Unpacking ‘Faith’

by Barry Pollard

(Based on Luke 17:5-10; Hab 1:1-4, 2:1-4; Ps 37:1-9)

It has been a busy few weeks for Keri and me. We had a social calendar, something we don’t often have, and it was pretty full. We have travelled away to celebrate a son’s 40th birthday and then our wedding anniversary, we have farewelled and welcomed monarchs, and in the last few days farewelled a dear member of the church family, Ruth Lee. Quite frankly it has been a tiring and, occasionally, an anxious time.

You know, often our anxiety and tiredness can become our focus, spoiling our appreciation of the experiences we have just had. But when I take the time to think about it I usually find that, in nearly all those circumstances, the good things actually outweigh the bad (not-so-good) things. And this is the case in the time period I have just described.

So what could be a good thing that came out of the loss of dear Ruth, you may ask?

Consider the wide view. Verily I tell you: we will all die. Despite the most amazing medical interventions these days, the best we can do is delay the inevitable a little. But in the end we are all destined to depart this world. Knowing and accepting that, Ruth had a pretty good innings (if you’ll allow a cliché or two). 93 beside your name is an impressive entry in anyone’s scorebook. If we think about the woman we all knew, the stories told about her at her memorial service were indeed testimony to her true character and faith! If you had seen the church and St Francis House filled with her ‘visual ministry’ contributions (as Joan called them) you would have been amazed. It made us all appreciate the huge impact a very small person can have on a church and community. Ruth was a quiet little lady who just got on and did things, often great things, and often for others. We have cause to be very grateful to have shared Ruth’s life here in Tairua.

So that is a good thing! And there is more, which I’ll come to shortly.

Now, the point of this chat is to reflect on the Scriptures we have heard today, try to make sense of them, and work out how to apply them in our lives.

Our Gospel reading brought a measure of relief when I first read it as I started my prep. Only five verses. Sweet! But I read the verses, re-read the verses, pondered each one, re-read them, read before and after them, then realized that actually I didn’t have a lot of leeway here. In the end, not only the brevity of the reading but the tone of the verses gave cause for concern.

You have heard them! Jesus was speaking directly and bluntly.
The apostles said to the Lord, “Show us how to increase our faith.” A good question!
The Lord answered, “If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you!“

In Matthew’s Gospel it’s a mountain that can be moved.

To have faith, Jesus says, is awesome!

But I hear his response to their question as a criticism. It is as if Jesus is saying, “You have good cause to ask me that because actually you don’t seem to have a lot!”

If we stopped there I imagine it would be cause for even greater concern for us. It was the apostles who were asking the question. They had been in the very midst of Jesus’s ministry, had prayed with him, had witnessed his miraculous healing power, and seen the effects of that ministry. Surely they of all people should have developed their faith.

But is faith a ‘thing’? Is it a commodity of some kind that we can possess? Is it something we either have or not have?
The Oxford Dictionary defines faith, in the context of theology, in this way:

  • Belief in religious doctrines, especially such as affects character and conduct
  • Spiritual apprehension of divine truth apart from proof (Hebrews 11:1)
  • System of religious belief (like the Christian or Jewish faith).

These definitions certainly apply. But do terms like “faith-walk” and “faith-journey” better describe what faith might be. Walks and journeys assume going to a destination. Does a faith-walk ever actually end in the achievement of faith? Or is it more like the way or method of walking and journeying that is the important bit? That sticking to the task. That turning of our attention and effort to the Lord.

But according to Luke’s version of this exchange, Jesus doesn’t explain further. He then tells the apostles:
“When a servant comes in from ploughing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, ‘Come in and eat with me’? No, he says, ‘Prepare my meal, put on your apron, and serve me while I eat. Then you can eat later.’ And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not.” 

These verses I interpret as a description of a good servant, one who has multiple roles within the household, who is expected to ‘get on with it’ until all those jobs are done. Can you see that it is like saying faith is something that comes with application to task and getting on with it? This is amplified in verse 10: Jesus says, “In the same way, (as the servant he was describing) when you obey me you should say, ‘We are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty.’”

