which we grow and continues to grow through the length and breadth of each of our lives.

But it’s also something that grows in and with and through each of our lives, our actions, our relationships.

Paul writes: “2 To Timothy, my beloved child:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

3 I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. 4Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Tim 1:2-6a)

Now, we are able to acknowledge that in the past century, we’ve had some great strides, and yet we’ve had some societal setbacks, as well, and this can be shared across the entire spectrum of Christian faith. We had some great lectures at the Clergy Gathering, this week, pointing out that we’ve all had similar yet different, consistently exhausting experiences that have moved the church an estimated 2 to 10 years further into the future that we have no idea what it will look like.

We have no assurances that we have the faith that will move the mulberry tree into the water, and yet here we are, striving to be faithful with what we’ve been entrusted into our care – our lives of faith, and the message of our Lord Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for the world.

In the gospel for today, we see the apostles are looking to Jesus and asking him for greater amounts of faith than they had yesterday; and we see Jesus’ reply.

But it’s the reply that keeps us seeking for faith and that seeking brings each one of us to the trials that we face, today.

On the surface, we wonder what does all of this have to do with quantity of faith in each of our lives? We wonder if it’s faith the size of a mustard seed that encourages a tree to get up and move, then we wonder how much faith does it take, how brave do we have to be in each of our lives to encourage friends, family, even strangers to join us on this journey of faith? Is this our own attempts to move mountains?

We want to do the spectacular. Yet we pray “I believe, help my unbelief.”

Throughout our lives, Jesus encourages us to go above and beyond what is our societal role as householder, as worker within the household to care for and to encourage each other.

We are encouraged to lean on the faith that we receive from God, not just as a one-time thing, but as a daily oft refreshed gift. We are encouraged to love God, to care for our neighbour with the same care that we would use for our own lives.

We are encouraged to get out of bed and express “Good morning, Lord,” instead of “Good Lord, its morning.”

So, then, how do we, looking at Paul’s words to Timothy, live into the encouragement that we find there: the urging to be stronger than our tears in living out our faith to the world, following Paul’s example?

Paul reminds us “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

8 Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, 9who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his 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.” (2 Tim 1:7-10)

It's not an easy road, and so we will pray “Lord we believe, help our unbelief”

We are able to pray this when we feel we’re not making progress, but still Jesus declares that we’re doing what we’re called to do, when we serve those in need, when we support them in their lives and tasks in society.

We pray this when we feel we are at our wits end, and Paul reminds us that we are stronger than we think. We are stronger than we feel we are capable of being, in the world, and in each of our lives.

There is a great line in the movie The Haunted Mansion, staring Eddie Murphy.

Madame Leota, the gypsy head in the crystal ball, when Jim Evers feels he isn’t getting anywhere in his increasingly desperate attempts to rescue his wife and children, and he’s to the point of feeling sorry for himself, tells him: “You try, you fail. You try, you fail. But the only true failure is when you stop trying.”

And when he asks her what she wants him to do, as we do when we feel we’re out of our own ideas, her only response is “Try again.”

Who thinks that life is easy? Is that why we come to church? Because life is easy and we’re here to give our thanks to God for the lack of problems, the lack of challenges that have come our way?

I hope not. I come to church because life isn’t easy.

I come to church because I need the encouragement, when I pray “I believe, help my unbelief” to know that in this place I’m encouraged to go out into the world and try again. I need the encouragement not only from God, but from each one of you who come to worship here, as well.

I come because in my past I was encouraged to worship to be in the church, to be a part of the life of the church through the actions of family, and their examples of not just attending on Sunday mornings but being involved in the life of the church throughout the week, as well.

And here, today, we hear that when we remember the least among us, and lift them up, give them a moment of ease, and encouragement, then we make their life better, and we make our own life better as well.

He reminds us that we beat a better path to the door by our going from this place, out into the community and reminding people that the church is here to be a place to come, to rest, and to recharge, together.

We go from here, and we offer a word of kindness, we offer a smile of encouragement, we offer an invitation to join us in earnest worship of God who gives us faith to move mountains, to tell a mulberry tree to uproot itself and be relocated to the water.

It’s here that we are able to be encouraged together, and in that encouragement to each other. And it’s then that we’re able to go back out into the world and encourage others to come and to rest, with us, as we see that Paul encourages Timothy; as Jesus encourages the apostles, not through words alone but by testimony, by example.

“8 Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, 9who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. …11For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, 12and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.” (2 Tim 8-9, 11-12)

And here is where we find ourselves.

Here is where we find our hearts.

Our trust, our love in God brings us together.

It’s Christ himself who serves us, who encourages us to take our rest before going back out into the world just doing our job, resuming the tasks that are at hand, not just at this time, but every day.

We go out praying “I believe; help my unbelief” and in such ways, then, we move mountains.

Amen.