Church of the Resurrection, Drayton
17th Sunday after Trinity
3rd October 2004
9.30 a.m. Eucharist
Readings: I Tim 1:1-14/Lk 17:5-10
‘Increase our faith’ – Lk 17:5b.
The telephone rang while the study was full of colleagues from the parish. From the start, it was clear that the person at the other end of the line was a grandmother who was keen to arrange a date and time for the christening of her grandson. I have nothing against grandmothers; being a grandparent, I’m told, is even a chance to make up for some of the mistakes one recognizes one has made as a parent. But the particular example of the species on this occasion, shall we say, had little need of what is sometimes called assertiveness classes. I admired the enthusiasm, but the combination of determination – and rudeness – began to get me down. I was very ready to meet the parents of the child, and indeed wanted to very much. I tried to be as concessionary as possible. But no; what was required was a package-deal, arranged over the phone, with as little human contact as possible. I was aware of colleagues finding the experience of listening to at least one side of the conversation somewhat amusing, and they were aware that I was trying to be as well-behaved as possible. In the end, however, with a tone of affable exasperation, I had to say to her: ‘this is the baptism of your grandchild that we’re talking about, not ordering a Christmas hamper from Harrods.’
The baptism did take place, and I’ve no doubt that the grandparent in question was as excited on the occasion as she was on the telephone that memorable morning. But whenever I hear those words addressed to Jesus from his close followers, ‘increase our faith’, I am reminded of those many times when I have heard, or when I have said to others, something along the following lines: ‘if only I could have such-and-such, then all will be complete.’ Our knee-jerk desires, which so often express not just surface feelings, but deep-down convictions, what sort of a person we are. And I have taken care to include myself in the picture: yes, bishops are frequently the butt of consumerism, from people determined to get what they want. But we are all in the firing-line of our own suddenly-expressed desires. The difference with this morning’s gospel is that the disciples put top of the list what they really need – which is faith. They realize, on the one hand, that they do not have enough of it. On the other hand, like us with our sometimes tedious ‘I want’ lists, they see faith in terms of a commodity. Faith, yes, but an increase, please, by the kilogram, at the Sainsbury’s check-out point.
So where do we go from there? Luke’s gospel here provides some subtle hints, which are to be found in the little nuggets of teaching that precede and follow this particular passage. Just before, Jesus has been warning his followers of the danger of temptation, and the need for forgiveness – which are enshrined in the prayer, the Lord’s own prayer, which he taught them only six chapters earlier. To follow Christ means facing testing, temptation, in a special way; not just in the routine manner of the rest of the human race, precisely because we are trying – somehow – to be disciples, which will bring us from time to time into conflict with the world. But to follow him also means experiencing both the giving and receiving of forgiveness, there are almost daily examples of this potential, when one takes into account the ways in which Christians at times seem almost determined to misunderstand one another.
Faith, therefore, has to be built on the experience of being tested, and of the reality of forgiveness. But what comes after the cry of the disciples for the ‘increase of faith’? Jesus goes on, in the second part of the gospel-passage which we have just heard, to turn the tables a bit on them: a slave comes in from work, and in the ordinary manner of living then, we would expect them to carry on with more work, because the meal has to be served. Here is something we would ourselves prefer not to have to do: a rest after work would be more fitting. But, suggests Jesus, acting out of duty, the duty of his call, takes priority even over our personal desires. Faith is to be experienced in the way we try to serve one another. Not always easy, but then the life of faith was never going to be anyway. Then after today’s gospel-passage ends, we have another encounter: not Jesus and his inner circle, which it has been so far, but Jesus and ten lepers, social and religious outcasts, people absolutely desperate to be cleansed and healed. And healed they are, but in such a rash and ready way that Jesus is prepared to put up with only one of them returning to him with thanks. That lack of gratitude underlines, and therefore undermines, the society of which we are a part. ‘Archbishop Rowan did a really first class lecture in Egypt’, said someone to me the other day: ‘then why don’t you write to him and tell him so?’, I said; ‘do you think I should?’; ‘yes’, I replied, ‘because I suspect more people complain than write like that.’
A richer but rather messier picture of faith is beginning to emerge, which is not made up entirely of an initial, sudden act of trust – though that is important, especially at a time when public trust is not exactly at a premium in our world. In order for faith to grow – and I say ‘grow’ in order to deepen, rather than ‘increase’ as a commodity – it needs to experience temptation, and forgiveness; and it needs to spill out into service of others, and the ability both to be generous with one’s spiritual gifts (like the healing of the lepers) and to put up with minimal thanks (though that is not really good enough, certainly not in the church). I recall a new fellow-incumbent of a well-organised parish, which was so well-organised that everyone had to be thanked at the A.G.M. – except him; and after a phone-call to the Archdeacon concerned, the churchwardens were suitably nobbled, and told that clergy have feelings as well.
How strange it is that once an apparently straightforward text begins to unravel, we should find our whole lives before us, as if we were looking into one of those crazy mirrors, where some things seem a bit exaggerated, and other bits are out of focus; and when we move, everything looks topsy-turvey in another way. But the life of faith is an exciting venture. When the KAIROS process was launched in the diocese earlier this year, some folk thought it was just another Lent Course. But when the message went around that this was for real, and it was about the future of the parishes and deaneries of the diocese, then a different set of vibes came back, along the lines of ‘well, it’s all been worked out already’. It hasn’t, because it’s about a journey of faith: a faith that grows by being tested, a faith that deepens with forgiveness, a faith that gets applied in the most ordinary things of life, including the least convenient challenges that come our way, and a faith that is generous about its particular gifts, to the point of being thankful for the smallest expression of gratitude.
+ Kenneth Portsmouth
