8/10/25, Luke 12:32-40
9th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, Faith Lutheran Church
Pastor Shaun O’Reilly
Sometimes faith or belief can seem fickle. Like shifting sand.
But maybe, in part, it’s because it’s always alive, and relational, and on the move.
Take this story that feels true to me, for instance:
There was once a man who had been shipwrecked on an uninhabited desert island. There he lived alone for ten whole years before finally being rescued by a passing aircraft. Before leaving the island one of the rescuers asked if they could see where the man had lived during his time on the island. And so… he brought the small group to a clearing where there were three buildings.
Pointing to the first he said, “This was my home; I built it when I first moved here all those years ago.”
“What about the building beside it?” Asked one of the rescuers.
“Oh, that is where I would worship every week,” he replied.
“And the building beside that?” They asked.
And the man replied: “Don’t bring that up! That is where I used to worship.”
For hundreds of years, Lutherans have claimed a motto about faith: “Sola Fide.” Only faith. And the essence is: if you want to relate to the God of the Scriptures, and of Jesus, there is not a certain thing you must do or achieve; it is by grace through faith.
It is a gift that you don’t earn.
And yet that is not a stagnant, immovable state of being. In fact, Luther implored that faith was both a Spirit gift arriving, as on the breath of God to you, but not there to stay: it’s on the move! And as it grabs us and we hold on, we take off together.
Luther said: “Oh, faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, so it is impossible for it not to be constantly doing what is good. Faith does not ask if good works are to be done, but before one can ask, faith has already done them and is constantly active.”
There is only faith. … and it is believing and doing.
In our scriptures today are stories about faith. From one of the earliest stories of Abraham, to 2,000 years later a writer of Hebrews celebrating the faith of the ancients — The stories and songs and letters today are cosmic celebrations
of the Gift of the Divine running through and with people!
The gift of faith, causing responses and bearing up good works.
So think with me of Abram, who will become Abraham, in Genesis. And remember right before his emergence, do you remember the tower of Babel, a story centered on reverence?
In creation, God breathed into the mud and created human beings. And in their decision for their fine creation, human beings take the mud (the way the story goes) and burn it (almost deconstructing the way God used the mud), and they make bricks to stack up to the heavens.
It’s their time to shine, it’s their creation.
They have all they need, they are all they need. Just look.
But in the ancient myth, God thwarts the building plans by causing them to be unable to communicate with each other, it’s the birth of multiple languages. So the great, universal human project of their own reverence fails. And where does the story go?
It goes… not to another big successful city, or to the highest king or queen, or some fine ruling empire of achievers. The story zooms in, way in, on a traveling family. Not large. In fact, Abram’s wife, Sarai hasn’t had any child and they are older folks now.
From the heights of human ingenuity building the largest tower, it zooms way in on wandering shepherds living out of tents.
(We talked about this last week in the class on Shalom, but shepherds are lower class kind of people in the scriptures. We tend to glamorize some of them, because they get a miraculous visit from angels outside of Bethlehem at Jesus’ birth, and so there are cute representations of shepherds, because it’s Christmas— but as laborers with stubborn animals in the fields day and night their status was low, they are the overlooked, they are often not welcome at any semi-dignified table with others.
And this is where the Divine story zooms in! Where faith and God’s activity go.
As it will in Bethlehem and as it does in our lives … God shows up in the low places.
God shows up to be with …. As Augustine famously said:
“Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.”
Babel’s story was a human-centered creation that falls into separation and distance, and the Abram story is where the needy are called into Divine community and relationship, and faith finds this traveling family, to be with them.
All our scriptures in the lectionary today are drawing us OUT of being left on our own, or seeking or own reverence, and drawing us TO the great blessing — both for us and for others (remember that’s what Abraham is told: “through you all will be blessed”) — we are drawn to the great blessing of Life in the Way.
Last week it was a rich ruler wanting Jesus to advise him on money issues, and Jesus advised distance and generosity. In the gospel today, that’s still there … and there’s also the comfort: Yes, light your lamps, let faith be active, be ready and responsive, and also: Do it without fear. I’ve got you. Faith has us.
What did Abram need for the journey today? Like, What do we need?
Maybe the gift, and strength, and action of faith again, to hope, like God tells Abram:
I say to you today “Don’t be afraid. I’m with you. I am your shield. I am your reward!”
And so the psalm can sing today.
A king isn’t saved by a great army;
a warrior not delivered by strength.
The war horse is vain hope,
and its great might cannot save.
Our soul waits for the Lord;
God is our help and shield.
Even when there is so much to fear. So much to trouble the heart. When we are wandering, like I know we feel we often are, and often these days. When leadership motivated by decent values seems impossible. When pride and bigotry seem to be the driving factors of policy makers. When we are stuck crying for an end to war and conflict in Gaza, Thailand, Cambodia, Colombia, South Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine and Ethiopia. When people and children cry out for food.
When protection for those vulnerable — God’s preferential option— is needed, and yet the gap between the 1% and rest grows wider, and uglier, and wider still …
Here we stand, and God zooms in. Shield and hope. Giving us the Kingdom.
Outstretched arms for the wandering. For a struggling family and their longing.
So we might … be found in faith too. And we might see and know in our humility, and in our brokenness, the unfailing treasure of heaven is no loss and no destruction.
It is God, in Christ, for you, with you, making faith right now.