Faith is trusting God’s power at work in your heart and life, which is always sufficient.

Vicar Bristol Reading
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 27 C
Texts: 2 Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10

You have enough faith. If you’re worried that you don’t believe the things you’re supposed to believe, or you have too much doubt, or you’ve done too much wrong, or you’ve done too little right – I can tell you that, right now, just as you are, you have enough faith.

When the disciples ask Jesus to “increase their faith,” Jesus declines. Not because they don’t qualify somehow, or because he’s withholding more faith from them – but because the faith they have already is sufficient. Even if it’s tiny! Jesus picks one of the smallest things he can think of to drive this point home: if your faith is as tiny as a mustard seed, that’s enough.

Mustard seeds are famously small, but I don’t think that’s the only reason that Jesus picks a seed for this metaphor of faith. Seeds grow. They transform on a scale that’s miraculous. From something so tiny can come giant trees, sprawling shrubs, stretching vines. Seeds provide – they bring fruit and food. And seeds are alive. They contain a living thing. And that living thing can produce other living things, seeds that make plants that make more seeds that make more plants…

So if faith is like that, then even the tiniest kernel of faith can live and provide and grow. Despite Jesus’ seed metaphor, I imagine that you have still felt like your faith is fragile or inadequate at times.

Timothy, a leader in the early church, seems to have faced a crisis of faith like that, one that was emotionally difficult. In Paul’s letter to Timothy, we hear that Timothy has shed tears; he has felt ashamed and afraid. His faith has grown as dim as an ember. But Paul believes that Timothy’s faith can still be re-kindled.

He reminds Timothy that his faith, tiny ember that it is, is not his own: Timothy has inherited this faith from his ancestors. Paul writes: “Your faith lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I’m sure, lives in you.” In other words, the tiny seed of faith is alive and growing. It was alive before Timothy, and now, it lives in him. Timothy doesn’t carry the burden of faith alone. Wise, courageous women (in this case) carried it before him, and now this treasure of the faith has been entrusted to him. Someday Timothy will pass it on to those who come after him, and those who come after them, and those who come after them…

Could Timothy ever have imagined that all of us would be sitting here today, recipients of the faith that was passed down from his grandmother? That tiny ember, that had almost gone out, still lives. Look, it is here, living even now, in this room, in us.

When we gather together in worship, we bring into this space the legacy of those Loises and Eunices who brought us up in the faith. They may not be literal, biological mothers and grandmothers – but you know who those people are in your life, those mothers and fathers and siblings of faith who nurtured you on your spiritual journey, who shared with you the precious good news of the Gospel, who reminded you when you were most afraid and ashamed: that you are loved; you are enough.

Now you are entrusted with the treasure. You are part of family tree of the faithful. You are called to tell others that they are loved, that they are enough. And the faith will keep living and growing, beyond our lifetimes.

We will see this in action this morning, when we baptize Abigail. This is part of the Lutheran tradition of baptizing young children. We don’t question whether or not little ones have “enough” faith, or believe the “right” things in order to be baptized – because this is God’s free gift, without qualification. One does not have to do anything to receive it. Babies can’t even walk themselves to the font! They get carried, by their mothers and grandmothers in faith. When we are baptized at any age, we are always carried, in a sense, to that moment by our mothers and grandmothers in faith. And no matter what happens in the lives of the baptized, the gift of God’s grace will always be there for them. Nothing can ever take it away.

Because God’s spirit is always at work in us, through our whole lives. Paul reminds Timothy of this also when he writes about the Holy Spirit that is “living in us.” The Spirit is always within us, guiding us and working through us. You don’t have to rely on your own strength; you can rely on the life-giving power of God that is already within you. You don’t have to worry about whether or not you have enough faith; you just have to trust the one who is at work in you. Faith is trusting that God’s work in you is sufficient.

