Trust in the midst of darkness

 ‘…we have done only what we ought to have done!...’ (Luke 17:10)

        

Luke 17:5-10 (Year C: Trinity+19)

A lingering hope

Faith is a form of trust. Not any type of trust.

Faith is a lingering hope when all seems hopeless.

Faith is a stubborn conviction when the evidence seems thin. 

Faith is received more than it is given.

Faith is lived more than it is scripted.

Faith is grace – amazing grace – when we feel utterly lost.

Faith is the bar on which we manage to hang on.

Faith is more about a living and loving relationship of trust than intellectual assent to some doctrines (important as these may sometimes be).

And even if we should lose all faith for a while we find ourselves strangely enveloped in a kind and loving trust. Life has many twists and turns. It can happen that those things we never wanted, or expected or planned arrive and turn our little worlds upside down. One day we are healthy, full of life and dreaming dreams for the future. The next day a few of us meet an accident that leaves us with a disability for life. Disability, sickness, death is always for others – so we think. It would never happen to me. But, everyday billions of people face a new day not knowing what lies ahead. Whether it is health or sickness, trouble or joy, sadness or liberation we live by faith. Those of us who have found peace in the faith of Jesus Christ can only boast of one thing, viz, faith met us in our darkest hour when no light seemed possible or visible. (It is no accident that the gospels are full of images of darkness and light).

But faith is a choice never a compulsion or imposition. At some point we are open to faith in that quiet spot somewhere beyond the horizon of our imaginings and not infrequently in a time of darkness. Many are those who receive faith and stay with it throughout their lives in simplicity of heart. They are blessed. Still others meet faith after many years of bitterness and struggle at a time and place least expected.

A living faith

Faith is not something static or fixed.  The mere fact that the friends of Jesus asked him: ‘increase our faith’ (v. 5) shows that faith is something living, growing and changing. Compared to a tiny mustard seed (v.6) we picture an image of growth from something tiny, fragile, precarious to something large, solid and welcoming. To look for an increase in something means that what is there now is less than complete or satisfactory. We, too, can and should ask in simplicity of heart ‘increase our faith’. Not, in the first place, by means of vast reading and intellectual discourse. The intellect has its place and we are urged to love God with ‘all our mind’. However, the ‘heart’ is where faith is born and nurtured. It can also be a place where it is lost for a while through care, worry, pain or the result of abuse.

Opening the doors of trust

In our 21^st century ‘first world’ millions seek peace, meaning, belonging. There is a thirst and a void. And many seek peace outside the traditional places of worship or ritual. They turn to the East. Or, they turn to the depths of their own hearts where peace can be experienced in the gentle streams …. Today, empty churches and ageing or dying congregations need to open their doors – literally – to allow others to come in, stay awhile and speak while some of us exercise a ministry of deep listening without questioning, without judging and without presuming to know what is best. We are merely caretakers of trust springing up in surprising places. We have merely ‘done only what we ought to have done!’ (v. 10).

And amazing things can happen when people are given space to listen. Trust is established not on our terms but on God’s terms in ways we never imagined. With trust the size of a mustard seed (or a micro-chip, to use a 21^st image) we can say see miracles around us – lives saved, misery transformed and people empowered to live in a new way never imagined possible. It all starts at the darkest hour just before the dawn. At such a time a spontaneous prayer springs up inspired by the petition for our ‘daily bread’ in the prayer of Our Father:

Give us the strength to live our daily calling; to face darkness, uncertainty and pain with courage and love.