Increase Our Faith! Lam. 1:1, 4; 3:19-24 Luke 17:1-5 Clinton G. Roberts To the Presbytery of Chicago September 17, 2013 I wish to thank our Moderator Julio Pena for inviting me to preach tonight. I have never preached before the Presbytery of Chicago and I am grateful for the opportunity. My enthusiasm, however, paled somewhat when I was asked to preach on these particular texts from the Common Lectionary. Lamentations 1? Really?? At this Assembly, where we are marking the closing of our Presbyterian Camps in Saugatuck? And Luke 17 too? Jesus teaching about faith? Oh, Lord! No beating about the burning bush here These scriptures speak directly to our feelings and our faithfulness in the household of God. How lonely sits the Camp that once was full of people! The roads to Saugatuck mourn, For no one comes to the lakeshore, Her gates are closed, her counselors groan, Her campers grieve, and her lot is bitter. A lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, a part of what it means to be human; and something we can see even in very small children, when, deprived of something they cherish, their tears of outrage morph into mourning; their tiny fists unclench, and their weeping becomes softer, deeper, and infinitely sad. As we grow older, we learn to conceal these strong emotions, don t we? But they are still there: just as potent and just as real. For my part, I find myself lamenting among you tonight. Reading the Litany of Thanksgiving for the Presbyterian Camps was very difficult for me for I am not quite there yet nor, perhaps, are many of you.
Our lamentations, whether they involve Saugatuck or Syria, gun violence in America or the state of our church our lamentations, when directed to God, are a part and parcel of our faith. Our faith is not Pollyannish. Our faith embraces sorrow, as surely as Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem. Our faith embraces lamentation, because lamentation is a part of love. In the Bible, we find expressions of lamentation in both the Old and New Testaments such as this text, written during the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. But we find lamentation most of all in the Book of Psalms, the hymns of God s People, where more than 40% of them are songs of lament. It is important to remember tonight that these very hymns of lamentation rarely end in grief. The words move forward, into remembrances of God s covenant faithfulness and mercy, into expressions of hope, and yes even thanksgiving! From Ps. 42: Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my hope and my God. From Ps. 3: But You, O Lord, are a shield around me; My glory, and the lifter of my head. And from our text from Lamentations 3: But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope; The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness! The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I will hope in Him.
Yes lamentation is an indispensable part of faith. But the beginning and end of faith lie not in ourselves, but in the One who has promised us Spiritual gifts of love, joy and peace. Weeping may tarry for a night, says the Psalmist, but joy comes in the morning. We need to take strength from that, because far graver issues than the loss of this beloved lakeshore property demand our spiritual discernment tonight. As the Vision and Praxis Task Force has given voice to in its Final Report to the Presbytery, we as a Christian community are suffering from a culture of disconnection that threatens our spiritual fellowship and violates Christ s commandment that we love one another as He loves each and every one of us however challenging that may be, at times. II In our Gospel reading from Luke 17, the disciples ask Jesus, Increase our faith! Jesus response is not comforting. He has just finished telling them that obstacles to faith are bound to come (Saugatuck being a good example) and he goes on to say, But woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive And even if the same person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times and says, I repent, you must forgive. Wow. Was he really saying the disciples would need to forgive each other s sins and shortcomings, even when such efforts at reconciliation had to be repeated again and again and again? No wonder they implored him, Increase our faith! I am quite sure, after following Jesus around for nearly three years, those disciples were painfully aware of each
other s sins and shortcomings as are we! You see, it s easy to zero in on someone else s deficiencies while ignoring how our own example may be causing another to stumble, particularly within our own families and in the wider family of the church. We are not named Ruling and Teaching Elders for no reason. Perhaps, like those first disciples, our faith needs strengthening, too. III Jesus response to their entreaty is perhaps the most challenging aspect of our text for tonight. He says, in effect, Don t ask me to increase your faith because if you had faith even as tiny as a mustard seed you could move mountains and tell this mulberry tree to go jump in the ocean and it would!! No, Jesus seems to answer the disciples entreaty by reminding them of who they are: *they are slaves, if you will, of one Master; *they are servants in one Household; *And they are believers who are expected to act accordingly, committing their ministries to God without expectation of being thanked or rewarded. As those of us who live in families know quite well, when you come home after a hard day s work, there is still work to do! And it s no different, my sisters and brothers, in the family of faith. At the end of the day, after all our varied ministries have been engaged and pursued: *in our congregations *in our communities *in our City *and in our world Then we are called to Supper, not first to be served, but to serve each other: with humility, honesty, graciousness and love.
For when we undertake to serve each other in these ways, we are really serving the Lord, who stooped to serve us all. And through this service, we can find our outrage and lamentation morphing toward a new morning of gratitude: *gratitude for God s unfailing mercy and love; *and gratitude for the privilege of serving one another in the love of Jesus, without which again, I repeat, without which: Our faith will amount to nothing: Nothing more than sand. Let us pray: God of Wonders, You who raised Jesus from death to life, Lift up our hearts from long nights of lamentation. Increase our faith, and draw us into the light of a new day for our Presbytery; That we may see You more clearly, And love one another more dearly, As Your Son, our Lord Jesus, expects us to do. Amen.