This is also a pretty good guide to our faith. If Jesus is our Lord and Master, surely, then we are the unworthy servants. I think it means we are to acknowledge our place in his plan. We are not on an even plane with God, he is above, we are below. And as to our behaviour and responses: we are to do our duty, whatever that is, just getting on with it.

So let’s go a little wider.
I have often heard Keri say to me that nothing is random. Everything has a purpose and is connected. I know that when the lectionary was compiled the readings listed for each day are supposed to have a connection. I can hear the preaching team groan! I know, sometimes it is beyond all reason to see those connections but the Holy Spirit is here to help us, and I give thanks that today’s readings do fit a theme.
The reading from Habakkuk came in two parts. In the first, Habakkuk is complaining to the Lord that his world is violent and corrupt, that people love to fight and argue, and that good is outweighed by bad. In the second, the Lord responds. The key point the Lord makes is that to avoid falling into the ways of the world, the disharmony and fighting, we need to live by faithfulness to him.

The circumstances Habakkuk found himself in are not dissimilar to those we find in our world today: Russia and Ukraine in Europe, the US and China in the Pacific, the youthful ram-raiders across the country, and so on. God’s answer to Habakkuk is the same one to us, hence the instruction to write God’s response on stone tablets so we wouldn’t forget it. God even told Habakkuk it wouldn’t happen immediately, adding to the need to make sure the correct message was sent out and remembered.

Faithfulness to God! This is how we are to live.
What does that look like? How do we do it?

A thought came to my mind not long after coming back to the Lord a decade or so ago. I was pondering the 180 degree turn I had just made and I couldn’t account for it. I had been in the wilderness for more than forty years, had opposed the church and church-goers with the same zeal that Saul the Pharisee had, had studied and believed in an evolutionary ascent of man, and was really as far from faith, the type of faith that Jesus talks about, as one could be. Yet, something inside me had broken. I was deeply uncertain about my past, but pretty hopeful about my future. I realised I was disposed to change. I needed help!

Disposition describes a mindset that meshes with the concept of belief and faith. Positively, it is willingness or openness to accept new inputs. So I knew I was disposed to change for good. I was open and ready. But I also knew I couldn’t manage it on my own.
Shortly thereafter, I was blessed to be part of a home group that met weekly, and through thoughtful and intimate teaching and discussion, and inclusive open prayer, I began a journey that has had a huge impact on my life and the relationship I now have with the Lord.
I am not saying I have no difficulties or doubts, or that I have a perfect prayer-life, or any of that. I’m just saying my head and heart are turned towards God these days. I am always weighing up the situations I am in and looking for better ways to deal with them. And I hope you are too. So to that end, let’s continue.

Our other reading, Psalm 37, holds some of the keys to what Jesus is saying in the Gospel. Think about it. This is what I hear the psalmist saying:

Don’t be like the wicked
Trust in the Lord
Do good
Take delight in the Lord
Commit everything you do to the Lord
Be still in the presence of the Lord
Stop being angry!

There are overlaps but each point could act as a guide to how we build faith in the Lord. It isn’t one thing, it is many things. But we all have to start somewhere. Each could be a focus for intentional behaviour. Each could be a reinforcement to how we build faith.
Think back to dear Ruth. She lived by these guides. She was certainly remembered by many at her memorial service as having done so.

It is timely, too, that we weigh the life Queen Elizabeth.
At the outset I mentioned the change of monarchs. I am surprised to admit that this has had quite an effect on me. The late Queen had indeed been a constant in my life. She was the only monarch to reign in my lifetime. In the latter years I have come to understand and appreciate her life of dedicated service and her motivation to act so. From the moment of her father’s death and her accession to the throne, she acted selflessly, guided by prayer, committing her actions and the people she was responsible for to the Lord. Let’s hope and pray her son will model his behaviour and monarchy on similar principles.
Elizabeth openly confessed that she was a prayerful person. She encouraged others to pray for her. This admission that in her own strength she couldn’t rule her realms and dominions is pretty humbling. She needed help, just as we all need help.

In Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus used the example of the hard-working servant, the idea that we are just to get on with things, expecting little or no acknowledgement for our efforts, seems harsh these days. In our time and country we are not slaves. We can choose our life paths. We have been brought up to expect words of praise and reward for any and all of our efforts. Nearly everything we do is transactional. If I do this, I get that. But Jesus is saying that we are to operate in a different way, a way that focuses on duty.

Our duties are spelled out in various forms and places in the Bible, but could be summarized by loving God and loving each other.

Just as the Queen responded to duty in her life, we should respond to duty in ours. Just as the Queen turned towards the Lord to be effective in carrying out her duties, so we should. Queen or commoner, we have been assured that Jesus will never forsake us nor leave us. We can all rely on him, in all things. He is the strength we all need to ‘get on with it’.

So as I conclude, let us take heart again in the words of the Collect for the day: God our shield and our rampart, it is your strength, not the size of our faith, that supports us in all life’s difficulties; may we be content to simply serve, and, when our labours are done, all gather as equals around your table …

List of Friends

Who wouldn’t like more friends.
Some people seem to make friends easily.
They’re not to be looked on with envy, necessarily, because there are friends, and there are friends, and you don’t really know what you’re seeing.  Things are not always as good as they seem, and it’s a given that one can still be lonely or feel unwanted in an apparently riotous group of apparently good friends.

Sheldon Cooper (in The Big Bang Theory) keeps a mental list of friends (in his ‘eidetic memory’!), to which worthy individuals are added (or deleted) according to how they appeal to his ego, or not. It gives hilarious insight into how petty people can be, but perhaps also to how our need for friendship so percolates just below the surface.

The truth is, 91.3%1 of us wish we had more friends, or even a friend.  So don’t think you’re the only one.  So does everyone else!

But, it is well said, be careful what you wish for.
Here’s a cautionary poem, unattributed, with a twist in its trajectory.  It’s entitled List of Friends. Enjoy and ponder. 😊

I made a list of friends – ones I wanted to hold.
One of them stole my happiness, and one of them my gold.
One went away, didn’t even say goodbye;
One betrayed a secret … and one told a lie …

So I made another list of friends – ‘cos friends I wanted to be.
One became too famous to even remember me.
And when I stumbled, made mistakes – high was the price.
One laughed and taunted me, one gave bad advice.

Then someone came to me – and put her arms around.
In my darkest hour of grief, a friend I truly found.
She gave me strength and heart when I began to fall;
And, funny, she was one who was not on my list at all.

[Anon]

Friendship is one of the four loves in CS Lewis’s book appropriately called The Four Loves.  This unbelievably perceptive philosopher and writer observes that friendship, unlike ‘romantic love’ (which is done “face-to-face”, he suggests), is done “shoulder-to-shoulder”.  What he’s getting at (and elucidates far better than I do, and with a much higher word limit than I do) is that friends are found in common pursuit.  That is, find an interest that someone else has, or a task he or she is doing, and do it with them.  Shoulder to shoulder.  That’s where friends are most likely to be found.

The other thing is – if self-evident – instead of needily looking for friends, go out and find someone who needs a friend.  And be it.  In an un-creepy, generous, un-self-seeking way.

There you are: a couple of tips.

1Statistic obtained from the highly rated fakestats.com website

What’s Outside Your Gate?

by Joan Fanshawe

(Based on Luke 17:5–10; 2 Timothy 1:1–14)

Admit it: society thinks of the well-to-do as ‘somebody’, treating them with respect and honour, while we treat the destitute with scorn and judgment. We think of them as a ‘nobody’.

In Jesus’s story of a rich man and a poor man notice how he reverses that. The rich man is not named; other than his riches he’s nobody in particular. But the poor man is somebody. He has a name: Lazarus. (Not the same Lazarus who Jesus brought back from death, incidentally.)

