Bible Reading: Luke 17:5-10
Dear Friends
In the gospel reading that we will hear this coming Sunday Luke 17: 5-10, the disciples plead with Jesus to give them more faith. That may sound like an odd request to us, but Jesus has just been telling them there will be times when they will need to forgive someone over and over again. And if you’ve ever had to do that, you probably understand the urgent nature of their request.
Interestingly, Jesus kind of throws their request back in their face. If you had only a speck of faith, he says, you’d be able to do unimaginable things. And then he invites the disciples to consider whether servants expect to be thanked for doing what they are supposed to do. Given that the anticipated answer is probably “of course not,” we might conclude that Jesus is saying that the disciples should stop worrying about whether they have enough faith and just get to the business at hand.
Which got me thinking: might “faithfulness” simply being doing what we see needs to be done? Maybe faith doesn’t have to be heroic. Maybe faith doesn’t even have to be particularly religious? Maybe faith is just being attentive to the needs around us and committing ourselves to doing what we can with what we’ve got, trusting that God will make use of it.
So, what do you think faith is? And what do you see around you that needs to be done? Or, maybe more importantly, where do you see people just doing the stuff that needs to be done and how might you name that as and maybe even thank them for their faithfulness.
Solomzi