Words for Worship

Ministry Today

How to start having faith.

 

Texts:

Matthew 13.1-15

Jeremiah 1.4-12

 

 

 

Now if you are like me

you probably can remember

very little of the grammar lessons we had at school.

 

In fact, the only point made during these sessions other than verbs being ‘doing words’ was the difference between a metaphor and a simile.

 

Yet when we use an illustration in our speaking that we stretch it too far – it’s always the metaphor that gets the blame.

 

May be that’s why I always thought similes with their limited ‘as like as’ phraseology as pretty dull.

 

Well, this morning as we look now at the nurturing the faith engendered from an encounter with God – my metaphor is going to be stretched like elastic.

 

Because the world of faith is as like as a saucer.

 

For most people the saucer is upside down.

 

They encounter God and feel the stirrings of faith.

 

Maybe at that time they really want it for they see its advantages to them.

 

At that point they are at the saucers centre.

But then after the initial enthusiasm, their interest wanes, a bit like that mouldering gym subscription and as a result they slide slowly to the edge of faith’s saucer.

 

Sadly if ‘things spiritual’ continue to slide, then they fall off the edge.

 

It is at that point, they grandly claim, as if as the outcome of some long intellectual struggle, they have lost their faith.

 

In reality all they have proved is faith is as like as physical fitness and that laziness has its own reward.

 

Or bluntly, the truth of the timeless adage – use it or loose it.

 

Please think then saucers as an explanation for this parable of Jesus….

Matthew 13.1-15

 

 

But like every story, a saucer has two sides.

 

And it is the other side – the saucer the right way up that should really interest us as people of faith.

 

For if the world of faith for ourselves and others can be made like that then when we are blown by events away from the centre, we will soon return.

 

Indeed everything is set up to bring us back to an even keel and greater trust in God.

 

And the process of turning faith into a restoring saucer can be called faith building.

 

The work in fact we and God must do after initial encounter to ensure that faith is stable and assuring and the bringer of joy.

 

And the first step in faith building is seen in the story after the encounter we will hear now…………….

 

Jeremiah 1.4-12

 

 

 

Jeremiah was a strange cove by all accounts. He was in every way the reluctant prophet, he was neurotic and he definitely leanings towards supporting Israel’s enemies.

 

So much so, there is an element about him of Alistair Campbell with Lord haw haw thrown in for good measure.  

 

 

Yet his story tells us a lot about the interaction between God and humans that springs out of encounter.

 

A series of actions that gives rise to increasing faith which in turn results in God’s will being done which in it own time gives even greater faith – and so on.

 

Now if we were being particularly analytical we would say it was firstly a call from God, a response from us and then a continuing dialogue of further calls and responses.

 

And at each stage faith is given, used, replenished and grown further.

 

This dialogue of calls and responses with a subsequent harvesting of faith can be seen in experience of Patrick when he writes:

When by misfortune I came to Ireland as a slave,

every day I used to look after sheep. I used to pray often during the day and the love of God and the fear of him increased in me more and more;

my faith began to grow and my spirit stirred.  

 

So let’s look at that initial call that comes out of encounter first.

 

 

And the most important fact to grasp it that it gives only two options – acceptance or rejection.

 

For when the call to faith and faithful action comes – it offers no side-stepping, no half measures and in all honesty – no standing still!

 

We can either proceed to the centre of the saucer or regress to its edge.

 

Indeed, the literature on the call to ministry suggests the sensation of a call is one of being painted into a corner – either one jumps or leaves the arena completely for no other possibility is on offer.

 

However, be assured that whatever that leap entails more than enough faith will be supplied to make it successfully.

 

For, indeed, God never asks us to do what we personally cannot.

 

And that bring us to the realisation that God has a unique plan for each and every one of us.

 

He is not nor ever will be one size fits all God.

 

In fact, he knows us just as intimately as he knew Jeremiah.

 

No wonder the prophet could claim - before I formed you in the womb I knew you.

 

God’s call then will therefore be tailored to your specific situation, abilities, wants and limitations.

 

A point that Jeremiah forgot when he said – I am only a child and the Lord returned – Oh no your not!

 

But even more important in finding faith through the call of God is to grasp exactly why we are being asked to go in a specific way.

 

For God always points clearly in what direction he wants us to jump.

 

A leap of faith never has a random target but invariably aimed at the benefits of faith.

 

Because God’s call is always on the way to the person we want to be and ought to be and undoubtedly will be if we have a little faith.

