Faith’s Intention

Sermon First Sunday after Trinity, 7 June

Readings: Hosea 5.15-6.6; Romans 4.13-25; Matthew 9.9-13, 18-26

Theme: Faith’s Intention

What is your intention in faith? In each act of faith there is an intention, just as in each deliberate action that we do. When we intend to do something, when we act, there is an objective in mind. It is the same in faith. But what is it? What are we looking for in our acts of faith?

This theme of faith’s intention runs through our readings for the first Sunday of ordinary time. It is a theme which crosses each of the readings in a different way. In the first reading from the prophet Hosea, the people of Israel had loved the Lord only with lip service. The Lord was not their focus but themselves and their own wellbeing. The result is that soon the Assyrians will conquer Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom, and subject the Israelites to foreign rule.

The reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans traces the theme of the intention of faith through the typical Pauline couplet of “faith and law.” It is the righteousness of faith which saves, attuning our intention to follow the lord sincerely with one’s heart, and not the external obligations of the law that only bring wrath.

This internal debate between “faith and law” within Judaism is retaken in the gospel through the opposition in the scene between the pharisees and the leader of the synagogue. The pharisees seek ritual purity, the purity prescribed by the law to be clean with God, but the leader of the synagogue is concerned about his deceased daughter. This is why he asks Jesus to lay his hands on her which would have broken the ritual purity laws, already broken by Jesus in eating with tax-collectors and sinners, but which would have fulfilled the true intention of the law, which is the act of faith in God. The leader of the synagogue trusts that Jesus can heal his daughter. This is the intention in his act of faith in Jesus. 

When we make an act of faith our intention should be to trust in the Lord. When we do this, we discover that it is fear more often than not which motivates us in our law-like behaviour patterns. Fear of losing ourselves, fear of our world collapsing, or fear of suffering. To trust in the Lord is to allow ourselves to be in God’s hands. When we do this, our acts of faith have the right intention.

This attitude in faith is obviously easier said than done. The quite normal expectations we have in relations with each other, to have a reasonable degree of reciprocity, can easily be carried over into our relationships with God. When this happens, we can start resenting God, because we may feel that God is not treating us fairly. We have done our part, why is God not doing God´s part? This is not an unusual attitude to have, and it can evolve when we have an expectation of a certain kind of reciprocity in our relationship with God. Ordinary and perfectly reasonable relationships of reciprocity between human beings do not apply to our relationship of faith in God. This relationship with God is not symmetrical in the way our relationships with each other should be. There is a qualitative difference between us and God, which makes transferring the perfectly legitimate attitude we deal with each other with to God not an appropriate one.

St Teresa of Avila humorously expressed the challenge of adopting the right attitude in faith when she said, “Given the way that you treat your friends Lord, it is not surprising that you have so few of them”! Teresa of Avila gives voice to the rigor which is characteristic of a Christian understanding of faith that is not a common attitude to hold in any era. 

Consequently, we should realize that faith is a gift of grace and not a product of human effort. Yes, we need to work at preparing the ground to receive the gift of faith, but faith is nothing less than a grace which we receive freely from God. 

However, if we gain an insight into this Christian understanding of faith, we learn something about God that remains obscure if we approach God with an attitude of reciprocity. We realize that God is above and beyond our ordinary human ways of relating. “God’s ways are not our ways”, says the Psalmist, and this is especially true in the realm of our faith in God.

Faith is itself a gift of total gratuity that comes not as a reward for good behavior but simply due to the will of God to confer it upon us. In receiving this gift, we learn to trust in God whatever happens. A life of faith may lead us into considerable suffering as it did for Jesus. It is not a good luck charm that protects us from suffering and death. But it is a way of approaching suffering and death with an attitude that allows us to be placed in God’s hands no matter how challenging the circumstances may be.

So, being clear about the intention of our faith provides us with a vast horizon of openness to God which transcends happiness and sadness, pain, suffering and death, joy and a certain type of tranquility.

In faith we are given a peace and acceptance with our lives, which realizes that God is the one who governs the created order in its ultimate destiny. Confident in the God who loves us, we approach the vicissitudes of life with a certain equanimity that results from the trust we have in God as God, whom we know loves us and saves us from the dark forces which press down upon us. Knowing that faith leads us through this valley of darkness makes a real difference because it furnishes us with a hope that never dies.