October 6, 2013 "Believing Differently"

Jeremiah 32:6-15 Luke 17:1-10 During WWI factories and storefronts closed as soldiers went off to war, and the people believed "We can do without so that our armies have what they need." Then the Stock Market crashed and people believed "Our children will have a better life than we do." During WWII, soldiers were drafted, women began work in factories, each believing "The world our children and their children inherit would be a better place." Yet, over the last three decades, the Stock Exchange topped 10,000, then 12,000, then 15; homes that we bought for tens of thousands suddenly were reassessed in the hundreds of thousands of dollars; we have been experiencing the greatest exchange of wealth and accumulated assets history has ever known; yet we are not satisfied. We believing in more and we believe in instant gratification. The parable which Jeremiah lives out, which Jesus describes four different ways, is that Faith is Not a Commodity, faith is Not a thing, faith is Not being spiritual, faith is neither measurable nor instantaneous magic. When we try to control faith, when we make faith into magic incantation, or scientific formula, or reward for good behavior, faith becomes destructive power, as demonstrated in Goethe's Sorcerer's Apprentice, or Disney's Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, or Tolkien's power of the Ring. Believing in the Gospel does Not guarantee Prosperity. FAITH IS DIFFERENT. Jesus named to his disciples that when your brother sins against you seven times a day, or as described in another Gospel even seventy times seven times, and they repent, we must believe they are forgiven. Here we are not identifying a Get Out of Jail Free card, that all you need do is say you are sorry, but that in this exchange we and they repent of where were were and become reconciled to one another. Faith is a God-given Gift of Grace. Either you recognize you have faith within you, that you have received grace, or you do not. The disciples response to Jesus was “Increase Our Faith” the Greek phrase being “Prostheteo” the same root origin from which medicine created the idea of a Prosthetic. A Prosthetic being a replacement part, a thing which is added on to replace or improve what is missing. Jesus response is a resounding “NO” because faith is not an add on, not a thing to bought or sold, not a replacement from outside the person. Faith comes from within. We are so accustomed to buying and selling what we need and desire, we have all but given up on miracles, on dreams, on hoping against what we know and having faith in a different future. Faith IS taking what we have what we know and going deeper, digging down into our resolve to believe. What I find most odd, most dramatic in this passage, is that unique to Luke, the Disciples do not become Apostles after Jesus' death and resurrection. Instead, several chapters ago, Jesus sent the disciples out two by two, and the identity of being disciples who are sent makes a person an Apostle. An apostle has been called and commissioned and charged to go to heal the sick, to baptize and cure. The apostles had been able to preach, to pick up serpents, to pray for miracles, and these all happened! But afterward, when they returned to Jesus, Jesus commanded them here to be aware of their own sins, the problems they create for their sisters and brothers, AND to Forgive. It is the forgiving of others over and over, that shocks and terrifies the apostles. Seventeen years ago, I came to interview face to face with the Pastor Nominating Committee of this Church. When I got back on the plane, I had a Honey-Do List of all the things this Church identified as needing to be fixed. The problem was not that we did not know that the roof leaked, or the basement had standing water, not that we did not know the building was falling down – you could grasp a brick and remove it from the wall so decayed was the mortar. We were a people who tolerated secrets and avoided confronting one another. We knew so well that what happened in worship could be controversial, we taped a line in the hall outside these doors, in 8” wide blood red tape across the ceiling, down the walls and across the floor. As if to say, the place of worship, the Sanctuary of God is too hot, too dangerous to consider. But oddly what we know needs be done we routinely tolerate... I think that may be why our houses are identified by the persons who used to own them, and only become our home once we move on. And a new owner is willing to invest in replacing and improving upon what they know needs to be done. After all those things on our Honey-Do list were done, the Session asked that we consider where fruit had never grown. To dream new dreams and cast a fresh vision. We preached on having a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, a BHAG, and suddenly there was the challenge of creating a clinic half way around the world in a place you could not get to. As the cheerleader of this church, the most wonderful part is that like a hired servant or slave, we have done only what we needed to do. Just as God has offered us forgiveness, so we as believers forgive. The text from Jeremiah is a hard one, because quite literally Jeremiah has “bought the farm.” Buying the farm is an archaic phrase meaning when you die in battle, the Government sends you money to pay off bills, usually used to pay off thew mortgage on the family farm. The parable is that after decades of prophesying that Israel would be destroyed, Now the war is over, the battle done, and yet money is set aside to “buy the farm” that future generations would know we were here. What can we do to think of future goals? Not things we can accomplish today, or in our lifetime, but that our children's children's children's children will live differently, believe differently because of us?