Fourth Presbyterian Church: A Light in the City

Sunday, October 2, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

World Communion Sunday

Shannon Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 114
Exodus 15:5–7, 10–14, 21–29

When I served at a previous congregation, I used to get together each week with two other Presbyterian pastors in town. We all had different political and theological viewpoints, but we all were committed to deepening our own faith by studying Scripture together. I clearly remember the day on which we read this particular passage from Luke.

One pastor leaned back in his chair, just shaking his head slowly from side to side. Another crouched over the table, head in his hands, reading these verses again and again and again. I sat there blankly, not having a clue as to how I was supposed to react. We then read the passage out loud again, and we began to admit that we each felt a combination of dumbfounded and irritated.

The one pastor who was leaning back in his chair began speaking. “He just won’t let up, will he. Sunday after Sunday Luke just keeps hitting us with this hard Jesus stuff, one thing right after another. Think about the texts from the last few weeks. Bam, bam, bam. One zinger after another. Was it asking too much to just have one comforting story? In his editing of Jesus’ life and ministry, couldn’t Luke have inserted just one nice healing story in the middle of all these difficult discipleship texts?”

“And now today,” said the other one crouched over his Bible. “This Sunday we have to deal with ‘It would be better for you to drown in the sea than to do something that causes a vulnerable member of the community to stumble. Make sure that you are always on guard against temptation. If someone in the church does you wrong and they repent, forgive them. If they do it again, forgive them again. If they do it again, forgive them again . . . and so on and so on up to seven times a day.’ Who forgives someone seven times a day — especially in a church family? Give us a break!”

And at that moment, all three of us joined in together with the disciples’ lament and request: “O Lord increase our faith!” after which we burst out laughing. At least we felt we were in good company as we sat stewing with these words from Jesus, because today’s story indicates that the original disciples felt the same way.

They had been eating, drinking, and living Jesus’ challenges of discipleship each day, day in and day out. And unlike you or me, they could not try to put it out of their minds by closing the Bible, sitting in a recliner, and watching the newest season of Ozark or Chicago Fire. Opting out of the discipleship struggle was not a choice for those early apostles.

Thus, it is no wonder that as Jesus laid even more layers on top of what it meant to be his followers, those early disciples began to run out of steam. They heard what Jesus was preaching about the “responsible care for vulnerable community members; the mandate of magnanimous mercy; the power of faith; and the importance of loyal service that is not motivated by an interest in reward or in elevating their own position” (John Carroll, Luke, pp. 339–342). And in response to all those challenging teachings, those early disciples came face-to-face with their own sense of inadequacy and powerlessness: “Oh Lord, increase our faith.”

In my mind’s eye, one disciple is just sitting there, shaking his head back and forth. Another one leans over, head in hands, reading the same passage in the Torah again and again looking for an out. And one just sits there blankly, wondering how Jesus really expected any of this to happen. “Lord, we are just too weak. We are tapped out,” they respond. “So if you expect us to do any of this, you are going to have to give us more faith.”

If you really expect us to live into these very hard demands of discipleship—

—demands that challenge us to see your face when we look at other people

—demands that challenge us to celebrate each and every time a person finally lets go into your claim on their life

—demands that explicitly challenge the way we use our time, our energy, and our money and how that usage reflects who or what we truly worship

—demands that refuse to let us off the social justice hook and insist that we see the Lazarus’s outside our gate and respond to their need and suffering

—demands that challenge even our patience, our tolerance, and our never-ending forgiveness of each other

—if Jesus really expects us to live into these very hard demands of discipleship, then Jesus is going to have to give us a big extra helping of faith, with some side dishes of courage and hope to go with it, because it all sounds absolutely impossible to fully embody in this topsy-turvy, chaotic world.

I completely identify with their struggle, don’t you? Have you seen the news from the last few days? The ongoing protests and violent governmental responses in both Iran and Russia. Putin’s not-so-veiled threat about the use of nuclear weapons. The absolute devastation of towns and cities in Florida due to the hurricane. And even closer to home, residents of the tent city up in Touhy Park were given fake eviction notices and promised they were going to be put up in the Four Seasons across the street from us. When the alderman for that area came and broke the news to them that the promise was a publicity stunt, many of them broke down in tears over hope stripped away. All of it is enough to cause us to raise our voices in both lament and request: “Oh Lord, please increase our faith.” We sit squarely alongside the early disciples on this one.

Yet after we make that plea, we, like those first disciples, can either stay stuck in that overwhelming chaos or see possible movement forward. The direction we go depends on how we hear Jesus’ response and how we literally translate his words. One option often chosen is to hear his response as admonishment with a tone of chastisement: “If you just had the faith of a mustard seed — if you just had even that much — you would be able to do the impossible, telling a deeply rooted mulberry tree to go and jump in the sea.”

When we read Jesus’ words that way and hear his tone that way (scowl on the face, extreme disappointment), then the most practical response is to just shrug our shoulders, throw up our hands, and give up. Apparently, we don’t even have the smallest amount of faith, so why should we even try to live as a disciple. As your clergy are hearing more and more, people’s plates are already full of activities so their commitment to church is moving further and further down the commitment list. Hearing Jesus’ words in that way might just encourage folks to give up on engaging in their faith community altogether. It will never be enough, they might conclude.