When Lazarus dies he is carried by angels to the “bosom of Abraham”. When the rich man dies …. well, he dies. He’s buried, that’s it. No further ado.

The poor, the abandoned, the nameless – they are somebody. The guy at the intersection with the tatty cardboard sign, the refugee with everything in a plastic bag, the addict wasting away in an upstairs room, the inmate languishing in prison, they have a name, a story. They’re somebody. Look at them and see. See them. Maybe you can do something, maybe not. But you can see them.

On the face of it, the parable is about wealth, and it’s a pretty grim story. Jesus has a great deal to say about wealth in the Gospels, and most of it pretty damning. 

But for me the message in this morality tale — the key danger Jesus identifies here in the pursuit of material comforts and riches — is the danger of blindness. Not seeing the human need, at the gate, as it were, and not seeing human worth as real.

Jesus hardly ever mentions the afterlife through the Gospels, but he regularly uses images of the future to shake us up and help us become more conscious of how we are living now. He speaks about the kingdom of heaven, not as an ethereal destination where your soul goes after you die; it is instead how God intends this world to be when we have our priorities right and follow his will for our lives, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

We have heard that the “love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”. And while that is certainly true, as a saying alone it might leave us feeling judged or defensive.
Thank goodness that isn’t the only thing Paul said about wealth when advising Timothy how to be alongside communities with wealthy folk in them. He says that rich folk are to “do good, to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share, thus storing up the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”

Even if we here today would describe our situation as merely ‘comfortable’, that still places us firmly into the top half of the world’s wealth measure.

You see, Paul knows, as Jesus knew, as the Psalmist knew, as Amos knew, as God knows … that wealth can be a great big stumbling block when it comes to living fully the abundant life Jesus offers, living the life that is really life. Too much money can easily get in our way. Too much stuff also causes distraction, cautiousness, anxiety or such a resolve to preserve our privilege that we also become blind to another great problem lying at our gate.

The future of our planet, like the beggar this situation, has a name I’ll say: Climate crisis.
As we Anglicans are celebrating the Season of Creation, and especially the care of creation, I can see a real link from the Gospel story to the situation of the privileged ones of the world not seeing and not acknowledging the problem of climate change.

And then out of the blue … while I was writing this I had a ‘keeping in touch’ message from a friend, Carey, who lives in Kenya and works through her charity of Manasprings, empowering women’s groups there. She and a Kenyan colleague had been stuck in Queensland for two years due to the pandemic (but were able to do some good fundraising while there and keep in touch with their team in Kenya).
They have been back in Africa for a few weeks now and in today’s photos were with a group of women, weaving baskets out under some very dehydrated looking trees, everything looking so brown – except the brightly attired women!

Carey commented that Kenya is experiencing a desperate drought. Some areas, like the one in the photos, have not had any rain for more than four years. Can you imagine having to walk to a dry river bed and dig ten feet down in the hope of finding water? Then walking back with a few containers hung on the back of your donkey – if you are lucky enough to have a donkey?

Carey’s response to my comment about our blindness to the climate issue at our gates was,
“It is true …. we who are the privileged few living in the comfort of our rich nations cocoon ourselves to the extent that we are then blind to the issues, concerns and safety of others living in poorer nations like Kenya. We look inwards to our own needs rather than outwards to help the suffering of others.
“Climate change has severely impacted people in Kenya and these past weeks visiting drought affected regions, has definitely shown me the very major concern of lack of water. Nothing can be grown without water. It is harsh. I pray you will be inspired tomorrow as you share and that people will listen well and be called to action!”

Are we blind to climate change and global warming? It’s very hard to ignore now. On Friday young people led marches for climate awareness in city streets around the world, but scarcely got a mention in the media. That’s because of other issues I guess, like the madness of ego-driven ambition driving slaughter and destruction and statements of even deeper threats.

But, what can we do? What will we dare to see?
At least recognise the issue – remove our blinkers of privilege and reluctance to make changes.  Examine our unseeing attitudes towards the care of creation and speak up in support of our younger ones looking for solutions.

