Sermon "Great is the Mystery of Faith - Marissa Rohrbach

7/27/2019 Sermon "Great is the Mystery of Faith - Marissa Rohrbach

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On Friday night, I went to the opera with my partner and hermother. We went to see Nabucco.

For those of you who, like me, know very little about opera

this is the depiction of the exile of Israel and the capture ofJerusalem by the Assyrians led by Nebuchadnezzar.

In 1842, when the opera was performed at La Scala, Italywas under Austrian occupation a people not exiled, but inneed, still of hope that their occupiers would somedayleave.

For both of these populations the Israelites and the

Italians -it is faith in their future that ties them together.

It is their faith in who they are that binds them up.

Israel knows they are Gods chosen and that God willreturn them to Zion. And this knowledge this faith allowsthem to hope and to struggle and to persevere.

It is their faith, clinging to truths from generations past, --

their faith that reminds them who they are their faith thatgives them reason to live.

Obviously theres much to be said about this faith. If it cando all that.

And we hear about it a few times in our readings today.

Our text from Habakkuk encourages us to live by faith andgives us an image of what it looks like it involvescommitment, service, and faithfulnesswaiting andwatching serving and believing that the appointed timewill come.


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Tall orders. Telling us theres something about action to ourfaith

Then in the letter to Timothy Paul reminds us that faith is a

gift from God and that it is treasure, worthy of beingguarded entrusted to us by the Holy Spirit.

Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heardfrom me, he says, in the faith and love that are in Christ

Jesus.

So theres something of teaching to our faiththe quest foreducation for knowledgeand, something to note about itsbeing worth protecting this sacred standard that has been

passed down through the church.

And then we arrive at the Gospel.

If only a small amount of faith the tiniest measure canuproot a tree and have it planted in the sea can youimagine what a great amount of faith can do?

And who needs more if such a small amount can do suchbig things?

And yet, the disciples askincrease our faith.

Sounds like pretty special and dangerous stuff, this faith,doesnt it?

And it is. Dangerous, indeed.

Because its the stuff that changes the world.


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Faith is a gift, given of God. To us to be fed, nurtured guarded.

Faith is a gift, given of God so that we feel connected to

God. So that we are able to hope for the future.

Faith is a gift, given of God so that we might live it watching and waiting serving our purpose even as wefeel connected to each other-

To something that is bigger than we are.

Bigger than you and me individually.

You share something special though with the people sittingaround you.

Something that much of the world doesnt understand perhaps that some of your friends some of your family dont understand.

You share a special bond with the people around you who

believe a bond that is different than any other thatconnects us all to God.

A bond that offers hope a bond that can tell us who we are.

Faith is a gift, given of God a gift that is meant to be used and honored protected and cared for.

This second part of the Gospel well, its a bit more trickythan the first.

It speaks in some way to the service part of our faith.


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Instead, if we are servants of God then our faith comesfrom and connects us to the One we believe in.

Our faith is not defined by who we are or by what we wantto believe but by Godit is faith given of God that definesUS.

How we actand what we doand how we treat each othershould all stem from this faithfrom the traditionalteachings of faith and from the new ways in which Godleads the church.

Because there is one faith. Like there is One God.

This One who has given YOU work to do.

And who expects you to do it.

But this One who also said to his disciples before he left that he no longer called them slaves or servants but

friends.

We have to wrestle with this jarring parable but we alsohave to put it in the context of the larger story

The story that compels us to wonder about the mystery offaith faith that makes us part of the story.

It is the larger story and your part in it the service we areall expected to do that leads us back to faith.

This thing that connects us to each other and to God.

That gives us hope like the Israelites who have been exiled like the Italians who were occupied


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And like every other population that has been unjustlyoppressed unjustly enslaved unjustly marginalized andalienated.

We, too, are exiled, in a way. Living in a world that does notunderstand who we are a world that struggles against thework of faith

A world that would divide us a world that would like todefeat us a world that continues to try to tell you that youare not good enough or right enough.

But it is faith the faith that comes of God that leads us tobelieve

that all of us ALL of us will be freed.

That ALL of us are loved. And worthy.

Because we are all connected to God and to each other.

It is faith that reminds us of what weve been asked to do byGod of the faithful lives weve been called to live livesthat are marked by service

By sincerity

By generosity

It is faith that reminds us, too that even in the worst oftimes God has good plans for us

God wants us to know that we are beloved.

And that there is hope for the future.

For each one of us.

Because God so carefully MADE each one of us.


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In all our diversity all of our giftedness and plans to fix allof the brokenness the world has created in us.

It is faith that reminds us of this truth of these promises.

Faith that offers us hope.

Faith that shines as a light in the darkness.

If you have it it is a gift from God given by God andreceived by you

It is meant to be guarded.

Meant to be nurtured. By a quest for knowledge a quest forcloseness. A quest for spiritual connectedness to God and toeach other.

The disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith.

And we should do the same.

As often as we can. Because it is faith yours and mine ourfaith, given of God- that will change the world.

That will end structures of oppression. That will end systemsof violence and corruption. That will transform us and theworld more and more into the Kingdom of God.

And we can never have enough.

Amen.

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Sermon "Great is the Mystery of Faith - Marissa Rohrbach