Another reaction we might have when we hear Jesus respond this way is to swirl around the drain of guilt. “I promise I’ll try harder to get more faith. I promise I’ll rededicate myself as often as it takes until I get it right. I promise I will try and be a better Christian, whatever that means.”

Both of those responses, however, often just leave us stuck in the chaos, unable to see a way forward.

Yet when we delve more deeply into this Gospel and become familiar with some translation problems, we might begin to see another possibility, for even in the middle of all these very difficult discipleship texts, we do not have to hear Jesus moving to a message of chastisement or guilt in response to the disciples’ clear sense of spiritual inadequacy. On the contrary, I believe Jesus responded by firmly reminding them of a couple of things: what they already had and what they were already able to do.

First, the New Revised Standard Version of Scripture did not choose the best way to translate verses 5 and 6. Stay with me, but there are two ways to translate an “if” clause in Greek, which is a conditional clause. The first way is to express a condition contrary to fact. That is what we are doing when we hear Jesus’ words as sharp rebuke, hands on hips: “Clearly you don’t have any faith, because it doesn’t even take that much.”

However, there is a second way to translate this kind of clause that seems to be more faithful with the text (Fred Craddock, Luke). It is to express a condition accordingto fact. In response to their request, Jesus responds “If you have faith (and you do) even the size of a mustard seed, then you can do far more than you can imagine.” In other words, Jesus looks at those disciples—heads in hands, dumbfounded, spiritually exhausted, and feeling oh so inadequate — and says, “You already have everything you need to live as my disciple. It has already been given to you. It is in you — right now. So remember — nothing is impossible with God. Live boldly.” Or, as Fred Craddock put it so eloquently, “Even the small faith they already have cancels out words such as ‘impossible’ (a tree being uprooted) and ‘absurd’ (planting a tree in the sea) and puts them in touch with the power of God” (Craddock, p. 200)

And then Jesus offers a brief parable to both back up his promise and to keep challenging them to move forward. Now, as you noticed, the parable uses the institution of slavery, an institution extremely common in Jesus’ day, but one extremely painful and dangerous in our own history. So painful that I think it hinders our ability to hear what Jesus is saying. Therefore, I will use a different story to make the same point.

This one comes from Richard Lischer, reflecting on his role as a clergyperson. Here is his version of Jesus’ words for our day: “Hello, my name is Shannon. I will be your server for this morning. And when you are sick, I will kneel by your hospital bed and pray for you; when you are sad or angry, I’ll sit at your kitchen table and listen; and when you are hungry and thirsty for redemption, I’ll meet you at the table and ask ‘Would you like to hear about our specials? The body of Christ given for you, the blood of Christ shed for you.’ No need to thank me. [It is what I do.]”

Jesus looks at those frightened and overwhelmed disciples and promises them they already have what it takes to live faithfully and to do his work in this world. Then, with this parable, he tells them to stop stressing out about how hard it is and just do it. Furthermore, he challenges them to also stop expecting to be patted on the back for simply living the way they have been called to live. In other words, dear disciples, live in kingdom ways. Trust that God has given you the courage, the strength, and the hope that is needed to do what you think is impossible.

But live that way not out of fear of being punished if you don’t and not out of hope for being rewarded if you do. Live that way because it is who you are. Live that way because you are grateful that it is who you are. Live that way because you cannot imagine living any other way. Live that way because in you resides a powerful seed of faith that God planted way back when, a seed watered in your baptism and regularly fertilized at the table.

What if in the church today we stopped thinking of ourselves as somehow less than something that we were but rather as fertile soil into which extraordinary faith has been planted. Faith in the God of Jesus Christ that we didn’t create, didn’t work hard to perfect, didn’t do anything to receive. Faith that was given to us by God so that our lives might flourish with the same kind of fearless kindness, compassion, love, and justice that is possible for us to achieve not because we are great, but because God has already given us everything we need.

I have been thinking a lot about this challenge as those of us on staff and in congregational leadership are grappling with trying to figure out who we as Fourth Church are now, not who we were in 2019. It is easy to get stuck in feeling like we are failing: people are not coming back to worship in the same way since routines have changed; giving is trending downwards as people feel disconnected; 400 of our members moved in just this last quarter; 30 percent of active families are no longer participating in the ways they used to; not as many folks feel called to volunteer and serve; etc.

Staff, Trustees, and Session have been taking a clear-eyed look at these shifts that COVID has wrought, and even knowing that every pastor I know is experiencing the same thing does not make it any less nerve-wracking. And yet, when we listen to Jesus in this text, the truth remains: We have what we need to be who we are. We have this extraordinary, fertile soil in which God has planted our mission to be a bright light in the city, a bright light for each other.

Now, as you will continue to hear in this Stewardship season, do we need to dig more deeply as we consider what we will give to the church in both resources and in time for this work to continue? Yes. We won’t be able to do everything we have always done. We will probably need to focus on fewer things and do them really well. And it will take all of us to reweave this community together. But we do this out of a spirit of abundance, knowing that according to Jesus we have what we need to be who we are. God can be God even in and through us.

Again, Craddock: “Even the small faith we already have cancels out words such as impossible . . . and absurd . . .and puts us in touch with the power of God (Craddock, p. 200). When we step fully into this time of being church together, when we all say yes to participating in our group project called Fourth Church, we will see that we have all we need to be who God calls us to be. May we be bold and courageous in our moving forward together. Amen.