Live simply so that others may simply live.

What else do we require, in order to see what’s at the gate?  We have Moses.  We have the prophets.  We have the parables.  We have the life, the death, and the resurrection of the Son of God.  Like the rich man in the parable, we have everything we need in order to repent, find grace, and offer healing love to the world.
What does this mean?  It means we are without any excuse as we stand inside the gate.  What will we do next?  Where will our gaze linger?  What will we dare to see?

Deploying Wealth

by Auriol Farquhar

(Based on Luke 16:1-13)

Every commentator I have looked at in order to get some guidance in interpreting this text starts by saying how difficult it is; one reflection that I read calls it ‘baffling’ and says that people have struggled to make sense of it for centuries. That gave me great confidence!

The story itself sounds quite modern. A dishonest manager is about to lose his job because he has misspent his employer’s assets. Because he knows that he is not suited to labouring and doesn’t want to be a beggar, he goes around to all the people who owe his employer money and reduces their debts. He does this so that they will be friendly to him after he loses his job. To our surprise, the employer commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Why? Why does the rich man commend his manager for dishonesty?  Why does Jesus offer his followers such an unsavoury character as a role model?  In what sense are the “children of light” supposed to take a cue from the “shrewdness” of a self-interested scoundrel? 

Let’s look at some of the ideas on offer.
Perhaps the passage is ironic? Is Jesus saying this tongue in cheek?
Unlikely
Or, maybe when he reduced the payments, the steward may have been simply forgoing his own cut of the interest. In the world of Roman-occupied Galilee in the first century rich landlords and rulers were often loan-sharks, using exorbitant interest rates to amass more wealth and to disinherit peasants of their family land.  The rich man and his steward, or debt collector, were both exploiting desperate peasants. Maybe the steward was doing what the law of God commands, namely, forgiving all the hidden interest in the contracts.

Could it be that though the dishonest manager is a sinner who is looking out for his own interests, he models behaviour the disciples could copy? Instead of simply being a victim of circumstance, he transforms a bad situation into one that benefits him and others.
Or is it about being strong and practical? When the manager realizes that he’s in trouble, he springs into action.  He doesn’t wait around, he doesn’t despair — he hotfoots it out the door, a plan at the ready.  Perhaps it’s this sense of urgency, of single-mindedness, of creative possibility and cleverness that wins the manager such high praise from his employer.   He focuses on redeeming what he can out of the situation that he finds himself in.   

Or – what if the manager’s mismanagement is actually the fruit of his compassion?  What if we assumed that the manager spent years risking his job and his employer’s displeasure to ease the financial struggles of the debtors he managed?  True, his methods as described in the parable are dishonest; Jesus makes that abundantly clear.  But what if even in his imperfection, the manager embodies grace and forgiveness?  This would fit in with his last and drastic move in the story – he lessens the debts of those who can’t pay off what they own, even at the risk of further angering the boss he has already offended.

So there are a number of lessons that we might learn from this parable, but for me, and the one that I understand best, the focus should be on what Jesus says at the end of this passage – you can serve either God or wealth, but not both.

Jesus is describing a world we know only too well.  A world full of self-interest; of people striving to attain wealth, and not being too fussy about whom they step on, or use, or abuse in order to achieve it. Today ambition to ‘do well’, that is, to make money, is admired; honesty is often seen as weakness and much cynicism exists about the concept of being just and fair to all people. People worship wealth; society everywhere encourages us to achieve it.

I don’t believe Jesus is saying that wealth itself is a sin, especially when someone has worked hard to achieve it and come by it in an honest manner. Rather the sin is the desire to be wealthy for its own sake, at any cost; to believe that to be rich makes us more worthy, superior to other people, and entitled to use the resources of the world to increase our own affluence and prosperity at the expense of others and the dwindling resources of our world. It’s not only about how we may have achieved that wealth: it’s also about how we use it. Wealth should not become our idol. In Luke, Jesus repeatedly warns that we cannot be disciples while accumulating wealth at the expense of the poor. Martin Luther called wealth (or ‘Mammon’) “the most common idol on earth”.