However, trusting that God’s spirit is moving in our hearts and lives doesn’t mean that faithful living requires nothing of us. Paul describes discipleship as a “holy calling:” In response to God’s gift of grace, we are called to live Gospel-centered lives. That’s not always easy. Living out the radical compassion of the Gospel requires commitment, discipline, and sacrifice.

In the Luke passage we heard this morning, Jesus reminds the apostles of this: The Gospel life requires a willingness to serve without reward or repayment, to serve because it is the way God has told us we are to live. Jesus compares it to household slaves dutifully serving at the table of their master. They serve the meal first, before eating themselves.

It’s uncomfortable for us to hear that metaphor today. We know that a master-slave interaction is an unequal and coercive power dynamic, not a model relationship. It is troubling and confusing to hear this imagery used by Jesus. Yet we can still wrestle with the implications of his message.

The end of his short parable contains a surprising twist for the audience: Jesus puts his listeners in the role of the servants, not the master. The authority role is reserved for God. This metaphor is not about humans having power over other humans, but about faithful obedience to God. And God is not the same kind of master that humans would be. When Jesus speaks of the “kingdom of God,” we understand that he is describing God’s reign of complete mercy and justice. That is in contrast to earthly kingdoms over which humans reign. Similarly, when Jesus speaks of being “slaves” to God, that is in contrast to human systems of slavery. God is always liberating. Obedience to the way of the Gospel is never oppressive, even if it is difficult. It is always life-giving.

We don’t serve God and one another because we think it will gain us reward. We serve because it is the way of life that Christ showed us – Christ, who himself became a servant out of love for the world [Philippians 2:7]. We don’t have to wonder whether a master like that would invite us to sit down at the table and share a meal. The table of the Triune God is open to all, always, and the meal is ready. That’s what we celebrate each time we share communion.

So instead of hearing this parable as a reminder that we are worthless slaves, it can be a reminder that we are devoted servants in God’s kingdom, living out our commitment to the Gospel as a “holy calling.” If ever we feel that we are inadequate for the tasks of discipleship, we can remember that it doesn’t depend on our own power, but on God’s power working through us. And God will never give up on that work in us, no matter how dim our faith feels from time to time, because in God’s sight we are always enough. We continue living as faithful people because God has always been faithful to us – just as God was faithful to the generations who came before us and will be faithful to the generations who will come after us.

God, and God’s servants, human and angelic, will defeat all the powers of evil. Just not in the way you might have thought.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The feast of St. Michael and All Angels
Text: Revelation 12:7-12

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal: surrounded by evil and bordered by death we appeal to you.”

These words open our Eucharistic prayer each week in October and November. As the Church Year draws to a close and our seasons in the north move toward dying and the end of growth, the lectionary focuses more on life in the end times, on evil and good and God’s place in that.

We’re starting this prayer a week earlier this year. Today, the 29th of September, the Church celebrates God’s angelic messengers, those spiritual beings who work for God’s good in a world surrounded by evil and bordered by death. It’s good to remember them as we approach the Table of God’s welcoming grace. And all year, at each Eucharist, in the Great Thanksgiving an invitation is sung to the faithful to join “all the choirs of angels” in singing praise to the thrice-holy and ever-living God.

You don’t have to believe in little devils clothed in red with pitchforks and horns to comprehend, even in our scientific age, that there are powers of evil at work that cause evil far greater than can be accounted for by just bad human decisions. Institutions have collective powers, mobs attain a collective mind and do horrifying things. Even a nation, as we’ve learned to our deep grief, can collectively become an agent of evil even if the majority are trying to do good and love neighbor.

So today we celebrate that the complexity and beauty of God’s creation includes spiritual powers who serve God, who work for good. You don’t have to believe in fat little half-naked cherubs with too-small wings to comprehend, even in our scientific age, the possibility of God’s grace in having spiritual servants to help God and to help humans in our need. To work for God against evil, and rejoice when the lost are found.

But listen carefully to how God’s servants, angelic and human, actually defeat evil.

