Increasing faith

Readings

Faith. What is it? Is it mere belief? If it is belief if and I just believe, do I have faith? What is meant by belief in this context? Is it what is often called "intellectual assent"? Intellectual assent can run the gamut from being deeply convinced to "Sure, why not?"

It's easy enough to say "I have faith," even when the person saying it isn't really sure what s/he means by it. I would say the hallmark of faith is repentance. By repentance, I don't mean, or don't exclusively or even primarily mean, being sorry for your sins. Jesus' call to repentance is not a threat. It is an invitation to live a new and different kind of life, the life of faith.

Jesus' point in our Gospel reading this week is that faith produces repentance and repentance is not just the door we wlak through to new life but also the path that leads to it. Even the fruit that genuine faith produces through your life is nothing other than grace at work in you. This is what leads to Jesus' conclusion in this pericope, which can sound harsh.

But Jesus isn't being harsh. He's seeking to move you away from your self-centeredness. He wants you to live in God's grace, not your own vainglory. Is God grateful to you for the good things you do? No. He did create and redeem you for these very things that constitute the life of faith. Sanctification is your cooperation with God's grace in living this way, this life of faith.

I think we have to be careful not to allegorize Jesus' teaching in this passage from Luke. In other words, God is not the master in Jesus' lesson. He's just using an example with which they're familiar. To tell his disciples that even when they've done all that they're supposed to do, they're still unprofitable servants is just a way of answering their plea to increase their faith. What is faith but our response to God's initiative toward us? God's initiative elcits (it doesn't solicit and it certainly doesn't force) a response from you.

We need to constantly trust God. As C.S. Lewis put it: "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done" (from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer). I really think this is the point Jesus seeks to make to his disciples in our Gospel reading. When it comes to faith, you can't rest on your laurels. If for no other reason, you can't rest on your laurels because you don't have any laurels on which to rest.

This is faith: to respond again and again and again to God's initiative toward you and then recognize the results. True faith can never be merely believing, even believing fervently. When belief waivers, praxis should not. Do you want God to help your unbelief?

In a very brief explanation of this pericope, the late New Testament scholar, Fr. Raymond Brown, noted that Jesus seems to address the "idea" some of his disciples "might get... that they had done something great" (An Introduction to the New Testament, 250). But whatever truly great thing they might've accomplished is the work of God in/through them. It is grace that flows from faith.

This leads us back to Jesus' invitation to live a new life; to repent. As our reading from Habukkuk tells us: "the just one, because of his faith, shall live" (Hab 2:4). After all, it is true faith that makes him just.

So, if today or on any day, you hear God's voice, harden not your heart.