Their names were Lois and Eunice. And they were the grandmother and
mother of Timothy—a maternal line whose faith in God and Christ was the
source and matrix for the growth in faith and ministry of this fine
young man, who went on to become a close associate and trusted emissary
of the apostle Paul. Lois and Eunice, mother and daughter—both of them,
through their impact on the early Christian church, to be numbered among
our ancient “mothers” in faith.
Both of these were women who recognized in all their experiences of
life the vital, living presence of God; both of them turned their hearts
over to God in deep and abiding trust; both of them committed themselves
to a lifetime of prayer and of communion with God; and both of them
sought to enact God’s will in all that they did. Lois and Eunice—ancient
“mothers” of ours in faith.
Some 1900 years later, their names were Hetty and Lucile. And they
were my own grandmother and mother—a maternal line whose faith in God and
Christ was a source and matrix for my own growth in faith and ministry.
Hetty and Lucile, mother and daughter—both were women who recognized in
all their experiences of life the vital, living presence of God; both of
them turned their hearts over to God in deep and abiding trust; both of
them committed themselves to a lifetime of prayer and of communion with
God; and both of them sought to enact God’s will in all that they did.
Hetty and Lucile—my own family’s mothers in faith.
When I came across the picture on the front cover of this morning’s
bulletin [“Mending Socks, by Archibald J. Motley, Jr., in Imaging the
Word, Vol. 2 (Cleveland: United Church Press, 1995), pp. 42–43], it
leapt right off the page at me, for it seemed to be portraying my own
grandmother Hetty.
Oh, Hetty was not of the same race as the elderly woman in the painting;
and the ever-present handwork in her lap was not mending socks but
embroidering pillow cases; and as a Presbyterian there was not a crucifix
on her wall but a Bible on her table. But somehow the soul that suffuses
this painting seems quite the same.
And when I found the poem that’s on the back cover of our bulletin
[“The Legacy” by Mary Livingston Roy, published originally in Accent on
Youth 17:1 (Fall, 1984), p. 3], there she was again, my grandmother
Hetty—my experience of her so beautifully conveyed in the words of the
fourth stanza:
“I loved to hear her talk to God,
and when she prayed, I sometimes
imagined I felt God near. It was a
very safe place to be—with God and her.
I liked her God, so wrapped up in the
small goings-on of daily life—not too
far away and busy with eternal
things to take notice of one
small child.”
Lois and Eunice, Hetty and Lucile—mothers whose own fullness of faith
in God and Christ somehow fostered in those around them a growth in faith.
And I’m sure that many of you here this morning have also known and been
nurtured by women, or men, such as these.
Now, in this morning’s First Lesson, Jesus’s inner circle of disciples
are calling out to him, “Increase our faith!” Help our faith to grow.
David H. C. Read, former pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian
Church, where one of our own “mothers” in faith, Laura Jervis, grew up
and was nurtured—David Read once observed that the thought “Increase our
faith!” is the petition that every believer brings to every service of
worship, whether spoken or not.
And whenever by coming to worship we lift up this petition, it’s
certain that we’re not asking Christ to increase the number of
theological propositions in which we believe. No, what we are asking
Christ to do is to increase the depth of our trust in God, the strength of
our relationship with God, so that we may grow into being persons who are
much more like these “mothers” of ours in faith.
The 20th–century Quaker author Elton Trueblood expressed well what
faith like this is. He said, ever so memorably, “Faith is not belief
without proof but trust without reservation.”
Yes, “to have faith in God” does not mean “to hold beliefs about God.”
Rather, “to have faith in God” means “to live out of trust in God”—to live
out of the trust that with God nothing is impossible, that with God life can
move beyond bleakness and despair, that with God life can be opened anew to
hope and love, that with God the world can be transformed, that with God
peace and justice can come to reign on earth. This is the kind of faith, of
trust in God, that Lois and Eunice possessed and that all of our “mothers”
in faith have had.
In our First Lesson, when the disciples ask Jesus to increase their
faith, he tells them—and thereby us, too—that with even the tiniest seed of
faith—that is, of trust in God without reservation—with even the tiniest
seed of faith we who are Christ’s disciples can take root in the Creator’s
power and can go on with the strength to transform “what is” into “what can
be.”
Yes, with but the tiniest seed of faith, of trust in God without
reservation, we who are Christ’s disciples can draw on the power of God to
transform this sorry old world of ours into an altogether different reality,
into a place burgeoning with hope and love, with justice and peace.
To represent the faith in God and Christ whose power we are asked to tap
and nurture, our Second Lesson uses a different metaphor, not that of a seed
but rather that of a flame. So in this lesson Timothy is asked to rekindle
the flame of his faith.
Now we, like Timothy, have received the gift of faith from two sources
that are complementary and that reinforce one another. First, the Holy
Spirit has bestowed on us the gift of faith through baptism; and second, our
“mothers”—whoever they may be— have given us the gift of faith through the
medium of their Spirit-filled lives.
But, as the Second Letter to Timothy acknowledges, we sometimes allow
the flame of our faith, even when kindled so strongly at the beginning, to
go untended and to burn down so low that if it is to stay alight it must be
rekindled. And so it is that by coming to worship we are offering
the ongoing prayer, “O God, increase our faith! Set us aflame again!”
And here’s where the importance of World Communion Sunday comes in. For
it is through the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, it is through our coming
anew to the communion table, that we experience God’s rekindling of the
flame of faith within us, that we experience afresh the warmth and power of
that faith.
Worn out by life’s travails, we come again to the communion table in
quest of an increased faith. And aware of our need, God comes again to meet
us here and to rekindle in us the power of faith, the power that can overcome
the grief and fatigue in our lives and cause us to blaze anew with hope and
love, in the service of justice and peace.
It is God’s rekindling of our faith through this sacrament that enables
us to live out of trust in God, to live out of the trust that with God
nothing is impossible, that with God life can once again move beyond
bleakness and despair, that with God life can be opened afresh to hope and
love, that with God we can transform the world, that with God peace and
justice can come to reign on earth. It is this kind of trust in God that
Lois and Eunice possessed and that all of our “mothers” in faith have had.
So, renewed this day, at this table, in a faith like theirs, renewed in a
trust in God that has no reservation—renewed in such faith through the power
of this sacrament, we and countless others on this World Communion Sunday
can go forth to address in the weeks ahead the many threats to peace that
confront us—in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Sudan. Yes, we can go
forth today trusting that, rooted in God’s power and joined with others
around this table, we can bring peace on earth.
Let us pray:
O God, increase our faith, as You have our mothers’, and use us to
transform the world.
Where there is darkness, let there be light.
Where there is despair, let there be hope.
Where there is hatred, let there be love.
Where there is injury, let there be pardon.
Where there is discord, let there be peace.
This we pray in the name of Christ, who came that we might have faith, so
that the world might have peace. Amen.