Faith, Hope and Laughter
The disciples ask Jesus for more faith – to increase their
faith. The very idea is meant to make us laugh![i]
While their boat founders in on a stormy sea, Jesus chides them for having such
little faith. When they complain that there is not enough food to feed 5,000
people, he chides them for having such little faith. They have been traveling
with him for 17 chapters now and they still do not get it! That’s funny!
Remember Abraham. Abraham is nearly 100 years old when God
says he will have a son. Sarah is nearly 90. Abraham finds it so funny we are
told he falls on his face with laughter! [ii]
Another version of the story says Sarah is hiding in the tent and when she
overhears the news, and she is the one who nearly dies of laughter. God asks
her about it, and she denies it. “No, but you did laugh – and I want you to name
the boy Isaac.” Which in Hebrew means, “laughter.” [iii]
Why do they laugh? Because they know only a fool would
believe that a woman with one foot in the grave would have the other in the
maternity ward! Because God seemed to believe it. Because they half-believed it
themselves, and laughing is better than crying. They laughed because if it
really came to pass, they would truly have something to laugh about! [iv]
In Hebrews 11:1 we learn that “Faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The disciples
probably know the story of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac. And if not, surely Jesus
does. It has been suggested that faith is better understood as a verb than a
noun, as a process, a gut-feeling, not a possession. Faith is often on-again,
off-again, rather than once-and-for-all. For doubt is a dimension of faith.
Some have said doubt is the ants-in-the-pants of faith. Just ask Isaac as he
lies tied up on top of a bundle of firewood on top of a mountain, what was
going through his mind regarding faith – he who was named, “laughter.”
As such, faith is not a commodity that can be bought and
sold, though many have tried and do try to sell it. One cannot have more or
less faith. As a kind of hope, faith cannot readily be proved, like say, that
light travels faster than sound. Like faith, we cannot prove the great of
greatness, nor the beauty of the beautiful. Despite five so-called proofs for
the existence of God, they will never prove to unfaith that God exists – they
only describe the existence of the God in whom we already have faith.
I wish we could see the disciples’ faces when Jesus says,
“You don’t need more faith! A mustard seed’s amount of faith will more than
suffice! That is all our father Abraham had. Yet, it was enough to begat Isaac,
who begat Jacob, who begat twelve sons, eleven of whom sold the youngest,
Joseph, off to some Egyptians. And yet, it was Joseph who saved Jacob and the
twelve tribes from starvation, once again giving God the last laugh!
When Jesus tells us and anyone who will listen that the
Kingdom of God is at hand – some of us take it on faith that he is right.
Others may laugh, but that’s the nature of faith. When you travel with Jesus
you come to know that things can, and will, and do change – for the better. A
poem by a French Jesuit priest I keep in the back of my prayer book describes
the reality of our Good News faith:
Les Arbres dans la Mer
By Didier
Rimaud, SJ
Look, the virgin has a child, a man from God,
Heaven is with us, mankind is not alone any longer
If you only had a little faith, you would see
Trees in the sea, Beggars become kings, the powerful made
low,
The treasures that we share.
Look, the water changes into wine, the wine becomes blood,
The bread multiplies, the people aren’t starving any more
If only you had a little faith you would see
Trees in the sea, the desert full of flowers, harvests in
winter
Graneries overflow
Look, the lame walk, the blind see,
The deaf hear, the people aren’t ill any longer.
If only you had a little faith, you would see
Trees in the sea, executioners without work, handcuffs
rusty,
Prisons useless.
Look, the cross is empty and bare,
Your tombs have fallen and man stands.
The people are not afraid any longer.
If you only had a little faith, you would see
trees in the sea, guns buried, arms put away,
Mountains dance.
We pray today that our God is “always more ready to hear
than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve.” We
cannot accumulate more faith, we do not deserve more faith, and Jesus makes
clear that we do not need more faith. Faith is given, and we can choose to
receive it, or not. Yet, wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus’s name, he
is in the midst of us. His table is always open to all who will approach it in
faith, where he is both guest and host. He serves all at his table, freely
gives us bread which is his Body, so that we might become his Body upon which
others will feed. We are no longer alone. The cross is empty and bare. We need
no longer be afraid. With just a mustard seed’s tiny bit of faith, we will
begin to see the treasures that we share.
As we respond with all that we are and all that we have, the
world will be changed. It is already changing as we allow ourselves to be
changed, laughing all the way at the very thought that we have been entrusted
with life in God’s kingdom! Amen.
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