It is how we use the resources at our disposal in this life that matters, even though our “true riches” can only be found in that place “where no thief can draw near and no moth destroy.”
“No slave can serve two masters … you cannot serve God and wealth.” This reiterates a central theme in Luke: the kingdom of God entails giving up all other commitments, including the commitment to economic security

As Christians we live in a world that is deeply interconnected — and deeply compromised.  Even the tiniest financial decisions we make — where to shop, how to invest our money, what to eat or wear in an age of corporate greed, child labour, climate change, and globalization — have far-reaching consequences.  We need to remember this and let it affect our actions when we make those financial decisions – do we buy Fair Trade coffee, do we purchase clothes made in sweat shops, or get drawn into changing our wardrobes each year to keep up with fashion? Do we stockpile goods in times of shortages, do we buy second and third houses and charge exorbitant rents for them? What contribution are we making towards helping the issues of climate change and sustainability? How are we helping to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth and resources throughout the world, or even our own community?

Jesus says, “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  In this context the disciples and us, you and I, are ‘the children of light’. Is the message for us that we can do a better job of engaging with the crises and failures facing us and facing our Church, facing our world, here and now?  Are we just waiting around instead of taking action?   Could we be shrewder, more clever, more creative, and more single-minded in our vocations as children of light?  If the manager in Jesus’s story can hustle so hard for his own survival, how much more might we contend on behalf of a world God loves?  

I guess most of us feel that, as individuals, we can do little to change things. We are not members of the Government, we don’t own big businesses, most of us don’t have a great deal of ‘wealth’. But I believe we can make small contributions to trying to ensure that resources are shared more evenly and at least not squandered, and not use more than we need.

We do a lot already in this community – providing the Op Shop, encouraging recycling, trying to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves, contributing to charities through our Church contributions, supporting our local voluntary organisations, giving money and goods towards disaster funds, supporting research into disease and the many other causes that are visible in our country.
But two things strike me. Firstly, do we do enough in our own lives to not squander the resources of our planet? And secondly, when we are giving money, goods or support to others, are we visible as Christians? Do we show others that we are trying to live unselfishly and to serve and support others because that is the Christian way? We do it because we love God and love our fellow humans as Jesus taught us to do, but do we emphasise that to others?

I need to consider these issues in my own life. I may not be able to pay my debt back 100% but I can try to repay as much as I can. I love clothes, but do I need so many? I keep trying to tell my husband that he needs new clothes – his response generally is, “but I don’t need them.” We find it difficult to give each other presents, as we recognise that we don’t have to squander money on things that we don’t need.

Do I need a new dresser for my dining room? No – I’ll paint the one I have.
Do I need new armchairs? No, I’ll get the old ones recovered.
Do I need more plates, more cutlery, more mugs? I’ll recycle ones from the Op Shop.
Do I need to go overseas on holiday? Actually, the answer for me is yes! To see old friends and family, to recharge my batteries; but at home I’ll only drive one car and not go out to restaurants for dinner every week

I do need to consider my energy use – mend that window where the heat gets out, use the draft excluder at the front door, consider my husband’s suggestion of putting up a ‘naff’ curtain at the foot of the stairs to keep the heat in the living area. Not have so many of those lovely baths, as they use up so much hot water. Make sure that the dish washer is loaded up to the gills before I put it on. . . . . .etc, etc. I’m even trying to persuade Bryan to investigate solar panels!

I can never repay all of my debt to God for the beauty of this Earth and for his love. But I can continually thank him for what he has given to me and others, do whatever I can to preserve it and use at least some of my resources in the service of my fellow humans. And proclaim the reasons why I am doing so. It’s all about love.

I’m far from perfect, but I am trying, like so many of you, and, maybe, like that manager, with God’s help, I can become more shrewd!