 

His call is always en route to greater maturity in our personality, better stability in relationships with others and increasing fealty to Christ.

 

Moreover, his call is always heading for the deeper joy of our circumstances ultimately being transformed, our anxieties being conquered and our future being made certain.

 

At its simplest then, God call requires our little faith to move us to greater faith and the greater rewards of that faith.

 

And all of that brings us to our response.

 

Now I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that we should respond wholeheartedly – I think we can take that as read.

 

But possibly how we apply that wholeheartedness is worth considering.

 

For there is a famous story about John Wesley and how he came to found the Methodist denomination.

 

Now as young Anglican cleric, he had crossed the Atlantic to Georgia during which a severe storm sorely tested his faith.

 

In America, ill health and a failed love affair further tested his sense of vocation and caused him to dash back home.

 

It was then at an evening meeting of the Moravian sect that he reports having found his heart strangely warmed – it was as if only for the first time did he truly hear the call of God.

 

So too when we have an encounter with the ‘I am’ that is beyond us, we need to genuinely listen.

 

Listen to what he is saying – listen to what he is wanting and listening to why he is wanting.

 

For there is no better way to build our own faith than to try to see why God wants us to go in a certain direction.

 

We need to use imagination to work out who will benefit from our leap of faith and then be inspired by what will be achieved.

 

More’s to the point, we must be enthused by the vista of possibility that will be our inheritance and our bequest if only we have a little trust to step into it.  

 

But outclassing even these most worthy ways of responding, we also require one more thing.

 

And that is to believe in ourselves that we can do what God is asking.

 

For faith in God, I suspect starts and moves forward when we have faith that we are able to hear the call of God, that we are up to the honour of being part of his plan and that we with Christ’s support can aspire to be the active faith-filled person that can enjoy living the Christian life, the good life and the eternal life.  

 

 

That life of little faith gravitating towards greater by the process outlined by the poet Edward Everett Hale who put it like this:

I am only one,
but still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;

And because I cannot do everything

I will not refuse to do the something I can do.   

 

A while back Will Willimon,

Dean of the Chapel at Duke University in the United States,

got a call from an upset parent,

a VERY upset parent.

"I hold you personally responsible for this," he said.

"Me?" Will asked.

The father was hot under the collar because his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she was going to chuck it all in

("throw it all away"
was the way the father described it)

and go do mission work with the
Presbyterians in Haiti.

 

"Isn't that absurd!"

shouted the father.

 

"A BSc
in mechanical engineering and she's going to dig ditches in
Haiti."

"Well, I doubt that she's received much training in the Engineering
Department here for that kind of work, but she's probably a fast learner and
will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months," Will said.

"Look," said the father, "this is no laughing matter.

 

You are completely
irresponsible to have encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally
responsible," he said.

As the conversation went on,

Dr. Willimon pointed out

that the well-meaning
but obviously unprepared parents were the ones who had started this ball rolling.

 

They were the ones who had had her baptized, read Bible stories to her, taken her to Sunday School and let her go skiing with Youth Fellowship.

 

Will said, "You're the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me."

"But all we ever wanted her to be was a Presbyterian,"  the father wailed.

 

Well in addition to proving that even Presbyterians can do some good, this story is as much a parable of call and response as Jeremiah could have written.

 

For clearly through out that young lady’s life there were the distinct encounters with God.

 

These in turn gave rise to divine calls that gave clear directions matched neatly to her abilities.

 

We see too in that story a growing level of response of one who is gradually being wound into the Christ’s plan for a better world.

 

In each, she seemed to take ever larger steps in faith – a smaller faith that bred the larger faith for the next leap and so on.

 

So on indeed until her life

of huge faith led her to a pretty saintly decision.

 

Yet a move that was not blind but was inspired with who she was becoming –

that was emboldened by the opportunity to give others the chance to be who they should be and that was enraptured by the joy of giving Christ’s plan for all of us the ability to be.

 

So similarly let us today reopen the dialogue in our lives of call and response, let us re-engage in the business of planting our small faith in order to harvest a finer crop and the job of building a faith world with our own uniqueness that drives not to the brink.

 

Instead, let the vessel of our lives pull others back to the centre of trust, let it sweep others into the vortex of hope and let it restore others to the fulcrum of joyful possibility.

 

For only then, are they at the destination of all faith

; only then are we the person we destined to be;

only then do we together fall back naturally

to that omega point of the cross which is the very heart of God.    

 

Amen