The great war in heaven John speaks of in his Revelation today can evoke all sorts of blood-lust unseemly to those who follow the Prince of Peace. It’s a great temptation for Christians.

The disciples, despite Jesus’ warnings, weren’t prepared for the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah. That the Incarnate God-with-us would reveal the depths of God’s love for the creation by dying in humiliation, revealing what true love that heals all things looks like, isn’t just surprising to us. Jesus’ intimate followers also were shocked.

But their problem, and ours as well, is that after the resurrection, it’s tempting to view the cross as just a temporary setback, well put in our rear-view mirror. We didn’t see that coming, but we understand: the Messiah wouldn’t drive out Rome with armies. But now that he’s risen, surely we’re back in business. Surely now we can start dreaming of the time Christ will return and really clean house. Drive the devils out of heaven, wipe evil from the earth, rule over all things.

But that completely misses the point of the cross.

God’s dying and rising love is the only way God will heal all things. If Jesus wouldn’t use twelve legions of angels to defend himself in Gethsemane, he’s not saving those angelic armies for a future pitched battle with flaming swords against the powers of evil.

Just as the disciples were wrong when, after Easter, they asked Jesus if now he would restore Israel and drive out Rome, so, too, we are wrong if we think that God will change plans and now start using power and force to drive evil from this world. We need to stop expecting God, or the angels, to dramatically or powerfully or magically or militarily defeat evil for us.

It turns out, we need to see how John sees this ultimate victory in his Revelation. It’s not what you think you just heard. He talks today about a war between Michael and God’s angels and the great Rebel and his angels. But listen to what he actually says defeats the powers of evil forever:

John saw this future: God’s angels conquer Satan by the blood of the Lamb.

That’s the great war. God’s angels simply point to the blood of the Lamb of God. The sacrifice of God’s Son, the great outpouring of self-giving love by the Triune God on behalf of the creation.

The center of John’s Revelation is the Lamb who was killed and now lives and is adored, because the Lamb, the vulnerable and victorious Christ, is God’s ultimate and only plan. If evil is going to be defeated, John says, the only thing that will do it is the self-giving love of God at the cross. And that will end it for good.

John saw this future, too: it is the word of their testimony that conquers the powers of evil.

That’s how the armies of angels use the blood of the Lamb to defeat evil. They testify to it. They witness to the utter love of God for all things that caused the God of life and creation to offer everything, even the life of the Son of God, to win back the creation.

And it’s not just the testimony of the angels, but also that of the hosts robed in white around the throne John has already seen. Those faithful who witnessed by their lives to the love of God in Christ, who are gathered in heaven. The word of their testimony is critical to the defeat of evil, pointing to the blood of the Lamb as the end of all evil’s power.

And John saw this future: they win because they didn’t cling to life, even in the face of death, and evil could not stand against such trust.

Both angels and we who are mortal, we who are filled with Christ, who love as Christ, defeat evil when we don’t cling to life, even in the face of death. When we don’t worry about the cost of following but follow the heart of God that beats in us in our baptism, no matter the cost. When we don’t make decisions out of fear and anxiety over what might happen to us but out of the love the Spirit of God pours into our hearts. When we bear God’s vulnerable, sacrificial love in our own lives and words and bodies, and so witness to how God will defeat evil.

Rejoice today: God is working against the powers of evil, human and otherwise, that surround and assail us and all the world.

Just know that the battle isn’t what you thought it would be, and the victory has already begun at the cross. It’s a strange kind of victory, certainly unexpected.

But Jesus would have you focus less on demons being defeated, just as he says to the disciples today, and more on rejoicing that your name is written in heaven. Your life is bound up in God’s eternal love. Your hopes for the world to be free of evil and to be a place of hope and life for all God’s creatures and all God’s creation are found in this dying and rising love that not only writes your name in heaven but the names of every living thing.

Against such love – from the Triune God, from God’s angels, and now from you and all God’s children – what chance do any powers of evil have?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen