June 11, 2023, Toddler Faith, Matthew 9:9-26

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ June 11, 2023 ♦ 1 Comment

To listen to the sermon, click the link above. An outline of the sermon is given below.

Our son Isaac came up last week for our 50^th anniversary celebration, and he brought up his kids. He has four, and they are all beautiful: three girls, and the youngest, who is a little boy, Finnian Patrick Harrison Boswell. Finn is a force of nature. He is adorable, and he is stubborn, and he is fierce, and he loves his daddy. Finn really didn’t know us at all when they came up here, because they live far away. And that meant that he wanted his Daddy to do everything for him. Only Daddy could get him a glass of water, only Daddy could hand him a spoon, only Daddy could cut up his apple, only Daddy could change his diaper. Finn puts his trust in Isaac and nobody else but Isaac. And I would say that makes Finn a pretty good model of faith for us all.

I think sometimes we make faith into something that it is not. We tend to see faith as something virtuous – a special ability, like a good singing voice or a head for math. We admire people we know who seem to have a stronger faith than we do. We think of them as extra “good” Christians, and we think that God will almost certainly listen to them before he listens to us, with our waffly, fearful, insubstantial faith. If you go to a healing service you can tell right away who has a reputation for strong faith, because there will be more people lined up at their prayer team.

Or sometimes, we act like faith is a kind of transaction. We think if we can just have enough faith, if we can pray fervently enough and often enough and with the right words, if we can only be good enough at being faithful, then God will answer our prayers.

We so often feel like our faith isn’t good enough as it is. Event the disciples went to Jesus and asked for an update on their faith. “Give us more faith,” they asked him, because obviously more is better. We’re sure our faith should be stronger and nobler. True faith, we think, ought to be more spiritual and less desperate.

But faith is none of those things. Real faith is simple, childlike trust. Real faith is the kind of trust that a stubborn toddler like Finn has in his Daddy. And faith is very often born of something as un-virtuous and un-spiritual as desperation. Which is as it should be. Because faith is all about where we put our trust when we are in need.

The readings today are full of people who had faith. There was Abraham, who believed God’s promise even though it was impossible. When Abraham was about a hundred years old, and his wife only a little younger, God promised them that he was going to give them a child. Even Sarah laughed at that one. But Abraham chose to believe God. Faith can look an awful lot like foolishness.

Then there was Jairus, who went to Jesus for help when his daughter had already died. The time for hope was already gone. For Jairus, coming to Jesus was a pure act of desperation. And that was faith, too.

And there was the woman who had had a bleeding disorder for twelve years. Her disease made her unclean; she was breaking the law just by being in that crowd of people, but she was determined to get close enough to Jesus to touch his robe. Faith can look like stubbornness. Faith can also look like recklessness.

What all those people had in common, first of all, is that they didn’t have anybody else to turn to; they were desperate. For Abraham, for Jairus, for the woman, it was really just a choice between faith and despair. And they all chose faith.

But the second, and most important, thing they had in common, is that they put their faith in God.

Because there isn’t anything noble or virtuous or even helpful, in and of itself, about having faith. It isn’t a matter of having faith that’s big enough or holy enough or pure enough. It isn’t a matter of having a clear understanding of faith. Absolutely the only thing that matters about faith is who you put your faith in. My grandson Finn is sometimes a little monster, but he trusts his Daddy implicitly and ferociously and stubbornly, and his Daddy loves and cares for him. That’s how faith works.

But a child might put deep faith in a parent who is abusive.

A wife might put deep faith in a spouse who betrays her.

A person with cancer might put deep faith in a doctor who doesn’t have the skill or the knowledge to cure them.

We might find that we’ve put a lot of faith in our financial security, or in our education, or in our own strength, only to realize in troubled times how shockingly frail and undependable those things really are.

Your faith can be all kinds of strong or steady or deep or impressively spiritual, but if you put your faith in the wrong person or in the wrong thing it will certainly do you harm, and not good. Because faith in and of itself has no real power or virtue at all. It is only the object of our faith that matters. All we need is our toddler-faith – Jesus called it “faith the size of a mustard seed.” As desperate and as un-spiritual as it might seem to us, our little faith can move mountains, as long as we have put our faith in the all-powerful Father who loves us unfailingly. +