3 October 2010

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

The disciples have been having a really tough time of it. Jesus has been pushing and pushing extravagant forgiveness and extravagant generosity a whole lot lately – and then, just when the disciples thought they were doing pretty well at giving people who had wronged them a second chance . . . well, Jesus has the unmitigated gall to tell them they must forgive the same person seven times a day – day after day after day after . . . . Well, you get the picture. “But this is so exhausting, Jesus. All this discipleship stuff is exhausting. We’re tired, we’re frustrated. Shouldn’t there be some reward here? At least give us some of more of this faith stuff, a spiritual high – some peace in our hearts – something worthwhile – some sort of benefit to offset the cost of discipleship.”

Jesus, of course, can’t come out with a straight answer. “OK. You want faith – if you had just a little bit of it, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey you.’” Hunh?? At this, the disciples get to grumbling amongst themselves, “Wait a minute. We want something – well, useful. Something that makes this faith thing all worth the exhaustion and frustration we feel. But what earthly good is there in uprooting mulberry trees and planting them in the sea??? Mulberry trees produce good fruit – a great cash crop. And you’re telling us that faith is like trashing good treed, that there is no profit in it, that faith is actually about some sort of loss?”

At this Jesus lets loose – clearly peeved. “Does a powerful land owner need to thank a bunch of worthless slaves? No! You’re only doing what you’ve been called to do.” So much for sweet Jesus. Gosh, you don’t have get so cranky and testy with us, big guy. But, it is as Blessed Martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer says of our walk of faith, “When Jesus calls a person, Jesus calls that person to come and die.” Faith is not a system of rewards – our human economics and our human calculus are no good. Quite bluntly put – there is no benefit, not even any thanks for being profligate, wildly extravagant with our property and with our forgiveness. We merely are wildly extravagant with our time, our money, and our unconditional forgiveness of one another because that’s what God has declared us to be all about. And yes. It’s difficult. That’s why it’s called “bearing the cross.” Or put another way: this side of the grave, Jesus never promised us a rose garden – only the cross.

St. Paul the apostle and our patron, writing to Timothy as we heard in the second reading for today says, “Listen – following Jesus really is like being a prisoner . . . of Jesus – your will is no longer your own. And, this surrender of power, of privilege; the giving away of all that you have and all that you are without putting conditions on any of it; this endless forgiveness of the very last people you would ever want to forgive – well – it’s torture – you really do suffer. So don’t look for a reward, and do not be ashamed of following in this very odd way – the way your mother and your grandmother set you upon. Faith of your mothers, holy faith; be true to it till death.”

But we humans, we do expect rewards. It’s in our DNA – in that respect we’re just like chimps and lab rats. We expect to get a pellet every time we push the correct button – a reward when we’ve run the maze successfully – a banana when we put the little pictures in the right place. And we get more than a little irritated when we, with the prophet Habakkuk in our first reading, when we look around us and see a bunch of goons in business and industry seemingly rewarded ad nauseum for screwing up ad nauseum. What are you up to God? The pagans, says Habakkuk, their horses are swifter and they’re more menacing than a pack of bloody jackals. What good is our faith against that? We keep true to you God and we’re like fish in a barrel. Where’s the good in being generous, peaceful, and forgiving? All we get for it is more strife and contention. “Listen to me, God” says Habakkuk – “I’m going to be like a watchman on the tower and wait and watch for an answer to my question.” And the answer from God? “The righteous live by faith.” All you’ve got and all you’re going to get is – God’s promise that the end of history is in God’s hands and God will redeem it – and not even that will not look the way you suppose. Or to put it another way – in another verse from Habakkuk, “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!” The answer from God, a Reverend Mother’s voice – saying, “Hush my child – all shall be well, all things shall be well, every manner of thing shall be well.” And out of the shoah, a small voice, “Be still and know that I am God.”

And this declaration from God – it is enough. And so from the prophet Habakkuk we hear Holy Gospel – the Gospel of the Way of the Cross: “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet . . . . . yet . . . . . I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.” And Habakkuk ends with this instruction “To the leader: sing with stringed instruments.”

Sing it. Faith – trust in the odd ways of God that bring with them no rewards, not even comfort – trusting in the ways of God in Jesus who calls us to come and die – radical faith – that is to say trust – comes as Paul tells us through hearing – and so God’s gift of song, the faith given to us from our mothers’ arms that blesses us on the way. Paul – in prison and awaiting death – dares sing hymns of praise. And Dietrich Bonhoeffer – awaiting execution at the hands of the Nazis – in prison sings his favorite hymn: “In thee is gladness, amid all sadness, Jesus, sunshine of my heart . . . When he is ours, we fear no powers, not of earth or sin or death. We shout for gladness, Triumph o’er sadness, Love him and praise him And still shall raise him Glad hymns forever: Alleluia.” Martin Luther, wondering if and when he will burned at the stake as a heretic sings out in defiant opposition to the powers of this world: “Though they may take our house, goods, honor, child, or spouse, though life be wrenched away – they cannot win the day. God’s kingdom is forever.”

Faith – of about as much earthly good as uprooting mulberry bushes and dumping them in the sea. Faith – it mocks every human cost-benefit analysis. And faith does come through hearing . . . in the midst of trouble, strife, contention, in a world where the greedy succeed, in the midst of our exhaustion and our frustration – we sing – which is why in the Lutheran tradition the office of the Cantor, a minister of the Gospel, is held in highest esteem.

And so today in the midst of an always uncertain future, we dare sing in the dark, “O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, still be our guide while troubles last and our eternal home.” And again we dare to sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” with the angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven in praise of the One who bids us “come and die.” And partaking of the very essence of the One who would rather die than not forgive all the world’s wrongs – of the One who refuses to rule by force – with Christ in our bodies, we will dare go out from here today – in fulfillment of Habakkuk’s command to sing it out – we will echo Habakkuk’s song in opposition to this world’s ways: “And whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill, we’ll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless God still, to marvel at God’s beauty and glory in God’s ways and raise a joyful duty – our sacrifice of praise.”

To the Cantor and the people: sing the faith – with instruments and DEFIANCE!!