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Last Sunday, if you were in church, we spoke of Simon Peter and his walk on the water towards Jesus. Peter was fine in his journey as long he kept his eyes on Jesus. Once he began to question and to worry, he began to sink. In that instance, his faith wasn’t strong enough to sustain him.
Today a bit later in the same chapter of St. Matthew, we encounter a Canaanite woman whose faith is so strong that Jesus cannot but give her what she requests: the healing of her daughter.
It is not always easy to attain faith or even to understand what faith is in our modern world.
A California psychiatrist, Dr. Gerald Jampolsky, has written several books that have been widely read. After he had endured a number of difficult and painful experiences, including a bout with alcoholism, Gerald Jampolsky converted to Christianity and founded The Center of Attitudinal Training”, which provides services and spiritual counseling to children and adults stricken with catastrophic illness. … Recalling his turbulent journey to the Lord, Dr. Jampolsky said:
I was raised in the Jewish faith. When I was sixteen, a friend was killed in an automobile accident and I gave up all belief in God. I was a militant atheist most of my life… According to the standards of the world, I had everything I wanted. I had money and material things. I was well known and successful as a psychiatrist.
Yet I was unhappy inside. I couldn’t understand what [my unhappiness] was about, but I know now what Mother Teresa means when she says, “The biggest problem facing the world today is spiritual deprivation” – a feeling of emptiness, a feeling we’re unconnected, a feeling that we’re alone, a feeling that we’re unlovable, a feeling of separation from our fellow-man and God. I didn’t know that was what I was suffering from then. … I became an alcoholic to the extent that policemen were stopping me. My whole practice was in jeopardy. My whole life was in jeopardy. And yet, if anyone talked to me about God and spirituality, I would have walked across the street. I wasn’t interested.
Then someone shared with me a writing called “A Course in Miracles”. To placate that person I said I would read it, and then I had an amazing experience. I heard a little inner-voice that said, “Physician, heal thyself. This is your way home.” I experienced a feeling of immediate oneness with God and everyone else in the world, and I knew that I was to live my life in the service of God, giving rather than getting.” 1
Our faith becomes strongest – and remains that way – when we have a primary focus on meeting the needs of others. How many people do you know who are “at their best” when they are engaged in doing for other people: in teaching, in raising their children, in serving the church and community in vital volunteer positions, in assisting their neighbors, in caring for a disabled spouse. No, it isn’t always easy as we do these things “for others”.
But after the children are grown and the house is empty, don’t we miss them? When a person is no longer physically able to engage in valued and beloved service to others, more than one has said to me, “Oh how I miss it!” When a spouse dies after a long illness requiring devoted attention, more than one person has said, “My husband (or my wife) had become my life.”
Service to others is at the heart of faith. That was why the Canannite woman’s attitude made such an impact on Jesus. She was not asking for herself: for wealth or riches or knowledge or even to be healed of her own infirmity. It was her concentration on meeting the needs of another person which told Jesus how sincere she was. And upon discovering that dedicated tenacity of hers, he said, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”
Wishing for a great faith does not always give us a great faith. But the way we think of ourselves and the manner in which we present ourselves before the Lord can influence our faith.
Many years ago, at the University of Wisconsin, there was an undergraduate literary club – a group of brilliant male students who had demonstrated considerable talent for writing. They met regularly and, at each meeting, one of the members would read aloud a story or an essay he had written, and then submit it to the criticism of others. When the criticism got underway, no punches were pulled. Nothing was held back. The material was mercilessly dissected, almost line by line. So brutal were the sessions that members called themselves “The Stranglers.”
Then a similar club was formed. It was called “The Wranglers”, and its membership consisted of female undergraduates who had demonstrated considerable literary talent. They, too, read their manuscripts aloud at their meetings, and then submitted them to the other members’ critiques.
But there was a significant difference in [their] criticism. It was exceedingly gentle. In fact, there was almost none at all. The Wranglers tried to find kind things to say. They spoke in positive rather than negative terms. The key attitude was encouragement, even for the most feeble efforts.
About twenty years after “The Strangers” and “The Wranglers” had been born, a University alumnus made an analysis of the members’ careers. She discovered that not one of the bright, young talents in “The Stranglers” had made a literary reputation of any kind. On the other hand, “The Wranglers” had produced a half-dozen prominent, successful writers.
The basic talent in the two groups had been much the same. The Wranglers uplifted and encouraged one another to believe in themselves, to esteem themselves highly, to aspire to their true worth. But The Stranglers did exactly the opposite, promoting self-doubt and self-discouragement and low self-esteem. In choosing a name for themselves “The Stranglers” had been wiser than they realized. 2
How do you think of yourself? Do you think of yourself as “filled with faith”? If you asked a close friend to describe you to someone else, would your belief in our Lord even enter into the description? If you were asked to describe yourself in as unbiased a manner as possible, would you dare mention your faith in our Lord? Believe me, in our society many people, even if they felt they had faith, would be cautious about declaring it in the workplace or even sometimes in their own homes or among their social circle.
In our modern world, it isn’t fashionable to be filled with faith and trust in our Lord and be willing to express it. Or coming from another angle, too many people ask the question “what’s in it for me?”:
What can I get for myself if I say I believe in Jesus? Will it give me money and material prosperity? Will it make me popular? Will it solve life’s problems? Will it find me the perfect mate or earn me the perfect job? Faith in Jesus will likely do none of those things for you or for me.
Return to Dr. Jampolsky’s reflection on Mother Teresa: “The biggest problem facing the world today is spiritual deprivation” – a feeling of emptiness, a feeling we’re unconnected, a feeling that we’re alone, a feeling that we’re unlovable, a feeling of separation from our fellow-man and God.
Faith is the certainty that we are not unconnected, that we are not alone, that we are not unlovable, and that we need not – and ought not – be separated from others or from God. Faith is the knowledge that Jesus accomplished through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension our salvation: that he came to us and draws us to him for the purpose of giving our lives true meaning and worth which are greater than anything the present life offers us.
The question for today is simple: how do you think of yourself? Are you faith-filled, are you striving for faith, or are you struggling to find faith?
To hear the Lord say to us, “Great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” is an important point in our Christian pilgrimage.
The Ven. Theodore W.Bean, Jr.
Provost
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1 Sermon: “The Miracle of Love”, Cycle A, Proper 15.
2 Sermon: “Out of Order?”, Cycle A, Proper 15
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