Where is your faith?

 "No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light.  For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.  Therefore take heed how you hear.  For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him."

Then His mother and brothers came to Him, and could not approach Him because of the crowd.  And it was told Him by some, who said, "Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see You."  But He answered and said to them, "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it."

Now it happened, on a certain day, that He got into a boat with His disciples.  And he said to them, "Let us cross over to the other side of the lake."  And they launched out.  But as they sailed He fell asleep.  And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in jeopardy.  And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!"  Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water.  And they ceased, and there was a calm.  But He said to them, "Where is your faith?"  And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, "Who can this be?  For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!"

- Luke 8:16-25

Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.  And the twelve were with Him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities -- Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.  And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable:  "A sower went out to sow his seed.  And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it.  Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture.  And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it.  But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold."  When He had said these things He cried, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"  Then His disciples asked Him, saying, "What does this parable mean?"  And He said, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'  Now the parable is this:  The seed is the word of God.  Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.  But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.  Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.  But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience."

 "No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light.  For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.  Therefore take heed how you hear.  For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him."  Jesus' teachings (we could call them a warning, even) about how we hear reflect back to His earlier statement (in yesterday's reading, above) about how parables work.  Quoting Isaiah to the crowds, He said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"   He explained to His disciples that, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'"  In this context, how one hears has to do with revelations of the Kingdom, opening up our "hearing" and even "seeing" to the mysteries of the Kingdom, the reality of this road of faith.  Origen writes, "The vessels of the house are the powers of the soul."  Good hearing, Jesus implies, means that one will be given even more.  A heart incapable of truly listening and hearing is one that will lose even the word it has received.  His teaching also imply living our faith, the patience and persistence it takes to produce good fruit, guarding the word in our hearts, as taught in the parable of the Sower (again, yesterday's reading, see above).

Then His mother and brothers came to Him, and could not approach Him because of the crowd.  And it was told Him by some, who said, "Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see You."  But He answered and said to them, "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it."  Again, His teaching here reflects on His teaching above.  Who is united in this light He speaks of?  Who can truly hear the word of God and do it?   This isn't a refusal or refutation of His relationship to mother and brothers (His extended family or stepbrothers, kin), but rather it's a deepening of His teaching, an extension of the sermon He's been preaching.  St. John Chrysostom comments that Jesus is correcting all regarding "the right idea concerning Himself," that the family of His Kingdom "is not by nature but by virtue."  See also 11:27-28, in which Jesus teaches in reply to a blessing about His mother, "More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"  This teaching reveals a characteristic of the new covenant.  The Old Testament kinship laws defined one’s identity as a member of Israel through genealogy and family relationships, but the family of God now consists of those who do his will (St. Basil the Great).

Now it happened, on a certain day, that He got into a boat with His disciples.  And he said to them, "Let us cross over to the other side of the lake."  And they launched out.  But as they sailed He fell asleep.  And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in jeopardy.  And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!"  Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water.  And they ceased, and there was a calm.  But He said to them, "Where is your faith?"  And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, "Who can this be?  For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!"  Jesus takes His teaching on faith a little further!  My study bible says He deliberately permits this windstorm to arise while He's sleeping in order to perfect their faith and rebuke their weaknesses, so that they would eventually be unshaken by life's temptations.  Their faith here is still mixed with unbelief.  They showed faith when they came to Him, but unbelief when they said, "We are perishing."  He's also leading them on a journey into new territory, across the Sea of Galilee.  The parable of the Sower taught about the long journey of faith, not a one-time confession or profession of it.  Whatever they had already, as Jesus taught above, they are being led into a deeper place of faith and reliance on Him, on God's will for them.

What is the journey of faith like for you?  What does it mean to hear the word of God and do it?  One thing we can say is that whenever we have made a breakthrough in our faith, however deeply we've gone into this journey, we will always be drawn further into reliance upon God.  There will always be new things that shake up our lives a little bit, asking us to go further.  We place our eggs in the basket of faith, and there will always be a new choice ahead, more ways in which we rely on faith -- or not.  Jesus says clearly above, "Whoever has, to him more will be given."   One thing we can say about "how we hear" is that it's not just about learning some rules and doing them.  There are certainty tenets to our faith, ideas that withstand the test of time, theology that remains solid as bedrock from the early Church.  There are ideas we've learned about God, even in the midst of paradox, that remain and ring true and show their true colors time and time again. But faith isn't about some sort of absolute scientific study in which we assume facts because they've been proven someplace.  Faith isn't about treating the Bible like it's merely some sort of history textbook.  Faith involves much more.  Faith is about using perception not only to learn "facts" or "beliefs," it's not just about holding certain value systems that we always follow.  Faith, as Christ describes it here, involves a kind of relationship, a capacity for relatedness, that has to do with something deeper within us than the usual five senses with which we perceive the world.  Faith involves a discernment that is also of the soul, ears that hear more deeply what a truth is than listening to a lecture and choosing intellectually what we will accept that fits with what we already know or not.  Faith involves a depth of the heart.  It involves commitment to a Person, to Christ.  It involves a depth of understanding of love that's beyond what love we already understanding, such as that of family or loyalty to a clan, or even a nominal belief system, or a political party.  Faith is all about a relationship that comes from the willingness to perceive the light God shines into the world, to be receptive to grace, to take the chance on the love one may find in prayer.  We may go through great difficulties in life, particularly because of our faith.  We might find ourselves on the wrong side of what's popular or accepted in a circle of friends, acquaintances, in the workplace, in our homes and extended family.  We might find ourselves constantly questioning our acceptance of the ways in which we choose to live by Christ's teachings.  Even forgiveness may have us questioning whether or not we're making the right choices to negotiate life in a particular way.  But faith involves a return to prayer, a return to the place of the heart, a return to that place such as the disciples on the road to Emmaus felt when they asked, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"  Faith is not about the certainty that we've got it all together, but rather about the act of putting faith into something, or putting our trust in that place of the heart that responds to Christ, even when we're not so sure where we're going or where it's leading us.  Faith is about a trust that love can lead us the right way.  Jesus says that "whoever has, to him more will be given."  This more can mean greater challenges, deeper hurts to feel and to give up to God, even persecution that challenges what we understand of forgiveness.  It can mean giving up cherished relationships when we must choose between such and our faith.  It can mean dropping certainties we thought we knew in favor of that which asks our trust without proof that it's the "right" way to go.  Faith is about a life that calls us ahead and is shaped by joy or peace that has no place in the "rational" scheme of things when we've lost, or when we're alone, or when love becomes the only true place to fall back on in the midst of a merciless world.  It is all about that place we find that links us to something not just transcendent, but which links us to love that passes understanding and a depth in the heart we can't just explain to anyone.  It's that kind of love that we find sitting in a service, in speaking with someone we trust who shares our faith, in the persistence we find that goes beyond what we've known about patience.  There is the depth of faith, the journey that always challenges us for more.  Let us root ourselves within that strength and that courage.