Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost: Lamentations 1:1-6; Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10
Where did you learn your faith? What has supported it? What helps it grow? Paul writes to Timothy and provides a genealogy of Timothy’s faith: it “lived first in your grandmother Lois and you mother Eunice”. Timothy, Paul was sure, would follow in the faith of his maternal line. But maybe Paul is not actually as sure of Timothy as he says, as he has to tell Timothy not to be “ashamed” of testimony about Jesus, or of Paul’s imprisonment. The rest of the selection we have here is a pep talk from Paul to Timothy. Here’s what we believe, don’t be ashamed, and keep up the teaching.
In reading Paul, I was fascinated by Paul’s understanding of the way we learn our faith from those around us: in Timothy’s case, his mother and grandmother. Some of us learned our faith from our parents or grandparents; but what I learned from them has been added to over the years by teachers, preachers, and friends who modeled different aspects of faith. It was a useful reminder that our faith is not an insolated interaction between us and God, but always embedded in relationships that show us ways of being in that relationship, and help us move into a deeper relationship with God.
Today’s gospel starts with what seems like a simple request from the apostles to Jesus, to “Increase our faith”! Jesus’s response (as is so often the case) is not very satisfying, because the size of faith is not the issue. If their faith was even as big as a (tiny) mustardseed, it could move a tree from its current location into the sea. You do not need a great deal of faith to have a big impact. The problem is not needing more faith, but being willing to do the hard work of faith.
What are the apostles afraid of? Why do they feel the need for more faith? Will more faith help them do what they are commanded to do? Why do we, with at least (usually) a mustardseed sized faith, fail to move the trees in our way? Is that not the way it works today? Or are we, as Paul suggested of Timothy, ashamed? or are we afraid? If afraid, are we afraid of success or failure? What will faith ask of us? Do we really want the things we pray for? What would happen if all our prayers were successful?
These are questions many of us ask ourselves at one time or another. If there’s any comfort in these readings, it is that these challenges have been experienced by followers of Jesus from the apostles onward. We are not the first, and we won’t be the last. Just as we learn our faith from others, we share our doubts and fears with others. What will happen we we trust the power of our faith?