Growing in Faith

Sermon preached at 11am Coral Mattins at St Mary the Virgin, Lapworth.
Sunday 9th May 2010 – Easter 6 Year C

Readings: Psalm 67 Acts 16: 9-15 John 14: 23-29


When I read the scripture readings to prepare for this service, the thing which really struck me was the way that Lydia’s conversion was described in our reading from Acts. It said “The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul”.
What struck me was that it was the Lord who opened her heart.
We might think he was down to Paul. He had a great reputation as a preacher and spokesperson. We might think that with his wise and eloquent words he converted her.
Or we might think it was down to Lydia. Clearly she was extraordinary woman; head of a household and owner business dealing in purple cloth. Perhaps this very able woman was able to discern the wisdom in what Paul said, and to discover its truth?
But no, the scripture does not put Lydia’s conversion down to her own wisdom, nor does it put it down to the skill of Paul as a preacher. Rather the text says, “The Lord opened her heart”. And for me, this was a very powerful reminder that faith, ultimately, is a gift from God. God chooses to give this gift in accordance with his own purposes and that is down to God, not down to human beings. But we also have to remember that God wants to give us this gift of faith. That is why he sent Jesus, and caused the Church to grow. God wants to give us this gift of faith. It is more a question of how we receive it. How do we put ourselves in the right disposition to receive this great gift that God wants to share with us?
So let’s think about our faith? What is our own faith like? Is it big or small, or hidden? Do we sometime worry that it might not be their at all? I think that most of us experience faith as though we are a large plant pot full of mouldy black compost with a little accord hidden somewhere in the middle of it. And most of the time we are very aware of a lot of back and mouldy compost, which we might think of as doubt, and we hardly aware at all of the little acorn, which is, after all, very small. But that is not the whole story, because the acorn has the power to grow. And if it is looked after and watered and put in the sunlight then it will grow. And over time it will grow and grow and grow. And the roots can smash through the pot and grow down into the earth, and the whole thing can grow up into a great big oak tree. And after three hundred years people come along and say, “What a big and beautiful tree”. They don’t even think about the plant pot or the compost anymore. Perhaps some fragments of pot remain buried deep down among the roots somewhere, but they don’t matter anymore. We’re talking about an oak tree, not a plant pot.
So let’s think of ourselves as like the plant pot once again. We should not be too worried if there appears to be awful lot black mouldy compost – doubt – around. Growing up with doubt, in us and around us, is part of the Christian experience. Neither should we be too worried that the acorn – faith - seems very small, and may not even be visible. It may be small, but the important thing is that it is alive and it has the potential to grow.
[Now, an important aside. Although the acorn is small, we must identify ourselves with the acorn, because that is where the life is. The compost is dead and decaying. It is the acorn that has the long term future. So although our faith is small, and maybe hidden, we must live by it and allow it to guide our lives. We have to choose life. We have to live in our new self, not our old self, as St Paul says (Rom 6: 6, Eph 4: 22-24, I Col 3: 9-10). If we don’t choose life (the acorn) but instead choose to live by our doubt (the compost) then we are choosing rottenness and decay. There becomes a chance that the acorn will be overcome and will itself die and itself turn to compost. No, we have to choose life.]
Now in order to grow the acorn is completely dependent on sunlight and water. Without these things it can only die. In the same way our faith is completely dependent on God, on the presence of God in our lives and on our relationship with God. It was God who moved Lydia’s heart to believe. So, if our faith is so dependent on God, what can we do? How can we play our part? Do we just have to sit around and wait for God to act, or is there anything we can do? What is the contribution that we can make?
Well I think our gospel reading is very helpful here. Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my father will love them, and will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14: 23). So keeping the word of Jesus is the key way to have God come and dwell with us. Just two verses earlier Jesus said something very similar, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” So once again Jesus emphasises that the important thing that we need to do is to follow the commandments of Jesus, to live by his teaching. And if we do this then God will come to us, and Jesus will reveal himself to us, and in this way our faith can grow. And so what we need to try and so is set up a self-reinforcing cycle of growth for our faith. We follow the commandments of Jesus as best we can and try to live by his teaching, so God comes to us more and Jesus reveals himself to us more, so we understand his ways better follow his teaching with greater consistency and aptitude, so God comes to us even more, and Jesus reveals himself even more, and so we get even better at following his teaching…and so our faith grows and grows and becomes like a great oak tree, something really big and solid that we can depend on and that we see us through times of crisis and difficulty.
So our part is to follow the teaching of Jesus, to keep his word, to live by his commandments. And what is that teaching? What are those commandments? Well Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God, and the second commandment was to love our neighbour. Then at the last supper Jesus gave us a New Commandment which he described as his own (John 13: 34, 15: 12) to “love one another as I have loved you.” So following the teaching of Jesus is all about growing in love for others. This is our specific contribution. This is what we must do to make our faith grow. Amen.