Exercise your faith

Sometimes I just want Jesus to be nice, you know?  Jesus gives us difficult assignments, like he told these disciples in the verses just before the Gospel lesson we just read.  What he said to them was that occasions for sin are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come, and if someone sins against you, you must rebuke them—which means correct them—and then if they repent, you also have to forgive them.[1] 

Of course the disciples respond: Jesus, that’s too hard!  We obviously can’t do that!  Give us more faith!  And Jesus is like, no. 

Debie Thomas, a Biblical scholar, asks why Jesus would tell the disciples no when they ask for more faith.  In a commentary, she writes:

“Maybe the only way to answer the question is to unpack what I mean by "faith."  What exactly am I asking for when I beg God to give me more faith?  Sometimes, I'm asking for "the faith that moves mountains" — a supernatural ability to impress or manipulate God into doing what I want.  Sometimes, I'm asking for an intellectual boost — an increased mental capacity to believe in the more challenging tenets of traditional Christianity — the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Second Coming.  And sometimes, I'm asking for an antidote to anxiety.  God, please take away the fear I feel as I face your invisibility and your silence.  Grant me certainty so I'll feel happier, holier, stronger, braver.  Rewire my brain and my heart so that it becomes impossible to doubt you.

“When I take a hard look at my assumptions about faith, Jesus's "no" begins to make some sense.  What if faith isn't quantifiable?  What if it's not an emotion?  Not an idea?  Not a capacity?  What if faith isn't even a noun?

“What if, instead, faith is engagement, orientation, action?  What if faith is a daily, hourly movement into the God-saturated, God-centered vocations we were created to fulfill?  What if faith is something we do?  Not something we have?”[2]

As followers of Jesus, we want access to some special vault of faith that will give us access to riches, and it just doesn’t work that way.  Debie Thomas writes that the life of faith is “as straightforward as a slave serving his master dinner…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.”[3]

What if faith is not something you have but something you do?  Perhaps faith takes practice to grow stronger. 

Mary McKibben Dana, a Presbyterian minister, wrote in a commentary on this Gospel:

“As I look around at a world that feels increasingly unspooled—some days, the news literally takes my breath away—I understand the disciples’ desire to have enough faith to meet the moment. But if I’m honest, what I’m really wanting is for all of this not to hurt quite so much. Maybe if I have enough faith, it won’t devastate me to see immigrants arrested while at the doctor or to watch us walk away from our climate commitments. Maybe with enough faith it will all be less gutting.

“But I’m reminded of an elite runner and coach I follow on social media. He’s sometimes asked by brand-new runners when it will feel easier. Or they want to know what it’s like to run so seemingly effortlessly. He tells them, “It doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger.” This guy literally runs more than twice as fast as I do, but when he’s giving it his all and I’m giving it my all, the effort is similar. And when someone is starting out in the sport, the reward for being able to run a 5K without stopping is the chance to run a 10K, if one chooses.

“With an increase in faith comes an escalation in the work we’re called to undertake. Perhaps that’s what Jesus is up to here. We can’t be blamed for wanting it to be easier. But the reward for growing in our faith is the opportunity to join God’s work more fully and more deeply.”[4]

It doesn’t get easier; you just get stronger.  These days are giving us a faith workout that some of us have never experienced in our lives.  Perhaps we didn’t exactly sign up for this the way an elite athlete commits to training.  But if putting one foot in front of the other and taking one tiny step is all we can do, then that’s enough.  That is the training in faith, by persisting. 

This is the message of the prophet Habbakuk, speaking to the people of God in a time when they were facing exile to Babylon.  The people lamented, and God heard them, but they still faced exile and separation from their home.  However they didn’t abandon their faith in God; they persisted. 

We’re not alone in this faith exercise.  We’re here to encourage one another, all of us encouraged by Jesus Christ himself, who is unafraid to speak the words of truth even when they’re hard.  God does not abandon us. 

Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the saint who is recognized by proximity with creation and animals, keenly aware of the many ways that creation praises God.  In the last year of his life, he suffered terrible physical pain yet at the same time great spiritual happiness.  When he knew the end of his life was coming near, he said “Welcome Sister Death!”  He asked his brothers to dress him in his old habit and lay him on the bare earth—what an act of humility to accept the embrace of creation.  As his brothers gathered around him, he blessed each one, saying “I have done my part.  May Christ teach you to do yours.” 

Which sounds a bit like Jesus’s words, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!”  May our own faith increase as we trust in God’s mercy. 

Amen.

Pastor Cheryl

[1] Luke 17: 1-4 ¹ Jesus said to his disciples, “Occasions for sin are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come! ² It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to sin. ³ Be on your guard! If a brother or sister sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. ⁴ And if the same person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”

[2] Debie Thomas, “Doing Faith,” published 25 September 2016, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1126-doing-faith 

[3] Ibid.

[4] Maryann McKibben Dana, “October 5—17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time,” In the Lectionary, The Christian Century, page 24, October 2025, https://www.christiancentury.org/lectionary/october-5-ordinary-27c-luke-17-5-10